Chapter 99 Chapter 98 Stealth
Ji Ma held the “branch staff,” leaning against the wall in a feigned slumber, her peripheral vision glancing to the left. Just a few meters away, within a tranquil hidden barrier, Bald Qiang followed her will, stripping the dimension sorcerer bare and stuffing the valuable spoils into a box.
He then twisted the dimension sorcerer’s corpse into a ball, wrapped it in his clothing, and placed it in the corner of the wall, completing the disposal.
To conserve magic, Ji Ma immediately sent a thought, making Bald Qiang disappear and the tranquil hidden barrier dissolve. Ji Ma swaggered over to pick up the box, opened it, and inside was a stack of green dimension stone coins leaning against the corner of the box.
Ji Ma picked up a coin radiating green light, her finger wrapped in a leather glove, pinching the dimension coin, which glowed green in the darkness.
Among the half-circle of ratman guards surrounding her, several greedy gazes fell upon the dimension coin in her hand.
Ji Ma scanned the backs of their heads and selected the greediest ratman, raising her hand and pointing at him: “You, turn around.”
The ratman turned around, holding a triangular shield in one hand and a cleaver in the other, his eyes glowing bright red.
“Want it?”
He dragged out the final syllable: “Yes, yes.”
“As long as you, in my name, do something for me, it will be yours.”
Ji Ma tossed the dimension coin to him; he hurriedly set down his cleaver and caught the coin, immediately looking left and right, afraid someone would snatch it. When no one dared to take it, he held the dimension coin before his nose, sniffed it, and immediately stashed it in a hidden place.
“Here.” Ji Ma handed him the glowing stick George had given her, “Now, take this thing to the place I specify. You just need to grip it, twist it, and pull.”
Her voice, after translation, sounded strange in the ratman’s ears, heavily marked by machine translation. After a moment’s thought, the ratman finally understood Ji Ma’s meaning.
“Okay, okay.” The ratman replied excitedly, “Where to? Where to?”
“Follow me.” Ji Ma said, stepping onto a staircase, bending to avoid hitting her horns on the low fortress built by the dwarves.
Upon reaching a small observation hole, Ji Ma pointed to a distant cave entrance and said, “See that cave where a cluster of dead mushrooms is growing?”
The ratman guard leaned in to ask, “Where?”
Ji Ma used her “mimic” ability to imitate Jenna’s powers, shooting out a beam of green light from her fingertips.
“There, do you see it?”
“See it, see it.”
“Then go quickly!”
“Yes, yes.” The ratman guard bowed his head, slinging his weapon behind his back and scampering away on all fours.
The ratman guards below were whispering to one another; Ji Ma listened closely and heard them discussing her, wondering why her speech sounded so strange. She knew it was the result of “machine translation,” as she didn’t understand the ratman’s language.
As Ji Ma descended, the ratman guards fell silent.
The true dimension sorcerer’s body lay less than four meters in front of the ratman guards, merely wrapped into a ball.
A curious ratman guard stepped forward and said, “What is this?”
Just as Ji Ma was about to speak, the ratman guard, curious, untied the bow at the top, and the blood-stained cloth spread open, revealing the sorcerer’s corpse, which looked tragic, with its limbs twisted, having been brutally contorted into a ball. Fortunately, Ji Ma had been meticulous, ordering Bald Qiang to strike the sorcerer’s face several times, causing it to cave in.
The ratman guards were frightened and took a step back; some glanced at Ji Ma, and then at Ji Ma slowly coming down the stairs.
Even though Ji Ma had a slight difficulty recognizing faces, she could see the confusion and suspicion on their rat faces.
“M-Master, what is this?” the ratman guard stuttered, “It looks like you.”
Perhaps Bald Qiang should have hit harder.
“Can you guess why?”
The ratman guard shook his head.
“He was an assassin trying to impersonate me.” Ji Ma said, “Yes, yes, that’s right.”
The ratman guards momentarily regarded this as reasonable; some raised their knives and left deep gashes on the sorcerer’s corpse, smiling obsequiously at Ji Ma:
“This vile creature! Thinking it could impersonate you.”
