Chapter Seventy-Six: Take Action!

As soon as the steam whistle sounded, Tan Hai and the others, who were lightly asleep, opened their eyes and, groping for their military sabers, sat up quickly in their beds. This caution was thanks to Chang Sui'an's reminder that same morning, urging them to stay alert while out on assignments, so their sleep was shallow and broken.

"Let's go," said Du Huaishan, tucking his books into his rucksack and, grasping it in one hand, leapt down from the carriage first.

This was indeed the main city platform—vastly larger than the one at the military settlement. Stretching from afar, rows of concrete platforms sheltered with iron roofs stood side by side. On some of them, quite a few travelers waited for connecting trains, making the place as lively as Fenghou City itself.

"Whoa! Yanshun is colder than our place!" Guo Tingyu pulled his cotton armor tighter. Now that winter snow had melted into spring, their uniforms had long since been changed for lighter clothes.

"Yanshun is further north, and it's the middle of the night—of course it's colder," Wu Ming replied, unfazed.

"So where's the veteran supposed to meet us? Didn't the military order say the 57th Brigade would send someone to rendezvous with us?" Li Anqi looked left and right, but aside from the soldiers on duty, there were no other military men on the platform.

Du Huaishan was about to show the military order to a soldier when, in the distance, a shadowy figure hurriedly ran beneath a searchlight.

"Ha... Are you the 173rd training soldiers assigned to investigate Baiweng Mountain?" The man who approached wore dusty yellow cotton armor, stood nearly a head taller than Du Huaishan—close to a meter ninety—with a bushy beard and sand-colored heterochromatic eyes, his appearance intimidating.

Du Huaishan nodded and produced the military order. As the stranger reached for it, Du Huaishan quickly pulled it back and asked, "You're from the 1st Battalion of the 57th Brigade?"

"That's right." The bearded veteran squinted, undid his armor's fastenings, and revealed his unit insignia: the numbers 5-7-1 embroidered in black thread.

Only then did Du Huaishan hand over the order.

"I'm Pei Qingfeng, a member of the 2nd Recon Squad, Insertion Company, 571st Battalion. Just call me Old Pei. Follow me," he said, checking the order as he beckoned the trainees along.

"The Baiweng Mountain region is getting stranger by the day. Our commander Ma held a mobilization meeting this afternoon, and our squad leader is still at camp. I was ordered to rush over, so I'm a bit late—hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," several trainees replied at once. After all, they'd need these veterans to guide them through the upcoming mission—making a good impression was only natural.

Pei Qingfeng, not one for many words, kept checking the order as he led them off the platform and west into a narrow alley.

As the largest main city in eastern Jiu, and situated near the Nippon Empire, this city was quite developed. Even though it was already deep into the night, the streetlights and shop signs glowed in every color. Occasionally, cars and rickshaws passed by, ferrying aristocrats in fur coats to and from gambling dens and opium houses.

If it were the military settlement city, the streets would have cleared out by ten at night. Many trainees like Tan Hai, who've spent their lives in the settlements, had never seen such scenes. Their eyes sparkled with curiosity and anticipation as they gazed at the colorful nightlife.

Suddenly, the wooden doors of a tavern swung open, and a man and woman stumbled out. The man, hair slicked back, small nose and eyes, wore a deep blue robe and carried a wine jug at his hip along with a sword. The woman was swathed in a loose pink gown. Arm in arm, they staggered down the street, singing and laughing in unintelligible words that Du Huaishan couldn't understand.

"They're Nipanese," Xing Zhenhao observed coldly.

"This way," Pei Qingfeng directed, leading them into another side alley.

Nipanese? For Du Huaishan, newly arrived in this strange world, this was the first time he'd seen foreigners. Although the Nipanese looked much the same as them, something about their clothes and bearing, or perhaps the environment, marked them as different—you could distinguish them from the Chiyu people at a glance.

The three provinces of Yingzhou bordered Nippon, and the Yingzhou army often bought equipment from their military. Relations were decent; Fenghou City even had a Nipanese concession, let alone a border city like Yanshun. So seeing a few Nipanese was hardly unusual.

They walked for over forty minutes, moving from the main city to the outskirts. Chen Jun began to lose patience. "Sir, how much further is it?"

"Almost there. It's just over that hill," Pei Qingfeng replied, pointing ahead.

Li Mingcheng muttered, "If they knew it was this far, they should've sent a troop transport." Indeed, after a long, bumpy journey and in the dark of night, everyone was exhausted and the road ahead was difficult.

Du Huaishan squinted, studying the hill and exchanging glances with Tan Hai, who, catching on, discreetly tapped Old Wu and Li Anqi. Li Anqi was about to ask what was wrong when she noticed the cautious glint in Tan Hai's small eyes. She wasn't foolish; she glanced at Du Huaishan and noticed he and Xu Yuan were already alertly surveying their surroundings.

Then, Du Huaishan began gesturing—at Tan Hai, Li Anqi, Lin Sizi, and then at Pei Qingfeng's back. The three nodded in understanding. Du Huaishan and Xu Yuan exchanged a look—her blue-gray pupils narrowed to a slit, as if she understood his intent.

The next moment, their hands silently moved to the hilts of their sabers.

"Ambush!" Suddenly, Tan Hai shouted, startling everyone.

"Ambush? Where?" "What? I don't see anything!"

The rest of the trainees stopped, forming a defensive circle, eyes wide with nerves. Up front, Pei Qingfeng froze at the shout, and in that instant—

Clang! Clang! Clang! Three blinding flashes. Tan Hai, Li Anqi, and Lin Sizi simultaneously entered their demon forms; three cold flashes of steel arced from left, center, and right, slashing toward Pei Qingfeng.

