Chapter 97: Brothers, We’ve Got Work
On the hillside.
After Yaklo issued the order, more than fifty members of the Three-eyed Tribe instantly became alert. Following the original plan, they split into two groups: one ambushed on the slope, the other circled around to attack from the rear of the convoy.
“Yaklo, the instructions are all given.” A burly three-eyed man holding a large axe and wearing A6-grade armor licked the corner of his mouth and said, “We can activate the shielding devices at any time, just waiting for them to come closer.”
“In a moment, all of you be careful. Back at the death match on Crimson Moon Mountain, I saw those members of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. Every one of them was like a lunatic. In order to kill the enemy, they would even take down their own people along with them. They have no concept of death at all.” The three-eyed beauty named Yaklo watched the approaching convoy through a telescope as she spoke softly. “Do not screw up in some stupid way and tarnish the name of us rogues.”
“Relax, I already notified the brothers.” The three-eyed burly man nodded, a trace of disdain on his face. “They are just a bunch of lunatics. How could they compare to us, people who have roamed the wilderness year-round? That kind of desperation can only scare those gang members lurking in the abandoned areas of the city.”
“Good. In a moment, wait for my order and activate the shielding devices at the same time.” Yaklo glanced over the people already lying in ambush with orderly precision, and the corner of her mouth lifted in a small smile.
Just as the burly man said, Yaklo was full of confidence in these rogues who had temporarily gathered together.
These rogues had long moved among major cities, specializing in dirty and exhausting jobs that even wilderness gangs were unwilling to take, truly a group that hovered on the edge of death. As long as someone paid enough, they would band together to wipe out wilderness gangs.
But after doing too many wilderness gang exterminations, they would become collective targets of the local wilderness gangs. Even though these rogues were all powerful, they still had to choose to leave the city and go to the next one to make a living.
Now she, this rogue active in the wilderness near the City of Light Chasing, was already quite famous and had attracted a lot of hostility from wilderness gangs. So as their temporary leader, she planned to leave the City of Light Chasing and head to the next city after finishing this job.
After all, she was already notorious in the wilderness of the City of Light Chasing, even earning the title Poison Rose and having killed quite a few senior officials of wilderness gangs, so it was no longer suitable for her to stay.
“Yaklo, they are two hundred meters away. Do we move?” The burly man lay on the hilltop, staring fixedly at the defenseless convoy, and could not help but remind Yaklo. “I see some people already can’t hold back.”
As the temporary leader of this group of rogues, Yaklo was not fully accepted by a considerable number of them, even though she was a Limit Quasi-Martial Artist.
In this team, Yaklo was not the only Limit Quasi-Martial Artist; there were two in total. Besides Poison Rose Yaklo, there was another Limit Quasi-Martial Artist with the title Gluttonous Villain who had gone to launch the rear assault.
In addition, there were two Quasi-Martial Artists and seven Limit Apprentices. Each one was capable. If they really fought Yaklo and the others, no one could say who would win.
It was only because Yaklo was the most famous around the City of Light Chasing that the White Feather Gang had her serve as leader for this operation.
“Have them wait a while longer if they still want their pay.” Yaklo calmly ordered, “Act at one hundred and fifty meters. At that distance, Gluttonous Villain’s side will have completed the encirclement, and our archers will have the highest accuracy.”
Yaklo was long accustomed to rogues not being very obedient. After all, they had lived in the wilderness for years. Who would trust anyone easily? Those who trusted others lightly were already dead.
Not to mention that for a commission to wipe out a gang, aside from a small basic payment, the vast majority of the reward was calculated per head.
Yaklo’s words did calm down some rogues who were about to lose patience. They quietly waited for the convoy to enter within one hundred and fifty meters.
On the other side, Fang Zhen, Li Ranxing, and the very few others traveling along the gravel path also sensed something was wrong.
“Brother Zhen, I feel like we are surrounded,” Saiwai Qiangke, sitting in the back row, glanced around and whispered to Fang Zhen. “And there are quite a lot of them.”
“Yeah, I noticed too. They should all be experts. If not for some unnatural movement in the grass, it would have been very hard to detect.” Fang Zhen nodded slightly.
“Should we inform Brother Li in the back?” Saiwai Qiangke licked his lips, a hint of excitement in his eyes. “We have transported in the wilderness so many times. Finally running into bandits today—if we let them get away, that would be a pity.”
“No need. Captain Li is much sharper than we are. Didn’t you see he can barely keep his mouth from grinning?” Fang Zhen glanced at the tricycle behind them and chuckled. “Today is a good day. Once the battle starts, have everyone fight well away from the tricycle. I do not want everything we earn today to be paid back to the martial arts hall.”
“Don’t worry, Brother Zhen. Nobody is stupid. Anyone who does not stay away from the tricycle when the fighting starts can forget about today’s side income profit.” Saiwai Qiangke laughed.
“Good. First we use bows and arrows to clear out their ranged fighters. Everyone else focuses on a concentrated assault. We must not let the ones on the hill escape.” Fang Zhen nodded, then shouted loudly, “Brothers, work has arrived, move!”
As Fang Zhen roared, the players on the two tricycles, as if previously instructed, immediately moved away from the tricycles at the same time and ran off to both sides.
