Chapter 470: Chapter 434: Crushing Victory
In the winter forest, the trees were withered and yellow, and the ground was covered with thick layers of fallen leaves.
Two stone miners, ragged and covered in dust and ash, their eyes filled with fear and exhaustion, their bodies covered in bruises and scratches from falls.
They supported each other, desperately running through the forest, constantly being tripped by stones and tree roots underfoot, but the instinct for survival made them struggle to get up again and again.
"Get up quickly, we absolutely mustn’t be caught and taken back, going back is certain death!" The older stone miner gasped, his voice carrying a quiver of despair.
Their steps grew heavier and heavier, their legs felt as if filled with lead, running for their lives without daring to stop for a moment; those who hesitated slightly were captured by the soldiers, their pleas and cries still echoed in their ears.
"You up front, stop if you want to live, otherwise you’ll be executed on the spot!"
The soldiers’ shouts drew closer, and the two men, panicked and afraid, the younger stone miner staggered and fell to the ground, and the older one, trying to pull him up, also fell.
In that moment of delay, a group of soldiers surrounded them like wolves, each wielding weapons, their eyes stern and fierce.
"You bastards! Run, let’s see where you can run now!" The lead soldier kicked one of them to the ground, gasping for air, his face twisted in a smug grin.
"Please spare us, Sir. If I die here, my family won’t survive either."
The older stone miner knelt and kowtowed, crying and begging.
Seeing this, a fierce intent flared in the younger stone miner’s eyes, and he jumped up, charging at the group of soldiers.
The lead soldier immediately drew his sword and slashed fiercely at the younger stone miner.
In a split second, a muffled sound came from the depths of the forest, followed by the soldier clutching his sword trembling, his eyes widening, a bloody hole appearing in his forehead, as the furious young stone miner tackled him to the ground.
The other soldiers hadn’t yet understood what was happening when four oddly dressed people descended from the sky; without giving the soldiers time to draw their swords, they swiftly incapacitated them, silently breaking their necks.
The older stone miner watched this scene and these people in shock, while the other stone miner continued to furiously pummel the already dead soldier.
Zheng Xuan glanced over, ignoring it, and quickly said to the older stone miner, "If you want to go home, head down the mountain that way; if you have nowhere to go, cross the river over there."
After speaking, Zheng Xuan made a gesture, and the four of them continued running towards the quarry, followed by someone entirely covered in branches and leaves, carrying a peculiar long weapon.
The older stone miner stood dazed for a long while before coming to his senses, tears of joy in his eyes, thanking Heaven for sending these strange people to rescue them. He pulled up the young stone miner and ran without hesitation towards the direction down the mountain.
Zheng Xuan and his team sprinted along, taking out any soldiers they encountered along the way, directing the escaped stone miners.
Either go down the mountain and head home, or join Bright Moon Mountain, where Yu Da and Zhao Yunshu would facilitate across the river.
The soldiers guarding the quarry were not regular troops, and they all wielded cold weapons, completely no match for the well-trained Zheng Xuan and his team.
They didn’t even need to waste bullets, solving everything either barehanded or with a tactical dagger, their combat capability on a completely different level.
After more than three hours of sprinting, crossing the entire forest, the two squads rendezvoused outside the quarry.
At this time, there were still over a hundred soldiers guarding the stone miners who hadn’t escaped, as this quarry had started operations not long ago and was not large in scale.
Zheng Xuan and the others lay on high ground on the outskirts observing the situation, with orders from Zhao Yunshu to disguise themselves as bandits, take over the quarry, and temporarily garrison, diverting the subsequent soldiers’ attention to their group of ’bandits.’
Zheng Xuan, driven by his craving for Smoke Ghost, yawned, took out a cigarette, sniffed it under his nose, and then put it back, determined not to make mistakes during the mission.
"Ma Jun, change clothes quickly, we’ll cover you, make sure not to stammer like that someone did."
The younger squad leader, Ma Jun, smiled at the remark, "Big brother, your jokes are outdated, better spend more time online when we return."
That said, Ma Jun and his other four team members swiftly took off their tactical uniforms, changed into coarse local clothing, covered their faces with black cloth, and grabbed sabers confiscated from the soldiers.
Their eyes were too straightforward, nothing like bandits at all.
Ma Jun led his team down a side path, splitting into two groups, assassinating guards and planting explosives; they rehearsed such ambush operations countless times before, even without walkie-talkies for timely communication, maintaining great teamwork.
Zheng Xuan’s team members were ambushed at high points, all watching their own watches, and at the appointed time...
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Deafening explosions followed one after another, as the quarry’s surrounding cliffs collapsed with a crash, the surrounding patrolling guards either blown away or crushed by falling boulders, but no explosion occurred where the stone miners were gathered.
Panic-stricken screams filled the air, and chaos erupted immediately.
The explosion took out most of the soldiers, leaving a small number needing manual neutralization by Ma Jun and his team.
In the midst of dull gunfire, the charging soldiers fell one by one.
"Who are you to dare attack the quarry of Pu’an County," shouted the centurion overseeing the guards.
Ma Jun cleared his throat, "Less talking, you cut off our brothers’ livelihood, were we supposed to wait for death?"
Ma Jun and his people were hidden in the swirling dust and smoke, only faintly visible; the soldiers couldn’t tell what powerful weapons they wielded, making people fall before even getting close.
Like firearms, but with a much longer range, quieter sound, and enough power to penetrate bodies.
Under such circumstances, the soldiers immediately assumed there were Yin Walkers among them.
Ordinary people had no chance against Yin Walkers, and the soldiers, upon realizing this, fled in all directions, discarding their armor.
The centurion who had just shouted tried to stop them, thinking that if he lost the quarry, returning alive would be impossible. Desperate, he took out something wrapped in red cloth, exuding an ominous aura, from his pocket.
It was a yin object he acquired at great cost, a needle that had sewn many corpses, and when soaked in blood and thrown, it would sew up the openings of a person’s body, such as eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, suffocating them to death.
However, just as the centurion was about to unwrap the red cloth, a muffled sound came from the mountain.
Before the sound finished, a bloody hole appeared on the centurion’s forehead, his eyes widening in astonishment as he fell stiff to the ground, the red cloth package slipping from his hand.
On the mountain, Zheng Xuan took out his cigarette and sniffed it hard, "You dare release a yin object? You could release a Yin Walker, and I’d still take it down instantly!"
After a few more shots, the battle below quickly concluded, the resisting and fleeing soldiers annihilated, leaving only those who surrendered.
Neither Zheng Xuan nor his two squads suffered a single casualty, and they took over the quarry.
