The First Order

While running towards the mountain, Ren Xiaosu roughly estimated that even though he only had time to gather 14 of the Divine Arms officers’ nanomachines, it was more than what Lin Qi and his group had. If he created an armor to protect himself now, he would have enough nanomachines to cover every part of him except for an area the size of one of his calves.

In a battle, he would definitely not fuss over the form of the armor and just aim to protect his vital parts as much as possible. But by estimating this way, it would facilitate his understanding of how many nanomachines he had obtained so far.

As Ren Xiaosu fled from the battlefield, there was something on his mind. While collecting the nanomachines just now, he saw many dead Divine Arms officers lying in the snow. He had counted several dozen dead Divine Arms officers. If it were a normal sniper who killed them, surely they wouldn’t be so incredibly lethal, right?

Furthermore, once the sniper fired a shot at these nanosoldiers, the rest of the Divine Arms officers would have quickly moved away. Judging by the speed of the Divine Arms officers, it would be impossible to kill so many of them if the sniper was not a crack shot.

Ren Xiaosu was certain these people had attacked the sniper’s position just by observing the way they died. They had tried to dodge the sniper’s bullets with their speed and attempted to locate and kill the sniper. They failed, however.

Meanwhile, the two Divine Arms officers who had fortunately survived were probably already wounded in the first place, so the others allowed them to retreat first. This was why they managed to survive while the others were all killed!

These were the Divine Arms soldiers, after all. Even if they were demoralized after their strategy failed, and they were defeated by the Qing Consortium, they were still a highly regarded unit of the Li Consortium. How could a sniper kill over a 100 of them so easily as they retreated?

Could the sniper also possess a Perfect Firearms Proficiency like Yang Xiaojin? But how could there be so many expert marksmen in the world?

To be honest, Ren Xiaosu somehow felt that the sniper could very well be Yang Xiaojin. However, the evidence proved otherwise. Moreover, there was no reason why Yang Xiaojin would appear here.

Ren Xiaosu went to look for the Potato Shooter and collected the allocated quantity of potatoes for the day before returning to camp.

“Xiaosu, you’re back?” Li Qingzheng happily took the potatoes from Ren Xiaosu’s arms. “We’ve got to be careful when we make our meals. I heard that those in other tents have already run out of food. Some of them are so hungry they went out to look for food even though they’re afraid.”

“They should have done so earlier.” Ren Xiaosu said as he dusted off the snow from his body, “Now that their physical strength and energy have reached their lowest points, I’m afraid they won’t even have enough strength to look for food.”

Chen Wudi went to Ren Xiaosu and helped him dust off the snow he couldn’t reach. He even handed him a piping hot potato and said, “Master, have some.”

Ren Xiaosu took a look at the sky outside. “We’ve already camped here for four days. I’m afraid that everyone has already run out of food except for us. If we continue wasting our time here, everyone will die.”

“It’s not only us.” Li Qingzheng sighed and said, “We have only a 1,000 of us here, but more than 20,000 private soldiers are starving across the entire battlefield, and they were all done in by the private troops’ commander. If everyone had enough to eat, it wouldn’t be so difficult to endure this. But it’s different now since thousands of people might die of starvation once the blizzard passes.”

Then a commotion broke out in the camp. Ren Xiaosu lifted the tent flap to see what was going on. But he could not see what was happening due to the tents blocking his view.

“Y’all remain in the tent. I’ll go and have a look outside.” Ren Xiaosu then walked out of the tent. He noticed many of the others in the camp had also come out of their tents. It seemed like a commotion had broken out at the southernmost side of the camp behind them.

“What is going on?” someone asked.

“I don’t know. I just came out here after hearing the commotion. Could a fight have broken out over there?”

Someone said indifferently, “They still have the energy to fight when everyone is starving?”

Ren Xiaosu ignored them and continued walking south. When he almost reached the end of the camp, he saw others not from the private army!

An unusual-looking platoon was standing there and questioning someone at the border of the camp. As Ren Xiaosu approached, he heard their conversation. “Why’re you all stationed here? Why didn’t you reach the strategic location at the indicated time? Where is the commanding officer? Get him out here to answer our questions!”

Ren Xiaosu was stunned for a moment. These people were not wearing the uniforms of the combat troops but the Office of Special Investigations’ uniforms!

He quickly realized they were probably here to investigate the incident involving the Divine Arms Battalion. A series of chain reactions must have started after the Divine Arms Battalion was ambushed by the Qing Consortium.

Since their group of private troops had swapped vehicles and uniforms with the Divine Arms Battalion, they would definitely be the prime suspects of the Office of Special Investigations’ probe.

After Ren Xiaosu figured the situation out, he blended back into the crowd as he did not wish to interact with the Office of Special Investigations yet.

The commander of Liu Taiyu’s reinforced company came over and said, “Our commander is still semiconscious after getting kicked by one of the Divine Arms officers. When he regained consciousness, he started running a fever. It was also the Divine Arms Battalion’s decision to encamp here.”

The commander of the reinforced company practically pushed all responsibility to the Divine Arms Battalion. After all, dead men tell no tales.

A person from the Office of Special Investigations frowned. “Where are the Divine Arms? Tell them to come out for questioning.”

When Ren Xiaosu heard that, he thought that the Office of Special Investigations’ tone was way too arrogant. He was yelling for the Divine Arms Battalion as though he were ordering his subordinates around. It was no wonder no one thought it was unfair when he used his identity as a member of the Office Special Investigations to reprimand others.

However, the company commander explained, “The officers of the Divine Arms Battalion stubbornly chased after a rabbit in a hunt two mornings ago. In the end, they got attacked by some unknown vegetation. All five of the Divine Arms officers died as a result. If you don’t believe it, go ahead and question the others.”

The people from the Office of Special Investigations looked around, bewildered. The private soldiers surrounding them quickly nodded and said, “We couldn’t catch up no matter how hard we chased after them. When we finally got there, we saw them already dead.”

These people had agreed to collude on this event as they felt a little guilty for not attempting to rescue those officers.

The platoon commander of the Office of Special Investigations frowned and said, “Bring me to your commander. After that, we’ll head to the place where you said the Divine Arms officers died!”

Ren Xiaosu was not exactly panicking at this moment. Since all of the private soldiers here were trying so hard to cover up for him, what did he have to worry about?

The commander of the reinforced company led the Office of Special Investigations into the camp. They first checked on Liu Taiyu’s condition and the person charged with inspecting him nodded to the platoon commander and said, “He does still have a high fever. His body probably got inflammation after suffering internal bleeding from the kick.”

The platoon commander of the Office of Special Investigations said to the reinforced company’s commander, “Hand over the private troops’ roster to me. We’ll head over to the spot where the Divine Arms officers met their demise right now.”