“Damn it, they are running!” The burly man on the hilltop panicked at the sight. “Archers, attack and stop them!”
“Wait… something is wrong!” Yaklo watched Fang Zhen and the others sprint toward the forests on both sides and felt that something was off. Normally, after discovering an ambush, people would concentrate their forces to break through on one side, but Fang Zhen and the others scattered in two directions.
However, Yaklo’s order did not stop the archers on the hill. They all stood up, composite longbows in hand, and unleashed a volley at Fang Zhen and the others.
More than a dozen arrows fell. Each arrow was over a meter long and weighed more than five kilograms. They were like artillery shells; trees along their path were instantly pierced with gaping holes. When they struck the gravel, countless stones flew, leaving pits with a radius of more than twenty centimeters, the arrows buried halfway into the ground.
“Holy shit! B1-grade arrows! Are the NPCs this rich?” Yi Qiang Ba Jue stared at the arrows embedded in the ground, their pale cyan metallic sheen making his eyes go wide.
“They really are B1-grade alloy arrows.” Fang Zhen took a quick look at a pale cyan arrow that had pierced through three large trees in a row and nearly hit him. After yanking it from the ground, his eyes also lit up. “Everyone be careful. Remember where the arrows land so we can recover them later!”
Regarding the various alloys of the high martial arts world, many players who had gone with Lin Qi to the Azure Crystal Weapon Shop had researched them in detail there. They had even compiled a complete alloy guide on the official forum, so now even players who had not yet entered High Martial Arts Descend knew that some weapons were forged from graded alloys.
In no time, quite a few players present, despite the risk of getting shot, deliberately rushed out to grab B1-grade arrows.
“Are these people insane? Why are they picking up those B1-grade arrows? Don’t they have arrows in their own hands?” Yaklo looked at the players who did not care about their lives and was utterly puzzled.
Both sides were in the middle of a fight. Instead of thinking about how to escape or kill the enemy, these players were willing to risk their lives to pick up B1-grade arrows. Even lunatics were not this crazy.
Yet just as the more than ten rogue archers were preparing for their next volley, Fang Zhen, Li Ranxing, Saiwai Qiangke, and Yi Qiang Ba Jue, all close to Limit Apprentice level and over a hundred meters away, locked onto these archers.
“There are fourteen in total! Captain Li, I will handle the four on the left, you take the five on the right. As for the five in the middle, Qiangke and Ba Jue, you figure it out!” With just a glance, Fang Zhen immediately assigned every target, then drew his A5-grade composite longbow to a full moon and loosed two arrows at once.
Li Ranxing loosed three arrows in one go. Saiwai Qiangke and Yi Qiang Ba Jue also each shot at the same time.
In terms of penetration, A5-grade arrows could not match B1-grade arrows, but with an A5-grade composite longbow and the explosive strength of Crushing Stone Fist near the Limit Apprentice level, a single shot was more powerful than a heavy sniper rifle. This was a new shooting technique that Fang Zhen and the others had developed.
Apprentice-level martial skill: charged shot.
With charged shot, even a Limit Apprentice would find it hard to block the power of an A5-grade arrow without using martial skills, especially since the four were master archers who precisely predicted their targets’ movement trajectories.
Bang bang bang!
In an instant, seven of the fourteen archers were pierced through the brow. Even those wearing A5-grade armor gained no protection.
“Everyone forward! Take out those four master archers first!” Yaklo was shocked as she watched seven people die in a heartbeat.
The arrow speed, the power, the accuracy, even she felt a great threat from it, let alone the others.
Not only Yaklo, but all the rogues present realized how dangerous Fang Zhen’s group was. Several rogues with heavy shields charged at the four, with others wielding melee weapons following close behind.
A distance of just over one hundred meters was only five to six seconds for apprentices at intermediate level and above. Once they got close to the archers, dealing with them would become easy.
At the rear, Gluttonous Villain, spear in hand, led more than twenty people to attack Fang Zhen’s group as well.
But before Yaklo and the others could take more than two or three steps, Fang Zhen’s group unleashed another volley, once again killing seven archers, one of whom was a Limit Apprentice.
“Hurry! Take down those four now!” Yaklo had lost all her earlier composure. She even used apprentice-level footwork, boosting her speed by thirty percent to over thirty-three meters per second.
This kind of heavy-sniper-level ranged attack posed an enormous threat to Quasi-Martial Artists like them. If they could not eliminate it immediately and allowed four master archers to keep slaughtering on the battlefield, the consequences would be unimaginable.
But no matter how anxious Yaklo was, she still could not stop Fang Zhen’s group, who kept retreating and firing at a rate of one arrow per second.
Rogue after rogue fell along the route of the charge. Every time an arrow tore through the air, someone dropped, and the charging rogues felt fear.
Normally, as rogues, they had long danced with death, but after wandering through so many cities, this was the first time they felt a danger they did not know how to handle.
Even so, rogues were still rogues. After nearly half their number had died, not a single one fled. Close to thirty rogues closed in to within ten meters of Fang Zhen’s group, surrounding the sixteen of them tightly.
“At this distance, you four master archers are dead!”
Gluttonous Villain, spear in hand, looked at Fang Zhen and the others with their bows and arrows and showed a triumphant smile. With a burst step, he thrust his A6-grade spear straight at the nearest, Li Ranxing.
