novelraw Chapter 307 Gem Blood Bat
Chapter 307 Gem Blood Bat
Chapter 307 Gem Blood Bat
Jingshan remained unconscious for two days before gradually regaining consciousness.
Yuheng stayed for three days. On the third day, after confirming that Jingshan was out of danger, he left Shilin to continue his own business.
Three days is enough time for Chang Tianchen and his team to figure out what happened in the mountains.
The two largest orc organizations in the mountains, Phantom Fang and Wind Vulture, had more than a dozen skirmishes since last December. When the snow in the mountains began to melt this month, the two groups could no longer hold back and began a real battle.
The Wind Vultures had slightly fewer members than the Phantom Fangs, but they had more high-ranking warriors, giving them the upper hand in the initial battles. However, starting in the middle of this month, problems began to emerge within the Wind Vultures, and their combat strength started to decline.
Bai Xi learned from the dozen or so deserters from Feng Jiu that some members of their team had fallen ill at first, and then an infection broke out. In just seven or eight days, more than ten people had been infected, experiencing symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, blurred vision, and difficulty swallowing.
At first, they thought that the people of Phantom Fang had poisoned them, so they took the antidote. The wood-type warriors inside also used healing spells, but it had no effect at all.
However, in order to prevent further transmission, Shizuyama ordered that infected people and uninfected people be separated in terms of food, clothing and accommodation. This was also to control the spread of the infection and to find a way to treat the sick companions.
However, although the Wind Vulture is strong, it has very few wood-type warriors, and only one of them can barely be considered a high-level warrior.
The high-ranking wood-type warrior contracted the virus while treating his companion, and in the later stages, when it became quite severe, he was unable to stand up.
When it was determined that the witch doctor was seriously ill and unable to treat the warriors, Jingshan made a decisive decision to leave the stronghold with all his companions and go to find several wandering orc groups west of Mount Lolu to borrow their witch doctors.
If the illness cannot be cured in the mountains, he will lead his companions out of the mountains.
However, plans can't keep up with changes. In the past six months, all the small gangs in the eastern and central parts of Lolu Mountain have been wiped out by Phantom Fang. Some chose to surrender on the spot and join the Phantom Fang Beast Alliance; some surviving orcs fled to the western mountains to save their lives when they saw that the situation was not good; and some wandering orcs, like Lin Ying and the others, chose to go down the mountain after being severely injured by Phantom Fang and join other tribes in the surrounding area, so that at least their lives would be guaranteed.
Therefore, Jing Shan naturally failed to find a witch doctor who could help them.
On the night before they were to descend the mountain, they were discovered by the Phantom Fangs and ambushed in the dead of night. They fought their way out, suffering more than half of their casualties, and did not even have time to rescue their seriously ill companions who were no longer able to move.
Jing Shan was surrounded and attacked by many people while covering their escape, and was seriously injured and fell into a coma.
Bai Xi sat in a chair, looking somewhat troubled, and said, "The situation in the mountains is changing too fast. The Stone Forest and Cold Mountain are close to the central and eastern parts of Luolu Mountain. Currently, the Phantom Fang Beast Alliance is the only dominant force in the mountains. They are cunning, cruel, and treacherous, and they have many special superpowered warriors..."
"Phantom Fang is difficult to deal with now."
Lin Ying's mindset was now quite peaceful. She crossed her arms in front of her and leaned against the stone wall, summarizing her thoughts.
Chang Tianchen stared at the mountain map for a long time without saying a word.
Bai Xi turned her head and asked, "What are your thoughts? When fighting Huan Ya, although we outnumber him, the number of high-level warriors... is a bit of a problem."
Yu Heng has already left, and he has no intention of getting involved in the siege of the wandering orcs of Mount Luolu. Chang Tianchen is also proud and arrogant, and wants to show his abilities through this battle, so he certainly won't ask a level 17 warrior for help.
Currently, Chang Tianchen is probably the strongest member of their team.
But he's only at the thirteenth rank.
It may already be fourteen levels.
