Book 4, Chapter 147: Strategy

Skin Flayer had plenty of things in his tent, not just one box. Chen Chuan was only able to locate Lead Investigator Wen so quickly because Skin Flayer had made it a point to put stickers on the boxes with names and dates of his “collection pieces.”

There were three other similar boxes. Two of them were islanders, while the other one seemed to be from the Western Continent.

Chen Chuan recognized the two islanders’ names. They were pretty famous. Skin Flayer had to have approached them and killed them to turn them into part of his collection.

Chen Chuan might have easily defeated Skin Flayer, but the man was actually a well-known martial artist and one of the best among those who had not yet mastered spirit sense. He was considered a powerful martial artist around the world, so those who were only famous in their local communities could not possibly win against him.

Chen Chuan picked up Lead Investigator Wen’s box and walked out. He found a barrel of algae fuel, poured it all over the tent, and set it on fire.

Once the tent was reduced to ashes, he called out to Dawncall and left the campsite. In less than ten minutes, he returned to the Sleeping Worm.

Xu Chan’s group had been waiting for him ever since he left. When they saw him return safely, they relaxed.

The moment Chen Chuan returned to the campsite, he put down the box in his hands, and they asked, “Is that?”

“Lead Investigator Wen’s body is inside,” Chen Chuan confirmed their suspicions.

Their expressions turned grim. All of them removed their hats and saluted the box.

A moment later, they put their hands down.

Chen Chuan found a proper place to put the box before returning outside to call for Xu Chan and the other three squad captains. “I found a piece of news in the campsite. The imperial army is out and about trying to find us so that they can grab our artifact.”

Even though Xue Shou was the one who told him this, explaining it was quite troublesome. Xue Shou had also broken the rules by telling him about it, so he couldn’t tell Xu Chan and the rest the truth of how he learned about it. The Linacrox Union was a good excuse, though.

When Xu Chan and the rest fixed their eyes on him, he continued, “The insect flood has become much thinner. In another day or two, it will be completely gone. Then, the imperial army will charge over and use their elites to ambush us to test our strength and gauge our situation.

“If their ambush doesn’t work out, they’ll use other ways to attack us. The most likely option being mobilizing even more elites to take us down, but they could also use cannons to carpet bomb us. They could also shoot us from airships to drain our energy.”

Xu Chan considered it and said sternly, “Cannons and airships are their preferred ways of dealing with us. Even if they can’t kill us, they can leave us too exhausted to fight back. Once our stamina is drained, they’ll send strong warriors over to kill us.”

“The airships are hard to avoid, sure, but they can’t move their cannons quickly, especially the big ones. Loading them and moving them around takes a lot of time. We can avoid them by moving quickly,” Hai Gao said.

“But the imperial army has an advantage over us. They can move at night in the merged space, so it’s likely that they will choose to attack at such a time. Besides, if we leave with the artifact, no matter where we go, they can find us easily. We can’t stop moving. Not that it’ll solve our problems. As long as the imperial army doesn’t give up, we’ll always be under threat.”

Their expressions were grave. With the artifact’s light around, they couldn’t hide, but they were supposed to bring it back, so they couldn’t just give up on it either.

At this point, Chen Chuan said, “There’s a way to deal with this. Since they can find us using the artifact’s light, then we can also use it to lead them around.

“They have more than a hundred thousand soldiers stationed at the front lines in a stalemate against our army to prevent our advance. This meant that they won’t be able to mobilize too many soldiers. It’s practically impossible for them to surround us completely. They can only use airships and some elites to stall us while creating chances for their army to advance.

“Right now, it’s impossible for them to all gather together. They’re too far away from each other, which is an opportunity for us.

“Here’s my plan. Instead of letting them come to us, we should retreat, so they will send their elites after us to stall us.

“We’ll set up an ambush on the way and attack them. It’d be best if we could kill all of their elites. It would weaken the threat and reduce the pressure on us while retreating.”

