That's It?

Keli's response was cold-blooded, and the person on the other end cursed viciously in fury. Yet right after, Wu Yan'er let out another sigh. "Fine, then wait for half an hour first." Fighting the Guizu was real warfare, leaving no room for softheartedness. He could get angry, but Keli's reaction was the right one. A lone knight tasked with scouting had no business getting embroiled in such a battle to begin with. That he had fired a signal flare to establish contact and intended to cover them meant he had already fulfilled his duty. Even so, he was indeed somewhat despairing. "If we can't break through, cover as many of us as you can. At the very least, bring the intelligence back!" "Mm," Keli gave a low grunt, though his face bore a hint of disdain—*You have intelligence, but you can't say it now, is that it?* Still, it was understandable. Who didn't look out for themselves? Besides, some information might not be suitable for him to relay. Then he glanced at Aoliwen, who was lagging behind, his eyes chillingly cold: *You had better only be thinking about protecting our rear!* About ten minutes later, a figure appeared on the distant ridge, looking as if he had been tossed up there, stumbling slightly upon landing. Only then did everyone realize that he was actually carrying someone on his back. That person swept his gaze around, spotted them, and waved frantically. "Over here! Over here!" Instructor Keli raised a hand and waved back. "Come over yourselves!" A horse could run itself to death trying to reach what seemed a close mountain. The distance between the two sides appeared short, but with the divide between two mountain peaks, the difficulty of crossing needed no elaboration. Right after, two more people rushed up, followed by a fourth... What they were fighting were invisible entities—at most, some faint, looming gray mists. "True Guizu," Keli's expression grew solemn. "Ready your ghost-vanquishing bullets!" Shadows flickered once more, and in the end, over a dozen figures charged onto the ridge. Apart from the one being carried, there were three whose legs and feet were injured, having basically lost their fighting capacity. One could roughly sense that there were three knights on the opposite side, while the rest were apprentice knights. A team of this strength was not considered weak around Suotu Town right now, so it was a wonder how they had provoked true Guizu. Seeing Instructor Keli standing on the other peak, they summoned their courage and charged in this direction. Even as they ran, they had to fight off the invisible Guizu, stumbling and faltering without any ease. Though reinforcements were just a short distance away, these people grew all the more panicked, and fresh blood inexplicably splattered from some of them. "Send two students to cover us!" someone cried out loudly for help. There were no paths in the mountains to begin with, only weeds and thickets, not to mention that some of them were wounded. Keli ignored the shout, merely glancing at Wu Youren and Qigeli. "Which of you two wants to go?" The Jin youth made no sound, whereas the latter spoke up. "My strength is limited." "Even if your strength were high, you would still need caution," Instructor Keli remarked offhandedly. "The situation is unclear right now." Truly mentor and disciple; battlefield common sense was imparted at every turn. As those people began charging down into the valley, wisps of gray mist separated and drifted toward Instructor Keli's direction. "Prepare for battle," the instructor said unhurriedly, glancing at the Jin youth again. "Whatever tricks you've got, bring them out." Hearing that, Qigeli couldn't help chiming in, "Xiao Wu, you actually have tricks up your sleeve?" "The instructor thinks too highly of me," Wu Youren said as he drew his pistol and assumed an aiming stance. All four raised their guns, though Aoliwen aimed down the mountain toward their rear. Keli judged the distance, and after ten-odd seconds, commanded, "Fire!" The next moment, he and Qigeli fired together. Both used ghost-vanquishing bullets, and as the gunshots rang out, faint, agonizing wails drifted over. Wu Youren was still sweeping his aim back and forth, as if unsure of his target. Qigeli grew a little anxious. "Why haven't you fired yet?" The instructor even lent you a gun, and you don't know how to lay down covering fire? Wu Youren hesitated before answering, "When you two reload, someone needs to maintain the deterrent, right?" This was his guess, drawn from knowledge before his transmigration; he didn't know whether it applied here. "Heh," Keli gave a low grunt at those words and said no more, though he was privately puzzled. An underage hostage actually understood the role of fire deterrence. The people of Jin... weren't all useless after all! "But we don't know the Guizu situation right now!" Qigeli said, somewhat panicked. "What if more and more show up as we fight?" "If you don't know how to speak, you can shut up!" Keli snapped, unable to take it. "Can't you hope for something good?" He didn't think Wu Youren was necessarily right and his own student definitely wrong. Yet when everyone already knew the Guizu situation was unclear, wasn't it only normal to keep something in reserve? The four of them were very close to the highway. If they were outmatched, they could unleash a heavy volley and make a run for it. Overall, he considered the Jin youth's response more reasonable, but he would never say anything that boosted someone else's prestige at his student's expense. Qigeli's pistol had an average rate of fire and limited range, while Instructor Keli's repeater boasted immense power and a high rate of fire. Rapid gunshots rang out accompanied by flares of red light, enough to prove their ammunition was plentiful. The Guizu ahead clearly possessed intellect as well; their pressing momentum visibly slowed. The support from two guns greatly reduced the pressure on that Martial Academy team, visibly speeding up their retreat. Even so, the situation grew increasingly chaotic. Wu Youren couldn't help shaking his head inwardly: *That's it?