Bai Xi wasn't entirely sure, because apart from that battle at the beginning of winter, Chang Tianchen hadn't shown his strength again.
There was a period of about half a year in between, and with his talent, he certainly wouldn't stop progressing.
As a fellow fire-type warrior, he could also sense that Chang Tianchen's aura was now more restrained and profound, lacking the sharp edge he had shown last summer.
But this actually confirms one thing from another perspective.
He has gradually gained control of his body and comprehended a deeper level of power.
Like a sharp blade that has found its sheath, it can now be controlled with ease.
Chang Tianchen, who had been studying the map, raised an eyebrow slightly upon hearing Bai Xi's words and said, "So what if we have more high-level warriors? Does that mean we should retreat just because their high-level combat power is above ours?"
"Then in the future, if Beast City is besieged by Daxing and Cruma, we can just open the city gates and surrender."
Chang Tianchen spoke sarcastically, glancing at Bai Xi as he turned his head: "Do you dare say that to Ling Chengen's face?"
Bai Xi's face instantly darkened, and her gaze towards Chang Tianchen became unusually sinister: "Is that what I meant?"
Chang Tianchen snorted and ignored him, then said, "If we fight them head-on, they might not be a match for us. What we need to guard against now is their underhanded tactics."
"We need to figure out the root cause of the illness in those people like Fengjiu."
He didn't believe it was a coincidence that when the two teams were locked in a stalemate, one team suddenly contracted an acute illness and lost half of its fighting strength in just a few days.
There are so many coincidences.
"Have the Raven Clan take my letter to Beast City and borrow two high-ranking witch doctors. We'll go into the mountains tonight and steal a few people first."
Bai Xi: "Stealing someone???"
Chang Tianchen sneered, "Didn't Fengjiu have a group of orcs suffering from serious illnesses captured by Huanfang?"
“Let’s go check it out tonight to see if it’s really an acute illness or if Huan Ya is behind it.”
If it's the former, then the person must have been killed long ago, and the body must have been disposed of.
If it's the latter, then the person is definitely still alive, and their condition might even improve, or they might already be lively and energetic again. However, after recovering, their fate might be even worse.
Because they are very likely to be used as "two-legged sheep" by those cannibalistic beastmen during this time of scarcity!
Everyone agreed with Chang Tianchen's plan, and that very night they launched a surprise attack on a temporary outpost of the Phantom Fang Beast Alliance.
Their people had already figured it out. Although there was only one wandering orc organization, the Phantom Fang Beast Alliance, in the nearby mountains, the Phantom Fang was not a monolithic entity. This was because they had absorbed many unscrupulous wandering orcs in a short period of time, and they decided who to listen to based on who had the most brutal and bloodthirsty methods and who had the strongest combat power.
As a result, many orcs of similar strength operated independently, were wary of each other, and were hostile to one another, resulting in very poor teamwork.
Because some small factions have long-standing grudges, even if they set up camps together, they will still quarrel and even fight.
Therefore, the leader of the Phantom Fang Beast Alliance dispersed these small factions, instead of concentrating them all in one place.
The orcs of the Forest Raven tribe have learned that there are currently two small teams on the southern slope of the eastern section of Mount Lolu, not far apart, but neither side is attacking the other nor getting close to the other. One of the teams, consisting of five or six people, is currently stationed in a cave.
They are few in number, but they prepare plenty of clean water and send it into the cave every day, as well as food far exceeding their daily consumption.
Calling it food is a stretch; it consisted mostly of snakes, rats, insects, ants, bamboo shoots, and some raw potatoes.
Potatoes were probably obtained by chance when they raided the Stone Forest and Cold Mountain tribes. They probably took them back, but didn't know how to process them, so they were sent directly to feed the two-legged sheep as reserve food.
As soon as it got dark, Ke Yang, who was crouching at the entrance of the cave, notified the soldiers who were lying in ambush nearby.
Lin Ying watched as the black crows flew out of the woods and cawed three times. Then, she pressed her hand down, and everyone silently surrounded the cave entrance.
After Lin Ying and Ke Yang met up, Lin Ying asked, "Are all the guards here?"
