Chapter 395 (1/2)

A Few More

In the free trading area, before Shao Xuan sold the stone crystals, he would use his spare time every night to polish his stone tools.

Because the animal skins sold out fast, the few days before they returned were idle. Shao Xuan made some of them go out to find stones, then he’d choose the satisfactory stones from it. He’d polish it into stone tools he needed.

The landscape on their way back was mountainous, with much vegetation distributed around. The species of flora and fauna in the mountains were diverse. This was what Shao Xuan learned from the Duo Kang and the others, so, when he polished his stone tools, he had already thought about what kind of traps he should make. Even if they had no stone crystals, according to Duo Kang’s past experience, they’d encounter a lot of ambushes once they left Anba City’s trading area. Many would talk to you the day before and laugh, but after a day, they could easily attack you in the mountains, not hesitating to kill.

Outside the trade, an inhuman heart is necessary, so Shao Xuan made these stone tools. However, it was also to prevent the pursuit of too many people, in case of an emergency.

Stone tools were not like metal. Usually, the requirements for stone were not really high. Stone that could be used could be found everywhere in the mountains, unlike gold, wherein wasting would cause heartache. For many tribesmen, a small dagger can be very precious. With that, it was impossible to use metals to make weapons such as darts which you’d throw out and sometimes could not be recovered. That would certainly cause heartache.

Obviously, the same idea was thought of by the people sent by An Yan to hunt them down. They inquired about the previous style of the people of the Flaming Horns tribe, inquiring about the past. However, they never heard of the tribe using large-scale traps when on the way back before, so the chasers were not alert. At first, because the Flaming Horns tribe did not follow their original route, the chasers did not see them. Once they later saw traces of their footprints, they were excited and continued chasing. That was until they heard a slight sound.

It was as if a bird was just fluttering from a tree, when these people were suddenly faced with dense wooden thorns.

It was too sudden that, even if they reacted quickly, they could not completely avoid these sudden wooden thorn attacks.

That’s not just for one person. There were so many people in the team. As long as there were one or two that triggered the traps, once they panicked, it’d trigger other series of traps.

The thorns were not as hard as metal, but when shot out that fast, it could still hurt. There were also other traps aside from the wooden thorns. Once it had scratched skin, the poison on it would immediately spread into the bloodstream. It would not cause death but could still cause them a little trouble. Besides, it would also affect the speed of their pursuit.

Boom!

There was a light noise, then the air suddenly exploded in a cloud of yellow fine powder. It was like a fog that quickly spread out in the open.

People who could get out of the circle jumped away, no matter what that was. It’s better to dodge. But the man who was attacked by the wooden thorns thought it would be some poison, so he held his breath. After blocking a wooden thorn and jumping out of the range of the attack, once he saw the yellowish smoke dissipate, that’s when he finally breathed again.

When everything finally stopped, the leader looked at the man lying and rolling on the ground, muttering it was a “waste.” His sight moved to a tree on the side of the body, where more than ten thin wooden thorns were nailed to it. He carefully moved over to make sure nothing was triggered again before reaching out and picking a leaf quickly, then wrapping it around a wooden thorn before pulling it out of the trunk.

This is a wooden thorn that was broken from a plant in the mountains. The tail end of the thorn was also marked with some brown and green colour, indicating that they were not plucked out for a long time.

This plant was common in the mountains. A lot of animals here have rough coats though, so these wooden thorns were not much threat to those with thick fur. But that’s not the same for humans. They don’t have thick fur, nor any kind of armour, so the poison had some effect on them. Fortunately, these poisons were not strong and would not kill them.

Such cheap tricks! The leader was furious.

However, who had set it up to burst out like rain after a round of attacks?

Was it someone else’s ambush? Or was it the man who left with the Flaming Horn tribe?

There was a faint sweet fragrance around. He didn’t know whether it was the flowers on the tree or something else.

The leader threw away the wooden thorns he was holding, frowning. His eyes swept around. Even though the several rounds of attack they had encountered had ended, they could not find traces of the traps.

“Keep chasing!” Ignoring the poisoned ones, the rest decided to move on.

“Everyone should watch their backs. Those tribesmen like to play dirty!” The leader reminded them. In their view, these were just childish tricks made of wood and flowers.

But after just two steps, nobody knew who stepped on what but they just heard another “whoop” from a short vine and their brains suddenly thought of the attack earlier. They clutched their weapons, while the leader even pulled another person’s copper shield, warily looking at the direction of the sound.

However, they didn’t see a new round of attacks of wooden thorns but saw a few strange crescent-like wooden pieces flying out. The direction of its flight was not towards them but in the direction away from them.

The flying wood accurately passed through the gap between the branches of the forest. It was not blocked by the thick trunks and thick branches but managed to fly out of the shade of the leaves, along an arc, then into the distance.

Bang, bang, bang!

They didn’t know what the flying wood had hit but when they heard the sound, they panicked again.

After the wood hit something, it flew in the opposite direction, then there was some buzzing sound.

Realizing what it was, the leader shouted, “It’s leaf bees! Run!”