Chapter 203: Pursuing Alien Reinforcements
Accidents always arrived without warning, and Zhou Ming and the others’ plan did not proceed smoothly.
The reason lay with Wind Eagle.
Originally responsible for dealing with the Werejackal apprentice priests, he had not slain all of them as expected.
Perhaps because priests were too scarce, even Werejackal apprentice priests possessed several life-saving items provided by their clan.
Out of the ten-man apprentice priest squad, Wind Eagle ultimately only managed to kill five. The remaining Werejackal apprentice priests managed to delay for a brief moment before receiving rescue from Werejackal warriors.
Although Zhou Ming and the others had the upper hand early on, once the Werejackal apprentice priests began casting detoxification spells, the Werejackal warriors quickly recovered several tenths of their strength.
Several hundred Werejackal warriors began to gather. The Werejackal apprentice priests used various materials to cast support spells—Bloodlust, Healing, and Blood Frenzy.
Spells were thrown onto the Werejackal warriors forming battle formations as if they cost nothing.
Although this method would overdraw the Werejackal warriors’ vitality, the current situation left the apprentice priests no room for further consideration.
If they did not do this, the Werejackal warriors eroded by snake venom would be unable to exert their strength at all.
With the support of the battle-formation Werejackal warriors, Zhou Ming and the others immediately fell into a disadvantage.
Fortunately, three Werejackal warriors had been killed in advance. Otherwise, the situation would have been even more dangerous, and casualties would have been entirely normal.
Faced with this situation, Zhou Ming thought it over and chose not to expose more of his abilities, because the Werejackals’ losses were also extremely severe. If they focused solely on escaping, the enemy would not be able to stop them.
Yan Hong, who was controlling three high-tier Phantasmal Beasts, decisively gave the order to retreat.
Upon hearing the command, Fire Fox and Wind Eagle, under Yan Hong and the others’ cover, immediately unleashed high-powered spells to force the Werejackals back. Zhou Ming and the others seized the opportunity and quickly escaped the canyon.
Half an hour later, Yan Hong and the others, having shaken off the Werejackal pursuit, appeared in a small grove.
“Everyone, I sincerely apologize. This old man nearly put everyone in grave danger.”
Wind Eagle, already white-haired, took the initiative to apologize to everyone.
“This isn’t your fault. No one expected that several apprentice priests would still have disposable talismans.”
As the squad leader, Su Hong had a responsibility to prevent internal conflict and immediately explained the reason to help Wind Eagle shift the blame.
After exchanging glances, the others did not hold Wind Eagle responsible either. After all, if they had been tasked with clearing the Werejackal squad, the final result might not have been any better than Wind Eagle’s.
“Captain, are talismans very valuable?”
As the last to take action, Zhou Ming had naturally seen the talismans used by the Werejackal apprentice priests. Their defensive power was enough to block Wind Eagle’s wind blades for a short time.
“You’re right. Talismans are indeed very valuable, because they are disposable transcendent equipment refined by official priests using precious materials.”
“Alien priests require special talents, so their birth rate is very low. Moreover, they cannot obtain bloodline blessings, so advancing their levels relies solely on their own acquired efforts.”
“Refining talismans requires official priests, the materials are precious, and they are disposable consumables, so they are relatively rare treasures.”
After listening to Yan Hong’s detailed explanation, everyone could only attribute the failure of this operation to their bad luck.
Moreover, this was their first time coming into contact with aliens, so problems were inevitable.
“What about the three Werejackal warrior heads?”
As Yinchuan’s voice fell, everyone’s gaze immediately turned to Yan Hong.
After all, three Werejackal warrior heads were enough to allow one of them to end Alliance Conscription. Except for Zhou Ming, none of them was unmoved.
“Since you brought it up, what do you suggest?”
Yan Hong did not readily take over the issue raised by Yinchuan. After all, as a soldier, he had to fight here until the end.
“Auction them. Whoever offers the highest price in Source Crystal Coins gets them, and the other four split the coins paid by that person.”
“I want to know one thing. If there’s a vacancy in the squad, can the outpost replenish it in time?”
The one who spoke was clearly Fang, who lacked confidence in his amount of Source Crystal Coins.
“Not in the short term. We’ll need to wait for arrangements from above. Only if the squad suffers heavy losses and drops below three members will there be special arrangements.”
“Then I don’t agree with Yinchuan’s proposal.”
“Neither do I.”
As Fang’s words fell, Fire Fox also rejected Yinchuan’s proposal.
As for Wind Eagle, because of the earlier incident, he found it difficult to speak and silently stood to the side.
“Ten Thousand Snakes, what about you?”
Seeing that Fire Fox and Fang both rejected his proposal, Yinchuan turned his gaze toward Zhou Ming opposite him.
“I don’t mind.”
Zhou Ming did not intend to involve himself in their dispute.
Hearing Zhou Ming’s ambiguous answer, the atmosphere instantly became somewhat stiff.
In the end, it was Yan Hong, as the captain, who broke the deadlock.
“Either collect enough merit for all five of you to withdraw from Alliance Conscription, or temporarily place the three Werejackal warrior heads with me and deal with them once you reach a unanimously accepted plan. How about it?”
However, before anyone could agree, Zhou Ming suddenly warned everyone.
“The pursuers are here.”
As soon as his words fell, a shrill screech that tore through space rang out.
Above the grove they were in, a bronze spear nearly seven meters long shot toward them like a missile.
Seeing this, everyone immediately used their methods to evade.
“Boom—”
The bronze spear struck the ground. The leaf-covered earth instantly exploded into a giant pit several meters in diameter, and the violent shockwave snapped the surrounding trees in half.
“It’s pursuers led by a Giant.”
Fire Fox looked toward the direction of the attack. A six-meter-tall Giant, leading four Centaur warriors, four Werejackal warriors, and two high-tier Harpies, was chasing after them.
From the looks of it, the Giant Race had been prepared in advance, which was why they were able to respond so quickly.
Moreover, the aliens definitely possessed special means of communication.
“Run! This is a Giant whose strength rivals a high-level professional Beast Tamer!”
Before Yan Hong could finish speaking, the others had already chosen to flee at the first moment, clearly veterans who knew to run when they couldn’t win.
Yan Hong could only curse inwardly, then summoned a rare Shadow Leopard that not only possessed extreme speed but could also conceal its aura.
This was the benefit of entering the Alliance military—not only access to various cultivation resources, but also the provision of all kinds of precious Phantasmal Beasts.
For Yan Hong to have crawled out of piles of corpses, his life-saving methods were naturally extraordinary.
Only Zhou Ming, unwilling to expose too many methods, could summon Silver Scale to carry him as he fled.
However, before leaving, he left behind a modified smoke bomb.
The snake venom inside the smoke bomb was enough to threaten ordinary high-tier Ferocious Beasts. This was something Zhou Ming had spent recent days refining, strengthening one of his earlier little toys.
Now, they had fallen into the position of being hunted.