The First Order

Ren Xiaosu carefully recalled the information Tang Zhou had told him. Tang Zhou mentioned that the Qing Consortium defeated the Divine Arms Battalion two days ago, but he did not say how many of them were pushed back in defeat.

But since their cooperation was going so well, there was no reason for Qing Zhen and Tang Zhou to trick him. And even though Qing Zhen was arrogant, he had always been reliable and trustworthy. Something must have gone wrong in between this period.

As Ren Xiaosu watched the two nanosoldiers walking towards him, he was surprised to see them looking all out of sorts. This didn’t make any sense.

They were back in the farthest stretches of the Li Consortium’s territory where different groups of Li Consortium troops were stationed every dozen or so kilometers apart. So the Divine Arms Battalion should not be this frightened when they had already made it back to here.

Could they have encountered other enemies along the way?

Wait a minute, could it be Li Shentan? Ren Xiaosu knew that Li Shentan had led an entire combat brigade and disappeared with them, and that he also held a grudge against the Li Consortium. He might have really led that combat brigade to the battlefield and slain the Divine Arms Battalion from the rear.

The moment these two wounded soldiers of the Divine Arms Battalion walked onto the Brambles, Ren Xiaosu wrapped the vines around them tightly. The two wounded soldiers of the Divine Arms Battalion were already severely injured and couldn’t put up a fight.

When Ren Xiaosu was sure that no one else was around, he jumped out of the snow. The two Divine Arms officers were shocked to see someone emerge from the snow. The terrifying Brambles seemed to have been manipulated by someone!

Ren Xiaosu did not kill them immediately but came up to them with a frown and asked, “Where’s the rest of the Divine Arms Battalion?”

One of the officers of the Divine Arms Battalion endured his pain and said through clenched teeth, “Who are you! Who on earth are you! Why are you wearing the uniform of our Divine Arms Battalion?”

Ren Xiaosu glanced at the uniform he was wearing, then snapped, “Weren’t y’all the ones who forced us to swap?”

The two Divine Arms officers were stunned. What did he mean? Wait, they suddenly remembered this. So this young man standing before them was actually a soldier from the private army?! But why was there someone hidden among the private troops who could control these terrifying plants? He had to be a spy! This young man had to be a spy!

The two Divine Arms officers realized something. One of them roared, “The Qing Consortium only ambushed us because you revealed our whereabouts to them!”

“Ahem, what are you talking about? Why can’t I understand what you’re saying?” Ren Xiaosu asked, “Let me ask again, where’s the rest of the Divine Arms? Were they attacked by a strange force? If no one wants to answer, I’ll ask again later.”

“They’re about 20 kilometers behind us. If you have the balls, go and look for yourself,” one of the Divine Arms officers said fiercely.

Ren Xiaosu acknowledged them before decisively killing them with the Brambles. He was rather suspicious about why these two men were acting alone. He would probably have to head further north before he could finally learn what had happened.

He collected the nanomachines from the two men, looted the belongings in their pockets, and placed the rifles into his storage space.

His storage space was emptier now after much of the food had been consumed during the time they were back at the outpost.

However, Ren Xiaosu wasn’t in a hurry to leave yet. He dug around in the snow for some time before he found the dozen or so playing cards he had hidden.

He had thought that many of the Divine Arms Battalion’s soldiers would pass by on this route, so he even resorted to using the Explosive Poker cards. But as it turned out, he had wasted all his efforts and also wasted quite a few gratitude tokens by planting more than ten Bramble seeds in the area.

Although he could retrieve the Explosive Poker cards, he could not pull the Brambles out of the ground after they had been planted.

After Ren Xiaosu recollected all of his Explosive Poker cards, he headed north. He was still in the area of Mt. Tantou and would reach the boundary of Mt. Fengyi by heading further north. Walking in the snow was not exactly difficult for him, but he had to be careful in case he revealed his presence.

When Ren Xiaosu set off, it was morning. By the time he arrived at Mt. Fengyi, it was already afternoon. But soon after cresting a hill, Ren Xiaosu was stunned. He saw an officer of the Divine Arms Battalion lying on the ground in front of him. A large area of the snow was tainted pink by his blood. The blood did not look like it had flowed out of him but splattered instead!

Ren Xiaosu finally understood the strangeness of this. As the Divine Arms officers were retreating, they encountered a sniper. Everyone else in the Divine Arms Battalion was dead except for the two he saw earlier!

Before they died, the two Divine Arms officers had even wanted to dupe Ren Xiaosu, who they realized was a spy, into heading to the battlefield where a sniper was lying in ambush. Because Ren Xiaosu was wearing the Divine Arms uniform, he would also end up as a target for the sniper by coming here.

These Divine Arms officers were pretty unrelenting. The first thing they wanted to do before they died was not to beg for mercy but to lure Ren Xiaosu here into a trap.

But the sniper should have already left. The time that Ren Xiaosu spent here in the snow concluding what had happened was definitely enough for a skilled sniper to kill him. However, no one opened fire at him even after so much time had passed.

And it should have already been a while since the sniper conducted his mission here. There was no reason why the sniper would stay around when the mission to eliminate the Divine Arms Battalion was completed.

But why would a sniper mysteriously appear here? Could it be a Qing Consortium sniper? No, it shouldn’t be. The only Qing Consortium soldiers behind enemy lines were Tang Zhou and his men, which Tang Zhou had confirmed.

Then who else could it be? The Yang Consortium!

Ren Xiaosu searched around in the snow for some time, but he was a little disappointed when he found the sniper’s bullet. It wasn’t the silver-gray bullet the Saboteurs used. This bullet also did not have the special pattern engraved on it that the Saboteurs carried around.

But of course, this was to be expected. There had to be a lot of troops and snipers from the Yang Consortium out on the front lines. Meanwhile, Yang Xiaojin, who was also a family member of the organization, had only just returned to the organization to recover, so how could she possibly return to the battlefield so soon?

Yang Xiaojin should still be at Stronghold 88.

Ren Xiaosu went around to look for any traces of the Divine Arms officers. He could gather a few more nanomachines for every one of them he found.

It was a fantastic harvest this time around, seeing how his armor was near to completion.

But then he heard the sound of engines coming from the mountain roads in the south before he could locate all the corpses of the Divine Arms officers. Ren Xiaosu frowned as the sound grew closer. It had to be the Li Consortium’s people if they were heading north at this time. They must have seen the Brambles and the two dead Divine Arms officers.

Ren Xiaosu immediately tossed greed aside and ran towards the snowy mountain. He would still have many opportunities to collect nanomachines in the future. But if his identity were exposed, that would be very troublesome.

One of Ren Xiaosu’s greatest strengths was that he could always maintain his rationality when faced with huge temptation, like the time when he had to give up on the gold back in the Jing Mountains.

The ambush on the Divine Arms Battalion went much smoother than Ren Xiaosu had expected. He did not even have to do much since the mysterious sniper had already helped him kill 99% of his enemies.

But the sudden appearance of this mysterious sniper had also made the situation weirder.