NEC Chapter 81: Racing Across the Wilderness

To surround such a large area, the sentry posts arranged by Zircon Family were already spread extremely wide.

After Frost took out one with a single shot, the distance between two sentry posts now had enough space to fit a whole train through sideways. Naturally, there was no possibility of interfering with the [Shuttle]'s passage through the encirclement.

This was also their last chance. At this moment, Chen Mo's driving skills weren't quite proficient yet since he couldn't practice dynamically in the mountains.

However, after riding out just a short distance, Chen Mo found his rhythm. The throttle continuously accelerated, and the electric motorcycle sped like lightning across the bumpy wilderness roads, occasionally bouncing out a few surprised exclamations from Frost.

The little girl hugged Chen Mo's waist very tightly, which reminded Chen Mo of how, seemingly long ago, when he rode with girls, he would sometimes involuntarily squeeze the brakes.

Don't ask why, the answer was always uneven roads.

Behind them, magical beacons rose one after another. The startled stationed cavalry teams hurriedly spurred their horses in pursuit.

The breakthrough direction Chen Mo chose was one of the escape routes the opponents hadn't anticipated, because this area was adjacent to a straight official road where warhorses could gallop freely.

In Zircon Family's estimation, the enemy would have to have lost their minds to run this way.

They hadn't expected that what should have been a scene of horses chasing runners had become four hooves pursuing two wheels, and specifically high-tech off-road two wheels at full speed.

By the time they charged onto the main road, they truly couldn't even see taillights anymore, only a straight tire track pointing toward the distant horizon.

More than an hour later, the Fifth Knight arrived with an ashen face. After carefully inquiring about the scene, he let out a howl like a wild wolf.

"Send signals, notify the forward troops to intercept them!"

"Cavalry companies, pursue them! We must take them down!"

What followed was a chase that involved most of Southern Pass Territory.

Chase them? They couldn't catch up!

On the sixteenth day of the eleventh month, in the Year of Thunder of the Resting Moon Dynasty and the Year of True Knowledge of the Mistmoon Divine Court, Chen Mo drove the Shuttle, leading an entire cavalry team on a chase for twenty minutes.

Incidentally giving the young countess shooting practice.

Lady Frost sat facing backward, tied to Chen Mo with a belt, attempting for the first time to shoot at high-speed moving targets while moving at high speed herself.

With her foundation as a second-tier warrior, the young countess adapted extremely quickly, hitting five out of ten shots, taking down four men and one horse.

The final victim, the leading Zircon cavalry captain, whirled his refined spear until it became a blur. However, his usual technique of blocking arrows so tightly that water couldn't penetrate now seemed like mere juggling when facing sniper rifle bullets.

As the cavalry captain tumbled from his horse, the remaining cavalry uniformly turned their horses around and fled in all directions.

Block them? They couldn't.

Due to unfamiliarity with the geography, aside from knowing that Cloudmist Domain was to the north, the two knew nothing about other matters such as city locations, travel routes, or topography and hydrology.

So during daily travel, when road conditions were good, they would charge boldly straight north. If the surrounding environment was complex with interspersed villages, they would deploy the [Skylark] to scout ahead, avoiding enemy sight lines as much as possible.

The all-terrain vehicle climbed hills and crossed ridges. When they encountered truly impassable places, Frost could even carry the vehicle and run.

Under these circumstances, trying to intercept this highly mobile two-person team was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

But even if it was like searching for a needle in a haystack, Zircon Family's subordinate forces couldn't not pursue.

Whether they could catch up or not was a matter of capability, which could be attributed to terrain issues, weather issues, equipment issues, luck issues... and so on.

But whether they pursued or not was a matter of attitude, which couldn't be shirked.

With so many pursuit teams running around everywhere, there would always be times when they collided.

Especially the further north they went, the more open the terrain became, making Chen Mo and Frost's tracks increasingly difficult to hide.

Thirty kilometers west of Jinhan City in Southern Pass Territory, an ace scout ranger squad from Zircon Family, with the assistance of reconnaissance hawks, caught Chen Mo's trail.

