Chapter 119 – A Shocking Shot

If he hadn’t been pushed to the brink, Fan Xian would never have thought of utilizing the black chest. When he had initially accompanied His Majesty to the Great Eastern Mountain to pay homage to Heaven, he had always thought that His Majesty was setting up a game to play with people, so he had left the chest on the ship.

The box had been on the ship, had been wrapped in the 130,000 taels of silver, and was bared in the main hall of Suzhou’s Huayuan Garden, welcoming the stares of the crowds coming and going. The emperor and Chen Pingping, thinking about the chest were about to lose sleep, but no one thought that Fan Xian would be so honorable as to choose such a storage location.

The most dangerous place was the safest place, and this was true for people, as well as for the chest.

And he was heading for the hills at this point because he was clear that for this unequal sniping, his greatest advantage lay in the fact that Yan Xiaoyi had no idea what kind of weapons he possessed, and didn’t have the slightest cognizance of the horrifying hot weapons.

At a distance of five hundred meters, Yan Xiaoyi would only be beaten by himself, and once Yan Xiaoyi burst into three hundred meters or less, with Yan Xiaoyi’s fast and powerful archery, I’m afraid that Fan Xian would be shot to the point where he couldn’t even lift his head up, not to mention aiming. So he had to distance himself from Yan Xiaoyi while waiting for him to appear in his field of vision.

The reason why Fan Xian didn’t immediately forage for an opportunity to counterattack after getting the box on the ship was precisely because he was clear that Yan Xiaoyi didn’t need to aim and could shoot thirteen arrows in a second, whereas he would need to aim for a long time before he could …… barely get off a shot, and if he fired indiscriminately on the coast, he would surely become the most pouty traveler to have ever died.

Heavy sniping is not so fun …… This is a point that Uncle Wuzhu did not forget to remind him when he taught him to use a gun back then. The wind speed, the temperature, the refraction of light …… the so called missing the mark by a fraction of a millimeter, a thousand miles, is talking about this kind of thing.

Fan Xian didn’t want to fire a shot that he aimed haphazardly, only to pierce a large tree fifty meters away from Yan Xiaoyi’s side.

If a strong person like Yan Xiaoyi was allowed to experience the intimidation of a bullet and know that he had such a terrifying long-range weapon, the other party would surely have a way of bursting into his surroundings and making the heavy sniper’s force greatly diminished.

Therefore, Fan Xian only allowed himself to fire one shot.

Fan Xian was so cautious and careful and valued Yan Xiaoyi so highly, naturally he had his reasons. He had studied under Fei Jie’s education since he was young, and at less than sixteen years of age, he had mastered a whole range of techniques for tracking and hiding assassinations in the Inspectorate. When he had sniped Sean to death at the North Sea shore, he had already proved his strength.

However, after going deep into the mountains and forests of the northern part of Tanyu, Fan Xian had laid down traps along the way to eliminate traces, and with the help of the dense forests and slippery foliage, he intended to get rid of Yan Xiaoyi’s pursuers, but he was never able to do so. Yan Xiaoyi and his group always kept a distance of about a hundred feet from him.

Only in the end did Fan Xian figure out that Yan Xiaoyi was a hunter in the mountains back then, and seemed to be born with a sensitive sense of smell for his prey, and since he was his prey, of course it would be hard to get rid of the tracking. And as for those traps, I’m afraid they were nothing in Yan Xiaoyi’s eyes.

While Fan Xian was secretly admiring Yan Xiaoyi on the high mountain, a few muffled grunts and miserable screams came from below at the large tree where he had once temporarily rested earlier.

Yan Xiaoyi indifferently looked at the soldiers who had been stabbed to death by the wooden pegs, his eyes did not show any sadness, but instead, a wildfire began to blaze. Since Tanyu North abandoned his horse and entered the mountains, along the way, three of his five soldiers had already died in Fan Xian’s tricks and traps, and the man dying in front of him was the fourth.

Having tracked him to this point, Yan Xiaoyi, who was a supreme powerhouse on the ninth rank, lingering close to the realm of a great master, had the same thought in his mind as Fan Xian at this time, and both had a slight admiration for the other.