What—! The sudden turn shocked not only Pei Qingfeng but also Xing Zhenhao and the others. Xing quickly recovered: "This man's not right!" He summoned his wolf spirit—his body swelled, fur erupted over his skin, claws grew sharp, and saber in hand, he joined the fray.

Guo Tingyu was the second to charge in from the Seventh Training Squad. Facing attacks from all sides, Pei Qingfeng dared not hold back. Suddenly, a five-meter-tall, one-eyed black bull with massive horns crashed into his heart. Instantly, his body ballooned—black silk threads, like cocoons, wrapped him up, transforming his one-meter-ninety frame into a three-meter-tall giant of black muscle, crowned with terrifying horns.

"Roar—!" "Heavens! Is that a man or a monster?" Li Mingcheng, still rooted to the spot, was terrified.

"West side!" Xu Yuan suddenly shouted, activating her demonization and mobility cable in a flash of blue light, darting toward the distant western slope.

"Old Wu!" Du Huaishan roared, shrouded in black mist as he vanished after her.

"Watch this, Huaishan!" Wu Ming grinned, his hands flashing green as he raised his Ma rifle, aiming at the west where Xu Yuan had indicated—a burst of dazzling light exploded as he fired. The bullet struck a soldier's chest with a dull thud.

"Pan, watch out!" someone cried from among the enemy. The soldier, hit, looked up just in time to see, under the bright moonlight, a lithe figure descending from above, both hands gripping a blade, eyes as cold as death itself.

As his comrade cried out, a darker shadow swept in faster—a flash of cold steel as a sharp sword crashed against Xu Yuan's saber with the force of a tiger among sheep, the blow so fierce it nearly knocked her weapon from her grip. If not for a month of training with Du Huaishan, she would have lost her blade.

Under the bright moon, the black-armored figure stood eight feet tall, clad in glossy scale mail. His skin seemed sheathed in a dark blue carapace, and his face was hidden behind a bizarre violet-blue mask glowing with purple light, like a demon warrior from the depths of hell.

He flicked his sword, and with a sweep, a massive sphere of water materialized, engulfing Xu Yuan. It was hard to believe such a mass of water could appear on land—an awakened special ability! Xu Yuan immediately held her breath and swam outward, but her movement was sluggish in the water, and she was dragged down, unable to escape.

The black-armored figure seized the moment, sword flashing toward Xu Yuan's neck. But in that half-breath, a shadow slammed in—its wielder's spear, grasped with full force, waist twisting, muscles coiling, swept in a wide arc through the night, a massive black semicircle.

It was Du Huaishan! The Five Elements Spear of Xingyi—Side Strike!

Using the inertia of his cable, full power, and thirteen percent demonization, the hooked spearhead crackled with explosive force, breaking the sound barrier. The black-armored figure's eyes narrowed; he tried to parry with his sword, but—bang! Another bullet struck his armored forearm with a clear "ding." Normally, it would have only numbed his arm, but in this life-or-death struggle, it was deadly.

Du Huaishan's spear was about to sweep his neck. Suddenly, a surge of water, reeking of river mud, exploded around the black-armored figure, tossing Du Huaishan away as a towering wave crashed outward. The armored figure was propelled skyward by a high-pressure jet of water.

One above, one below—Du Huaishan had lost his footing, and anyone could guess what should come next—but he was Du Huaishan.

Boom! With a thunderous roar, the water was blasted into a hemispheric pit by a shockwave. Du Huaishan vanished from in front of the armored figure. As the latter looked around in shock, a rush of wind sounded behind his ears—finished!

At that instant—crack! The dusky spear crashed hard into the back of the armored figure's neck, sending him flying down like a severed kite from the jet of water.

Du Huaishan landed in a single leap, his cable latching onto the enemy's back and reeling in with a thud, dragging him to his feet—the hooked spear poised at his throat.

"Friendly!" At the last instant before the spear could pierce his neck, thirty shadows burst from the pass behind, shouting, "Friendly! We're the 2nd Recon Platoon, Insertion Company, 571st Battalion, sent to meet the 173rd live-action training soldiers!"

The speaker was a round-faced veteran with a square mustache.

"That’s what Pei Qingfeng said. Why should I believe you?" Du Huaishan was surprised to see forty-odd men emerge from the hillside—he'd thought them enemy agents or conspirators. But their numbers matched exactly an infantry platoon by Yingzhou Army standards.

"Your instructor’s name is Chang Sui'an. I trained with him," said the black-armored figure at Du Huaishan’s feet. "If I really wanted to kill you, few would’ve survived the first attack."

He looked up at the new recruit threatening him. Dressed in cotton armor, the lower skirt soaked brown, wielding a blue-green hooked spear, his bloodshot eyes glowed red, his skin dark, two devil’s horns wreathed in black mist—he looked more a hellish demon than the armored veteran himself.

At the same time, Xu Yuan hurried to Du Huaishan’s side, her clothes dripping wet but her eyes sharp as a hawk, back to back with him, wary of the forty soldiers. The armored figure realized at once—she had been drawing his attention so the man could strike. It was hard to believe that a trainee with only half a year’s practice could defeat a veteran who had mastered the second stage of demonization.

Incredible.

Du Huaishan weighed their chances and realized the armored figure was right. Only he, with Shadow Step, and Xu Yuan, with her agility, might escape—no one else could likely survive an ambush by twice their number of veterans.

"If you’re truly allies, why lure us into an ambush?" Du Huaishan demanded.

"Because I want to warn you off," the armored figure sighed. "The Baiweng Mountain incident isn’t something ordinary trainees can handle. This afternoon, just as your train arrived, our platoon leader, Lian Zhen, was assassinated."