Chapter 843: Chapter 713: Night of Slaughter
The reason Qu Jianlei ran to Zuo Jing was that he didn’t want anyone to discover the whereabouts of Xiao Moshan and Flower Scorpion.
Whether or not he could get them off the Garbage Star, he didn’t want anyone to find out their surface identities.
If you’re going to hide, you hide from start to finish; just in case something happens again in the future... ptui ptui, that’s a crappy assumption.
Anyway, every alias is cultivated with great difficulty; if possible, it’s better to cherish them a bit.
So he came to Zuo Jing. If he kept tangling in Qianjing, the traces of Xiao Moshan and Flower Scorpion would be dug out sooner or later.
It wasn’t that he distrusted his comrades, but that he was painfully aware of how powerful the Divine Text Association was.
Besides, on a place like the Garbage Star, there were no human rights to speak of. Whatever the Divine Text Association wanted to do, nobody would stop them.
With all their methods brought to bear, it was only a matter of time before Xiao Moshan and Flower Scorpion’s aliases were exposed; it was a question of when, not if.
Even if they’d already left and wouldn’t be greatly affected, losing an alias for that reason was still a bit of a shame.
Taking all kinds of factors into account, Qu Jianlei felt that instead of waiting for a fight in Qianjing, he might as well strike first.
Solving the problem once and for all would of course be easy, but it might also attract focused fire from superior enemy forces.
He had indeed been hiding his true strength, but what if that drew high-level attention from the other side?
Compared to the Divine Text Association, overall it was still a case of strong enemy, weak us.
In that situation, why not choose mobile warfare and keep the initiative in his own hands?
With that thought, Qu Jianlei secretly made up his mind: he had to wipe out this node in Zuo Jing.
Once the decision was made, execution was easy. The A-level in front of him was just a Water Attribute user, a squishy type.
Not that surprising though—conditions on the Garbage Star were really awful; even in the Celestial District there wasn’t much usable water.
So sending a Water Attribute A-level here at least guaranteed their quality of life, right? And that Attribute also had a combat power buff in space.
Qu Jianlei chose to attack at night.
Daytime attacks weren’t that difficult either, but even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit, right?
Not to mention he wanted to keep hiding his strength and was plotting to quietly screw over that Supreme on the other side.
That was the plan, but there was a slight deviation in execution.
By dusk, it actually started to drizzle.
Normally, Qu Jianlei loved rainy weather for ambushes, because his Attribute Affinity with Water was very high.
But today, the other side had a Water Attribute A-level. That was just... fuck!
And that Water Attribute A-level was extremely vigilant, periodically releasing Spiritual Power to scout around.
Watching this, Qu Jianlei had mixed feelings. Doing that really burned through Spiritual Power: the healer’s life was indeed not easy.
Still, feelings were feelings; when it was time to make a move, he would.
Ximi was Military elite, good at fighting, but he also liked tinkering with things.
He’d been recommended to the Divine Text Association by the Military and had performed excellently.
But in his current situation, he really wanted to curse: if you want results, at least consider my capabilities, okay?
A Water Attribute A-level was indeed capable of guarding an area. Even if he was a bit squishy, he also had corresponding advantages.
He was willing to take responsibility for others, but constantly releasing Spiritual Power really took a toll on him.
The teams assigned to the Celestial District were all equipped with quite advanced detection and Perception devices.
However, the enemy was simply too vicious; relying solely on instruments and equipment for vigilance would be irresponsible to everyone on their side.
The rain tonight let him relax a little. After all, the tendency of Water Attribute flows could reduce his Spiritual Power consumption.
So he had time to think: what Attribute did the attacker have, and was it a Supreme?
If it was a Supreme, then regardless of Attribute, it wasn’t someone he could contend with.
If it was an Electromagnetic Attribute A-level... all he could do was pray he’d be able to run.
Just during this one day, Ximi had already gathered a large amount of Lightning-Attracting Materials and also had Lightning Rods prepared.
But for some reason, he still felt uneasy.
At some point past midnight, he once again released his Perception to see if anyone was lurking nearby.
And in the very next instant, a surge of Spiritual Power lashed back at him, as fast as you could possibly imagine.
"This is..." Ximi was shocked out of his wits and tried to sound the alarm for an enemy attack, but dizziness overwhelmed him and he couldn’t control his vocal cords.
Worse yet, although his body was swaying, he had deliberately stayed alone in the room so no one would disturb him.
He was in a suite, with Modified Warriors and Awakened outside in the outer room. Unfortunately, though, the door was only half-closed.
The next second, another vicious Spiritual Attack slammed into him.
In that moment, he understood a bit: the opponent should still only be A-level, but their Spiritual Power was already very strong.
It probably wasn’t a Spiritual Attribute A-level, or the attack would have been even stronger.
They were done for; the odds of his team making it through the night were slim.
Too bad... judging from the rhythm of the enemy’s attacks, he probably didn’t have a chance to send his assessment back.
Just as he’d expected, a figure vaulted over the wall and rushed straight toward the room Ximi was in.
The Awakened and Modified Warriors in the outer room didn’t even have time to react before the figure barreled through the door with brutal force.
Qu Jianlei ignored the two small fry outside and rammed straight into the inner room.
