Chapter 1279: Since I Came Across It, It's Mine

After relieving himself, the junior officer dug into the sand on the spot and buried his waste.

The entire army handled such things the same way in the desert.

Then he turned and went back.

Roughly one shichen later, the junior officer really did bring a ten-man patrol out of the encampment.

Patrolling the exterior and checking for anything suspicious was perfectly normal.

The only abnormality came when the patrol reached the shadow cast by a dune under the slanting moonlight.

There was a brief disturbance.

When the patrol returned, all ten faces had changed.

Taishu Guang, Tie Haodong, and Lu Zheng were among them.

Every one of them had shaved off his beard.

The junior officer led the group back as though nothing had happened.

The ten men following him were far more tense and nowhere near as composed.

He did not return through his own unit's original position.

There were too many familiar faces there.

The men of his own unit all knew one another.

Instead, he skirted the outer edge of the sprawling army camp, walking right past groups of soldiers.

Taishu Guang and the others were so nervous their hearts seemed to hang in their throats.

"Old Zuo!"

Spotting an officer from a neighboring unit, the junior officer even called out first in greeting.

The man turned and asked, "What are you doing over here?"

The junior officer sighed. "The higher-ups told us to patrol and keep our eyes open."

He directly led his men closer while speaking.

After a couple of casual pleasantries, he simply brought the group into the encampment from that side.

On the way, he even kicked a man sleeping on the ground.

"Sleeping like a dead pig."

After that, he wound his way deeper through the countless troops.

He was not wandering aimlessly.

He was watching the rhythm of the patrols around them and slipping through the gaps between one group and the next.

When there was no way to avoid an approaching patrol, the junior officer would walk up first and demand the password himself.

Once both sides exchanged the proper responses, he led his men past the other patrol at close range.

Each time, Taishu Guang and the others broke into cold sweat.

But as they gradually penetrated deeper into the camp and continued encountering danger without mishap, they finally realized that this junior officer truly was bold and meticulous.

As for the junior officer himself, his outward ease concealed inward tension.

He wanted to seize this opportunity to escape.

Otherwise, once he followed the army onto the battlefield, many things would no longer be under his control.

Dying meaninglessly on some battlefield was not what he wanted.

Under all that strain, time seemed to pass extraordinarily quickly.

Before they realized it, they had already reached the heart of the army.

Standing atop a dune, they could see more than a dozen tents clustered together in the moonlight.

And thirty zhang to the west stood a single isolated tent, exactly as the junior officer had described.

Taishu Guang and the others were both nervous and excited.

But the moment they descended from the dune, a small group sitting ahead suddenly rose to its feet.

One man shouted, "Password!"

The army had already been worn down by continuous marching.

Anyone with nothing to do should have been asleep like the dead.

And if these men were a patrol, then sitting openly in one place instead of making rounds was equally abnormal.

The junior officer immediately realized something was wrong.

Even so, he answered steadily.

"Vast Sea! Counter-sign!"

The tone of the man ahead suddenly became heavy.

"Password!"

The junior officer immediately turned his head and whispered, "Trouble. Either the password here is different or it has changed. Prepare to respond."

The words instantly tightened every nerve behind him.

Then the junior officer shouted again, "Vast Sea! Counter-sign!"

The man ahead waved one hand.

More than ten soldiers immediately spread into a line and closed around them.

Behind those men, several cultivators who had been sitting cross-legged also rose to their feet.

"Which unit are you from?" the man demanded.

He was plainly preparing to stop them and verify their identities in detail.

There was no possibility the junior officer's group could withstand that kind of inspection.

Taishu Guang glanced left and right, then murmured, "Two leaps and we'll reach the target. Move!"

The ten men suddenly shot into the air.

The cultivators ahead, who had already been watching them closely, immediately leapt up to block them.

At the same time, someone roared, "Enemy attack!"

"Open the road!" Taishu Guang shouted.

A Heavenly Sword Talisman erupted at once.

With a thunderous explosion, the attack blasted the defenders aside.

