Volume 3 – The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace, Chapter 104: Bloodline Seedlings
An explosive roar rang out from atop the airship, “Scram! Let me do it!”
Wei Potian shoved the cannoneer away, took his seat, and aimed at a fleeing lieutenant colonel. The previous cannoneer had fired twice but failed to strike the target, causing Wei Potian to become quite dissatisfied. Wei Potian had his eyes on that bastard since the beginning—how could he let him get away?
However, Wei Potian’s shot missed the target by an even greater margin. At this time, the battlefield on the ground had turned into a raging inferno which greatly distorted one’s vision. That lieutenant colonel had vanished in the blink of an eye, causing Wei Potian to curse in rage while slapping his thighs.
The battle airship was basically an invincible entity on such a battlefield since not even the Eagleshot could pierce through its thick armor. It hovered in the air with its numerous cannons still firing continuously at the expeditionary army below—it was a completely one-sided massacre.
There were fleeing expeditionary army soldiers everywhere. Wei Potian grabbed one of his aides and shouted, “Capture all of them in one go. Don’t let even a single one of them escape, you hear me?!”
The aide laughed ruefully. “Young master, we only have 100 men. We still need to leave some to guard the airship.”
Wei Potian let out a loud “humph”. His burning rage gradually receded as he watched the battlefield below. He naturally knew it wasn’t quite possible to capture a thousand fleeing soldiers in the wilderness with a mere 100 men. “Then capture a few of them alive, target the officers!”
“Yes, sir!”
With Wei Potian’s order, the battle airship rapidly descended. Each of the Wei clan elite guards grabbed onto a rope and jumped off as the ship reached a height of 100 meters from the ground. After landing, they rolled to one side in order to disperse the force of impact before rising up to pursue the routed soldiers.
Qianye stood on the wall and signaled for the troops to reassemble. At this moment, the soldiers under his command were all completely exhausted and already had no strength cooperate with the pursuit. Those who recklessly chased might even be killed instead.
The battle airship slowed down its descent and finally came to a stop 50 meters from the ground. Wei Potian jumped out directly and smashed onto the ground with a thump—even the village walls seemed to tremble due to the deafening sound—only a yellow light was seen flashing through the dust cloud as Wei Potian nonchalantly stood up and strode toward Qianye.
Suddenly, everyone in and around the village was impressed by Wei Potian’s incomparably fierce entrance. The only exception was Qianye whose taut nerves finally relaxed after one whole day and night. He almost wanted to laugh out loud because, with his eyesight, he naturally saw Wei Potian’s face turn unnaturally pale. 50 meters was, after all, a bit too high for any fighter without flying capabilities.
From afar, Wei Potian cried out, “Qianye, are you alright!?”
Qianye jumped off the village wall and replied, “Even you are alright, so how can anything happen to me?”
Wei Potian suddenly felt he was caught in the act, but his face only turned red for an instant. He then proceeded to take large strides toward Qianye as if nothing was wrong. He sized the latter up and clicked his tongue. “Look at your expression and all those wounds on your body! You’re still saying you’re alright?”
“None of this would happen if you arrived one day earlier.”
Wei Potian immediately scratched his messy hair and said, “How could I know this would happen? Arriving on time is… umm… the right thing to do.” He felt somewhat guilty because, in truth, he was almost two hours late.
Qianye’s indifferent expression suddenly eased up like the spring snow under the sun as he laughed. “I was only able to hold out until now because I knew you’d come!”
“A good brother indeed!” Wei Potian pounced forward and gave Qianye a bear hug.
A Wei clan guard appeared from the shadows and said, “Young master. We’ve captured a few of them alive. Do you want to take a look?”
Killing intent surfaced on Wei Potian’s face. “Good! I want to see who’s so bold as to touch this daddy’s brother!”
Moments later, ten-odd junior officers were dragged before Wei Potian. However, the highest ranked among them was only a captain.
The rank and number of prisoners didn’t quite meet Wei Potian’s expectations. He was immediately enraged. “So few!? Where are those lieutenant colonels? Don’t tell me there’s no senior officer among the several regiments! Could it be that you lot can’t even win against an expeditionary army senior officer?”
The guard smiled bitterly and replied, “I interrogated them just now and found out that the officer casualty rate was exceptionally high. More than two-thirds of the senior officers were either wounded or dead. As such, we are already quite fortunate to be able to capture these people.”
“Two-thirds!” The number shocked Wei Potian. From his battle experience, he knew that such a casualty rate meant that the other party possessed suppressive single-target firepower.
The guard stole a glance at Qianye with great reverence in his eyes. “It’s said that most of them lost their lives to young master’s friend here.”
Wei Potian turned to Qianye and let out an odd cry. “Brat, you’re so capable! You’re even more awesome than I am!”
Qianye only shot him a sidelong glance with an expression that seemed to say: “Isn’t it normal for me to be more awesome?”
Qianye smiled and listened on in silence. With this normally pampered Wei clan young master around, he would unconsciously become more relaxed even while standing on a bloody battlefield.