The others nodded. This was a feasible plan. No matter the faction, elites were always a rare resource, and replenishing their numbers was difficult. Without such people bothering them, they should be able to ensure their own safety as long as they kept moving and didn’t run into any battalions.

“What about the airships? After the insect flood, there aren’t many trees left intact. We won’t be able to hide from anything coming at us from the sky. They’ll be able to see us immediately. Until we return to our base, they can keep sending increasingly stronger forces after us,” Captain Lu pointed out.

“That’s why we need to bring the battlefield to a place that suits us,” Chen Chuan said and took out a map. He pointed at a place. “This area is full of intersecting ravines and valleys. There’s plenty of water around, so it’s perfect as a hiding place. The insect flood didn’t come through here either. I sent Dawncall to check it a few days ago, and there’s a large forest here. We can use it.”

The four surrounded the map to check it out, and Captain Lu’s eyes lit up. “Isn’t this in the direction of the campsite we’re headed to?”

He checked it again and said happily, “Yes. Let’s go here. We might even be able to get support from the campsite. If we go back in time, we could even hop onto an airship and leave.”

Hai Gao didn’t look at it so optimistically. “That would be perfect, but if we know about this path, the imperial army knows about it too. They might have already attacked the campsite. After all, the merged space at night and the wilderness are their homeground. I wouldn’t bet on the campsite still being around.”

“That’s why we should only rely on our strength. We shouldn't think about anything else and just pretend that the campsite doesn’t exist. As for the details, this is what I’m thinking.” Chen Chuan proceeded to tell them the general idea of his plan. After discussing it for a bit, they added some details and fixed some flaws before settling on a proper strategy.

Once they finalized their plan, Chen Chuan said, “Okay, that’s settled for now. Let’s split up to get ready. Regardless of whether the insect flood has completely disappeared by then, we need to set out by tomorrow morning.”

“Understood!”

They saluted him and returned to their tents to prepare for tomorrow.

Chen Chuan went to his tent, grabbed the Frost King Saber, and started wiping the blade with a cloth.

He knew all too well that their true enemy wasn’t going to be the battalions or the elites. Xue Shou had told him that if the elites couldn’t succeed, the martial arts master was going to come personally to take the artifact.

Even though the martial arts masters from the Great Shun Republic were watching, the situation on the battlefield could change in an instant, so he had to make sure that he could protect himself.

The best way was to become a martial arts master himself.

His physical body had already reached the peak, and he had also reached the final stage of his mental training. Based on his previous speed, he should perfect his mind tonight. Then, he could try to reach the Fourth Limit.

However, he was trying to surpass the peak before the Fourth Limit so that he could reach or even transcend the theoretical peak. He needed to fuse with his second self once more to achieve that.

Right now, his second self had reached his strength. Once his mind reached perfection, he would have to wait for his second self to catch up again.

Chen Chuan lifted the saber and stared at the light reflecting off the blade. He could only hope that the enemies chasing after them would be strong so that he would have a chance to reach resonance before the inevitable battle.

With a swing of his saber, a gap tore open. Then, he put the saber in his lap and began his training.

The night passed peacefully without anything bothering the campsite.

At 6 a.m. the next day, the moment the sky turned bright, they left their tents. The insect flood had thinned out even more. By the looks of it, in another one or half a day, it would completely disappear.

Just then, they heard the sound of propellers, and they instinctively thought of the enemy. When they looked in the direction of the sound, they saw an airship in the distance.

The people inside it seemed to have noticed them, but they didn’t get closer. After a while, the airship released a large number of birds that headed straight for them. They started circling above the camp.

Many of the team members couldn’t hold back and started shooting at the birds, but since they were far away and had speed that belied their large size, none of them were killed.

Captain Hu stared at the sky. “Scouting birds. They’re making sure to never lose us.”

Xu Chan ignored them. Calmly, he said, “It makes no difference. Let’s continue according to plan. We’ll retreat to the valley. As long as we reach the forest in time, this won’t be a problem.”

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