With a knight's cultivation, getting lost was generally unlikely; at most, one might temporarily lose their bearings. Moreover, near the capital region, there were no exceptionally massive mountains. However, they had previously been fleeing while fighting, so losing their way was only natural.
The other spoke in miserable tones, but Keli had no choice but to ask, "Did you discover any valuable leads?"
"That's... hard to say," the other replied. "Something huge might be about to happen in Suotu."
Firing his gun while pondering, Keli spoke up, "A grand knight can't resolve it?"
As far as he knew, the Martial Academy had already dispatched two grand knights; sending any more would require mobilizing an army.
"Even a Divine Might Knight..." The wounded knight hesitated, stopping himself. Some news truly could not be spread carelessly.
Hearing this, Keli raised an eyebrow. "Dispatched?"
"I wish that were the case, but probably not," the knight answered. "It's just that the scale of things feels like it's almost reached that level."
While the two chatted, amidst a lull in the gunfire, a sudden splattering, crackling sound rang out.
Everyone turned to look. It was one of the three apprentice knights Keli had brought along, rubbing his stomach with an expression of agony. Yet he did not dare stop his pace, merely grimacing and staggering in a wild sprint.
As he ran, lumps of yellowish-brown matter dropped out from the bottom of his pant legs.
"Holy fuck!" Seeing this, an apprentice knight with an injured arm couldn't help but curse loudly. "How the fuck can you have so little courage?!"
It was not strange for someone to be naturally timid, but to be frightened into incontinence—how the fuck could that count as a martial artist?
"I... I have the runs!" Aoliwen grimaced, sucking in cold breaths as he answered in ragged gasps. "I've been holding it in the whole way!"
Earlier, he had suspected all along that his diarrhea might have come from inhaling some foul substance while lying on the ground outside the Jin youth's quarters. Yet it had clearly improved a bit today, and now it had started up again; he truly could not hold it in.
Fortunately, it didn't hinder his running in the least, though turning around to fire back was out of the question. He had even shoved his gun back into the holster at his waist.
"Honestly..." Wu Yan'er frowned as well. "What kind of people did you bring along?!"
Unfazed, Keli continued to return fire and retreat in an orderly fashion. To a veteran knight of many battles, things like severed entrails and excrement were common sights on the battlefield. Still, the fellow's inability to hold up made a wave of displeasure rise within him: *Is this all he's made of?*
After running a while longer, Aoliwen truly couldn't run anymore. Even a hero couldn't withstand three bouts of the runs; his legs went limp and weak. He stumbled violently, then forced himself to keep going, but his body began swaying. "Instructor Keli, I want to get in the car!"
"Not allowed!" the wounded knight said coldly. "Even I'm not in the car!"
Incontinence was filthy indeed, but in the face of life and death, that was not the point.
Wu Yan'er snorted coldly as well. "You're fucking covered in bodily toxins, and the vehicle is full of wounded!"
"Bodily toxins" referred to excrement; feces could cause fatal damage to open wounds, a truth understood even by ordinary people.
"I... I really can't go on," Aoliwen pleaded, his strength draining rapidly and severely.
His brows knit tight, and he even reached to draw the handgun at his waist, intending to gun down the two wounded in the vehicle. Yet seeing the predatory gazes of the four knights glaring at him, he controlled his impulse after all.
"Hmph." Keli let out a cold grunt. Filthy scum harboring such petty thoughts weren't entirely unfamiliar to him on the battlefield. Most people had the vicious intent but lacked the guts; once you showed vigilance, they lost their nerve.
Running alongside the off-road vehicle, he grabbed a backpack and tossed it out—it was Aoliwen's. "Every man for himself!"
Logically, he could have slung the cadet over his shoulder and kept running, but putting aside the filth, he hated that look in the cadet's eyes alone. No one was willing to rescue an unstable variable! By throwing the cadet his backpack, Keli had already fulfilled his obligations as an instructor.
"Instructor..." Aoliwen wailed, but his footing faltered, and the distance between him and the others widened rapidly!
Rounding the base of a hill, his silhouette vanished from view.
"The kind of recruits you bring along..." Wu Yan'er was just about to comment when his eyes snapped wide, and he opened fire toward the front of the off-road vehicle. "Damn it, they're blocking us again!"
Keli had no attention to spare for Aoliwen. His brow furrowed slightly. "How much fucking longer do we have to run?"
"You brought plenty of ammunition, right?" the wounded knight asked, knowing Keli had just left the Martial Academy.
*But that all costs money!* Keli was thoroughly speechless. Crucially, the main purpose of gunfire was merely to keep the Guizu from closing in. For someone with knight-level cultivation, achieving effective lethal force still required close combat!
He grunted coldly. "My stamina is plenty sufficient too!"
"But we're at our limit!" the wounded knight gritted out. "We've been fighting off and on for two days straight!"
This was the true reason they were in such dire straits. Even though everyone around them was at least an apprentice knight, they genuinely couldn't hold out!
Wu Yan'er actually chimed in, "If you want to harvest Guizu remains, go right ahead! We can back you up!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Keli couldn't hold back his fury. "I come to rescue you bastards, and now I'm in the wrong?"
"Indeed," Wu Youren chimed in. "We even lost a companion."
His brow was knit tight, looking for all the world as though he were barely holding back profound grief.