"Three people carried bamboo buckets and a small amount of food inside, leaving two outside to guard the area and one to patrol the surroundings."
"The patrolling orc is only at the fifth level of the earth element. However, he is a small orc who is very fast. His beast form is a fire crystal flying ant, which is orange-red all over. Its mouthparts contain a small amount of venom. It can shrink to the length of a finger at its smallest and its largest size will not exceed the length of an arm. Its human form has red and black hair. There are two very obvious short tentacles on the front of its forehead, which look like two small bumps with thin and flexible fleshy buds growing on them."
Lin Ying clicked her tongue: "Isn't this the orc from the mountain wandering orc group before?"
Fire Crystal Flying Ants are also a race from the Southern Plains, and they are not well adapted to the environment of the Northern Wilderness. In addition, they are physically weak, so many Fire Crystal Flying Ant beastmen die miserably in the first cold season after being exiled to the Northern Wilderness. Therefore, Fire Crystal Flying Ant beastmen are rare in the Northern Wilderness.
"That flying ant-like orc is yours. We'll go and deal with the orcs in the cave."
Ke Yang nodded, then jumped into the air and landed on a tree trunk, transforming into a fist-sized ghost spider. He quickly headed towards the patrolling orc, while a small forest raven led the way not far above him.
Chang Tianchen didn't come here; he took his men to deal with the neighboring team that might come to their aid at any time.
There were more people over there, about eleven.
There is one level eleven warrior and another level ten warrior.
Chang Tianchen handed over the tenth-tier warrior to Bai Xi.
The eleventh-tier warriors were dealt with by Chang Tianchen himself.
Because this was a surprise attack, and they also needed to monitor the movements on the northern slopes, they had to act quickly and decisively before those people noticed and came to their aid.
They fought separately, and their numbers were small.
Although Bai Xi was very unhappy with Chang Tianchen, she did not disobey his orders during the battle.
But when two fire-type warriors fight, the noise they make is anything but small.
So after the flames appeared, Lin Ying's side sped up their pace.
Ke Yang had caught up with and dealt with the Fire Crystal Flying Ant Orc. His long legs flung the pierced Fire Crystal Flying Ant corpse away, and then he spat out spider silk, wrapping the Fire Crystal Flying Ant corpse into a white cocoon, and dragged it quickly toward the cave.
Lin Ying had also dealt with four people. Looking at the twenty or thirty orcs who were half-dead in the cave, he had already put on cotton masks and gloves. He directed his men to carry all the prisoners in the cave onto the backs of the Crane Clan warriors and let them take the people back first.
After all the prisoners had been transferred, Lin Ying looked at the four corpses left at the cave entrance, decisively packed them up and took them with him. He also cleaned up all the traces left around the area, and then led his men in a quick retreat. The crow warriors who were with Lin Ying parted ways with him and flew directly towards the direction of the firelight.
Chang Tianchen didn't use any weapons; his physical body was the most ferocious weapon. After the fierce and irritable high-level warrior discovered him and rushed at him immediately, he transformed into a brightly colored giant python and slammed the eleventh-level large badger to the ground with one tail, then repeatedly pounded it with his tail.
High-level warriors react quickly, but this badger-like beastman's reaction speed was clearly not on the same level as Chang Tianchen's. So, without any suspense, he was pinned to the ground and beaten. He didn't even have time to use his special ability before he was severely injured and on the verge of death.
The situation in Baixi is worse.
Bai Xi is a ninth-tier warrior who has already reached the threshold of advancement, but is still just a little short of the right opportunity.
But his opponent was a genuine level 10 warrior, and a very experienced one at that.
The only disadvantage of Huan Ya, this tenth-tier warrior, against Bai Xi is his size.
His beast form is a spotted weasel, neither too big nor too small, belonging to the medium-sized beastman category.
Bai Xi is a typical giant orc, naturally stronger and able to fly. The sharpness of the edges of its wings is comparable to that of a finely polished blade. Its beak is long and sharp, giving it a wide field of vision and excellent dynamic eyesight. Combined with its long and sharp claws, it can easily shatter even metal and stone.
