Chapter 418: Takji clan
Facing Zi's incomparably coercive interrogation, Sheyan's refute was the pinnacle of geniousness. Since the opponent had arranged concrete options for them, then clearly one cannot walk according to their tempo. Others forcing us to make a decision, then the wise method would be to totally render that question invalid! He sighed and replied.
"What a pity......we were just returning after completing the mission."
Brother Black immediately followed up with a regretful and dissatisfied expression, as he exclaimed.
"Your excellency Zi! Why didn't you raise such a great suggestion earlier? Hais! What a pity, we wasted so many precious resources on this mission!"
Hearing Sheyan's answer, the bunch of Illume-union members had a drastic dip in expression; a frankly hateful and itching expression.....Sheyan's answer was obviously unsatisfactory to them, yet they simply could not identify any flaws within! More distasteful was that Mogensha, he actually dared to counter-attack with an innocent face of grudgeful 'why didn't you guys say so earlier'!. Such a slut should really be stripped naked, hanged and whipped!
Just when both parties sank into a deadlock situation, a sudden glaring beam pierced in from afar. 3 RDA company Swan tanks (Ground Assault Vehicle JL-723) patrolled towards them. Their objectives were to guard against Na'vi with slight aggressive disposition at night. Of course, also to prevent wild beasts from damaging the routes, avoiding affecting the next day's ore transportation.
Seizing this chance, Sheyan's trio spontaneously gestured the patrolling squad, explaining that they were workers of the exploration squad who had just completed their surveying mission; wishing to borrow a ride home after a tiring and famished day. This request was naturally approved. Unless the Illume-union wished to break off relations with the RDA company, they definitely wouldn't dare strong-arming them to stay.
Brother Black adopted a look of beaming elation as he puffed his cigar and jumped into the tank, casually turning around to wave incessantly at the Illume-union. He was like a superstar celebrity enthusiastically bidding farewell to fans. Demondream clutched her blade's shaft until her fingers turned pale, and Zi's face turned grim and proclaimed in a low tone.
"There's definitely something fishy with them!"
Archeaphill squinted his eyes in response.
"Then we should now....."
Zi indifferently ordered.
"We must immediately follow and watch them tightly! The speed of Reef and Seaman is ultimately their shortcomings. Without the cooperation of those 3, even if we can reach the final step of the side mission, our casualties are bound to be disastrous! If they aren't willing to help, then they can forget about obtaining any other advantages in this world."
Yet merely 5 minutes later, Demondream transmitted an infuriating message through the party channel, that could trigger their tears.
"I'm sorry, I lost them."
That news completely shocked Zi!
"You lost them?"
In Zi's perception, Demondream was a master in that field. Nobody had ever escaped her pursuit before. Demondream then paused for a moment before acknowledging these unfortunate news.
"You will understand when you arrive here."
Swiftly, the remaining Illume-union members all congregated at where Demondream was. This was an overhanging cliff of unmatched steepness.
"I gathered they rode on that RDA patrol tank, but suddenly proclaimed they had forgotten something extremely important. Therefore, they urgently unboarded and reached here. I only traced them for 50 seconds worth of distance, before........before not a single one appeared in sight."
Zi gazed at the distant abstruse darkness away from the cliff, and unhurriedly replied.
"The only two options for them are to jump or fly, but my speculation is that they flew. Looks like we still underestimated that trio of party Ace......especially that......Seaman!"
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It was obvious that Sheyan had finally employed the arachnid Overlord he had purchased back in the Starship Trooper world. In the face of the contestants threatening to clean them out, he held no more reservations. This excellent jellyfish like transportation creature glided through the airs of Pandora peacefully, surging straight towards the Takji Clan location. Sheyan did in fact attempt to fork out some utility points in his bid of activating the natural disguising auxiliary ability of the Overlord; instead, he was notified that such an ability could not be activated in this realm war.
Thus, the most unfortunate event that Sheyan was worried about struck very quickly. As daylight descended upon them, several Mountain Banshees soared through the skies with the mentality of 'the early bird catches the worm(arachnid)'. Their superb vision allowed them to rapidly identify this unprecedented and unknown Overlord 'worm' in their entire lives. Their appetite momentarily expanded, triggering a frantic secretion of saliva from their mouths as they swerved in viciously.
Trapped helplessly inside the Overlord, Sheyan and his trio could only choose to force an emergency landing. After a series of arduous battling, where the arachnid Overlord had been shredded into flesh chunks, they finally managed to force the Mountain Banshees into retreat. Fortunately, their current location was roughly a straight line 10 kilometres away from the Takji Clan as indicated on their map. Hence, they still managed to conserve a huge deal of time and energy travelling.
The forest here gradually grew sparser and sparser. Blessed by their prior plentiful experience of surviving in the forest, Sheyan's trio exited the forest without trekking for long; before an exceedingly vast grassfield welcomed them.