*You... are shameless enough!* Keli cast him a sidelong glance, too exasperated to say more.
"Wait, someone caught up!" someone shouted as a figure appeared behind them.
It looked to be Aoliwen, carrying his large backpack, staggering along as he ran at a surprisingly brisk pace.
Instructor Keli reflexively glanced at Wu Youren, only to find the Jin youth completely expressionless.
The wounded knight snorted coldly instead. "Be careful! There are hallucinatory Guizu—we encountered one before!"
As Aoliwen ran, he waved toward the group, shouting frantically, "Wait! Wait for me!"
The rarely speaking third knight raised his gun and fired a single shot, striking Aoliwen dead center. The round used was none other than a ghost-vanquishing bullet.
Aoliwen let out a wail. After the burst of fire, he lay flat on his back on the ground, limbs still twitching.
"Infiltrated by Guizu aura," the man stated impassively. "An apprentice knight... couldn't endure a ghost-vanquishing bullet?"
Ghost-vanquishing bullets were primarily designed against the Guizu; while they could harm ordinary humans, they were generally non-lethal. However, whether this cadet had truly been infiltrated by Guizu aura or was simply so drained from diarrhea that he had no strength left... was hard to say.
Yet among the martial artists present, no one would question him. Wu Youren and Qigeli wouldn't, and the third knight's own companions certainly wouldn't.
Instead, Keli merely remarked, "You write the report on this guy. I'll just sign it."
"No problem," the man replied nonchalantly. After a thought, he added, "Whose kid was he?"
When battling the Guizu, it was completely normal for the Martial Academy to lose a student, unless the student was the child of some big shot.
"An ordinary student's life is still a life," Keli replied flatly.
"Tch, everyone's life is a life," the man answered casually. "Didn't you see? Wasn't Guizu aura swarming him?"
*Was it?* Wu Youren ran calmly; he genuinely hadn't noticed that.
*Oh, an instructor said so? Then never mind!*
Keli, however, glanced at him again. "What do you think?"
Hearing this, the other three instructors all turned their heads toward him in unison—*You're asking this student?*
"I felt something was off too," Wu Youren nodded. Even if Aoliwen hadn't been infiltrated by Guizu aura, he had to have been now.
The instructor who fired sneered, "You're not even as sharp as a kid!"
"None of your fucking business!" Keli grunted coldly.
In truth, his relationship with this man wasn't bad; this was the very person who had called him rigid right from the start.
"Another twenty kilometers and we're out of the mountains," the man said. "When that time comes, we can try to make a dash for it. Satisfied?"
"Like hell I'm satisfied," Keli retorted, still harboring some resentment. "We just set out on our mission, and we've burned through this much and lost a person already!"
The loss was an objective fact, but rescuing colleagues also earned merit points.
"You people harvested so many Guizu spoils, while I haven't gotten a single copper... It's suffocating!"
"Bullshit!" Wu Yan'er couldn't take it anymore. "Who said we harvested so much?"
"Defensive, aren't we?" Keli sneered. "If you didn't get any spoils, why would these Guizu be chasing you relentlessly?"
"Keli, we truly don't," the wounded instructor said solemnly. "Stop muddying the waters!"
"Tch," Keli scoffed and fell silent.
The instructor who had fired knew his temperament. "Whatever ghost-vanquishing bullets you spent, I'll reimburse you later. Double!"
Returning fire while retreating in this manner, the group unknowingly made it out of the mountains.
The reason they had been so battered earlier was mainly that they had been trapped in the mountains; that kind of complex terrain was very unfriendly to martial artists. Retreating along the main road, the knights maintained an orderly rhythm of advance and withdrawal, aided by the vehicle, making the difficulty far lower.
Outside the mountains, the sun blazed high and bright, and the Guizu did not pursue further.
Running for over another kilometer, the group finally halted. No matter what, they had to take a breather and regroup.
To say nothing of those who had fought continuously for two days and nights, even Wu Youren, who had merely run alongside them the whole way, was somewhat out of breath. That those apprentice knights had actually managed to keep pace with the main group could only be attributed to the remarkable potential of the human body.
The summer sun was a bit too scorching. Qigeli retrieved a folding parasol from the vehicle and propped it up on the ground.
Resting under tree shade was actually somewhat unsafe; those in the know knew why. However, the parasol was only two meters in diameter, with three people being the absolute maximum it could shade.
The instructor who had fired walked over. "Rest until evening, how about it?"
"No," Keli flatly refused. "Now that I've brought you this far, I've completed the rescue. Hurry up and contact the Martial Academy!"
Hearing this, the knight looked astonished. "You're still going to Suotu?"
Having already achieved the merit of rescuing colleagues, a relatively minor mission was truly optional.
"Whether I go or not is my business," Keli stated bluntly. "Lao Liu, don't think you can use this chance to hold me hostage!"
"I've got no such thoughts," Lao Liu shook his head, casting a sidelong glance at Wu Youren. "This little fellow must have something about him, right?"
"I'm not too clear either," Keli answered vaguely. "What exactly are you trying to say?"
"Your sword... is a little rusty!" Lao Liu said something cryptic.
The next moment, both drew their bladed weapons in unison, locking onto the people resting in the tree shade not far away.
Chapter 48