Taishu Guang and the others had used a Heavenly Sword Talisman the instant they acted precisely because they did not intend to become entangled.

They needed time.

Following directly behind the talisman's assault, they charged through the opening.

The junior officer, however, lost his chance to leave this place alive.

For the sake of the mission, Taishu Guang and the others had no attention to spare for him.

They vanished so abruptly that they gave him no opportunity to disappear into the confusion.

He was left standing alone, exposed.

He drew his saber and fought desperately, but two fists could not defeat four hands.

In moments, he was hacked down beneath a storm of blades.

Thus did he give his life for Jin.

In wars between states, no one knew how many brave and resourceful spies like him were swallowed without a trace.

Inside the isolated tent, Dugu Jing had been sitting cross-legged in meditation while Yuan Gang lay on his side on the ground.

Both opened their eyes almost simultaneously, awakened by the tremendous disturbance outside.

"Go!"

Dugu Jing flashed to Yuan Gang's side at once.

He seized Yuan Gang by the arm, cast a spell to break open the ground, and pulled him down beneath the surface.

The two disappeared underground.

Outside the tent, the soldiers who had been lying on the ground reacted with astonishing speed.

Every one of them jumped up.

They were all cultivators in disguise.

Taishu Guang was already leading the charge through the air.

A group of the disguised soldiers leapt up to block him.

Brilliant light visible to cultivator's sight exploded around Taishu Guang.

A Heavenly Sword Talisman activated.

Boom!

A Heavenly Sword astral image smashed the defenders aside and blasted the isolated tent to pieces.

But there was no one inside.

"AAAH!"

Taishu Guang roared.

His voice was filled with grief and fury.

The Heavenly Sword astral images hammered the desert below in a wild barrage.

The men behind him, relying on the power of their own Heavenly Sword Talismans, crashed into the surrounding cultivators and fought fiercely.

After the twelve Heavenly Sword astral images of his talisman were exhausted, Taishu Guang shouted, "Leave!"

The sneak attack had failed.

That meant the opportunity was gone.

The Heavenly Sword Talismans in their hands were not limitless.

If they continued fighting while surrounded, every one of them would die here.

Once the first strike failed, they had to break away immediately.

One man activated another Heavenly Sword Talisman to open the road.

The others followed him out.

Under the moonlight, Yucang stood atop a dune with a cold expression.

He raised one hand and waved.

Ten cultivators behind him shot into the air.

Every one of them carried a Heavenly Mechanism Aura-Breaking Bow.

They immediately gave chase.

During the battle at Xiping Pass, Xiaoyue Pavilion's stock of Heavenly Mechanism Aura-Breaking Arrows had been almost completely exhausted.

But a small emergency reserve had remained at the central headquarters.

The power of Heavenly Sword Talismans was indeed something very few people could withstand.

Even after breaking into the heart of the army camp, five of the assassins still managed to escape alive.

What followed became an aerial chase.

Cultivators mounted flying beasts and pursued one another across the night sky.

Jin's men forced their way through the army's aerial patrol zone, where their own people moved in to receive them and help them break out.

During the fighting, Taishu Guang reached behind his waist and yanked something free.

Under the moonlight, three tiny ox-hair needles gleamed with a sinister blue sheen.

They were the handiwork of Heavenly Mechanism Aura-Breaking Arrows after those arrows had pierced his protective astral qi.

The needles were highly poisonous.

"Quick! To Boundless Pavilion!" Taishu Guang cried urgently.

The pursuers were eventually shaken off.

More accurately, Qin's side chased them for a distance and then stopped.

Do not pursue a cornered enemy.

After checking how many Heavenly Sword Talismans remained among them, they found only two.

Taishu Guang turned and looked back.

Grief spread across his face.

They had expended eighteen Heavenly Sword Talismans.

Only five men had escaped alive.

And every one of those five had been struck by a Heavenly Mechanism Aura-Breaking Arrow.

The losses were catastrophic.

Most infuriating of all, after paying such a price, they had not even seen the target's shadow.

