Chapter 50
Chapter 50: Simply Throwing A Few Bombs
Duan Tianhe was stunned. Could Jiang He have ran into the Sky Demon cultists?
According to Pudgy Jiang’s information, there had been a detonation in the mountains… But if Jiang He had really been caught up in it, how could he still fool around with Duan Tianhe right now?
Oh, right!
He was very quick, and might have made it out!
With that thought, Duan Tianhe quickly asked, “Jiang He, did you run into the Sky Demon Cult?”
“Yep,” Jiang He replied truthfully without denying it. “It was a long night and I couldn’t sleep, so while I was looking for fertilizer for my farm, I ran into two Sky Demon cultists… and then they brought in more cultists and a wolf pack.”
Duan Tianhe breathed a long sigh of relief and laughed. “It’s more or less what I thought, but it’s good as long as you’re fine. Ignore the cultists and the wolf pack—they could never hurt you with the physical arts you have. Moreover, I’ve laid out an inescapable trap. If the try to attack Linzhou City, they’ll be walking to their own deaths!”
Even over at the other end, Jiang He could feel the great confidence Duan Tianhe possessed.
Nevertheless…
Jiang He mused to himself for a while before saying, “You’ve got it wrong, Chief Duan. The Sky Demon cultists and the wolf pack are never going to attack Linzhou City now.”
“True! The Sky Demon Cult is extremely careful. They wouldn’t recklessly attack now that you’ve exposed their plans, but that’s fine. I’ll call up every elite once the sun rises and enter the mountains to wipe them all out.”
“About that… There’s no need for it now, I think?”
While they were talking, Jiang He had run a lap around the mountaintop. Every wolf up there was dead, along with the Sky Demon cultists he had killed with his bare hands.
Still, there were a dozen lucky wolves at the foot of the mountain that had survived the dozens of bombs Jiang He threw down there, killing most of their pack. They were merely heavily injured, and had fled with their mangled bodies.
As for the Sky Demon cultists who were with them…
With his night vision, Jiang He could vaguely make out their equally torn up bodies lying amongst the bushes.
“Chief Duan, I’ve killed most of the Sky Demon cultists, although a dozen out of the hundred-over wolves managed to flee. Why not bring your people in to wipe them out? You can help me transport the Feral wolf corpses as well.”
“Eh?”
“Chief Duan?”
“Are you listening, Chief Duan?”
“Chief Duan???”
Jiang He shouted a few times, but since he did not get any response at all, he hung up while cursing. What the heck was Duan Tianhe doing, disappearing halfway through a conversation?
Pocketing his phone, Jiang He rubbed his temples, scowling. “I managed to get four rank-six Feral corpses, and two are only three-quarters cooked since they were further away from the blast. So, I can check off the two portions of rank-six Feral flesh and the ten liters of rank-six Feral blood… but where am I gonna find rank-seven Feral flesh?”
***
Back at the Changliushui scenic route.
Duan Tianhe was standing motionlessly as if thunderstruck.
He did not know that the mobile phone he was holding had slipped through his fingers, and nearby, Pudgy Jiang had heard every word of his conversation because of how close he was. His rounded face appeared as if he had seen a ghost.
What the hell! What the hell! What the hell!
“Am I hearing that right, Old Duan? Jiang He managed to wipe out the wolf pack and the Sky Demon cultists?”
Duan Tianhe’s eyes were leveled straight at Pudgy Jiang as he muttered, “The mountain…” In the next second, he recovered and bellowed, “We’re going in! We’ll know whether it’s true when we get to the mountain!”
The group of elites picked up their Barrett sniper rifles, Vulcan miniguns, rocket launchers, and other weapons to stride imposingly up the mountains.
They were either martial artists or superhumans whose physicality surpassed most. One of them, a burly Awakened with superstrength, was holding a Vulcan in his left hand whilst carrying a Barrett rifle over his right shoulder as he sprinted away, moving quicker than Bolt along the mountain path.
Be that as it may, it still took over twenty minutes for them to cover the over thirty miles of distance.
“That way!”
In the night, someone exclaimed and gasped—
“Woah! That mountain is half a notch lower… all the wind turbines on top of it have been blown away!”
The one shouting was one of Pudgy Jiang’s subordinates, who had awakened the superpower of ‘all-seeing eye’. Of course, that might be an exaggeration, but his vision was at least ten times that of the average person. Not even a rank-seven grandmaster like Duan Tianhe could match him in that respect.
On the other hand, Jiang He also caught sight of Duan Tianhe and the others. However, he could only make out their silhouettes since he had not eaten enough carrots yet, and only managed to identify them when they came closer.
Whoosh!
At the moment, Duan Tianhe was bounding up the mountains at stunning speeds, which prompted Jiang He’s eyes to tighten as he muttered, “Is that the power of a martial arts grandmaster? His speed… it’s not that different from my Blind Princess’ Eight Practices at full power!”
The mountains in Xibei were not especially tall, especially the chains of hills around here that were only several hundred meters tall. Since they were not too sloping either, Duan Tianhe soon darted atop.
He landed on the edge of the mountain, and then…
Was left dumbfounded.
Pudgy Jiang came up behind him as well, and soon, the rest of the reinforcements from Western Xia’s Martial Arts Department all arrived at the mountaintop.
When Pudgy Jiang saw the wolf corpses all around and the flattened mountaintop, his eyes widened as he exclaimed, “What the hell… what bomb was this?”
Being well-versed in munitions and explosives, he could not help running around in circles close to the ground, even though he could not make out what bomb could have been so devastating.
Checking the wolf corpses after that, he frowned. “It looks like some kind of aerosol bomb did this. These wolves have been struck by a tremendous shockwave and scorching heat in a split second, which is why most of them are charred. The problem here is that aerosol bombs last a long time, and it has been less than an hour from the moment I heard the explosion…”
Being a fuel-air explosive, aerosol bombs would release terrific heat after a spontaneous explosion that incinerated everything. The fires could not be extinguished even if a person was caught with a tinder, and on top of this mountain, the resulting fire should have lasted hours.
And yet, there were no signs of burning here at ground zero.
Pudgy Jiang ran a lap around the mountaintop again, before finally turning his eyes to Jiang He. “You’re Jiang He, right? Were you the one who detonated the bomb?” he asked in confusion.
“You know me?” Jiang He smiled, studying Pudgy Jiang in return. “You are quite agile and accomplished at physical arts for a rotund person. And yes, I detonated the bomb that killed all these Feral wolves.”
Pudgy Jiang was utterly bewildered at that, and pressed, “How did you draw the wolf pack up here and blow them up? You would have needed a boosted launcher for a bomb of such power.”
“A boosted launcher? What’s that supposed to be?” asked Jiang He, shaking his head.
He knew nothing about explosives, only the general stuff such as hand grenades, landmines and hydrogen bombs.
“I didn’t lure the wolf pack,” he explained. “I was standing right here when the wolves surrounded me. I thought that it would be a hassle to kill them one by one, which wastes time and strength… So I simply threw a few bombs at my feet. Then, boom! Everything was blown to smithereens.”
As Pudgy Jiang glanced at the spot where Jiang He pointed, his small eyes narrowed. He could not hold back from exclaiming, “That’s impossible! From what I can tell by the aftermath and devastation, this would have been the center of the detonation, and even rank-seven grandmasters wouldn’t have survived a blast of such magnitude!”