Translator: Myuu Editor: Myuu
Who would pay attention to an owl that was silently flying in the sky on a dark night like this? Most people wouldn’t think much about it even if they saw it.
If it wasn’t for the powerful spiritual perception that Yan Liqiang had developed from his Muscle Tendon Changing and Marrow Cleansing cultivation, he probably wouldn’t have sensed someone spying on him and thereby noticing such a bird flying in the sky.
The riddle which had been perplexing Yan Liqiang over these few days was instantly solved at this very moment.
He was reminded of those eagles and vultures he’d seen soaring in the sky before.
There were simply too many flying birds in the sky during the daytime. Even if Yan Liqiang sensed that he was being spied on, he wasn’t certain if the source was in the sky. However, when this owl flew by on a night like this where there weren’t any other birds in the sky, the same feeling suddenly appeared again. This allowed Yan Liqiang to immediately pinpoint that it was this owl.
Something was definitely wrong with that owl.
If he was being watched by ordinary animals or birds, his powerful spiritual perception wouldn’t have reacted this way. Yan Liqiang would only feel like this when he was secretly being spied on.
Could it be that someone had the power to control these birds to gather intel?
Yan Liqiang would never believe in such a thing in his previous world. Even those amazing magic tricks which involved controlling goldfish at night on Chinese New Year’s Eve was only made possible through extremely cruel methods and tools. Given the plethora of strange secret techniques on the Silver Continent, Yan Liqiang dare not deny the fact that there might be secret techniques that involved manipulating animals in this world.
Putting aside the rest, didn’t he create Goldie in the Heavenly Shrine? Perhaps other people had developed methods to manipulate these animals for their own use, such as letting them become their eyes.
The last time he sensed that they were being spied on, they nearly ended up falling into a fatal trap set up by the Blackwind Bandits when they had just left Gan Province. Right now, this owl had come when the Blackwind Bandits had just arrived. Therefore, without a doubt, the person who controlled this owl was most definitely someone among the Blackwind Bandits.
Yan Liqiang kept himself hidden as he carefully observed the owl for a while. He discovered that the owl stayed on the tree for a while to observe the situation on the mud wall. After that, it flapped its wings and started flying around in the sky above the Hui Clan Gathering.
When that owl flew to the inn where Yan Liqiang and the rest were lodging at, Yan Liqiang noticed that it circled a few rounds in the sky above the inn. This further convinced Yan Liqiang that there was definitely something fishy about that owl.
Upon noticing that the owl was once again flying back in his direction, Yan Liqiang hurriedly hid himself again, knowing that owls had absurd night vision. He only poked his head out again when the owl flew past him.
The owl returned to the old tree again and continued monitoring the situation on top of the mud wall in silence.
Sharp whooshing noises broke through the wind, and the sounds of arrows hitting against the roofs rang out endlessly from there. Both parties were shooting at each other in an uproar. Yan Liqiang squinched his eyes and sized up that owl as thoughts ran through his mind before he made his decision in a split moment.
He ran out from his previous hiding spot and swiftly jumped up to the mud wall when a man from the Hui Clan Gathering guarding the wall wasn’t paying attention. Afterward, he flipped over from the top of the mud wall and left the Hui Clan Gathering.
Not far beyond the mud wall was a ditch. Yan Liqiang carried his bow on his back and quickly went to the ditch while staying low. He then started sprinting along the ditch. After running a few hundred meters, he saw a river up ahead.
The river wasn’t that wide — only about twenty meters in width. The layer of ice on the river’s surface had thawed. The people from the Hui Clan Gathering was able to stay alive here thanks to this river.
Reaching the river bank, Yan Liqiang dipped his hand into the river. The river water was bone-piercingly cold. Yan Liqiang shifted his bow bag and arrows onto the top of his head, then stepped inside the river without any hesitation as he swam his way across to the opposite bank.
The icy cold river water gradually rose up to Yan Liqiang’s knees, stomach, and finally up to his neck. In the end, Yan Liqiang had no choice but to lift his bow and arrows with one hand while using his other hand to paddle across the river with great difficulty. Fortunately, Yan Liqiang was born as a pretty good swimmer and the water wasn’t flowing that rapidly either, so he managed to get to the other side after being pushed down to travel diagonally several tens of meters down the river.
At this point in time, Yan Liqiang couldn’t be bothered about the coldness. After getting out of the river, he tried to get his bearings, then quickly dashed toward a hill in the distance.
