Chapter 6.3 – Long Journey
The subordinates were well aware of what they had to do. Without waiting for O’Brien’s order, they rushed over to suppress them, applying fetters and handcuffs, taking pictures, shocking them with electricity, and tranquilizing them. Everything was done in a clean and efficient manner.
Waves of angry shouts and roars sounded from within the forest, mixed with the howling cursing of an unknown language. Vines continuously moved about as an ash blue figure shot left and right like an arrow, quickly drawing close to O’Brien and his troop. These people’s dexterity and speed was even greater than that of the strange beast that had been dismembered just now, and their ash blue bodies when moving completely blended into the surroundings. Only through special lens could they keep track of their whereabouts.
Two machine cannons suddenly roared, sending out streams of scorching metal like whips of a devil. They hacked through the vines and branches, striking at the incoming figures with merciless precision and tearing them apart in midair.
O’Brien reached out his hands and spread out his ten fingers. His ash gray hair suddenly floated about, and then a formless domain expanded outwards with him at the center, covering a radius of at least ten meters!
All of the metal fragments that entered the forcefield quickly reduced speed, and then their corners began to turn red due to the high heat! O’Brien’s defensive forcefield was now fundamentally different from the past when he blocked Su’s snipe. It no longer used energy to forcibly exhaust the kinetic energy of these shrapnel. When these sharp pieces slowed down, their trajections began to deviate a bit, drawing out an arc, so when they flew out of the force field, they were already slanted upwards. As soon as it broke free from the range of the force field, the sharp pieces would recover their speed, flying at a 40 degree angle aimlessly into the depths of the forest.
The two machine cannons continued to roar. The metal whips tore apart all of the figures that tried to get closer. Arthur family’s experimental machine cannons, in the hands of individuals with at least five levels of weapon proficiency, definitely did not only increase their power in a simple additive manner. At each shooter’s side was an individual who didn’t look that tall and sturdy. They were producing defensive force fields just like O’Brien, protecting the shooter and offering their assistance.
When they saw that the natives of the forest were still rushing over from all directions, the ear-piercing sounds of energy being stored continuously sounded. Three other machine cannons began to gather energy, and once the ten minutes of energy storing were complete, they would become another nightmare for these natives. The machine cannons obviously couldn’t block all of the natives, but O’Brien and the four robust men that detected the natives at the same time continued to stand there in a calm manner without moving.
In a bit over ten seconds of time, several dozen natives were blasted to pieces under the barrage of bullets. In front of these ridiculously powerful giant machine cannons, they didn’t even have the chance to fall over.
A howling voice full of sorrow sounded from the depths of the forest. When the natives who were jumping about with lightning fast speeds heard this howling voice, they immediately stopped their suicidal movements and turned around to flee into the depths of the forest.
At this moment, the other three machine cannons had already completed their charging process. The three shooters revealed evil grins as their sharp eyes locked onto the quickly fleeing figures one after another with their multipurpose sighting devices. These natives deserved praise for their courage, but their intellect was limited. No matter how fast they ran, they wouldn’t be faster than the machine cannons’ stream of bullets.
O’Brien raised his left hand and said, “Enough.”
The shooters whose eyes had already become somewhat red from bloodlust regretfully loosened their fingers from the trigger. As long as they were given three seconds, they could force at least ten natives to stay behind. However, they couldn’t go against O’Brien’s orders. Even though this new family master hadn’t taken his position for a long time, he had already established his prestige. Unlike most dragonriders, O’Brien didn’t enjoy needless slaughter. As such, the shooters could only hope that the natives would attack again, because only then would they have enough reasoning to continue practicing their marksmanship.
O’Brien walked over to four captured natives and carefully looked them over. They were extremely similar to humans, with the only difference being the thick and long ash blue hair covering their bodies. Their hands and feet were all extremely long, and their bodies possessed astonished power. However, their bodies were unexpectedly light, with even the most robust men being only fifty or so kilograms in weight. The ones who were captured were two men and two women. They should all be quite young, meeting the qualifications to be soldiers. Apart from primitive machetes and sharp spears, their arsenal also included a somewhat strange looking long metal tube. There were some sparkling and translucent ores embedded in a rather mysterious pattern on its surface, inter-connected with vine-like objects.