Yan Xiaoyi was aware of what kind of damage his own arrow on the cliff, and especially Lord Ye Liuyun’s sword, had inflicted on Fan Xian. If Fan Xian’s caliber used to fluctuate up and down amongst the ninth grade, then Fan Xian, who had been seriously injured and had experienced a night of running around, was at best a good eighth grade fighter.

He had thought that he would personally go out and hunt down a heavily injured Fan Xian, which would have been a hand to hand matter …… But it was such a heavily injured person who was still able to lay so many traps in the mountains, and some of the traps and mechanisms were such that even Yan Xiaoyi himself could not fully discover them, thus killing his own men and preventing him from moving forward.

An odor of corruption permeated the mountain forest. The pristine forests in the northern part of Tanya State were uncharted for thousands of miles, swamps and rocky mountains neighboring each other, fierce beasts battling with vines, and near the sea, the wet winds blew vigorously, blowing out the densest flora in the world, and the denser the flora, the more dangers were hidden within it.

The smell of corruption, I don’t know if it is the corpse of an animal, or the smell of aged fallen leaves piled up and being sunned out by the hot blazing sun, in short, it is very bad smelling, very pungent.

Yan Xiaoyi twitched his nose, slowly running the true qi in his body, and with great difficulty, he sniffed out the smell that was extremely well concealed by the rotting odor.

The traps, the organs all had this kind of smell, and the deaths of Yan Xiaoyi’s four powerful soldiers had originated from this, so if he had not been probing attentively at this moment, he would not have been able to sniff it out.

Yan Xiaoyi did not forget that Fan Xian was a student of Mr. Fei Jie, and was one of the few people in this world who used poison most aggressively.

There were still poisons laid down by Fan Xian somewhere in the mountains and forests.

Yan Xiaoyi looked at the mountains, his eyes narrowed, somewhat wondering where Fan Xian was getting so much spirit and courage from within his body that could sustain him for so long.

At this thought, a confident smile came through the corners of his lips instead, the more powerful the enemy, the happier it might be to kill them as well.

“Dudu ……” the only one who survived that personal soldier swallowed a mouthful of saliva, trembling voice said: “Once into the dense forest, it is difficult to come out alive …… “He lowered his voice and said, “After all, Fan Xian is not like you to know the secret passages in these mountains.”

Yan Xiaoyi indifferently glanced at that personal soldier and did not say anything. The mountains in the north of Tanyuzhou and the primeval forests in the mountains were the very key to isolating the land transportation between Qing and Dongyi City, and if it were not for that secret passage, it would have been impossible for the siege of Dadong Mountain to be successful this time around. Since half a year ago, Yan Xiaoyi had put his whole heart and soul into the matter of transporting troops through the secret passage, and he was particularly aware of the horrors of this secret passage and the surrounding mountains and forests.

But because of this, he had developed a hint of respect for Fan Xian’s ability to sustain himself until now.

“Five thousand brothers are waiting for you to go back under the Dadong Mountain …… Could it be that you are relieved to have that outsider in command?” This personal soldier was obviously shocked by the four dead brothers, by Fan Xian’s blood-stained instant death poison, and not paying attention to Yan Xiaoyi’s eyes, he bowed his head and said, “Even if Fan Xian makes it out alive, but there is the eldest princess sitting in Kyoto, so why bother?”

After a moment of silence, Yan Xiaoyi waved his hand, seemingly to signal this proctor to stop talking.

His hand happened to swing at the personal soldier’s face.

With a crunching sound, the head of this personal soldier was like a flattened watermelon, crooked and deformed, all his five senses squeezed into one place by the slap, and without even a muffled grunt, he just fell straight to the ground.

Yan Xiaoyi indifferently glanced at the corpse on the ground, walked to the back of that big tree, squatted down and lowly pressed the piece of weed that was flattened by Fan Xian’s sitting, confirming that Fan Xian had not left for too long, confirming the direction that Fan Xian had left in, and then silently chased after him.