His advantage lies in his exceptional physical condition.
The spotted-tailed weasel is a gold-type warrior. In addition to its small size, it is incredibly fast and agile, like a liquid animal. When dodging attacks, it can easily perform many seemingly unbelievable movements.
When Bai Xi's beak and claws collided with the gold-type ability of the spotted weasel, sparks flew everywhere.
After about seven or eight minutes of fighting, Chang Tianchen had killed the badger beastman and used his supernatural ability to set fire to the still-warm corpse, burning it completely.
In just two or three minutes, the badger orc's corpse was burned to ashes. As the fire died down, the ashes were scattered by the wind.
Chang Tianchen stood under the tree, watching Bai Xi and the spotted weasel locked in a fierce battle, and couldn't help but remind her, "Can you hurry up? Finish this quickly, do you even know what those words mean?"
Bai Xi, who was focused on the battle, had to divert her attention to deal with him, and immediately scolded, "Shut up, stop making noise—"
Chang Tianchen couldn't help but click his tongue and mutter, "What a useless piece of trash!"
He ignored Bai Xi and instead ordered his soldiers to gather all the enemy corpses and pile them up, then set them on fire, leaving only a pile of ashes.
As the residual heat dissipated, even the ashes were scattered.
It achieved true destruction of evidence.
After all the corpses were burned, Chang Tianchen observed Bai Xi's battle and couldn't help but sigh.
Bai Xi is older than Bai Qingyu, but her talent is indeed not as good as Bai Qingyu's.
Ling Chengen placed Bai Xi under his command, and he could guess the reason behind it.
One possibility is that Bai Xi harbors resentment towards the wandering beastmen who raided Hanshan back then.
On the other hand, it was probably also to get him to give Bai Xi some pointers.
But Chang Tianchen didn't consider himself a kind person, and he couldn't even stand Bai Qingyu, so he would only hate Bai Xi because of her...
So he really couldn't understand what Ling Chengen was thinking, daring to send people to him.
Fortunately, although Bai Xi was slightly less talented, her fighting style was extremely fierce. Even though she was slightly weaker than that tenth-rank spotted-tailed weasel, she still managed to kill her opponent.
However, without so many people surrounding him, it would be very difficult for Bai Xi to kill this tenth-tier spotted-tailed weasel.
Presumably, seeing its companions killed one after another and their bodies completely destroyed in just over ten minutes, the spotted weasel became fearful and did not want to fight Bai Xi. It only wanted to find an opportunity to escape.
Unfortunately, the weasel was surrounded and Chang Tianchen was there to intimidate it. The weasel lost its composure and sharpness during the battle, so Bai Xi seized the opportunity and killed it with one blow.
This battle was... so-so.
In combat against opponents of higher levels, Bai Xi is still somewhat lacking.
After burning the body, Chang Tianchen saw crows flying in from the northeast.
Before the crow even got close, it let out a short, high-pitched cry.
Chang Tianchen's expression immediately hardened, and he raised his hand to order, "Retreat—"
Chang Tianchen left a few people behind to clean up the mess, mainly to completely erase any traces of their retreat.
After receiving their orders, the orcs of the Forest Raven Clan quickly cleaned up the battlefield and, before the Phantom Fang Beast Alliance arrived, transformed into inconspicuous forest ravens and blended into the deep night forest.
……
Xuan Yan arrived at Shilin that evening. Upon seeing the designated temporary ward, he immediately went into the temporary tent and began to check on the physical condition of the people.
Chang Tianchen covered his mouth and nose with a cotton towel, followed behind Xuan Yan, looked at the dimly lit tent, turned around and went outside, instructing his men to go and get some more Qi Si Feng Deng (a type of lantern).
After returning to the ward, he looked at Xuan Yan's solemn expression and asked in confusion, "Is it really an infectious emergency?"
"It is contagious, but it is not a disease."
Xuan Yan's medical skills are beyond doubt.
While his treatment skills for rare diseases may not be as advanced as Yuheng's, he is the kind of person who takes a steady and reliable approach. In terms of basic medical knowledge, if he claims to be second, no one else would dare to claim to be first.