Ji Ma couldn’t help but show a charming smile. This encouraged the ratman guards to rush forward, their knives rising and falling, hacking at the corpse.
Ji Ma took a vial of blue potion and sipped, glancing at her personal system; her primary concern was her magic power. She didn’t want to lose control and say anything she shouldn’t.
With magic power still at fifty-four percent, Ji Ma decided to control it, allowing it to drop to a maximum of fifty percent.
At this moment, a scream echoed in the distance. Ji Ma immediately walked to the observation hole and saw a flash of white light in the left wing, particularly conspicuous in the darkness of the main path.
It must be George and the others “stealthing.”
Ji Ma hurried up the steps, racing to the top and through a small door, reaching the stone bridge.
The ratman captain was already standing up, gazing towards the incident’s location, as several shield-bearing guards rushed over.
Ji Ma dashed towards him, saying, “They’ve seen through our ambush.”
The ratman captain frowned, exposing his yellowed teeth at Ji Ma and shouted, “Shut up! Shut up! You annoying rat, I haven’t seen our ambush being uncovered!”
Before he finished speaking, a fireline sliced through the darkness, striking the granite “ceiling” overhead, releasing a spark that shattered the makeshift shooting platform built above.
With a loud “boom,” several ratmen and flaming wooden boards fell together.
“Look over there!” Ji Ma pointed, “They’re coming to kill us.”
“What?”
The ratman captain instinctively turned his head. Ji Ma, holding the “branch axe gun,” swung down sharply at his back.
“Ha!” The ratman captain reacted quickly, turning back to block Ji Ma’s axe blade with his serrated knife, looking at her mockingly.
As the axe blade and the serrated knife collided, sparks flew. The branch axe deeply carved into the serrated knife, causing the ratman captain to step back in fright, the tip of the axe gun slicing a wound across his fluffy neck.
“Stupid!” the ratman captain shouted, “I’ve been backstabbed so many times!”
Before he finished, the branch axe gun spit out a long, sharp tongue like a frog; the tongue was bright red, covered in sharp teeth, and forced its way into his wound, sucking blood vigorously.
Frightened, the ratman captain swung his knife and severed the sharp tongue, but it quickly healed. Ji Ma seized the opportunity to stab again; the ratman captain retreated, using the serrated knife to deflect the axe blade. With a crisp “crack,” the serrated knife broke.
Fortunately, one ratman bearing a shield charged over. The ratman captain pushed hard, shouting, “Charge! Stop him!”
Ji Ma thrust forward, the tip of the gun easily piercing the thin metal, burying itself in his chest. When she pulled it out, before the blood could flow, the branch axe gun’s tongue extended into the wound, drilling up along the blood vessel into the heart.
The shield-bearing ratman collapsed, his knees buckling as his shield and sword fell to the ground. The pain of death and the blood flowed into Ji Ma.
Another guard pierced at her with a sword. Ji Ma deflected the sword with the iron-wrapped end of the “branch axe gun,” then swiftly turned and swept low, the axe slicing through the opponent’s calf. The force was not great, but the blade was extraordinarily sharp, easily severing the leg.
The ratman with the severed leg fell, screaming as he tumbled off the stone bridge. The sharp tongue did not miss this bloody feast, darting in, drilling into the wound, upward to the heart, greedily drinking blood. Before the severed leg ratman could hit the ground, he was already drained of blood, and the blood-red runes on the branch axe gun glowed even brighter.
Though Ji Ma killed two ratmen fluidly, more ratman guards poured over.
Once the ratman captain was safe, he panted, grinning, “Stupid horned creature! Come on and kill me if you can!”
A death arrow silently struck him in the neck, gray all over, hidden in the darkness. The arrow released a wave of energy, exploding with a bang, as if someone had kicked him hard from the side.
Seeing him off-balance, Ji Ma stepped aside, losing her footing and almost falling off the stone bridge. Ji Ma quickly jerked the axe gun from a ratman’s corpse and swung it around, the bloodied sharp tongue whirled around, brushing past the faces of the ratmen.