* He truly couldn't fathom how, with the fighting spirit of these Liang martial artists and their tactical coordination, they could have defeated Jin. A period of observation confirmed another hypothesis: Guizu killed by others yielded approximately zero experience points for him. It wasn't none at all; the gray mists he focused on for longer could still give him a slight increase. *So these experience points... are related to my own perception ability?* Right as he was pondering, Keli suddenly spoke up. "Get ready, I'm reloading!" The moment he ceased firing, Wu Youren opened fire—unhurried, with no apparent intention of laying down suppressing fire. Yet the Jin youth's cadence was exceptionally well controlled, firing about once every two seconds, steady as a metronome! After every gunshot, an agonizing wail inevitably rang out. Among them, two shots were fired in succession into completely empty air. That was precisely where the strangeness lay: clearly not a trace of gray mist had been there, yet wails of agony still echoed out. "All right, my turn," Instructor Keli said, having reloaded his magazine. "You kid, your perception really is something!" He could somewhat sense a few concealed Guizu, but even he himself was never entirely sure. Yet this Jin youth was completely unhurried and actually dared to shoot into open space—using ghost-vanquishing bullets, no less! What mattered most was... it actually worked! This perceptual ability alone was no longer at the level of an apprentice knight; even an ordinary knight might not be capable of it. What surprised him even more was the youth's unflappable composure, which thoroughly deserved the phrase "steady as a rock." "Mm," Wu Youren gave a soft grunt and stopped firing, swinging open the cylinder to reload. In this round of shooting, he had earned experience points again, though unfortunately, the gains didn't feel particularly substantial. "Whew, made it at last!" Someone finally let out a long breath. It was a relatively stout knight. In a team of over a dozen people with three knights in total, he had charged at the very front, his movements surprisingly agile. "Stay right there!" Keli grunted, speaking flatly. "Come any closer, and I won't be polite!" "Cut the crap, Keli!" the stout knight snapped in dissatisfaction, his body still lunging forward. "We..." With a bang, the dirt beneath the man's feet blasted open. With a twist of his body, the man made an eerily sharp sidestep and stared forward in shock. "You!" "Anyone who won't follow my orders can find their own way out!" Keli looked at him calmly, his eyes filled with nothing but indifference. "Enough," the second knight arrived, face pale, the right side of his body soaked in blood. "Can we retreat down the mountain together?" "The vehicle is mine!" Keli stated calmly. "The wounded may ride. Everyone else runs behind!" "I need to rest!" the second knight couldn't accept it. "I'm the one who fought with everything to cover their breakout!" Of the three knights, he was the most heavily injured, so he indeed had reason to say so. "None of my concern," Keli said, frightfully cold and collected, still firing at the Guizu as he spoke. "If you won't accept that, we're leaving... At the very least, we covered you until you reached the highway." They were still several hundred meters from the highway, but it was just a downward sprint. Once on the road, escaping would be much easier. "All right, we accept!" the third knight spoke up. "Don't argue with Keli—he's famously rigid!" The group retreated to the highway. The four heavily wounded boarded the vehicle, along with two of the lightly wounded. Except for Qigeli, who kept driving, Keli, Wu Youren, and Aoliwen ran flat out alongside the vehicle. Moving forward was impossible now; everyone retreated in the direction they had come from. Behind them, a vast patch of looming gray mist pursued them relentlessly. Guizu moved rapidly and were by no means slow on flat ground. Humans had greater body weight, which severely hindered their movement in mountainous terrain, but on flat ground, that disadvantage was far smaller. Crucially, the wounded were all loaded into the vehicle, so even if Guizu flanked them from ahead, the knights could still mount a charge. Among the three knights, the one running the fastest was Wu Yan'er, who showed open displeasure at Keli's limited rescue. It was rather the second, wounded knight who felt fortunate just to be rescued, and he recounted their general situation. Their team had also taken on a scouting mission—except, unlike Keli, theirs was a compulsory mission. As they were nearing Suotu Town, they ran into another team led by a grand knight, who partitioned and assigned specific scouting areas. Since it was a thorough search, they couldn't just linger near the highway; they had to push deep into the mountains. A few nights ago, they lost contact with the convoy waiting back on the highway, and then ran into the Guizu. They killed at least four knight-level Guizu, but there were simply too many low-level Guizu, so they had no choice but to fight while fleeing. And most unfortunately, they got lost in the mountains.