The First Order

The battle between Ren Xiaosu and the Experimentals was still going to attract the Qing Consortium’s people over. After all, there would be noise made in any intense battle. Although the Qing Consortium’s combat troops had lost track of Ren Xiaosu’s position, they had been keeping up with their search all this while in the forest.

When someone heard the sound of the fighting, the first thing they did was to send a command over the communications channel for everyone to gather.

Like black ironsand that was attracted to a magnet, the Xu Man-led Qing Consortium combat troops quickly moved towards the point of the incident. But they were disappointed the target was already gone by the time they arrived at the scene of the battle.

Let alone mistaking Xu Xianchu as Ren Xiaosu at the beginning, they had even lost track of Xu Xianchu now. This made Xu Man feel extremely depressed.

It had been some years, but this was the first time Xu Man had encountered this many unexpected things while carrying out his mission.

Xu Man advanced forward with great difficulty inside the forest. They trampled on the decomposing leaves and twigs, making a lot of noise. Xu Man pulled down his protective goggles and took a look around, then suddenly gasped.

He saw the corpses of several Experimentals up ahead that had been dismembered by some sharp object. The pale yellow blood of these Experimentals splattered on the ground was actually not obvious, but the broken bodies shocked everyone a lot.

Xu Man said, “Gather the body parts and put them together to see how many Experimentals fought in the battle.”

Based on Xu Man’s guess, Xu Xianchu must have encountered these Experimentals soon after his retreat. After that, the battle occurred.

By this time, the troops had picked up the pieces of the Experimentals’ corpses and put them together.

“Four Experimentals.” Someone said, “One of the Experimentals’ arms couldn’t be found, but it should be around here somewhere.”

“There’s only a single set of shoeprints here. The Experimentals were naked, so we suspect the number of humans who participated in the battle should be just Xu Xianchu,” someone analyzed.

Xu Man nodded. He spoke on the open comms channel, “Boss, we might have to reevaluate Xu Xianchu’s power. He killed off four Experimentals by himself.” Xu Man looked at the ground at a leaf and continued, “But Xu Xianchu is also hurt. There are traces of his blood here.”

Qing Zhen stood outside of the spotlight’s focus. The place was bright as day, and he thought for a long time before saying, “Being able to take on four Experimentals and kill them all is really quite shocking. Upgrade Xu Xianchu’s danger rating to B. Remember to bring back a sample of Xu Xianchu’s blood to place it into the records.”

“Roger.” Xu Man arranged for the people around him to get samples of the blood for safekeeping from the leaf on the ground.

In this era, the DNA contained in blood was extremely vital.

Qing Zhen had folded his hands behind his back. He stood in place and wondered, “Xu Xianchu and Yang Xiaojin have both appeared. Luo Xinyu has also revealed herself to be part of the Saboteurs Syndicate. But what about Ren Xiaosu? Has anyone of you seen Ren Xiaosu!?”

They did not know Ren Xiaosu had successfully made Xu Xianchu the scapegoat. The supernatural being they recognized to be a B-class threat was actually Ren Xiaosu.

What was the concept of being a B-class threat? All of the supernatural beings who had been marked as a B-class threat were considered extremely dangerous people.

Xu Man answered on the comms channel, “We didn’t see Ren Xiaosu. It might be possible that he didn’t even come into the perimeter we set up.”

“That could be possible.” Qing Zhen nodded. If they were to go back to their initial assessment of the targets, Ren Xiaosu would just be an unimportant F-class threat. In that case, it would be quite normal that he had chosen to retreat after finding the perimeter the Qing Consortium had set up.

Liu Bu had also mentioned that Ren Xiaosu had always insisted on avoiding the Qing Consortium.

Qing Zhen smiled. If only they had caught Ren Xiaosu; that would have been great. He might have become a bargaining chip they could use against Zhang Jinglin in the future.

It was a well-known fact throughout the entire Northern Frontier that Zhang Jinglin placed a lot of importance on friendship.

But it wasn’t a big deal even though they hadn’t caught him. Be it Stronghold 112 or Stronghold 113, they were both controlled by the Qing Consortium. Once Ren Xiaosu got back, their Qing Consortium would still be able to get their hands on him at any time.

Xu Man looked up ahead in the forest. Ren Xiaosu’s footprints showed that he was heading straight in the direction of the volcano. It seemed that he had already escaped north.

He did not keep pursuing. From the looks of the bloodstains at the battle site, “Xu Xianchu” must’ve not been badly hurt. Even if they continued after him, it would be too late.

However, Xu Man was rather shocked by this. During the day when so many of the troops took on just one Experimental, three of their soldiers had died while another thirteen were injured. But now, there was someone who could kill four Experimentals single-handedly!

Moreover, the wounds on these Experimentals were all very similar. They had tested it out before and found that even an extremely sharp combat knife would have to be wielded with great strength to tear through the skin of the Experimentals.

The secret of this “Xu Xianchu” ran far deeper than anyone could imagine. Xu Man had already decided to hold the upper management of Stronghold 113’s private army accountable for this matter. How could they not know there was such a terrifying supernatural being in their own ranks?

At this time, Xu Xianchu was still in the dark about the consequences he would be facing. Unlike Ren Xiaosu and Yang Xiaojin, he was actually the one who didn’t break into the perimeter of Qing Consortium’s operations.

Xu Xianchu did want to find out about what was happening in the Jing Mountains. But after not managing to break into the perimeter at the beginning, he thought about how he might not be able to get out once he got in. In the end, he decided to just go around the perimeter and head towards Stronghold 112.

He had his shadow clone carry him the entire way as he hurried to his destination. By the time Ren Xiaosu retrieved the gold, Xu Xianchu had already gone around the city and arrived at the rear of the Qing Consortium. So Xu Xianchu knew nothing of what was happening in the city. He also did not know he had been put on the Qing Consortium’s threat list, nor that he was really high up on it as well.

If he knew about this, he might just have turned back to fight Ren Xiaosu to the death.

Xu Xianchu, who was being carried by his shadow clone, had a niggling feeling that something was wrong, but he didn’t know what it was….

“Let’s fall back.” Xu Man said, “Set up the defensive line. It’s almost time for the Experimentals to start getting active. We still don’t know where their hideout is.”

Xu Man seemed to understand that even with these four Experimentals dead, that did not signify it was the end of them. The number of Experimentals was far more than anyone could imagine.

But right at this moment, Xu Man suddenly heard the sound of rapid footsteps from some hundreds of meters up ahead. It sounded like someone was running in a great hurry!

He flicked the beam of his tactical flashlight over and was surprised to see Ren Xiaosu being piggybacked on his shadow clone and fleeing.

Xu Xianchu was stunned. What was with this? Why was this “Xu Xianchu” running back here? Didn’t he already escape?

When Ren Xiaosu saw Xu Man and the soldiers from afar, he started deviating from his original path. He had intended to go around on the left side of the platoons to bypass the Qing Consortium’s soldiers.

But Xu Man did not hesitate. He immediately pulled the charging handle of his gun back and prepared to shoot.

But when Ren Xiaosu heard the sound of guns being cocked, he immediately said, “Why the hell are you shooting at me? Look at what’s behind me!”

Xu Man suspiciously looked at what was behind Ren Xiaosu. He saw dark shadows moving in the forest as he heard the loud dissonance of chains being dragged around.

Xu Man immediately knew that this was bad. Did you fucking go and poke the Experimentals’ nest?!