Wei Potian walked toward the prisoners after he finished boasting, the smile on his face vanishing completely. The captives were all pressed to the ground in a row.
Wei Potian walked from left to right and then back before stopping in front of a cruel-looking captain with a full beard.
This officer was quite headstrong. He spat a mouthful of bloody phlegm without waiting for Wei Potian to speak. “This is the expeditionary army’s territory and I’m an expeditionary army officer on active duty! Brat, I don’t care whether you’re from the Wei clan or any other great family, this daddy will give you some advice—stop messing around in the Evernight Continent. This is no place for kids to play house!”
Wei Potian’s expression appeared calm with his arms crossed. He listened seriously and nodded. “You have a point there,” following which, he growled, “someone, execute this bastard!”
A guard immediately came up from one side, drew his pistol and aimed it against the captain’s temple. He pulled the trigger after seeing Wei Potian’s confirmatory nod. The captain’s brains exploded with a loud bang, fluid and fresh blood splattering onto the nearby captives. The prisoners became momentarily restless but soon became deathly still.
Wei Potian was still expressionless as he took one step toward the side. He now stood in front of the adjacent first lieutenant.
The first lieutenant immediately blurted out, “I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!”
“I’m not interested!” Wei Potian said coldly. He made a gesture and walked toward the next person.
A Wei clan guard walked up and shot that first lieutenant in the head.
Wei Potian passed over several prisoners this time and stopped before a young second lieutenant. He stared at the latter for some time before speaking slowly, “The expeditionary army’s ranks are nothing in my eyes. They can only be used to scare kids.”
The young second lieutenant turned pale. He gritted his teeth and was trembling, afraid of making any unnecessary sounds lest he invites a mortal disaster.
Only then did Wei Potian ask, “You, tell me what’s going on.”
The second lieutenant revealed everything he knew. In truth, there were many secrets which he had no access to. The real reason behind this cross-boundary assault on a mine under the 10th division’s jurisdiction certainly wouldn’t be revealed to a second lieutenant. The only useful information he could offer was his unit number and sequence, the time of mobilization, and the surface pretext for this operation.
Wei Potian nodded and then pointed toward a certain officer who was shooting warning glances at that second lieutenant and said indifferently, “I don’t like this person. Kill him.”
A Wei clan guard stepped forth and fired without the slightest hesitation.
With this, all the expeditionary army officers turned completely silent out of fear. No one else dared to play small tricks anymore.
Qianye was observing from one side. This was the first time he had seen Wei Potian’s decisive and cold-hearted aspect. The casual, easy-going and sincere man within his memories didn’t just distinguish himself in terms of talent but was also well nurtured in the art of statecraft.
After dealing with the captives, the Wei clan guards who were in charge of capturing the fleeing soldiers began to return in succession. Wei Potian then assigned his guards to help with cleaning up the battlefield and aiding the injured. He himself dragged Qianye to inspect the whole area. Even the accompanying Wei clan elder was quite surprised after seeing the surviving seedlings, especially Wu Shiqing and Wu Shiying.
The elder waited until the group had left the seedlings’ residence before saying, “These aren’t ordinary seedlings! It’s no wonder Wu Zhengnan would stake it all in one throw. He won’t allow these seedlings to live on no matter what.”
Wei Potian asked curiously, “There are different types of seedlings?”
The Wei clan elder explained, “Young master, there are over a dozen rank one fighters among these seedlings. That aside, unless my old eyes are blurred, the glow of their origin powers are different. It’s clear that they all possess different abilities. Since they were selected as seedlings, this meant that these abilities were produced naturally after igniting their origin nodes and not an attribute change brought about by learning a secret technique. In other words, they are all bloodline seedlings!”
“Bloodline seedlings? So many?” Wei Potian had begun to understand after listening up to this point. He turned to Qianye and explained briefly. He knew that the latter might not understand the relationship between these seedlings and the underlying profundities of origin power.
The degree of innate talent wasn’t important for these so-called bloodline seedlings. The dark races had many ways to strengthen their reproduction and reduce their development time. They would then filter out and accumulate countless such samples to gradually strengthen their bloodline abilities. Perhaps after several hundred years, they would be able to produce a completely new subspecies with special abilities.
That was precisely why these bloodline seedlings were worth so much more than normal seedlings. Mere slaves simply couldn’t compare with them. A convoy carrying a couple of bloodline seedlings could be considered to be doing a large business. It was truly rare to see over a dozen young bloodline seedlings appear in a single transaction.
The Wei clan elder said, “These seedlings aren’t easy to obtain. It’s impossible for Wu Zhengnan to round them all up within a single region. To be able to form a caravan of this scale, it’s likely that many division commanders are involved. If this was really the case, then the value of the goods which the dark races traded to Wu Zhengnan was simply too low. In my opinion, they should have other secret agreements.”
Wei Potian immediately shouted, “Investigate! Dig up every secret for me!”
“Young master, this…” The elder glanced at Qianye and paused his words.
