Chapter 176

The retreat route hadn't been prepared by him personally,

but had been set up in advance by another member of the team.

The pursuing soldiers behind had already caught up,

and without further hesitation,

Big Beard grabbed the rope and leapt straight off the cliff.

After he landed,

he casually tossed a grenade back up at the cliff face,

then turned and ran in another direction,

sprinting off without looking back.

The soldiers of the Kingdom of Yilie who had chased him to the cliff edge

had just caught sight of Big Beard leaping down,

"Holy shit! There's a rope here!"

"Huh? Did he set it up in advance?"

"After him!"

Just as the Yilie soldiers were about to continue the pursuit,

they saw a high-explosive grenade lazily lobbed up from below the cliff.

"Careful! Grenade!"

Boom!

The Yilie soldiers flung themselves flat,

because this grenade had been thrown up to detonate in midair,

so the dense shrapnel shot out in a full 360-degree spray,

instantly inflicting casualties on the pursuing Yilie soldiers.

"Ma De! What a slippery bastard!"

"That son of a bitch even prepared his own escape route."

"We absolutely cannot let him get away!"

After the shrapnel stopped,

the Yilie soldiers got to their feet one after another,

hopping about in fury and cursing up a storm.

But then they suddenly heard several more explosions coming from the left side,

accompanied by a clamor of noise.

"Huh?"

"Those explosions are coming from the base!"

"Oh no! Could the base be under attack?"

"So are we still chasing or not?"

The officer leading them

looked at the running figure still faintly visible below,

then turned to look at the base, which was in an uproar,

and finally gritted his teeth hard.

"We can't chase anymore — let's get back to the base first!"

"What if it's a ploy to draw us away?"

With no choice,

the soldiers of this patrol squad

could only curse and grumble as they hurried back toward the base.

What had been a peaceful night,

at this moment,

was thoroughly thrown into chaos.

Along the entire second military defensive line of the Kingdom of Yilie,

explosions bloomed on all sides,

with startling blasts everywhere.

The patrol squads, reconnaissance teams outside the positions,

or the soldiers at the outposts and bases —

every now and then they would see

some fellow from the Silver Snake Mercenary Corps

brazenly appearing at the edge of a patrol route,

opening fire without a word,

or else blocking the base entrance to curse, taunt, and throw grenades.

The taunting words

came pouring out by the basketful.

Utterly lacking in class,

rotten to the core!

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