O’Brien removed a sharp metal stinger from a sack on one of the natives’ back and found that it perfectly fit inside the metal tubes. After placing it inside, he moved the metal tube around a few times and even used his force field on its surface. After applying the force field several times, the ores embedded into the long metal tube lit up. The vines around the barrel began to release glowing radiance as well. The metal tube suddenly trembled, and then the sharp stinger suddenly shot out from the other end, deeply inserting itself into an ancient tree’s trunk.
“Electromagnetic energy weapon. This technology is comparable to ours…” O’Brien said. He then tossed the long metal tube that couldn’t be considered to have much workmanship to the shocked technology chief.
He then looked at the four natives on the ground. O’Brien pointed at one male and one female among them and said, “Bring them away. Let the other two go.”
A doctor that was currently examining the natives’ bodies raised his head. He pointed at the female native that O’Brien said to release and said, “Your distinguished self, she is currently pregnant and will be of extremely great research value to us.”
“Let her go.” O’Brien calmly said. “Since we already completed our objective, there is no further need to make things any more difficult for a mother and her unborn child. Slaughter isn’t our objective.”
“But…” The doctor hesitated. Someone like him who madly pursued science felt that a chance like this to capture highly intelligent mutated creatures was too rare. Looking from his profession’s perspective, this race should be extremely different from humans and only looked a bit similar on the outside. The distance in bloodlines might be as far as that between dogs and turtles.
Towards this individual under him who continued to insist on keeping the pregnant female, O’Brien wasn’t angry and instead said with a smile, “I know that they aren’t human and might possess bloodlines far different from our own. However, as more and more intelligent creatures emerge in the present age, perhaps we should restrain the arrogance of rulers from the olden era’s world. Perhaps in the near future, we will have to look at other races that possesses similar intellect as ourselves with eyes of equals.”
These words that seemed to rather philosophical were something that probably shouldn’t come from the mouth of O’Brien who wasn’t even 20 years of age yet. In addition, the doctor didn’t approve of the contents of these words. From his perspective, even though from a physiological structure, the speed of change and evolution of the past few decades had even surpassed that of several tens of thousands of years in the olden era, having a larger volume brain did not signify intelligence. Knowledge had to be accumulated and passed down; this wasn’t something a few decades could solve.
This statement wasn’t in accordance with normal reasoning.
However, this medical and biological specialist’s common sense and experience told him that arguing with the master over a small matter was an incredibly foolish decision. That was why he wisely chose to keep his mouth closed.
The subordinates placed the two unlucky natives that were chosen into portable transport chests, and after fastening them in place, they closed the lid and applied anesthetic gas. This type of transport chest could be large or small. There were anesthesia, freezing, as well as many other installations, specially used to store large scale mutated live specimen. As for transport, it was mostly carried by special subordinates with strengthened stamina and power. In this environment that was strange and full of unknowns, off-road vehicles were unreliable.
The two fortunate natives were left behind in the original spot. They believed that after this exploration troop left, their clansmen would come to rescue them. After two or three days, the anesthetics on their bodies would gradually lose efficacy.
As those under him inspected the battlefield, O’Brien opened a combat portable intelligence system. The distance here was over 700 kilometers from Dragon City and also more than 550 kilometers from Arthur family’s headquarters, so there was no way to connect to the dragonriders’ network. The intelligence system’s map indicated that they should currently be inside a vast valley. If the entire valley was covered in this type of forest, then this forest was over a thousand square kilometers in size. His current location was merely the very edge of this forest.
This vast forest where thousands to tens of thousands of deadly flowers floated in the sky contained a strange and exuberant world. It looked primitive on the outside, but in reality, there were natives who were capable of using energy weapons… The value of this forest was absolutely priceless!
However, O’Brien’s goals ended here. After a month of exploration, this troop’s supplies and ammunition were starting to run low. He himself had large amounts of evolutionary points that needed to be converted into new and powerful abilities as well. That was why he decided to bring back these generous spoils of war first. After all, no matter what kind of world-shaking secrets were hidden here, they would all ultimately belong to him.
O’Brien was extremely patient. He knew that his competition against Su was endless and difficult, but he had confidence in having the last laugh in this marathon. Meanwhile, the other reason was because it would be Persephone’s birthday in half a month. This stunning general that had become the focal point of everyone’s attention after the recent series of disturbances would definitely hold a grand evening banquet for herself in Dragon City.
There were too many reasons why O’Brien did not wish to miss out on this distinguished celebration.