Even someone like Yuheng, who uses unorthodox methods, won't work.
Xuan Yan washed his hands in a basin at the entrance of the tent, picked up a green herb from the shelf at the entrance, crushed it in his hands, and then rinsed it in clean water.
Chang Tianchen disliked his half-hearted nature and gritted his teeth, saying, "Just say what you have to say, don't beat around the bush. Since it's contagious, should I isolate all the people who have been in contact with them? Give me a plan on how to treat them."
Xuan Yan picked up another of the same herbs: "Have the orcs in charge of logistics find as many of these herbs as possible, and make sure they are fresh. This kind of herb is very common and usually grows in shady, humid places."
"They were poisoned, and the poison is contagious."
"This poison comes from a giant vampire bat tribe in the Southern Plains."
"The Gem Blood Bat Clan?" Chang Tianchen asked tentatively, his tone uncertain.
Xuan Yan turned his head and gave him a deep look, then nodded and said, "Yes, you actually knew?"
Chang Tianchen chuckled, his tone somewhat sarcastic: "I know, I'm also from Nanyuan."
He took a deep breath and gritted his teeth, saying, "I thought this race had gone extinct long ago. I never expected that the Giant Bat Clan would still have this kind of ancestral bloodline."
Seeing that there were still a few wood-type warriors around him who were humbly eavesdropping, Xuan Yan said a little more: "Gemstone Blood Bat is a gilded name. This race was originally called Giant Gluttonous Vampire Bat, and they were natives of Wind Dock in the Southern Plains. They were wiped out about seven hundred years ago."
"This race is a typical vampire. They will gorge themselves on blood and keep drinking until their bellies are swollen. After they have drunk their fill of blood, their eyes will turn like red gemstones, hence the name Gemstone Blood Bat."
"This race initially only drank the blood of their prey, but later they preferred to drink human blood because they thought human blood was more delicious than beast blood. In order to obtain a large amount of human blood, they used extremely cruel methods, and were eventually wiped out by the other races in Wind Dock."
"However, all the giant bat groups near Wind Dock today are considered to be descendants of this clan."
"The giant bat orcs of Nanyuan today no longer have the ability to carry toxins. Only the gluttonous vampire bat orcs of the past, and orcs who have reverted to this bloodline, possess this contagious toxin."
"The Gem Blood Bat clan uses the toxins they secrete to keep their prey in a weak, half-dead state in order to raise blood slaves. This ensures that the prey can have a long-term blood supply while being powerless to resist them."
"Moreover, the most notable characteristic of this toxin is that it is contagious. Infected people and animals will become very weak, but they will not die within one or two months."
"Moreover, the virus can be transmitted between humans and animals."
"The orcs in the tent are showing obvious symptoms; they've been infected with the toxins of the giant gem vampire bats."
"He won't die anytime soon, but he'll remain weak indefinitely."
"If the weakness lasts for more than three months, one will become very susceptible to illness and injury, and even a minor symptom can be fatal."
Xuan Yan thought for a moment, fearing that these beastmen from the Northern Wilderness might not have a complete understanding of this race, and continued, "In fact, you can no longer find Gem Blood Bat beastmen in the Southern Plains. This is because these blood bats are huge and have a high demand for blood. Apart from their own kind of beastmen, all other moving beastmen and animals are prey in their eyes. Therefore, in the Southern Plains, the Gem Blood Bat race has always been infamous."
"In the Southern Plains, anyone found to have the bloodline of the Blood Bat, a gemstone that has been reverted to its ancestral origins, will be executed on the spot."
Chang Tianchen closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and did not interrupt his explanation.
After Xuan Yan finished speaking with the witch doctor beside him, when he opened his eyes again, he was calm and his eyes were clear.
"Can those people still be cured?"
Xuan Yan wiped his hands: "First, gather all the herbs I need."
"Ordinary antidotes are ineffective. Don't let anyone else approach this ward."
I didn't make it home last night, so I made up 2+ today, and I'll make up some more tomorrow.