He reached the foot of the hill, passed through a desert poplar forest, then some bushes and thorny undergrowths. He reached the hilltop, descended the hilltop, passed through some rocky areas, and finally ascended to the summit of a small mountain. There, he could see clearly everything unfolding before his eyes.
The battle between the Blackwind Bandits and the Hui Clan Gathering was still ongoing. Those mounted Blackwind Bandits had closed in to about two hundred meters away from the Hui Clan Gathering in just less than ten minutes. The riders were no longer shooting at an elevated angle, but at point-blank range. With their greatly improved accuracy, they were fighting on par with Liang Yijie and the rest who were defending the Hui Clan Gathering on top of the mud walls. Arrows from both parties flew toward each other and caused casualties…
In battles like this, once the two parties closed in on each other, those who were riding on rhinodrake steeds and moving about would gain the upper hand in speed, hence significantly lowering the opponents’ precision. Those who were behind the mud wall would gain the upper hand in defense as they could take shelter and guard against the arrows from their opponents. It was indeed tough to determine which party had gained the upper hand overall.
Watching from a distance, Yan Liqiang realized that Liang Yijie and the archer from the Hui Clan Gathering were being suppressed by a few Blackwind Bandits at the same time. They were keeping a close eye on Liang Yijie and that archer from the Hui Clan Gathering on the watchtower. As soon as either Liang Yijie or that archer stood up to take aim, those Blackwind Bandits would start shooting both of them…
Yan Liqiang crawled along the ground while watching the battlefield. With the Horned Python Bow and quiver on his back, he slowly made his way up a pile of rocks up ahead on the hill. The sharp edges of the rock fragments ripped Yan Liqiang’s wet clothes and left bloody cuts all over his arms and legs. Yan Liqiang clenched his teeth and set his gaze on the pile of rocks with unswerving determination while he slowly inched forward.
Yan Liqiang stood up when he finally reached the pile of rocks on the hill.
Among the pile of rocks, the big ones were as big as ox heads while the small ones were about the size of millstones. They were scattered around the hill, and they provided perfect cover for Yan Liqiang.
Yan Liqiang bent down, lowered his head, and searched around the rocks for a while before he finally found a good shooting spot.
The spot was a gap that was only as wide as a washbowl between three rocks. From that spot, the larger group of Blackwind Bandits was just five hundred meters away diagonally…
Yan Liqiang half-kneeled on the ground while licking his lips. He held the Horned Python Bow in his hand, pulled out an arrow, and nocked it onto the bowstring. The sharp and icy metallic arrowhead was trained on the large group of Blackwind Bandits from the washbowl-wide gap.
…….
Aligujin watched the battle from afar with a frown as doubts started creeping into his heart. If Sun Bingchen’s guards were only as good as this, how did two hundred of his men go down so easily earlier? Where were his archers? Where was that powerful archer? Where did he go? Could it be that the battle from earlier was so intense that the powerful archer still hadn’t recovered from it?
That was a possibility. After all, the art of archery was very physically draining, particularly to the archer’s arm strength. Even a powerful archer would have a hard time recovering within a short period of time after drawing his bow too many times.
Thinking up to this point, Aligujin’s eyes turned cold. He turned his head around to cast a glance at the other person beside him and he gave him a slight nod.
That person let out a whistle before he charged out on his rhinodrake steed. Following closely behind him were another hundred Blackwind Bandits. The dense crowd rushed toward the mud walls around the Hui Clan Gathering like a pack of starving wolves.
If Sun Bingchen’s powerful archer wasn’t going to show up, then a feint like this to test the waters would become an assault. They would be able to take advantage of the situation, force an entrance into the Hui Clan Gathering, and behead Sun Bingchen.
As a nobleman from the Dark Razor Tribe of the Shatu Seven Tribes, Aligujin had always been extremely confident of his military leadership and capability. He understood that just as water retained no constant shape, there were no constant conditions in warfare.
Beneath his black veil, a cold smile broke across his face. He even started fantasizing how his position in the Dark Razor Tribe and the Shatu Seven Tribes would rise after he managed to seize Sun Bingchen’s head. After all, Sun Bingchen was the archenemy of the Shatu people…
An arrow came flying from within the darkness like the summoning of a death god. It smashed Aligujin’s fantasy into pieces and froze the smile on his face.
Whoosh…!
A huge bloody flower bloomed on Aligujin’s neck. Blood spurted out and splattered on the black veils of the Blackwind Bandits around him. Aligujin immediately fell off his rhinodrake steed with an arrow impaled into his neck…