Pandora ores seemed to be scattered throughout the grassfield, with the occasional larger ore chunks of 7-8 metres in size drifting about and hindering their vision. The dense outgrowth of grass had grown healthily and touched the human's knees. As the dawn breeze rustled through the sea of grass, it released a sensation of true elusive freedom.
After trodding through for a kilometre or so, Mogensha's plumpy nostrils suddenly flared and he suddenly warned out.
"There's a blood stench coming from the west!"
The trio hastily advanced towards it, and after making a huge detour around a hundred square metre hovering boulder, they could now see a massive pack of creatures sprinting through the grassfield. A curved horn sprouted from the heads of those creatures while their buttocks wagged with a long tail resembling that of a lizard. Their dashing style appeared rather eccentric yet their speed were miraculously fast.
According to the RDA company's report, these creatures were called Lizard Goats and loved to graze in moist and marshy grass fields. Behind these goats, were 5-6 mounted Na'vi Direhorse cavalry in pursuit of their prey.
They were waving a peculiar weapon in their hands which looked rather simple and crude; a two metre long string with circular rocks tied to both ends. After slinging towards their target, it would automatically coil around the legs of the prey and trip them.
Sheyan also noticed that amongst the few na'vi cavalry, not a single one appeared youthful, but most were old Na'vi warriors and kids. Hence, the coordinating strength they demonstrated appeared extremely unaccustomed. Furthermore, those lizard goats they were hunting seemed to be more tenacious and brutal as compared to the mongolian gazelles of earth. Once they suffered an assault, their eyes would burn with scarlet red as they transformed increasingly vicious and roared ferociously! Thus at present, the 5-6 Na'vi cavalry had only captured one lizard goat so far.
At this moment, Sheyan immediately gestured towards Reef and Mogensha and proceeded to charge towards the lizard goat herd. Surging forward and diving through the air, Sheyan actually managed to catch hold of one of the lizard goat's neck and binded it unwaveringly! Similarly to the direhorses, thick armour shockingly protected the creature's neck, but was still rapidly fractured under Sheyan's smashing raw strength like it was brittle porcelain! Blood combined with bodily fluids was instantly spat out from its mouth. Instead, its strength was not to be trifled it as it refused to collapse even after Sheyan's pounding. Staggering a little, the lizard goat struggled frantically and continued dashing forward.
Even after that happened, the lizard goat could not escape the torturous pain jolting through its body as it squawked in misery; sweeping its tail recklessly in response to the pain! Its tail instantly swept the grass, soil and decayed leaves within a 10 metre radius into a wild gust, bombarding its fellow goats around it with nature's sediments.
Those unlucky brats that received the torrential sediments momentarily lost their balance, as they crashed to the ground and begun rolling haphazardly. That one goat had successfully morphed into the 'black sheep' of the herd. The remaining lizard goats could not evade this stumbling block in time and triggered a chain of successive collapse like they were dominoes.
Crack! Sheyan released a muffled snort as he summoned strength in his arms to snap off the lizard goat's neck, before he leapt into the air again, making a roll and landing steadily. He then casually lifted the lizard goat up and tossed it towards the fleet of incoming Na'vi cavalry. To his horror, when the lizard goat's carcass was still wafting through the air, a sudden enormous mountain banshee swooped in with a gust of wind; fluttering its wings threateningly, it widened its long beak and clamped down onto the goat!
This mountain banshee was entirely coated with pure black. The terrifying carnivore immediately started chomping ferociously onto the lizard goat, with its throat incessantly gulping down mouthfuls of blood. The claws of its fluttering wings proceeded to pierce the lizard goat as it spiralled in mid flight, before forcefully jerking its robust neck in ruthless bid to rip this miserable lizard goat into two.
Just solely observing from afar, one could tell how dreadful this blood-thirsty mountain banshee was. Its blood stained mouth contained two razor-sharp curved fangs, that were as long as 23 centimetres. Once it chomped onto anything, even a direhorse with reinforced armour would be crushed. Thus even though the lizard goat was a tough creature, it was still hard to avoid getting torn apart.
Presently, Reef had also infiltrated into the tumbling lizard goat herd, as he lifted his head to the skies and unleashed a furious roar; instantly sending the entire dozen plus goats who were struggling to flee into a slowed state. From afar, Mogensha was already half-knelt over the ground as he pasted his head against his rifle and took aim. Instantly, fiery tongues shot out from his rifle. With the trio working together, they only required a short dozen of seconds to slaughter the entire herd of lizard goats.
In spite of that, the 5-6 na'vi riders were all stumped by this situation; hesitating to make a single action. Only until that mountain banshee finished swallowing the lizard goat, and descended to the ground in spirals, did a mightier looking na'vi mounted on the mountain banshee's back yelled loudly.
"Outsiders, what are you trying to do?"
Apart from his sturdy built, this na'vi appeared relatively old with his deep wrinkles that looked like scars on his face. His forehead was adorned with aesthetically precious ornaments, where two red stripes were painted intercrossed along his face; exuberating a dignified and murderous aura.