Ark Journey

At 08:00 (pm), Xue Zhi, who had just dealt with a squad, lit a bonfire under a tree and prepared to start enjoying her dinner.

What he ate today was very special; it was the hind legs of various Originium insects that he had killed in the past few days.

Several of the thickest hind legs were carefully selected and slowly roasted over the campfire.

Xue Zhi was 80% sure that these things were edible. When he was digging holes for the Originium worms yesterday, he found that their legs were quite clean. As for those bulging abdomens, even if he was not afraid of Originium infection, he could not accept this kind of thing with a close mixture of flesh and blood tissue and inorganic matter.

The continuously burning firewood made a rather healing crackling sound. Xue Zhi took the roasted legs out of the fire without fear of the heat, and then used a small knife to cut open the hard outer shells to allow the crystal leg meat inside to be better heated.

Adding a little salt and cumin, a faint fragrance instantly rose. He rubbed his hands and prepared to start eating after it was cooked.

However, the sudden explosion and fire in the distance instantly attracted his attention.

Xue Zhi's eyes lit up when she saw the clumps of dust stirred up high by the explosion not far away.

"Have we finally reached the front line? I have to go and take a look."

Just as he turned around to put out the bonfire and go over to join in the fun, he found that his roasted legs were covered with dust from the tree that had just exploded.

"Qian'er female horse!"

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"Shieldman, cover the intelligence officer's evacuation! Everyone else, focus your fire on her! She's alone!"

boom!

Huge explosions echoed across the battlefield from time to time.

A group of Sarkaz soldiers from the Military Committee surrounded a short figure, but they did not dare to move forward, because they did not know when the madman in the encirclement would throw a powerful Originium bomb.

"'Sarkaz foul language', get out of here!"

Seeing the spy being protected by several shieldmen and moving further and further away, W, who was trapped in the encirclement, rushed left and right in the encirclement, but the opponents always kept a good distance, so that her Originium bomb could not exert its maximum power.

From the uniform insignia and equipment of those people, it can be seen that they are the regular army of the Military Commission. She doesn't understand why these backbone forces who are supposed to be fighting on the front line would pick up a spy in such a place. And not just here, along the way, the team she led encountered the regular army several times, which resulted in the team having lost all its troops when it caught up with the spy.

Her physical strength and the explosives in her hands were almost exhausted, but the closer she was to the limit, the calmer her mind became. She took out two of the most powerful Originium bombs, gritted her teeth and rushed in the direction of the spy's escape.

"Fall back!"

The commander on the other side saw her movements and yelled at the team to avoid the Originium bombs.

W seized this brief flaw. She threw the Originium bomb forward and rushed to the side as fast as she could. At the same time, she pulled up the torn robe on her back to cover herself to minimize the possibility of being affected by the fragments.

boom!

The explosion of the Originium bomb set off a deadly shower of fragments and Originium steam, but W was fortunately not hit by any of the fragments.

Seeing that the encirclement had been broken, W squeezed his remaining strength and chased after the fleeing spy.

However, the opposite happened. The sound of the vibrating bowstring caused W, who was sprinting in a straight line, to stop suddenly. Three arrows penetrated directly into the ground in front of her. The subsequent rain of arrows forced her to look for cover to the side.

Hiding behind the bunker and watching the target moving further and further away, W felt a wave of fatigue spreading from her bones. Several days of high-intensity fighting had left her exhausted.

A burning sensation came from the side; it was the enemy warlock's Originium skill.

[Is this the end? Lady Theresa, I too...]

However, the next second, she saw a pillar of fire rising from the feet of the fleeing spy in the distance, like an erupting volcano. The burning sensation around her was also dispelled by a chill, and three kite-shaped ice shields slowly floated around her body, blocking the deadly Originium technique from a distance.

The bright fire in the distance even weakened the darkness of the battlefield.

The flames shot up into the sky for a few seconds before disappearing, and all the material inside was turned into ashes by the high temperature.

Staring at the ground that had been melted into lava by the high temperature, W breathed a sigh of relief. She was sure that no documents could be preserved under such circumstances.

Xue Zhi, who had just arrived at the battlefield, took action. He observed the situation from the side for a while, and after recognizing that the surrounded person was W, and confirming that the person who was fleeing under the protection of several shieldmen was the key target, he took decisive action.

Do a favor to Babel so that you can get closer to them later.

The sudden attack from a third party caused both groups on the battlefield to pause slightly.

Then the people from the Military Committee discovered that their real target jumped out from the side with a knife in his hand.

The officer who had just been calmly commanding his men shouted in fear:

"It's that spy from the Tower of Babel! Retreat! Retreat!"

Xue Zhi, who had just chopped down two people, gave a playful smile when he heard this.

"Am I a spy for the Tower of Babel again today? I really don't know how you guys can give me so many titles."

W at the side also heard the officer's voice. She carefully poked her head out from behind the bunker to observe the current situation. Then she saw a young and handsome man holding a long knife and wearing strange camouflage uniforms standing in the middle of the battlefield. He was surrounded by soldiers who were fleeing in all directions.

