Chapter 20.1 - A Mountain Between
The first blockade line that was torn apart like rotten weeds created a huge splash, as if it was a large rock that was tossed into a calm lake. However, when the waters completely devoured this large rock, everything became peaceful again. The world before Persephone became open and clear, with all of the enemies that were hiding in the darkness gone without a trace.
Persephone only brought six subordinates with her and only carried the most essential equipment before heading into the depths of the mountain range. The remaining subordinates, vehicles, and equipment were left in a temporary base left where they had stopped, waiting for Persephone’s return.
Renfell, who received quite a psychological blow, returned with his subordinates to Victory Valley in a rather lonesome manner. He wasn’t particularly worried of the subordinates Persephone left behind being attacked. In the north, there was no one who dared to look down on Persephone’s military prowess or set their eyes on her things. Even if they did have such thoughts, not many people possessed the equipment to overwhelm this camp’s strength.
At the other end of the mountain, Su who was engaged in a blood soaked and hard-fought struggle lowered another enemy, this time at the cost of two badly mangled wounds. When Su hacked apart the throat of this short and small man, his cheeks swelled out and unexpectedly fired his eyes out! Even with Su’s reaction speed, he still only had enough time to lean backwards to avoid harming crucial areas like his head and face. The eyeballs landed between his chest and stomach and exploded soon after. The explosive force was rather impressive, leaving two huge injuries on Su’s chest. The liquid inside the eyeballs seemed to also contain powerful levels of radiation that made Su’s flesh burn with sizzling sounds.
Su didn’t pay the rapidly worsening wounds on his body any attention as the knife in his hand stably continued to slice through the male’s throat without any deviation from its original intention. Only then did his left hand loosen and release this body that had completely lost its lifeforce before carrying out a simple first aid on his injuries. When the battle ended, Su’s body immediately began to erupt with such heat that it refused to listen to his mind’s control. He could only rely on the insulating combat suit to prevent the heat from spilling outwards.
Soon after, Su finished investigating this corpse. These enemies all had a piece of scorched black flesh on them that should have been relatively new injuries, only, it was unknown exactly what kind of marking originally rested beneath this scorched piece of flesh.
Dragon City wasn’t large, and there weren’t many people inside either. The organizations and families that liked to leave a marking on their underlings’ bodies were quite numerous. As long as he truly wanted to, he would be able to find out this information sooner or later.
However, could Su even wait until then?
Su half-squatted on the ground and borrowed and did everything he could to suppress the scorching pain. He straightened his chest and gazed into the boundless darkness. His left eye’s deep green light was especially eye-catching in the darkness. Su didn’t fear his location being exposed already. His continuously rising body temperature made it harder and harder for him to hide his traces, so his enemies that were hiding in the darkness through all types of methods might as well just take aim at him.
In that instant, Su felt more than ten eyes land on his body. Su’s body immediately trembled lightly, partly due to the sudden increase in pain and his instinctive reaction to danger, but mostly due to excitement instead, an almost uncontrollable excitement. It was an excitement similar to what his extremely young self felt when he saw a piece of rotting flesh. At that time, he hadn’t been able to find any food to eat, so he instead chose to run into a beast trap and as a result had his left leg clamped on. His memory after that was completely empty, as if it was nothing but an empty dream.
When Su finally woke up and recovered his consciousness, he found himself in an unfamiliar environment. He could move, only, his broken left leg would still send back a dull pain. This pain made him remember the beast capturing trap, but he couldn’t recall the process at all. He couldn’t remember what had happened at all, nor did he know how he reached this unfamiliar environment. Su, at that moment, still didn’t understand the concept of time. This was an entire year before he encountered that little girl.
In just that instant, his perception of danger immediately reached the greatest level. His skin began to transmit stinging pain. Su immediately moved, evading irregularly to prevent himself from being locked onto. At the same time, he quickly closed in on his enemies.
However, it was at this moment that the continuous and resounding gunshots suddenly became sparse, and in just a few seconds, they completely disappeared. Meanwhile, those eyes that continuously locked onto Su retracted one after another. In the blink of an eye, the wolves scattered throughout these mountains completely disappeared. Meanwhile, the targets that Su had locked onto were quickly withdrawing as well. They pulled apart enough distance between them in an instant, leaving Su, who only had a military knife in his hands, staring blankly as they departed.
He stood unmoving on the mountain top. After a while, Su reached the conclusion that there weren’t any more enemies nearby. The situation was so strange, that he even began to feel a bit of nervousness. He just couldn’t understand why this kind of conclusion would appear.
After standing there for a while, Hanlon’s imposing figure appeared behind Su. His perception abilities weren’t bad either, so he naturally didn’t miss Su’s body that was burning like a torch in the darkness.
Hanlon handed Su a syringe while saying, “Seems like we are safe for now.”
Su accepted the syringe, and after seeing that it was the dragonriders’ battlefield first aid injection, he directly injected it into his upper arm. “Right, but it’s quite strange. How are the others?”
“Ricardo hadn’t woken up yet, but he hasn’t died yet. He needs to be sent back to Dragon City to receive treatment immediately, as this place lacks the necessary equipment and resources. If we stay here any longer, there might be unrecoverable injuries. The others are quite fine and will recover after a few weeks.” Hanlon said.
Su understood what Hanlon was implying and said, “Then you should send Ricardo back, along with my two subordinates if you can. It seems like the path to Dragon City has already cleared up.”
“You aren’t going to come with us?” Hanlon was quite surprised. From his perspective, Su had many special abilities, but his comprehensive strength wasn’t all that outstanding. Without himself, Ricardo, and the other subordinates’ support, Su didn’t have the ability to fight against the high level enemies residing inside of this mountain region at all, let alone his current self with such heavy injuries!
Su shook his head and said, “I can’t leave yet. I’ll be fine if you leave me with some medications and water. You guys go, I have to keep heading east.”
Hanlon followed Su’s eyes eastwards, but all he saw was boundless darkness. He inadvertently asked in confusion, “What is over there?”
“I do not know, but my intuition is telling me that I have to take a look.” Su said. He also felt rather confused, but he couldn’t resist the powerful summoning of his intuition.
“Alright. Take care of yourself then.” Hanlon placed a compact battlefield medicine kit in Su’s hands, and after patting his shoulder, he turned around and left.
Intuition; even the intuition that was often times synonymous with the Mysterious Fields, was still something imaginary in Hanlon’s eyes, or at the very least unreliable. From his perspective, things that couldn’t be relied on weren’t that valuable. After all, there were already too many uncontrollable variables on the battlefield, so for things like abilities, it was still better to have those that one could be sure of, for example, power strengthening, agility strengthening, infrared sight, large-scale weaponry abilities, regardless of which it was, in Hanlon’s eyes they were all better than the strange tricks of the Mysterious Fields.
After associating with Su during these past few days, Hanlon also understood Su’s perseverance and stubbornness, so he didn’t argue pointlessly. Meanwhile, between Su and Ricardo, he would obviously choose Ricardo; this was something that he believed Su understood.
Fifteen minutes later Hanlon brought this group away from the mountains. After seeing them disappear into the darkness, Su turned around and quickly ran towards the heart of the mountains.