Chen He was literally crushing the enemy before him. Whatever the other side tried, everything was somehow countered by him.
The enemy tried to use concentrated bombardment in different areas in an attempt to finish him off by blocking all escape routes, but nothing was helpful. Like a cunning fox, Chen He used his Agility and sharp reflexes to find the optimal spot to move to in the shortest possible time, used the unfamiliar terrain to his advantage, and even forced the enemy to stop the bombardment when too many allied units were in danger of being engulfed by the bombardment.
One shot was all they needed to win. Both Chen He and the enemy knew that one shot would mean the end of everything.
The foot soldiers or the infantrymen mounted on the fierce war machines that took advantage of the heavy weaponry believed that eventually, the numerical advantage would lead them to victory, but it turned out that this could not be further from the cruel and crude reality.
The interior of the ruined city was virtually unrecognizable and now truly lived up to the name the survivors of Baiquan Camp had given it. There were hardly any complete buildings and those that were still barely standing were in such a bad state that a mere breath could knock them down.
A group of soldiers consisting of about a dozen infantrymen among which were two level 12 and 13 soul evolvers was slowly advancing down one of the streets in the northwest area.
"… Where is he?" whispered one of the soldiers as he blinked in an attempt to make the bead of nerve-induced sweat that was creeping down his left eyelid go away.
His teammates did not respond.
They were all extremely tense. They had seen with their own eyes what this demon could do with his arrows and how fast he was able to move. None of them were fooled by the enemy's handsome appearance; to do such a thing, to judge him by his youth alone would be no different from digging their own graves.
The way they gripped their firearms was no longer as confident and light as at the beginning, this was visible by how their arms occasionally trembled and how their fists were white due to the difficulty with which the blood circulated through their veins because of the strength they used. The grips of their firearms were covered with sweat from their palms; proof enough that this was not a place they wanted to be in nor a situation they were comfortable with.
To avoid being finished off by the enemy so easily, so that they would have more chances to at least hurt the other side, the leaders of larger squads had decided to split their teams into no less than twelve men per group.
"I still don't think splitting up is a good idea." The same man from before continued speaking.
He simply couldn't stay silent, only by talking could he quell those nerves that threatened to drive him to madness…. No one blamed him for this. Many felt the same way.
When death lurked and you knew it was there even when you were not able to see it, only at that moment you could understand how precious life was; your life.
"… The arrows of the enemy have a great destructive range." The higher level soul evolver replied in a low voice as he pointed to a ruined building with his eyes before walking there with his team following closely behind. "If we don't split up into smaller groups and stay all together, a single shot from that archer will wipe out hundreds. Many brothers have died so far because of that."
That was one of the terrors of facing Chen He wanting to use numbers to overwhelm him. Unlike traditional arrows that only hit a single target in most cases, his arrows created from his own Mana were capable of creating ten-meter craters when they hit the ground and every living thing around them simply turned into a pile of meat paste. Even those farther away could not elude the resulting fast-moving shock wave.
So far, more than 600 men had been killed by Chen He while approximately 2000 of them had received wounds that kept them unable to return to the battlefield.
Terrifying numbers for a battle that had only lasted a little more than thirty short minutes. Worse than that, the real losses had yet to come to light and that was not counting the amount of ammunition expended as well as the amount of weaponry that could no longer be used after being partially or completely destroyed.
The group of twelve men walked into the building, stopping for a moment after walking past the large shattered glass door.
All that was inside, apart from broken glass scattered on the floor and dried bloodstains, was a completely empty reception room. The luxurious lights that in normal times illuminated the great hall were out so the soldiers could only rely on the sunlight that penetrated beyond the door behind them and from the large windows above.
The level 13 soul evolver waved his hand and advanced as he raised his Type 95 assault submachine gun to eye level.
His team soon followed, not noticing that a silhouette was hanging from the ceiling like a spider as it observed them with cold eyes like a predator eyeing its prey.
Bang!
The cold wind from the forest blew strongly, causing one of the broken window frames to sway and hit the wall hard. This caused the men under pressure to panic and they quickly turned their bodies in that direction while preparing to fire immediately; it was clear from the fact that they did not fire in panic that these men were soldiers with real military training and not a group of normal survivors who had been given some guns.