Looking at the figure that appeared and disappeared in the head of the optical sight, Fan Xian sucked in a mouthful of cool air, tugging at the wound in his back that had been shocked out by that arrow, and coughed twice in a low voice. He did not have the heart to marvel at the magic of the black box, which could preserve this heavy sniper so well, and the optical sighting lens was still so clear …… He only cared about marveling at Yan Xiaoyi s mobility and powerful sixth sense.

He had been lurking in the grass for a while, keeping his eyes on the area up the hill, and was on the verge of locking onto Yan Xiaoyi’s body a few times, yet Yan Xiaoyi seemed to innately be able to sense that kind of danger, and every time, after standing still for half a second, he would be back in motion, using the cover of the sky-high trees and dense foliage to get closer to the mountain peaks, one step at a time.

Fan Xian took a deep breath, worrying that his earlier coughing would give Yan Xiaoyi a direction, and forcing down the sharp pain in his back, he burrowed out of the grass, climbed more than a hundred feet upwards towards a slanting height, and found another large tree that at least five people could fit around, leaning against the trunk and gasping for air.

The air was rapidly pouring into his throat, the searing temperature and his body’s insatiable appetite for oxygen making every breath he took incomparably quicker, and he felt a paroxysm of dryness and tingling in his throat, and a sad tearing sensation began to rise in his chest.

Fan Xian loosened the tie on his collar, forced his mouth shut, and breathed through his nose, cursing a few times in his heart, wondering why he was still so unconfident even though he had a heavy sniper – the recoil wasn’t too great, so why didn’t he dare to try a little advance?

Before his inner monologue was finished cursing, he felt a hint of strangeness, and his entire body immediately tensed up.

Then he heard a soft sound of duk, and the giant tree behind him seemed to tremble slightly.

It should have been an arrow.

Fan Xian originally had no reaction, but he immediately thought that those personal soldiers had already died out, so this arrow …… was naturally sent by Yan Xiaoyi. The pupils of his eyes shrunk violently!

He immediately bent his legs slightly, relaxing his entire knee and leaning his body slightly forward, this was the only stance change he was capable of doing in this instant.

This stance could unload the force, following the powerful force behind his back, letting his entire body fall forward in a smooth manner, defusing it as much as possible.

If one were to block hard at this time, the end would definitely be very miserable.

With a muffled buzzing sound, Fan Xian was shocked and fell forward, a mouthful of blood spewed out with a poof, and his whole body fell into the deep grass and shrubs, his face and hands were scratched with an unknown number of thin wounds.

Behind him, the giant tree, about the size of the palm of the tree bark bloomed, revealing the inside of the whitish trunk, a branch of small arrows like lurking for a long time like a poisonous snake, probed out the black arrow blade, with the arrow blade as the center of the circle, the white tree trunk by the arrow on the powerful qi shocked inch by inch cracks.

Fan Xian didn’t have time to look at the vision in the tree behind him, nor did he have time to rejoice that he hadn’t put down the box on his back, he didn’t even have time to wipe the blood from the corners of his lips before he had already begun another escape. Relying on his overbearing true qi to support his tired body, he let his feet run wildly towards the top of the mountain.

Yan Xiaoyi disappeared from the scope in less than five seconds, and had already touched within a hundred feet of himself, this kind of stance, this kind of horrifying mobility, really made Fan Xian a little chilled.

A few moments later, Yan Xiaoyi, who was dressed in light armor and looked like a heavenly god, appeared behind this large tree. It was just that his body was covered in dirt at this moment, and he looked incomparably wretched as well.

Yan Xiaoyi indifferently observed and once again chased after him. Only when his feet moved, he once again subconsciously slumped into the grass.

He could feel a danger that caused him some chills, having almost locked himself in earlier.

Yan Xiaoyi had felt this kind of aura before. It was in the middle of Kyoto’s streets filled with white mist.

However, what puzzled him was that the fixed mechanism that could lock himself across such a distance, unless …… Fan Xian had already reached the realm of a great master, or was aided by a divine bow like himself.

But he was still carefully lying in the grass.