He did not chase, but stood there quietly, but no soldier dared to attack him. No matter whether it was the piercer nearby or the archer and sorcerer in the distance, they were all fleeing desperately.

Then W felt the ground tremble, and thick ice spikes suddenly rose from under the feet of each fleeing Sarkaz soldier. After piercing their bodies, they did not stop until they were lifted high.

"'Sarkaz foul language'! It's so exciting, I like it!"

Chapter 9: The first communication between the two

The white ice spikes were dyed red by the flowing blood. The soldiers who did not die instantly wailed, and the heart-wrenching sounds of pain echoed throughout the battlefield.

Seeing that the people who had just been chasing and blocking him now ended up like this, W waved his fist excitedly.

However, Xue Zhi who was standing in the center of the battlefield frowned. Although he was killing people like crazy now, it was not his habit to kill people like the Piercer. The first time he released magic at nearly a hundred points at the same time made him lose his aim. He originally wanted to aim at the brain to kill with one blow, but now this result occurred.

The ice spikes disappeared out of thin air, and the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground continued to be heard. Then, the scorching flames spread out from Xue Zhi as the center, turning the surroundings into a sea of fire, and quickly changed from warm orange to white. All organic matter was quickly turned into ashes in this wave of flames, and the incombustible ashes floated in the wind.

The deadly fire only passed W.

In the surging hot air, the young man crossed the flames, walked to the exhausted mercenary, stretched out his hand and asked: "Can you still stand up?"

"Don't look down on me."

W took Xue Zhi's hand and stood up. She was secretly frightened as she watched the air around her constantly twisting.

She had never seen this level of Originium skills on the front battlefield.

"Let's go. There's too much noise here. The Military Commission will send reinforcements soon."

"Ah."

The two men left and the fire died out, leaving only a black scorched earth and embers on the ground.

The night wind blew by, and Xue Zhi and W shuttled through the forest at a very fast speed. The two were silent and no one spoke first.

Suddenly, W, who was running, fell to the ground without any warning.

Xue Zhi stopped walking, and before she could ask, she saw her turn over and press hard on her stretched legs. The muscles in her calves were beating violently at a frequency visible to the naked eye. A pretty little face, which was covered in dust but which Xue Zhi remembered from memory, was twisted in pain.

"cramp?"

"almost."

"I'll show you."

As she spoke, a warm light shone on Xue Zhi's hands.

He half-knelt beside W and put his hand close to her twitching calf.

The moment the light approached, W felt waves of warmth coming from her calves. The severe pain caused by the cramps was immediately relieved, and her frown also relaxed.

"My name is W. Who are you? Did Her Highness Theresa send you here? Or is Babel the intelligence agency of the Military Committee?"

"Xue Zhi. As for what you said, it's not true. I have no connection with Babel Tower, but I was heading there. The Military Committee was too extreme and wanted to kill me. I saw that you were a mercenary of Babel Tower, so I rescued you and planned to do you a favor."

W touched her chin and pondered the strange word "Xue Zhi" spoken in Yan language. It really didn't sound like a local, but more like the name of those Yan merchants in Scar Mall. She also carefully observed Xue Zhi's facial features and found that she was indeed very similar to those big Yan merchants with black hair and black pupils.

"Xue Zhi? It sounds like a woman's name. It hurts!"

Before she could finish her words, Xue Zhi's hand, which was originally hovering on her calf, pressed down directly. The severe pain that followed made her cry out in pain, and the unfinished words were swallowed.

It feels pretty good, with the soft calf muscles containing a hint of toughness.

After giving her a painful blow, Xue Zhi said without even looking up: "Your name isn't much better, is it? And your personality is really bad."

W, sweating profusely, responded: "Same here."

While her right hand was healing, Xue Zhi used her empty left hand to take out a tube of military physical recovery agent and water and threw it to W.

"Restoration agent, mix it with water and drink it, it can speed up the recovery."

Looking at the incomprehensible Yan country characters on the plastic packaging of the recovery agent, W did not suspect his ulterior motives and drank it directly. She was just a small mercenary. Although she often helped Her Highness Theresa deal with spies, she herself did not know any secrets, which meant that she had no extra value. As for her body, what a joke, with the terrible strength Xue Zhi had just shown, if she wanted to use force, she would need to put drugs in the water?

After the pain subsided, W, whose wisdom had regained control of his brain, asked, "It has nothing to do with the Tower of Babel? Then why did the officer call you the 'Spy of the Tower of Babel'?"

She had just clearly heard the officer call the man in front of him "the spy of Babel".

Xue Zhi shook her head and said very bluntly: "I don't know either. If you had met me earlier, you might have heard them calling me 'a spy from Da Yan or a spy from Dongguo'."

“Are you from Da Yan? You speak Kazdel so well, even better than me. But why are you here?”

