Chapter 84. Surprise Attack (4) (1/2)

The arrow striking and the other two sentries’ neck being caught happened nearly at the same time. In that short period of time, the three sentries of the Kalise Empire had been killed off just like that. Although it could not be said to have been totally silent, but the light sounds which had arisen were hidden by the various insect noises in the forest. Their coordination had been perfect for their first time working together, and was indeed astonishing.

Without doubt, the one who had pounced from behind to finish off the two sentries was naturally Zhou Weiqing. What he had done was actually rather simple, circling behind the sentry post, and with the power of his right leg, he had leapt forth in an amazing burst of speed to grab hold of both sentries’ necks. Before they could react and make any sound, he had smashed their heads into the ground and broken their necks. His Physical Jewel was after all that of strength – let alone the weaker neck vertebra, he could probably even break the thicker thigh bone if he wanted to.

However, even he had not imagined that Shangguan Bing’er would have such a perfect understanding and coordination with him. 1

He had originally prepared his right leg in advance. If Shangguan Bing’er’s arrow had been late, he would sweep his leg forth to kill the leftmost soldier; even if that would create a disturbance, he had to risk it.

The feeling in his hands as the bones shattered, coupled with the sound, and the feeling of the life in his hands ebbing away caused a hint of bloodlust to fill Zhou Weiqing’s eyes. This was his first time killing someone, and it was at such a personal, close range, and yet his inner heart was trembling with an inexplicable excitement.

He lifted his hand and gave a big thumbs up towards Shangguan Bing’er hidden in the distance. He then casually plucked out the arrow from the leftmost sentry’s head, wiping it clean of all bloodstains on their clothes, before heading back to rejoin her.

“Bing’er, that was timely! That’s three in total.” As he said that, Zhou Weiqing stuck the arrow back into Shangguan Bing’er’s quiver.

Shangguan Bing’er closed her eyes, a look of compassion flashing through her face, as she seemed a little unable to bear it. Luckily, she had killed from a distance, otherwise the pain from killing someone might have been even more obvious.

Zhou Weiqing patted her back comfortingly, saying: “Being kind to an enemy is being cruel to yourself. Think of all our soldiers who died, who were injured. Every Kalise Empire soldier who dies, is almost equal to saving one of our Heavenly Bow Empire’s soldiers. Anyway, we have to go now.”

“En.” Shangguan Bing’er braced herself, thinking to herself. How can I be inferior to Zhou Little Fatty who is younger than me? He hasn’t even reached fourteen years of age yet Right?

Very quickly, Zhou Weiqing managed to find a second hidden sentry post. The sentries who were in charge of the sentry posts were usually elite light infantry soldiers who had also been trained as scouts. Amongst the ordinary infantry soldiers, they were outstanding. However, in front of two Heavenly Jewel Masters, they were frail and delicate.

Perhaps it was because Shangguan Bing’er had helped Zhou Weiqing to Awaken his Heavenly Jewels by being Sacrifice, and in the process forging a connection between them. The two of them had a stunning level of cooperation and tacit understanding between them; with Shangguan Bing’er focusing on long ranged attacks and Zhou Weiqing focusing on close combat. Hidden sentry posts fell one after the other as they continued forth.

When they finally tore through and got past all the sentry posts of the Kalise Empire, they had already killed 34 sentries from the various hidden sentry posts. Of that, the majority had been slain by Zhou Weiqing.

As they lay down hidden in the darkness, watching the enemy camp from a distance, Zhou Weiqing and Shangguan Bing’er both took the opportunity to recover their expended Heavenly Energy.

“Little Fatty, what do you have planned?” After a full night of cooperating in battle, the two of them were getting more coordinated and in tune with each other. Strangely enough, the one having the dominating and leadership role was not the Two-Jewelled Shangguan Bing’er, instead with Zhou Weiqing shouldering the responsibility.

Shangguan Bing’er realised that as soon as Zhou Weiqing entered the forest, it was like a fish entering water. He took care of many minute details in such a way that she found impossible, and his unbelievably strong senses were able to easily detect enemies from incomparable distances. This was the main reason why they had managed to always get the upper hand against their enemies thus far, and the reason why they had managed to sneak through the whole enemy lines and reach the military camp without any issues.

Zhou Weiqing asked Shangguan Bing’er to take out her map once again, and with the pale moonlight as a light source, he examined the map and pointed at where they were: “Look here, this is our target’s position. Although the enemy camp has quite a few patrolling soldiers, but at the moment is already past the 1am mark, and is the time when humans are easily tired. In a moment, I will be in charge of launching a sneak attack upon them, and you can cover me in case anything goes wrong.”

“However, once we start the attack, we cannot return via the route we came. Instead, I think we should go via this route instead. I have examined all possible routes carefully earlier, and chosen it. Returning back to base via this route will allow us to reduce the distance by almost 50 li. Furthermore, you mentioned that the patch of forested hills that this route takes is populated by Heavenly Beasts, this will help in greatly deterring pursuit when we are making our escape too.”

To Shangguan Bing’er’s surprise, as Zhou Weiqing pointed out his chosen route on the map, his finger swiftly moved across the map and pointed to the various positions extremely accurately, showing also an especially firm grasp upon the distance to cover. The new route of retreat that he was pointing out was not a direct straight line, but instead curved and swerved a lot, but ensuring that the distance travelled would be the minimum, with also fewer obstructions while still trying to keep as far from the Kalise Empire’s campsites as possible. Clearly, this was what he had been calculating when he was holding the map before they had left earlier.

“Bing’er, are you listening to me?” Zhou Weiqing waved his hand in front of her dazed eyes.