This ace squad lived up to its reputation. Though it had only four people, they were all third-tier Silver Armor on average.

They wore light chain mail gleaming with blue light, with small wind-element runes inscribed on the armor scales that greatly reduced weight and increased speed.

Their mounts were also one in a thousand, all Black Wind Steeds standing six feet at the shoulder with knotted muscles and coats black as ebony wood. Taking advantage of this somewhat complex terrain, they actually managed to keep pace with Chen Mo's speed.

Because they were well-prepared, they carried protective magical accessories carefully crafted by territorial mages and equipped with mana crystals for charging.

Frost fired five consecutive bullets with no results.

Now Chen Mo was unhappy.

Isn't this wasting my bullets?

Your magical items might be expendable, but my bullets are precious. The valuable carrying capacity transported by the blood sacrifice altar shouldn't always be wasted on this.

And besides, I haven't even killed you yet, and you're still chasing?

Take one of my Wasps!

What could a drone weighing only 300 grams carry? Certainly not conventional weapons.

East Xia, combining the practical combat effects of various weapons in other worlds, believed that for these thick-skinned guys who often wore armor, high-temperature intense fire worked best.

No matter how great the explosive power, penetrating heavy armor was difficult, especially since Starry Continent warriors had extremely strong instantaneous defensive effects.

It still had to be the aluminum-magnesium effect that could take down fifth-tier Orc great knights back in the day. High enough temperature, sustained burning - no matter what plate armor, fighting spirit scrolls, or magical implements, they didn't believe it couldn't burn through.

Compared to traditional aluminum-magnesium incendiary bombs, the Wasp abandoned the initial explosive effect, using all the saved space to enhance two functions.

Automatic targeting and forced control.

Automatic targeting meant the Wasp would select attack priorities in this order: head - neck - chest - waist and abdomen.

Forced control meant the Wasp drone would release mist-like anesthetic gas when approaching opponents, interfering with their reaction speed, then viciously stab the "stinger" in, instantly melting to complete physical connection and clamp on tightly.

The ranger charging at the front was lucky enough to receive a Wasp stinger, which bit directly into the ranger's forehead position.

The effect was comparable to a facehugger.

No magical protection could withstand 3,000-degree high-temperature flames directly roasting the forehead.

Because it was so effective, the ranger scout only managed to let out a brief shout before his skull was carbonized and his brain matter roasted dry.

Witnessing this scene, the other three scouts didn't hesitate and turned to leave.

Their attitude had been demonstrated, and the leading captain had already paid the price. It was time to withdraw.

Chen Mo observed briefly and confirmed the enemies had indeed fled far away. Satisfied, he turned around and quickly returned to loot the spoils of war.

Collecting one more type of magical item meant the homeland could have more research results.

This was another advantage of the new Wasp - focused attacks could preserve other parts of the body relatively intact.

Including equipment.

From this day forward, Chen Mo's activity space expanded again. Zircon Family's people were still chasing him, but how should I put it, they were becoming increasingly perfunctory.

Loud shouting, long-range archery, exaggerated movements, but they were chasing from increasingly greater distances.

Just like this, they escorted Chen Mo and Frost all the way to the New Slope River at the border between Southern Pass Territory and Emerald Duchy.

The territories of the Starry Continent habitually used natural boundaries as borders, which was also a means of self-protection for fragmented small nations.

This river was one of the important tributaries of the Crystal River. The Marquis had arranged his final defense line here, deploying large numbers of elites along two bridges across the New Slope River, one high and one low, even at the cost of delaying attacks on Southern Pass cities.

Then Chen Mo chose a river mouth position a full dozen kilometers away from the two core defensive strongholds. With swagger, he used a combination of bombardment and intimidation to drive away the few patrolling soldiers, and under the attention of various magical beacons flying everywhere and reconnaissance eyes, he brazenly rode the [Shuttle] into the rolling river waters.

That's right, the [Shuttle] could go underwater too!

Otherwise, how could it be called an all-terrain vehicle?

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