Chapter 1468: Discovering the Invaders

Xin Yu's cool voice carried concern, "Xia Qing, your car is located in the 8-li southeast of Mountain Area 51. Four human invaders are moving toward Mountain 50. Based on their pace, three are intermediate-speed evolvers and one is an advanced elastic evolver. They're carrying a shoulder-fired rocket launcher and two sniper rifles — the gear looks very much like bounty hunters. Do you need fire support?"

Xin Yu's fire support meant having the trained bird drop bombs straight down from the air — the effect was truly devastating.

Xia Qing, gripping the steering wheel, replied, "No need, I can handle four people. Tell Owl to climb higher and stay safe, and record their crossing through the Mountain 51 surveillance. Do you have enough water? I'll bring you some this evening."

Mountain 51 was the officially designated Trial Zone for Territory Seven, with a ring of cameras installed along its boundary — no one was permitted to enter without authorization.

Surveillance here was handled by the Territory Seven Monitoring Room. If four bounty hunters brazenly crossed the monitored zone, it would prove there were still moles among Territory Seven's special-ops team; if they managed to slip past the cameras into Mountain 50, Xia Qing could still mend the fold after the sheep was lost and patch the gap.

Mountain Area 50 was about the same size as Mountain 49. Apart from a hidden valley and two hazardous zones polluted by incendiary toxic-gas shells, no humans were stationed in the rest of the trial zone. The northern wolf pack only sent members to patrol Peak Four, where prey was plentiful. Peak Two, whose ecology had not yet fully recovered from the toxic-gas damage, and Peak One, with few large prey, the wolves didn't patrol at all — leaving the enemy an opening to exploit.

Back in January this year, the people sent by Yu Wenchuang of the Chonglian Group to raid Northern Zone One had hidden in this unmanned, wolf-free stretch of Mountain 50.

Cautious as always, how could Xia Qing leave such a gaping hole unattended. So she hired her good friend's trained bird to patrol this mountain area daily, reporting to her the moment anything came up. Only the core members of the Territory Alliance knew about this arrangement.

Xin Yu certainly wouldn't stand on ceremony with Xia Qing. "Good, bring me 10 liters, and come for dinner at my place tonight."

Xia Qing acknowledged, ended the call, briefed the four allies in the car on the current situation, then made arrangements: "Before we enter the valley they can't get past. Just pretend you don't know about this. I'll go patrol Mountain 50, take them out, and rejoin you."

At those words, the allies immediately tensed up, but not one of them panicked.

Over the past few months, strength evolver Yuan Yan and hearing evolver Zhu Li had both been self-funding their attendance at the Azure Dragon Squad's joint training, and their combat power had improved; the three Tang siblings had studied combat under professional martial-arts instructors since childhood, and after the catastrophe their training intensity had multiplied several times over, so Tang Heng's combat power was by no means weaker than Zhu Li's or Yuan Yan's.

Level-five endurance and level-four vision evolver Ye Yang had spent the ten years before the catastrophe accompanying Yue Haiying on missions outside. Even though his lower-limb mobility was limited by a lumbar injury, he wouldn't fear four invaders carrying heavy weapons.

Not to mention top sniper Xia Qing was right here. Even if she weren't, teaming up with Zhu Li, Yuan Yan, and Tang Heng, even if they couldn't take out those four invaders, they could still keep them engaged until the allies arrived to reinforce.

Team up with Xia Qing to take on the invaders? Ye Yang was injured, and the combat experience and shooting ability he could currently offer simply couldn't compare with Xia Qing's. Of the four of them, only Zhu Li had the ability to team up with Xia Qing.

Ye Yang saw this point — and of course Zhu Li saw it too.

She braced herself against the seatback in front and applied to Xia Qing for a team-up: "Sister Qing, my hearing has reached level four and a half, my running speed has reached level two and a half, and my 25-meter chest-target shooting has reached the level of an ordinary soldier. Let me go with you? Whether or not I can help, I absolutely won't hold you back."

Wanting to improve her important allies' real-combat ability, and also wanting to conceal her own hearing-evolution ability, Xia Qing agreed: "Your protective mask reflects light and gives away your position — switch to my spare one in a bit."

"Great!" Zhu Li was overjoyed, immediately opened her pack, and inventoried her weapons and gear.

Yuan Yan's running speed wasn't as fast as Zhu Li's, her scouting ability wasn't as sharp as Zhu Li's, and her strength-evolution level was a far cry from Xia Qing's. Her hidden Class-B magnetic-sense evolution ability was useless against human opponents either. So she didn't apply to team up, but instead opened her pack and pulled out supplies Zhu Li could use.

After awakening her strength-evolution ability, Yuan Yan had learned packing techniques from Xia Qing and Shi Du. Now, whenever she left the territory, she carried a large pack with everything she might need, just in case.

"Take these 30 rounds with you, in this pouch." Seeing that Zhu Li had only brought 20 rounds, Yuan Yan handed her the magazine pouch holding 30 rounds and showed her how to strap it to her protective suit.

Zhu Li's and Yuan Yan's pistols were spoils Xia Qing had captured on a single mission, then had Lord Huo Lei erase the markings before selling them to the two women — so both guns used the same specification and caliber of ammunition. This ammunition currently went for 6 credits a round on the market, within what lords could accept.

"Sister Li, take these along." Tang Heng's gun was better-performing and didn't use the same ammunition, so he pulled out five hand grenades.

Ye Yang analyzed the current situation: "These four are very likely bounty hunters. On the black market, the bounty on Sister Qing's life is 500,000 credits; on the dark web, the bounty for capturing Sister Qing alive is 1,000,000. These four are carrying long-range attack weapons — looks like their target on this trip is the 500,000."

But they were exposed before they could set up their ambush, so they couldn't possibly succeed — because Xia Qing's sniping ability was top-tier!

Tang Heng continued his analysis: "They must have learned through public channels that Brother Jin, Brother Luo, Brother Huo, and Brother Ming have all left the territory, so they hurried over ahead of time to ambush in Mountain 51. They started moving the moment we left the territory — they must have accurate intel, knowing Sister Qing drove out of the territory."

Zhu Li fumed, "Someone in our Northern Zone One is leaking Sister Qing's movements to the outside!"

Tang Heng requested the mission: "Sister Qing, leave the mole-hunting job to me?"

This time, the person who leaked Xia Qing's movements to the outside could only have come from one of two groups: the screening-team members, or the territory members.

Screening-team members were soldiers officially assigned to protect the territory and the lord. All twenty-six territories of Northern Zone One had joined the Territory Alliance and were bound by the alliance covenant — anyone from either category who leaked Xia Qing's movements to the outside counted as a "mole."

Someone from the Azure Dragon Squad leaking Xia Qing's movements to the outside? Absolutely impossible — Yang Jin had just cleaned out the moles inside Territory One before he left, and even if there were still moles inside the Azure Dragon Squad, they wouldn't dare pass information outward at a time like this.

Tang Heng had the ability, and wanted to do this job — of course Xia Qing wouldn't refuse. "Good, thanks for your hard work then."