Chapter 373: Through the Mountain Pass (1/2)

[Volume 5 – A Distance Within Reach]

Qianye took the binoculars and, sure enough, saw a number of lifeforms resembling giant crocodiles crawling over the precipitous cliffs. Their bodies were several meters long with dark scales growing over them, and they were crawling slowly over the almost vertical cliffs as though on level ground.

The scene before him caused Qianye’s heart to tremble because there weren’t as many vicious beasts when he last came here. Most of the ones here preferred hiding in the dark corners and rarely climbed out into the open. Moreover, there were already hundreds of such crocodile-type beasts on the two sides of the cliff—who knows how many more were hiding in unseen places.

“Do you know where these things come from?” asked Qianye.

“According to our observation, it’s very likely that they crawled out from the southwestern forest. But it’s indeed quite odd because these animals don’t look like woodland creatures at all. Our scouts tried approaching the area, but had to give up on investigating deeper because the beasts there are too powerful,” said Zhu Wuya.

“Oh? How are their strengths?”

“Their power is proportionate to their size for the most part. The weakest ones among them require rank-three warriors to deal with, while only rank-four soldiers can hold back the bigger ones. Those especially large ones over there are probably leaders. Only I, Old Duan and a couple of other lieutenant colonels can handle them.”

Qianye nodded. “What is their relationship with the werewolves?”

Duan Hao took over the conversation and replied, “They seem to be completely unrelated. Just a while ago, I saw an impudent werewolf guard being torn to shreds after charging into their territory.”

But even if these mountainous crocodiles were unrelated to the werewolves, their area of activity happened to occupy the mountainous cliffs on each side of the mountain pass. This was equal to granting the werewolf defensive line another layer of natural fortification.

Qianye assessed the surrounding landscape and pointed toward an area where the mountain crocodiles were the most concentrated. “Fire a few cannon rounds at that area.”

Duan Hao and the rest hadn’t made such an attempt because there was a risk of enraging the entire population of mountain crocodiles. But there should be no problem at the moment since it was Qianye’s orders. The orderly flew toward the nearby firing point, and moments later, the sound of heavy cannons began to rumble. Shells rained down continuously on the concentrated group of mountain crocodiles.

Several of them fell over a hundred meters from the cliff side and smashed heavily onto the ground. But unexpectedly, they only swayed a bit afterward and managed to clamber up. Apart from a number of unlucky victims that were directly struck and killed, the rest within the area of the shockwave were relatively unaffected.

The crocodile horde became restless, and the ones within the coverage of the heavy cannons seemed to have sensed the source of the attack. They turned around in quick succession and were seemingly intent on moving toward Qianye’s base. Like the first tidal wave in the great ocean, their movement gradually spread to and began to affect the other crocodile groups.

“Cease fire!” Qianye ordered.

The mountainous crocodiles suddenly lost their target after the cannons stopped rumbling, and their movements were thrown into momentary confusion. After a while, the entire herd gradually calmed down and proceeded to divide the remains of the dead crocodiles for consumption.

It seemed these mountainous crocodiles weren’t very intelligent but were quite sensitive to external assault. A couple more cannon shots would’ve incited the entire herd to charge at the Dark Flame base.

Qianye pondered for a while and said, “You lot remain on standby and keep an eye on the werewolves inside. Don’t let them charge out no matter what.”

“How about you?”

“I’m going to visit that Viscount Brudo.”

Qianye didn’t stay any longer since he had already made the decision. He left the motorcycle within the Dark Flame camp and headed into the steep mountains on his own.

The mountainous landscape posed little hindrance to Qianye. He had brought sufficient supplies inside Andruil’s Mysterious Realm, especially various types of grenades. The battle at the mine had allowed him to experience the tremendous might origin grenades afforded the lone raider. As such, they became his first priority when replenishing arms.

Qianye traveled swiftly through the mountainous woods and shot straight into the pass. He was prepared to ascend the western cliff, circle around the barrier at the end of the passage, and head straight into werewolf territory.

He came to a sudden halt while running as an agile shadow scuttled out from beneath the pile of leaves in front of him. The mountain crocodile opened its mouth wide and bit down with great ferocity. Its endeavor, however, was rendered fruitless by Qianye’s sudden stop.

Up close, the mountain crocodile was indeed a huge monster. Its body was over five meters long, and the scales on its back were as solid as slabs of rock. The most dangerous part was that this massive body was as agile as a mountain wolf. After missing its aim, the bite landed on a large tree behind Qianye—splintered wood flew out in all directions as a large defect as deep as the tree’s radius appeared on it.

Qianye stepped to the side, performed a half turn, and stomped down on the mountain crocodile’s back. At the same time, Scarlet Edge pierced deep into its neck at lightning speed. That was the mountain crocodile’s vital area, and its hard scales could do little to block the grade-five Scarlet Edge. The strike sank with relative ease, all the way down to its hilt.

Large amounts of essence blood rushed up from the Scarlet Edge. It turned out that this rank-three crocodile was able to provide even more essence blood than a rank-five dark race warrior. Qianye stood up from atop the corpse and continued forward. Very soon, he had killed yet another crocodile looking to ambush him.

The current Qianye finally understood why Dark Flame’s scouts dared not go deeper into the southwestern forest. Although these crocodiles weren’t high in rank, they were strong, agile, and possessed far greater destructive power than the ordinary beasts of the Evernight wilderness.