Book 6: Chapter 31: Hidden Battle

“It was military ration packaging!” Long Feng picked up a small piece of “silver foil” from the rock crevice. This packaging was actually made from plant starch and could be eaten. Of course, if someone had enough food, they usually wouldn’t eat the wrapper because it wasn’t very clean.

“That Apostle must have stayed here; our search direction isn’t wrong!” Long Feng said excitedly. “Hmm, what are you still looking for?”

“His waste!” Qin Ba said without changing his expression. “The canvas bag he carried was shattered by my shot. Even if he still had some food hidden, it wouldn’t be much. He must be controlling his eating carefully. By checking the concentration of his waste, we can figure out how many more days he can last… Hmph, what’s with that look on your face! Staying stuck like this with him won’t work. If we know when he’ll start hunting again, we can wait for him at our ease. Help me search around; it should be under some piles of rocks…”

Upon hearing his companion’s words, Long Feng frowned with a disgusted look on his face. Reluctantly, he used his sword sheath to flip over stones in the ruins.

Qin Ba watched his companion’s movements. A sharp light flashed in his single eye, and he couldn’t help opening his mouth. But before he could speak, his face suddenly changed.

“Watch out…”

Long Feng was using his sword sheath to push aside a broken rock in the ruins. After moving it, he saw a dark lump underneath. The swordsman felt instinctively disgusted looking at this unknown object and instinctively turned his head away.

Then, he heard his companion’s warning.

Watch out? Watch out for what? Long Feng was confused. Before he could understand, a figure flashed in front of him. The one-eyed sniper standing beside him pushed him down hard.

“Boom!” Just as the two were in the middle of falling, the air where Long Feng had just pushed aside the rock suddenly expanded and contracted. A blinding flash of light appeared, followed by a huge explosion. The area where they stood was instantly shrouded in thick, pungent smoke.

“Cough, cough… What was that?”

A few seconds later, Long Feng’s angry voice emerged from the smoke.

“It was a booby trap! After that Apostle carried out the massacre in the fortress warehouse, he must have also taken some weapons and ammunition from the Atlanteans!” Qin Ba waved away the dense smoke in front of him, patted his knees, and stood up.

“Long Feng, don’t be too careless. This Apostle is good at reading people’s minds. Apostles who aren’t originally from the military easily fall for such sneaky traps! Although this method is low-class and can’t hurt us Class Change Apostles, it’s very effective at wearing down our passive Protection methods!”

The two slowly walked out of the smoky haze. Although they weren’t injured, their messy clothes showed they had suffered quite a bit in that “ambush.”

“Qin Ba, you’re right. Dragging this out isn’t the way; we should split up!” Long Feng said with a dark expression. “I’ll follow the direction you sensed earlier and track him. You wait for my signal before coming over!”

“Mm!” The one-eyed man nodded expressionlessly.

Long Feng’s face was stiff. He flicked the front of his Hanfu robe, tapped the ground with his toe, and flew forward. But as the swordsman passed by his companion, he subtly winked and secretly made a prearranged hand signal to Qin Ba.

A hint of hesitation, barely noticeable, flashed in the sniper’s single eye. But it lasted only a moment before his expression returned to calm. With a flick of his finger, a nano-crystal bullet was slipped into Long Feng’s palm.

Long Feng and Qin Ba were both Novice Apostles from the Sword Nation. Their Apostle teams had cooperated several times before, so they were relatively familiar Apostles from the same faction. Although their relationship wasn’t very close, finding a familiar Apostle with complementary skills in this region was quite rare.

At the start of the Domination War, the two had agreed on a method of contact. The Domination War zone blocked Apostles’ communication channels. Since most people fought alone, few would spend resources on Apostle communication gear. Therefore, Long Feng and Qin Ba had to use a special method, coming up with a simple contact plan.

This method was based on Qin Ba’s ability to track nano-crystal bugs. Long Feng would carry a crystal bullet as bait, and the sniper would use his tracking of the nano-crystal bugs to quickly provide support, hiding in the shadows to deliver a fatal strike on the enemy.

Although simple, for Domination War Apostles lacking communication equipment, this was a good method.

Of course, this method had several risks. One was the lack of two-way communication. Qin Ba could track Long Feng, but Long Feng couldn’t find Qin Ba. Moreover, the swordsman served as bait to engage the enemy up front. If the sniper had other ideas, Long Feng would be in great danger.

Watching his companion’s back gradually disappear into the edge of the ruins, the sniper’s single eye flashed with a cold gleam. In a flicker, he vanished behind a broken wall.

…

Half an hour later, Qin Lun appeared two kilometers southeast of the earlier ruins.