At this moment, Xue Zhi looked up at W. Her eyes were full of vigilance, but he really had no other purpose, so she made up a lie very openly: "I used to work in a scientific research institution in Yan Country. I was experimenting with a large-scale Originium technique that could teleport people, or at least letters, long distances. Then something went wrong with the experiment, and I was involved and woke up here. As for Kazdel language, it is because Sarkaz witchcraft is very meaningful for studying large-scale Originium techniques. As a researcher in this area, proficiency in its use is the minimum standard."

W, who had just completed prenatal education, could not get any useful information from Xue Zhi's words. She did not understand them at all. She could understand the expressions and tone of voice, which Xue Zhi also had no flaws in: "Okay, I hope what you said is true."

Xue Zhi nodded, and then asked, "Who is the person protected in the middle by several shieldmen? I saw you rushing over there."

"A spy with very important information."

"Oh, that's okay. My fire is enough to burn him and the information to ashes."

W nodded in agreement. There were people in her team who played with fire, but melting the ground to that extent would be impossible even if he died of exhaustion.

After a brief conversation, W and Xue Zhi, whose strength had been slightly restored, set out again.

With the presence of locals, Xue Zhi no longer had to go straight south.

Around 11 o'clock in the evening, the two men began to rest in the hiding place found by W.

Panting, W leaned against the tree trunk and took out some dry food and dried meat that looked very dry and hard from her bag.

Seeing Xue Zhi looking at the dry food in her hand, W thought about how he had just saved her, so she broke the food apart and handed it to him with a painful look: "Hey, Xue Zhi, do you want to eat? I'll give you half."

Xue Zhi, who wanted to try something new, exchanged a steaming fried pork cutlet salad bread for W and pushed it in front of him: "Eat it, I won't take advantage of you, I'll trade this with you."

Chapter 10: Sudden Illness

W's throat rolled when she smelled the fragrance. She looked at the sumptuous food that Xue Zhi handed over, then looked at the dry food in her hand that was hard enough to be used as stone, and took it decisively.

The rich fat taste of the fried pork chops and the black pepper sauce made with rich spices whetted W's appetite. She ate the pork chops and bread in big mouthfuls, and then she found that even the bread was fried with butter and garlic. It tasted like it had just been made, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with a strong garlic flavor. Paired with the refreshing salad garnished with some sour sauce, she couldn't stop eating.

The last time I ate something this good was when I made a lot of money and ate at an employer’s house.

After eating half of it, W, with his mouth full of oil, finally slowed down: "Where did you get all this from? And you're bringing hot food to eat in this situation, are you some noble from Da Yan?"

Xue Zhi sat opposite W, chewing on the still warm Originium worm hind legs with dry food and replied, "Space-related Originium skills. As for nobles, I'm certainly not one. I kept these things with me in case something went wrong with the experiment."

These dry foods were very hard, but Xue Zhi had good teeth and could bite them open easily.

"interesting."

Without further inquiry, W continued to eat quietly.

After gnawing on the Originium worm's leg, Xue Zhi asked her own question.

"W, are you so confident in taking me back to Babel Tower's base? Aren't you worried that I might be a spy or something?"

W laughed, she put down the plate, looked into Xue Zhi's eyes and said:

"Although there are many questions in your words, your eyes tell me that you can't be a spy. You can't even be a soldier or a mercenary. Because your eyes are too clear, so clear that they are even a little stupid. I can only say that you are worthy of being a researcher. And your race, although I didn't see your racial characteristics, you are definitely not a Sarkaz. Based on this point, you can't become an important spy in the Military Committee."

After staying here for seven days, Xue Zhi, who felt that she had changed a lot, asked in disbelief, "Is my look so obvious?"

"Of course, I'm the only mercenary here so I can't really tell. If I put you in our mercenary group it would be more obvious. How does that phrase go? Oh, it's like a sheep walking into a pack of wolves, although you're ridiculously strong."

"Okay, these are irrelevant. How long will it take us to get to the control area of the Tower of Babel? I don't want to stay here for even a minute."

W took out a map from his bag and placed it on the ground. After observing it for a while under the moonlight, he looked up and said to Xue Zhi:

"At the speed we were going just now, we can reach Scar Mall in three days without encountering any obstacles. Right next to it is the sphere of influence of the Tower of Babel. But the situation will not be that simple. There are patrolling enemies, the terrain has changed due to natural disasters, and we may encounter various obstacles on the way. It will take us longer."

Hearing this good answer, Xue Zhi nodded: "Don't worry about anything else, just take the shortest way. Neither the enemy nor the terrain change is a problem for me."

W looked at Xue Zhi in surprise as she spoke such big words. When she opened her mouth to make a few sarcastic remarks, her woman's intuition made her stop inexplicably.

After a brief exchange, the two finished their meal. W, who had even carefully wiped off the sauce at the bottom of the plate with bread, returned the plate to Xue Zhi. She hadn't eaten hot food for several days. After all, one had to be very careful when making a fire in the enemy-occupied area.

She leaned against the tree and wrapped herself in the tattered cloak on her back: "You're going to guard the first half of the night? I really can't bear it anymore."

Xue Zhi shook her head: "No need to go through so much trouble."