Leaving aside their losses, after this failure Taishu Guang truly could not imagine any other way to assassinate the target from inside Qin's army.

Jin's intention was already clear.

Before Qin's entire army had crossed into Qi, he could see almost no possibility of succeeding.

...

To think assassins had penetrated all the way into the central region of the army camp.

Yucang was furious.

He ordered Luo Zhao to investigate thoroughly and reorganize the army's security.

Luo Zhao could see the uncertainty in Yucang's eyes.

The old man seemed almost to suspect Luo Zhao had deliberately allowed the attack as a way to settle a personal grudge.

That was absolutely not the case.

But there was no need to explain it.

Luo Zhao could only swallow the bitterness.

That night, the entire army was thrown into alarm.

The exhausted soldiers from top to bottom received little rest.

But at dawn, they still had to continue their march.

Remaining in place to roast beneath the desert sun was not an option.

After daybreak, great numbers of sand scorpions were summoned once more.

Among them appeared a terrifying colossus that immediately drew every eye within sight.

The Scorpion Emperor.

Yuan Gang had summoned the Scorpion Emperor!

Yuan Gang climbed a dune.

The head of the mountain-sized Scorpion Emperor moved close.

Yuan Gang reached out and pressed one hand against its armored skull.

Emotion appeared in his eyes.

This Scorpion Emperor had once saved his life.

The rising sun cast everything into sharp relief.

One man and one monster seemed to communicate in silence.

When Yuan Gang first summoned the Scorpion Emperor years ago, he had not known how to distinguish different kinds of communication.

By now, he possessed much greater control over his own ability.

He had therefore avoided summoning the Scorpion Emperor casually.

Only after the assassination attempt the previous night had he called it out again.

Yucang and the others stared in wonder.

Luo Zhao's expression as he watched was extraordinarily complicated.

The army set out once more.

There was ample room atop the Scorpion Emperor's broad back, so several people climbed aboard with Yuan Gang.

The Scorpion Emperor carried them among the countless other sand scorpions at a steady pace.

If it had truly unleashed its speed, it would certainly have left every ordinary sand scorpion far behind.

Near noon, another pair of unusual visitors appeared in the sky.

Once again they displayed a Misty Pavilion token, forcing the aerial patrols to let them through.

Once again, they lowered their flying mount and circled closer.

The previous visitors had been two men.

This time, they were two women.

The earlier pair had been Wu Chang and Hei Shi.

They had descended to a lower altitude because of Yuan Gang.

This time, the one arriving in person was Lü Wushuang, accompanied by her disciple Hua Meiru.

And the reason they lowered themselves was the enormous creature moving among the sand scorpions below.

Once they had come low enough to see clearly, Lü Wushuang slowly said, "It is that Scorpion Emperor that hides in the desert and rarely shows itself."

Hua Meiru said, "At that size, it should be."

"Master, that red-faced man with the great saber on his back should be Yuan Gang."

Lü Wushuang said, "This Scorpion Emperor is useful to me."

"Go tell them to leave it behind for me."

"This..." Hua Meiru hesitated.

"Master, would doing that risk being seen as violating the agreement among the Nine Saints?"

"Since Yuan Gang can summon the Scorpion Emperor, why not wait until Qin's troop transport is complete and then have him summon it again?"

Lü Wushuang said, "By then, who knows whose hands this Scorpion Emperor will fall into?"

"Since I came across it, it's mine."

"What difference can one missing Scorpion Emperor make?"

"Go."

"Yes!"

Hua Meiru flew down directly.

She landed on the Scorpion Emperor's back.

The moment she appeared, without saying a word, she flipped one hand and displayed a Misty Pavilion command token.

Yucang and the others immediately cupped their hands respectfully.

"Greetings, Envoy!"

Yuan Gang merely glanced back once.

Then he turned his head forward again, acting as though the matter had nothing to do with him and pretending to be busy directing the Scorpion Emperor.

But Hua Meiru had come specifically for him.

She turned and called, "Big Red-Face! Misty Pavilion is requisitioning this Scorpion Emperor!"

[End of Chapter 1279]