“We’re here; this is the place!” Qin Lun looked around. In his pupils, three glowing needles quivered slightly.

The spot he stopped at was a relatively open Parking Lot. The Atlanteans’ body sizes were similar to Earth humans, though they were a bit taller on average. No intact cars remained in this Parking Lot; the wheels and electronic panels were already destroyed or removed, leaving only about a dozen piles of metal scrap.

After glancing around, Qin Lun moved swiftly, tossing several dark booby traps into the piles of metal scrap. This time, he didn’t set up traps carefully but just threw them randomly. He even disabled the fuses on some of the traps.

After doing all this, Qin Lun slipped behind a pile of scrap metal, closed his eyes to rest, and quietly waited for his opponent to arrive.

He didn’t know what the opponent had done to the bullet that hit him, but he believed it would be hard to truly escape that sniper’s tracking. So, a fight between them was inevitable. The only thing he could do was try to create a relatively fair dueling ground for both sides.

Qin Lun had spent some time with Hansen and had some understanding of Apostles who came from a military background. Although they originally came from disciplined forces, after becoming Apostles, they actually preferred fighting alone.

The reason was that other Apostles had trouble keeping up with their pace, often needing them to clean up messes. Moreover, compared to ordinary Apostles, this type had a stronger competitive streak and enjoyed accepting dangerous duel challenges.

The booby trap Qin Lun set earlier for Long Feng and Qin Ba was actually a scout signal that Hansen had once taught him—a signal for a one-on-one duel! Of course, the duel wasn’t with Long Feng, but with Qin Ba, the sniper.

In Long Feng’s eyes, Qin Lun was skilled with daggers and magic. If he fought the one-eyed man one-on-one, Qin Ba, as a sniper, would be at a big disadvantage.

However, Qin Ba himself would never think that. Snipers often went deep behind enemy lines to eliminate targets amidst thousands of soldiers. How could someone like that be afraid of a one-on-one fight?

As long as Qin Ba had bullets and his sniper rifle, he feared no one. That was the confidence of a top sniper.

Therefore, after a brief moment of thought, the one-eyed sniper immediately accepted this challenge. He sent Long Feng in another direction and went alone to the meeting, trailing Qin Lun to this Parking Lot.

…

“Has he come? Even with the Detection Aura enhanced by Heavenly Insight Eye, I still can’t find him!” As time passed, cold sweat dripped more heavily from Qin Lun’s forehead. None of the randomly placed booby traps had been triggered. Aside from the sound of wind whistling through the car scrap, there were no other noises.

Heavenly Insight Eye could form images on the retina. Originally, once Qin Lun fully activated Clock Eye, combined with the Time-Space Threads formed by Perception and the Detection Aura, he could see through the entire area—even insects crawling on the ground were visible.

However, Qin Lun’s periodic scans failed to locate the enemy.

The only suspicious things were a few vague dark shadows inside some of the thicker piles of scrap metal in the Parking Lot. The Detection Aura couldn’t sense any life from these shadows, and Heavenly Insight Eye showed they were just car wreckage.

“Which one is it? Or are they all decoys? Maybe he hasn’t even arrived yet, and those shadows are just me being paranoid!”

“Gulp!” Qin Lun swallowed softly and leaned forward from behind the car scrap, wanting to peek out. But he quickly froze, sat back down, and broke out in a dense cold sweat.

“He must be here already; otherwise, I wouldn’t feel this oppressive atmosphere!” Qin Lun shifted his body slightly. Having sat for so long, a puddle in the shape of his buttocks was left on the ground.

“The longer this goes on, the more certain he can be of my position… Should I change my hiding spot? No, that won’t work. In Gerthard’s leftover memories, many of his opponents were killed because they switched hiding places!”

Qin Lun’s face was pale. He suddenly felt that proposing this kind of duel challenge wasn’t a good idea after all. He wasn’t that Captain Gerthard from the German Army.

“Use the remaining earth-based defense scroll to take one of his shots head-on, then close in for melee…” Qin Lun’s thoughts raced, but he quickly dismissed this idea again. “No, I have a feeling that if I do that, I’ll definitely die!”

“Use the Shadow Cloak? A seventh-tier Shadow Cloak can’t even be detected by Clock Eye’s Perception threads; he shouldn’t be able to see through it either.” Qin Lun reached into his clothes, rubbing the pattern on the Shadow Cloak scroll. “No, that won’t work. The Shadow Cloak only lasts about ten seconds. If I can’t find his position during that time, I won’t even be able to run later!”

“It’s almost dark…” Staring at the sky outside the Parking Lot, Qin Lun felt a chill in his heart. “Am I going to die here?”