Chen He, who was clinging tightly to the candlestick, seized the opportunity and dropped down while picking up the dagger he previously held with his mouth.
It was just a flash, they didn't see it coming.
His dagger flashed in the middle of the darkness like lightning in the middle of the night and in just a blink of time eleven of the twelve men were killed; all of them had cuts in their throats so no matter how much it hurt or how hard they tried all they could do was unconsciously drop their weapons in order to hold on to their bleeding necks.
Chen He was fast, fast enough not to fear firearms as long as he was aware of the danger. Unfortunately, after fighting and rushing for so long his condition was no longer the same as before.
Not only did the stress of knowing that one mistake would lead him to the eternal grave weigh on his head at all times, but his Stamina had also been exhausted and dropped below 60% while his Mana had been drained by more than 80%. That remaining 20% of Mana was something Chen He wanted to save for times of crucial need so he stopped using his bow and started hunting groups of soldiers one by one; this was group number 4 in his count.
Although the magic arrows that Chen He's Oak Reflex Bow could generate were powerful, the consumption of Mana was not something to scoff at. Even more so for someone like Chen He whose main stat had always been Agility.
There were several minor bloody injuries on his body, proof enough that the current him could no longer continue in the same manner as before. There were several occasions in which he had no choice but to activate his treasures to save life or else the insignificant grazes that had practically already closed completely would be more than just insignificant grazes.
To begin with, Chen He was never arrogant enough to think that he could completely decimate the enemy; an enemy which had enough troops and armament to build a battalion of ten thousand men with ease. His goal was to wipe out as many as possible; buy time for the team of soul evolvers in the rear and let them finish their battle before joining him.
That was also precisely why Chen He had decided to save his strength and started to hunt slowly instead of trying to overwhelm a clearly intelligent enemy. If the enemy did not disperse then everything could be workable, but now that the army commanders realized his weakness, Chen He had no choice but to adapt and change tactics.
These were the difficulties of facing an intelligent being. This was the clearest difference between a human capable of reasoning and adapting quickly compared to an unreasoning zombie or a beast that only charged madly forward with the sole objective of devouring no matter what the cost.
The problem with Chen He's current style was that he needed to finish off the enemy before they alerted the rest of their allies or else his life would become hell again.
Unfortunately, the last enemy survivor was a level 13 soul evolver. Even if the difference between the two was colossal, even if this soul evolver was an unignorable ant to Chen He or anyone of his caliber; a soul evolver was still a soul evolver and each of them possessed their own skills.
This particular soul evolver turned out to be the nemesis of the current Chen He…. Because he possessed the passive skill Danger Sense!
A chill ran from the tip of his head to the tips of his toes. His mind screamed danger! The soul evolver didn't even try to turn around, he knew there was no point in doing such a thing. On the contrary, he held tightly to his Type 95 assault submachine gun and swung it behind him as he pulled the trigger without even worrying about hitting the target or not.
At this point he could only rely on luck!
Too bad, the difference in levels between the two beings was so, so great that something like luck had no room to intervene.
Chen He's body swayed strangely and under his feet, the floor seemed to be tinged with white as countless pigeon feathers appeared forming a path for him to walk past.
The bullets passed beyond him, a few barely leaving small bloody scratches on his face; nothing to worry about, they would heal soon.
Swoosh!
It was only an instant, a second, or maybe two at most. That was how long the burst of shots lasted before the soul evolver fell to the floor while clutching his stabbed heart before looking at his enemy with fear and despair after feeling his life leaving his body.
Chen He could not care less about his enemy's situation. No, even if he wanted to he had no time for that.
The gunshots had alerted the other soldiers, the building he had been hiding in would soon be surrounded but not before receiving the bombardment of armored vehicles at the hands of the enemy!
Just as such a thought flashed in his mind and just as he was running to the window, Chen He felt his head go numb and the feeling of death take hold of him. A feeling that until now, very rarely an enemy had managed to make him feel.
"So here you were hiding, you sneaky little vermin! Let me see where you run to now!"
A booming shout filled with arrogance but at the same time, enough magical power to make Chen He's Magic stats feel insignificant shook half the ruined city.
Chen He looked at the sky above his head through the shattered window and his pupils constricted to the size of a needle.
A huge globe of fire at least 100 meters in diameter was coming straight at him and was only seconds away from hitting the building he was currently in!
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