Chapter 21.1 - Natives
As expected, Robertson didn’t immediately chase after him. A hidden injury, together with a missed decisive opportunity; any experienced hunter would know what option to choose. However, he had at most an hour before Robertson completely recovered. For a pursuit in the jungle, chasing continuously for several days and nights was a common occurrence. As such, Su being able to run for an hour wasn’t that amazing of an advantage.
The short and fierce exchange of blades made Su understand clearly that his opponent was a veteran hunter with far greater fighting strength than his own. The amount of experience he had surviving in the jungle shouldn’t be inferior to his own. In fact, perhaps the only aspect in which Su believed he could trump his opponent in was patience. However, there was no outstanding hunter that lacked patience, so this was going to become an extremely long chase.
Su suddenly noticed that the light in front of him was a bit brighter, and it seemed like the forest was becoming thinner. Thirty seconds later, Su already rushed out from the forest, and what laid before him was a vast new world!
Outside the forest were plains with many hills. They stretched out for several hundred square kilometers. Square shaped fields rested on their surface, all of them of different coloration and characteristics. It looked just like a large green quilt with many different colored patches. At the end of the plains, he could see a mountain range stretching horizontally. The terrain here was extremely bizarre. The plains didn’t have too many elevations at first, forming small slopes. Then, they turned into enormous kilometer tall cliffs, with the faces of the cliffs so smooth they looked like they were carved with a knife. Past these cliffs were the snow-covered mountain peaks.
On the slopes that rested before the plains and cliffs, roads weaved all about and houses covered the surface. Even with Su’s eyesight, under this much distance, he could only barely make out that the majority of these were single-floored dome shaped houses, but there were still many ‘tall buildings’ over ten floors in height. The modeling of the houses relied on curves and circular shapes, while the roads were perfectly straight and criss-crossed. They covered an extremely vast area. The entire city seemed to be extremely orderly and uniformly distributed.
Right, this was completely a city, a real city, one that belonged to the natives. Just from looking at the rough outlines of the city from the distance, Su could already determine that the number of natives living here might exceed a hundred thousand!
A hundred thousand natives! This was the so called city that the captain spoke of?
When the captain assigned the mission, he did indeed say city, not town or village. However, every single cadet, including Su, assumed that this city the captain spoke of had a population in the hundreds, at the most a thousand. In the age of turmoil, the inhabited areas that had over a thousand people living in the wilderness were all called cities. However, who could have expected that there would be a real city here, a city that had over a hundred thousand natives?!
What was the purpose of the mission? Su asked himself this question. In fact, he was quite clear that it was to completely wipe out the natives.
Was he supposed to kill these hundred thousand natives? Su looked at the dagger in his hand. He was convinced that even though the toy in his hands was a new era weapon, a product made by the Black Dragonriders’ high-end technology, after passing through the flesh and bone of several hundred natives, the blade would lose effectiveness.
Within the fields, not only were there natives, there were also a group of moving shrubs. They stood guard, plowed the earth, and transported items, making them seem just like livestock that was capable of just about anything. Moreover, the reopened wound at his waist reminded Su again and again that just a small troop of natives was already able to injure him. Even though the blow darts and intense neurotoxin couldn’t affect Su’s body, his movement would still become sluggish for a period of time. During a life and death struggle with a group of natives, half a second of sluggishness could prove fatal.
This was a fundamentally impossible mission. Su made this decision and turned his heels. However, after taking just two steps, he stopped. Ten natives emerged from the forest in front of him, with the leader being a fighter. They brandished their spears, and the natives immediately moved towards two sides, two meters between each person. They sealed up the vast forest’s edge. This type of defensive line might still be a bit weak, but it was enough to stop Su’s attempt of returning to the forest. Many times, one side only needed to slow down by a second, and the situation would be completely overturned. The natives acted as if they encountered a great enemy. Some raised their spears, while others blew arrows as they watched Su closely.
