Chapter 298: Dragon Cliff Battle Record (21)

The human body falling from above performed a high-difficulty midair maneuver of over a thousand degrees of rotation. What was remarkable was that the contestant maintained a standard posture throughout the entire process, limbs never splaying apart. Even after he smashed onto the rocks and landed, he remained consistent to the end.

At the same moment the sound of his lumbar spine snapping rang out, the long, drawn-out scream came to an abrupt halt.

Lin Shiwan took a trembling step forward — the flying man had landed just a few paces ahead of him.

Staring hard, he saw it was none other than Su Tieqiang.

At this moment, Su Tieqiang's hands and legs were both bound with rope, his body already folded into a grotesque angle, blood spilling from his mouth in fitful spurts — clearly on the verge of death.

And when Lin Shiwan and the crowd gathered around him followed that trajectory and looked up, what they saw was a row of gun barrels protruding from both sides of the cliff edge.

"Run!" Lin Shiwan turned, bent low, and bellowed.

"Open fire!" Wei Yuan, holding the Electric Megaphone, gave the order with a chopping motion.

With a thunderous "Boom—", two rows of thick white smoke erupted simultaneously from both sides of the cliff. Nearly a hundred bandits were blasted to the ground on the spot in that first volley, when visibility was at its clearest.

Amid the enormous reverberations, the second volley quickly rang out, and several dozen more bandits collapsed at the sound.

By now, Bald Ditch had descended into utter chaos. The majority turned and fled back the way they had come, the scene a pandemonium of disorder. Stampedes had already begun; some had even drawn their knives, ready to cut down anyone blocking their path.

Fortunately, Lin Shiwan's mind remained clear. The speed with which this Official Army unit had descended like divine soldiers, and Su Tieqiang's death, made him grasp the truth with absolute clarity in an instant: today, the Maling Bandit Gang was thoroughly finished.

And so, hoping to preserve a sliver of the Bandit Gang's vitality, he began shouting as he ran, bent over: "Dissolve! Dissolve! Every man save himself!" Hearing his shouts, the several trusted aides clustered tightly around him began shouting the same.

In this way, those at the back of the column, running in a muddled daze, were suddenly jolted awake by the shouts. Right — why run back the way they came? The gang had already dissolved; they should scatter in all directions and flee for their lives!

When the first gunshots rang out, the Bandit Gang's vanguard had actually nearly reached the exit of Bald Ditch. But when catastrophe struck and they saw everyone turning to flee back the way they came, these men simply followed the tide.

Now, hearing those shouts, they suddenly saw the light: the exit was right behind them. Run out first and escape; they could always circle back to the fortress later — what was the rush?

And so, those closer to the exit began turning and running outward. With that, the Bandit Gang split into two breakout directions, and the mutual shoving and trampling lessened considerably.

The Bandit Gang's convenience was the ambushers' inconvenience. The soldiers' accuracy had already plummeted due to the dense white smoke filling the ditch, and now they had to split their strength to seal off the other end — they were instantly stretched thin.

Fortunately, certain people still had a Great Killer in reserve.

The next moment, two packages trailing green smoke and sizzling noisily were hurled down. Their landing points were right at the two ends of Bald Ditch, where large numbers of bandits, using rocks, corpses, and gunpowder smoke for cover from bullets, were at that moment filtering through the Valley Mouth.

Then the packages exploded.

With the blast points as the epicenter, a massive shockwave carrying shattered stone instantly flattened a large swath of bandits at the Valley Mouth.

What followed was more chaotic fire from the firearms.

Lin Shiwan hid beneath a massive boulder, shook his head, dazed from the shockwave, and poked his head out to sweep a glance.

In just a few short minutes, Bald Ditch had become a scene of utter devastation. Corpses covered every inch of the ditch; pools of blood were everywhere. Severed limbs and broken feet lay all around. Wounded bandits, shrieking in agony, were still desperately crawling toward the Valley Mouth.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood-froth shaken from his insides, Lin Shiwan raised a hand to halt several of his men charging toward the valley exit: "Don't rush. Wait for the main mass to finish charging, then we go."

The Valley Mouth, symbolizing survival and escape, was just fifty meters away. Moments ago, Lin Shiwan and his group had nearly rushed through and taken the blast — the large mass of bandits crowding ahead of them had taken the thunder in their stead.

Realizing that the Official Army overhead possessed such a Great Killer, Lin Shiwan immediately huddled with several trusted aides beneath a massive boulder.

Not long after, prompted by the dense bullet rain overhead, large numbers of reeling, deafened, and dazed bandits gathered once more. Amid the shouts of Lin Shiwan's several trusted aides, another wave of the breakout attempt began.

Then, as expected, another Soaring Cloud Grand Gift Pack was thrown down from above.

The moment the blast's shockwave passed, the seven men, with Lin Shiwan at their core, hiding behind the rock, dashed out in a single file.

Heads lowered, backs hunched, minds reeling, steps staggering, ignoring gums and internal organs rattled by the shockwave, they simply trampled the corpses underfoot and charged forward. After the blast, the swirling dust cloud blocked the sightlines of the gunners overhead. If they didn't charge now, there would be no chance left.

In the end, after the main force had paid a toll of over four hundred casualties, and his own core team had sacrificed three more men, Lin Shiwan and his remaining three finally endured the dense bullet rain and, together with a scattered batch of bandits, charged through the Valley Mouth — which had now become the Gate of Death.