Fan Xian, who was half-kneeling and aiming high above, realized that his target was always hiding in a dead end, so he couldn’t help but curse a few times, retrieve his heavy sniper, swallow the fishy taste of blood that gushed into his mouth, and rush towards the top of the mountain.

The northern part of Tantu State was full of high mountains, however, probably no one knew that at the top of this majestic mountain where Yan Xiaoyi and Fan Xian were sniping at each other, it was actually a flat mountainous area. The top of the mountain was as flat as a grassland, and wonderfully there was not a single large tree, only knee-deep long grass, like green felt, spreading out all the way.

The top of the mountain is a strange meadow that spreads all the way to the edge of the cliff.

In the grass at the edge of the cliff, Fan Xian set up the bracket and rested the black box calmly at his side, the expression on his face already calming down. He knew that he had no way out, even if he climbed down the cliff with the box on his back, but it was daytime, and if Yan Xiaoyi shot down with his bow, he would only die.

And he didn’t want to run away anymore. The reborn man with a heavy sniper was being chased by a primitive man with a bow and arrow, and being chased in such a sorry state, he felt ashamed. If he died like this, he would definitely be laughed to death in the underworld by those former sages, especially the one surnamed Ye.

However, the optical scope still could not capture Yan Xiaoyi’s figure. Cold sweat began to drip from Fan Xian’s forehead – his figure was also well hidden, but the general area had already been grasped by Yan Xiaoyi. There was only such a large area at the end of the meadow adjacent to the cliff, and Yan Xiaoyi would always close in on him.

And the closer Yan Xiaoyi got to himself, the smaller his chances of winning would be.

Yan Xiaoyi finally revealed his figure, traveling like an eagle along an odd trajectory amongst the grass. Obviously, although he didn’t know what Fan Xian had in his hands, he could clearly understand that the other party had something that could threaten him.

Fan Xian’s muzzle was stretched out in the grass, constantly swinging both ways, but he was never able to lock on to the figure that was rapidly moving forward.

Although the other party was moving forward and backward at times, seemingly drawing a spiral, Fan Xian knew better than anyone else in this world that the spiral was always going up, and Yan Xiaoyi was gradually shortening the distance between himself and him.

Five hundred meters.

The sweat on Fan Xian’s forehead was dripping faster and faster, gradually seeping into his eyes.

Four hundred meters.

Fan Xian gradually felt a hint of helplessness, a sense of emptiness after having the world in his hands and then realizing that everything was just an illusion. He has no way to snipe Yan Xiaoyi …… with a single shot while Yan Xiaoyi gets a little closer, and can definitely use the arrow in his hand to shoot himself into a hedgehog.

Three hundred and fifty meters now.

If he really let Yan Xiaoyi bully his way closer, with Fan Xian’s state at this moment, there was absolutely no way he could escape from under the Ninth Grade Upper Powerhouse.

Until this moment, Fan Xian finally understood the significance of this heavy sniper in his hand, and that was – there was no significance! No matter how powerful a weapon was, it ultimately depended on whose hands it was in. Trying to rely on a heavy sniper to sweep the world was nothing more than a delusion of a fool.

He himself couldn’t even snipe Yan Xiaoyi to death, let alone those old monsters at the top of Dadong Mountain.

Sweat dripped across the small cuts on his face from the blades of grass, a stinging pain, but Fan Xian’s heart gradually calmed down. He knew that he couldn’t let Yan Xiaoyi continue to approach him any further, but he couldn’t lock onto that fast-moving figure with his scope, and in this life-and-death situation, it seemed that he needed some luck.

On top of luck, one needed more courage and determination.

“Yan Xiaoyi!”

A loud shout came from the meadow at the top of the mountain. Fan Xian, dressed in all black, stood up from the grass with a loud cry, raising the sniper rifle in his hand and aiming it at Yan Xiaoyi, who was not far away.

This loud shout disturbed those ignorant creatures in the meadow, a cunning mountain rabbit began to prepare to run towards the nearest cave, a vole that was nibbling on the grass roots stopped its movement under the ground, its two front strands slightly hanging down, ready to run wildly at any time, and countless birds hidden in the grass began to lift up their wings, ready to fly to this fierce land.