The leading fighter picked up the wooden flute hanging from his neck and blew into it, releasing a sound that human ears completely couldn’t pick up. A few seconds later, ten flute sounds rang out from different directions, echoing together. Su immediately discovered that there were two troops of natives that were quickly hurrying over!
In addition, hundreds of natives poured out from the enormous city. They formed into several troops and quickly hurried over. It seemed it would only take them ten minutes at most before they would arrive at the edge of the forest. As soon as they left the city, the troops dispersed and began to flank from the sides. One of the troops actually had natives riding on wolf-like creatures that possessed speed faster than a wolf. They quickly broke free from the others and rushed over.
All of the muscles on Su’s body swelled. He instantly rushed forward a step, and then he suddenly returned to his original location!
Numerous pu pu sounds sounded. Spears and darts covered the area where Su had just rushed to. The aim of these natives was extremely good, able to accurately shoot at the location Su’s momentum should have took him.
Su exerted strength again. After taking his first step, his second step suddenly picked up speed, instantly arriving in front of the leading native fighter’s face!
This time, the natives made a mistake once again regarding Su’s acceleration. All of the spears landed behind his back. Su held the dagger in reverse and drew an arc towards the fighter. The fighter’s movements were also extremely fast and nimble. After releasing a strange sound, a bone dagger crushed downwards with the power of two hands to stop Su’s dagger! His small body erupted with astonishing force, barely stopping Su’s blade that carried so much power!
However, Su was experienced. He knew that if he pushed flatly, he might not even be able to push down this small thing. As a result, the blade flew upwards in a slanted manner. The amount of force the fighter placed on the strike sent its body jumping outwards towards Su’s back. This fighter’s strength was truly great, but due to the fact that its weight was less than forty kilograms, the amount of force to send it flying was roughly the same as that of a larger rock.
Following the leading fighter’s rise into the air, Su squeezed past the two natives’ enclosement with lightning speed. The dagger released a low wuwu hum, flying past at a speed that was hard to see. Then, his figure disappeared into the boundless forest.
The two natives swayed a bit, and then their heads suddenly fell backwards. Their companions only now saw that their throats had been cleanly sliced through, with only a small layer of skin holding them together.
Su ran like a wolf. The natives’ whistling continuously sounded from all directions. From the whistling sound, it was clear that troop after troop of fighters was currently making their way through the forest, continuously trying to outflank, search, and tightly surround the outside of the forest. The entire process was clean and orderly without any chaos. They were like finely trained, excellent new era troops.
While running, Su suddenly noticed that a few native troops in his surroundings suddenly changed directions, accurately outflanking towards his current position. With a thunderous noise, the shrubbery in front of him split apart, and seven or eight natives made their way out, blocking in front of Su’s path. However, Su was certain that even though he was moving quickly, he was careful not to make any noise.
Shrubs! Seeing the passages among the shrubs, Su suddenly understood what he overlooked. While he was frantically running, if those man-eating shrubs didn’t move, then there wouldn’t be much difference from ordinary shrubs. However, they were like scattered pairs of eyes that carefully watched every dimly lit corner. While running at this type of speed, Su had no way of carefully inspecting his surroundings and distinguishing each of them.
Seeing the troops of natives in front of him, Su clenched his teeth and hurriedly rushed over. The cries of daggers immediately howled through the forest!
Three seconds later, he broke free from the struggle and changed directions, once again rushing towards the area of the encirclement that was weaker. Behind him were the corpses of seven natives.
Half a minute later, Su fought intensely against the second troop of natives and temporarily broke free from the encirclement before fleeing into the depths of the forest. However, ten troops were pursuing closely behind him, and even more natives were blocking off in front. Inside the forest, the natives that used both their hands and feet to move from tree to tree were comparable to cheetahs. They nimbleness exceeded monkeys, and almost every single one of them was an outstanding hunter.
Su understood clearly that what followed was a bitter struggle.