With one swing of the blade, he chopped Ximi—who was about to collapse onto the bed—into two pieces... split vertically from head to toe.
Qu Jianlei knew very well that a Spiritual Attack could leave faint traces in the target’s mind, which might not escape the Supreme’s notice.
But that fight with Siegwa had made him realize that even a Supreme without a Spiritual Attribute could still use Spiritual Attacks as a hidden trump card.
By that logic, A-levels with abnormally strong Spiritual Power probably knew a bit of Spiritual Attack too. That made sense, right?
Either way, the force behind his Spiritual Attacks hadn’t been great, and he’d only used them twice—count as some camouflage.
The reason he cleaved vertically was to destroy the traces of the Spiritual Attack in the brain as much as possible.
Whether it would work or not was another story, but it was at least better than taking the head away.
Otherwise, once the Divine Text Association merged the cases across different Star Realms, he’d be under unprecedented pressure and would have no choice but to go back to running and hiding.
After beheading Ximi with a single strike, Qu Jianlei swept out slightly with his Spirit, then raised his hand and fished a Storage Talisman out of the man’s chest area.
What happened next doesn’t really need to be spelled out.
The two in the outer room had already woken up; one of them shouted, "Enemy attack!"
In fact, the sound of Qu Jianlei smashing the door had startled more than just one person, including the B-level Warrior on night watch.
Unfortunately, it was already too late. Once the A-level Ximi was dead, this was destined to be a night of Slaughter.
In the pitch-black, rainy night, his ghostly figure flickered; in less than two minutes, he slaughtered all the Awakened and Modified Warriors.
The defenders here, however, did not include any City Guard from Taikoo. Someone opened fire on him; he didn’t show any mercy either.
But at the same time, he didn’t forget to shout, "People from the Celestial District—if you don’t open fire, you live!"
This wasn’t kindness. He really hated these lackeys who helped the tyrant, and would’ve loved to kill them all.
It’s just that he’d spared quite a few City Guard lives in Frontjing; if he played favorites now, those two vests of his would be just as easy to blow.
So he let them off. After all, they were pitiful people from the Gathering Area, even if they were a bit hateful.
The whole Slaughter took only five minutes from start to finish, then he swaggered off.
Twenty kilometers out, Qu Jianlei took out the Space Mecha and, before dawn, flew to Youjing.
Youjing also had one A-level and four B-levels—the same setup.
Looked like these people had received the news from Zuo Jing; the courtyard where they lived was brightly lit, no one resting.
Then it would have to be a frontal kill! It’s not like Qu Jianlei couldn’t go in hard—hadn’t he hacked his way through Frontjing all the way?
He just didn’t want to waste too much Spiritual Qi, that was all.
After a round of brutal killing, Qu Jianlei picked up another Storage Talisman. As expected of people from the Divine Text Association—stinking rich.
At the same time, he noticed that far fewer City Guard had opened fire on him; a few people even fired into the sky instead, glaringly obvious in the night.
Clearly, the fate of Zuo Jing’s City Guard had already been passed on here, and the City Guard had made their own choice.
It didn’t take many minutes before the Awakened in Houjing also received the news from Youjing.
At that, they didn’t dare hold their positions anymore and directly requisitioned Flying Mecha to run.
Houjing’s Flying Mecha were almost entirely seized by them, barely enough to go around.
And of course they were running toward Taikoo—that was the Awakened’s main base in the Celestial District.
Taikoo originally had four A-levels; add the three from the other three Jing, and that made seven A-levels.
But even with seven A-levels, none of them had any thought of charging to Frontjing for a desperate fight. The enemy was too powerful; they needed to wait for a Supreme from Central City.
Now that Houjing’s team had rushed over to join up, they had eight A-levels in total.
One short-tempered A-level felt that they had about enough manpower and wanted to take revenge as soon as possible.
At worst, they’d pay some casualties, but they had to let the enemy know the Divine Text Association wasn’t someone to mess with!
Then someone objected, "This isn’t about fear of death. Even if we win, it’ll be a pyrrhic victory and damage our reputation..."
The Divine Text Association’s unbeatable image had indeed already sunk deep into people’s hearts in the Imperial territories.
Previously, being ambushed could be brushed off. But now, if they marched in full of killing intent to reclaim their dignity and ended up with a pyrrhic victory, wouldn’t that be humiliating?
Not to mention they might not even win.
They were arguing like crazy over here, never imagining that the enemy hadn’t gone to Houjing at all.
Back then, Qu Jianlei and the other two had lived in Houjing for quite a long time and had made some decent acquaintances—such as Dai Xingyan.
So from the bottom of his heart, he didn’t want to carry out Slaughter in that place.
Anyway, there was definitely long-range comms between members of the Divine Text Association; he believed the people in Houjing would get the news earlier.
Their evacuation was highly likely, and no matter how fast the Space Mecha flew, could it beat radio waves?
So he simply gave up on heading to Houjing and instead came to the wilderness not far from Taikoo.
But he didn’t idle either—he forcibly dug out a huge cave in a barren mountain.
Around noon the next day, the 3344 ship arrived, landed, and then entered the cave.
Next, Qu Jianlei would go all out to prepare for the enemy’s Supreme.
(Updated to here. Calling for monthly tickets, follow subs, and recommendation votes.)