The chokepoint was never going to be easy to breach. The soldiers overhead were not dead men. Finding their vision completely blocked by gunpowder smoke and dust, Wei Yuan not only ordered all gun muzzles aimed at the Valley Mouth for blind fire, but also made the decision to split his forces.

Truth be told, today was not a good day for an ambush. The wind force in the nearby mountain forests was very low, and the thick smoke lingering in the ravine refused to disperse for a long time — this undoubtedly slashed the ambush's efficiency by a large margin.

So Wei Yuan decisively split his forces.

Leaving one part of his men behind to lay down blocking fire at the two valley mouths, Wei Yuan personally led the remaining men to the valley mouth facing Duima Ridge to pursue the bandits. The majority of the bandits' breakout direction was still this side — human instinct in a crisis is to run for the old nest.

Thus, just as Lin Shiwan and his group ran out of the Valley Mouth, the rope ladders prepared in advance overhead were thrown down, and a string of soldiers carrying gunpowder packs were rapidly climbing down the cliff face.

Wei Yuan was not anxious to descend.

He raised his binoculars and carefully studied the scattered bandits fleeing in a ragged fan shape below, then handed the binoculars to Yang Er beside him: "Take a look at those few."

Following the direction of Wei Yuan's finger, Yang Er raised the binoculars and immediately spotted the clue. One group was very conspicuous: three men were tightly shielding the man in the middle.

A formation completely different from the other scattered bandits fleeing nearby instantly let Yang Er find the truth: "The one in black in the middle — that's most likely Lin Shiwan."

"Not bad, young man, you've got a sharp eye!" Wei Yuan chuckled as he praised his own indolent Orderly.

Then Wei Yuan turned hostile.

With a ringing "Clang!", Wei Yuan drew the Black Crocodile from the back of his waist.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the combat knife to Yang Er: "Go and bring me back Lin Shiwan's head."

"Ah?!" The young man was shaken to the core.

"If you can't bring back Lin Shiwan's head, then go back to Hangzhou and be a thief again. We'll part on good terms — I don't keep useless trash here either."

After confirming that Wei Yuan, who was now striking a pose gazing into the distance, was not joking, Yang Er's face first showed utter disbelief, then his expression shifted to grievance, and finally, the thief's complexion turned vicious, his eyes beginning to bloodshot.

The next moment, knife in one hand, the other gripping the rope ladder, he slid down like a monkey.

After charging out of the Valley Mouth, Lin Shiwan and his few men quickly diverged from the other scattered bandit remnants.

The majority of those who escaped were fleeing toward Duima Ridge, but Lin Shiwan's group secretly veered into a patch of woods and ran in another direction.

"Great Lord, let's rest a moment. Once we're in the woods, it'll be fine — the soldiers can't catch up."

Lin Shiwan's internal organs had been rattled by the blasts after all, so he was running slower and slower, constantly spitting blood-froth along the way.

A trusted subordinate called Hei Lv, seeing that he truly couldn't run anymore, helped him sit down on a tree stump in the forest.

Clutching his chest, Lin Shiwan gasped, out of breath: "Rest... rest for half an incense stick, then we go."

"Great Lord, why aren't we heading back to the fortress?" Taking advantage of the moment Lin Shiwan was resting, another lean, dark-skinned man spoke up.

"Go back? Go back to die?" Lin Shiwan coughed twice and said bitterly: "This Official Army unit moves fast. Before we could even get back, the fortress will have long been taken!"

"Ah, then what's to be done?"

"Back to Lin Family Fortress." Lin Shiwan had prepared for this long ago: "Back to Lin Family Fortress to lie low and heal. I've got silver stashed in the fortress — your rewards won't be shorted."

Hearing the Great Boss say this, smiles immediately appeared on the faces of his trusted men.

Then they saw Yang Er.

In the sun-dappled woods, a young man with a large purplish-red birthmark on his face, wearing a green short jacket and carrying a strange gray long blade in his hand, walked over from the distance just like that.

"You two, take the Great Lord and go first!"

The tall and sturdy Hei Lv, seeing pursuers arrive, immediately drew his waist knife and charged forward to meet them. After rushing several steps, Hei Lv let out a great shout, stepped forward and exhaled, then brought his waist knife slashing diagonally down at his opponent. This blade swept out, seemingly ordinary, but its force was strong, its momentum fierce, vicious and ruthless to the extreme.

Yet Hei Lv's blade cut through empty air — the painted-face opponent somehow nimbly leaped aside, letting the blade pass, and then Hei Lv felt a chill at his waist.

When he halted his momentum and turned his head to look, he discovered the opponent had already bypassed him and was heading straight for Lin Shiwan without a backward glance.

Hei Lv was frantic. Just as he prepared to turn around and block the enemy, a great gush of blood and shredded flesh sprayed from his waist — a gash deep enough to reveal his organs only now revealed itself.

Seeing Hei Lv taken down in a single exchange, Lin Shiwan, fleeing desperately up ahead, proved true to his years in the Edo. He immediately stopped in his tracks and made the most advantageous decision: the three of them would fight shoulder to shoulder and deal with this powerful foe. Otherwise, none of them would escape.

However, the idea was beautiful, but reality was harsh: this was the woods. Before the scrawny bandit could complete his flanking maneuver, his comrade had half his head lopped off by Yang Er as they circled a large tree.

Quickly, the scrawny one followed in his brothers' footsteps: his weapon was cleaved apart, man and blade together, by Yang Er in a single cut.

And Lin Shiwan, leaning on his blade, coughing and vomiting blood, no longer had any capability left to resist.

The next moment, a head flew up.