Along with this shout, in that instant of lightning, Yan Xiaoyi made a decision that he would regret for the rest of his life, or perhaps have no time to regret.

He stopped his figure, took down the gold-wrapped silk longbow behind him as fast as he could, stood on top of the meadow with his feet one in front of the other, extremely stable, and pulled the bowstring to the full moon with all his might, a cold arrow branch, aiming straight at Fan Xian, who had appeared to show his figure.

In this instant, Yan Xiaoyi saw clearly what Fan Xian was holding in his hand. But he didn’t recognize this thing, perhaps it was the most advanced crossbow of the Inspectorate?

But since Fan Xian had already revealed himself and started to confront himself head on with a courage he had not shown all day and night, Yan Xiaoyi gave Fan Xian this chance.

It wasn’t that Dato’ Yan was arrogant, but he knew clearly that if he maintained a high traveling speed and released arrows at the same time, he didn’t see that he would hurt that little white boy who was more cunning than a rabbit, more timid than a field mouse, and more flighty than a bird of prey.

And at a distance of a hundred feet, as long as he stood firm on his foundation, he would definitely be able to shoot Fan Xian to death. Even if he couldn’t shoot him to death, he wouldn’t give Fan Xian any more chances to counterattack.

As for the strange shaped thing Fan Xian was holding in his hand ……

The human psyche is like this, there is always the fear of the unknown in regards to mysterious unknowns, which is why Yan Xiaoyi would have acted so cautiously earlier. When he saw the metal “thing” clearly, he naturally took it as the latest powerful weapon developed by the three departments of the Supervisory Yuan.

Knowing what it was, one would naturally no longer be afraid of it, especially for an arrogant and conceited supreme powerhouse like Yan Xiaoyi. Decades of immersion in the Dao of archery and his natural endowment gave him enough capital to be confident. He always thought that even if the enemy’s crossbows and arrows were fast, they could not possibly be faster than his own reactions.

Even if he heard the sound of arrows and machine springs before avoiding, he could still remain unharmed. Could there be arrows in this world that were faster than sound?

Yan Xiaoyi didn’t believe it, so he coldly stood still, drew his longbow, aimed it at Fan Xian, and loosened his fingers.

The arrow, flew out.

All of this happened in an extremely brief moment. From Fan Xian bravely standing up from the grass, to Yan Xiaoyi stabilizing his stance, to Yan Xiaoyi loosening his fingers, it was nothing more than ordinary people blinking their eyes.

Fan Xian’s speed was obviously not as fast as Yan Xiaoyi’s, so it was only when he clearly saw the arrow spinning at high speed, getting closer and closer to his body, that he gouged the trigger hard.

The muzzle of the sniper rifle blossomed into a spark that was very colorful.

The longbow in Yan Xiaoyi’s hand was humming, his stance still maintained with the same magnificence of a heavenly god shooting the sun. Then his pupils shrunk as ……

he saw that spark.

He also heard that very clear muffled sound.

However, there was no way for him to dodge anymore.

Because the other party’s “arrow”, really …… faster than the sound!

The sound of a poof was like a paper bag being slapped through by an urchin, like the bucket used for showering in the old mansion in Tanyu State being smashed open by a stone.

Half of Yan Xiaoyi’s body cracked open within a split second, his powerful muscles, his strong flesh and blood, all of them turning into a flower, a blood-stained flower that bloomed towards the green meadow in this instant.

He fell heavily without surprise. At this moment, he finally remembered that legend from back then.

At the same instant, the arrow shot by Yan Xiaoyi also ruthlessly pierced into Fan Xian’s body, soaring out a blood flower and pinning Fan Xian’s body to the slightly upturned meadow at the edge of the cliff.

Time flowed again. The mountain hare burrowed into its narrow cave, the vole dropped its front stock and began to run wildly through the darkness, and the birds in the grass took flight, transforming themselves into a mass of white feathers that fluttered unknowingly over the meadow at the top of the hill.

At either end of the meadow lay two of your dead men.