The ratmen were terrified, backing away in unison. Ji Ma seized the opportunity to leap, escaping the encirclement, and fell off the stone bridge, wings spreading open, rushing towards the ratman captain, shouting, “I’m here to kill you!”
With that, she stabbed and pulled, the sharp tongue diving into the wound to suck blood.
Just before landing, Ji Ma flapped her wings and ascended, flying over the stone bridge. The sharp tongue stretched out to nearly two dozen meters long, withdrew from the lifeless body of the ratman captain, snapping back to the axe blade. The sharp tongue curled like a wave, blood raining down on the faces of the ratmen below, sparking panic among them.
Many ratmen noticed Ji Ma flying; they waved their slingshots, lead stones flying toward her, but it was difficult to hit Ji Ma’s agile figure. A few lucky lead stones seemed about to strike Ji Ma but deflected under an invisible force.
Ji Ma used her mimic ability to send out green light from her fingertips, shaking vigorously to indicate that the two important figures were dead.
No response.
Ji Ma flew toward the left-wing battle area, spotting George and his group stealthily advancing. George was leading the way, striding across the uneven rocks as if walking on flat ground, and all the slow ratmen were dying at the end of his sword.
It was a massacre; the ratmen were either cut in half or had their heads flying off.
George raised his hand, emitting green light in reply.
Ji Ma nodded, flying over the battlefield to scout the enemy situation. As expected, the ratmen were chaos without a leader, panicking and scattering; except for those still trying to understand what had happened, the rest were running faster than the next.
Ji Ma watched a group of ratmen still confused about the situation, a wicked idea forming in her mind. She quietly descended, becoming invisible among the group of ratmen, and imitated their tone, shouting:
“Run! Run! Let’s all run to the camp!”
“We’re dead! Run! Run!”
The ratmen immediately collapsed, fleeing toward the camp. The rumors Ji Ma created spread with the fleeing ratmen, evolving on their own.
“Reinforcements are behind! Flee to the camp!”
“Yes, yes, to the camp!”
“A horde of dwarves is attacking head-on! Run!”
Ratmen are good at fleeing, and they fled quickly, but all the ratmen ran in the same direction. When they reached the camp, even the most skilled runners found themselves trapped.
Ji Ma landed on the stone bridge, watching the chaotic rat heads below, and yelled, “The armored creatures are coming to kill us!”
The ratmen fled even more frantically, cutting down their companions in front and biting their necks, all to pass through the fort’s narrow passage faster.
Ji Ma watched with delight, raising her axe gun, its runes glowing brightly, and a small rain of blood fell upon the heads of the crowding ratmen. The blood dripped onto them, though it felt as if they had been cut, their wounds running blood indiscriminately, and many injured ratmen collapsed, blocking the passage and further reducing mobility.
“It’s simply a blood-soaked pie.” Ji Ma set down the dimly glowing branch axe gun, her heart filled with joy.
Suddenly, a flash of light appeared, a sphere of light forming above the crowded ratmen. Panic-stricken, they pushed and shoved, stepping on the bodies of the corpses and fallen comrades, frantically trying to escape the light sphere while helplessly watching themselves get roasted.
The scent of burnt feathers wafted in.
Ji Ma pinched her nose, turning to see a red dot glowing at a distant cave entrance. She leaped down, flapping her wings to fly, and in less than ten minutes, spotted the ratman guard, frantically waving a red light stick.
Ji Ma transformed the branch axe gun into a triangular staff, flying closer.
He looked at Ji Ma flying toward him with suspicion and asked, “Huh, how can you fly?”
Ji Ma landed, not killing him, but instead continuing to deceive him: “The blessing of the Great Horned Rat, just keep waving that light stick here, I’ll keep you company while we wait to escape together after the front lines fall.”
While she spoke, she revealed a dimension stone coin.
The ratman guard nodded vigorously: “Okay, okay.” He energetically waved the red light stick like an ecstatic fan at a concert.
That way, Ji Ma avoided the labor of waving the light stick herself. She sat down and checked her remaining magic power, which just happened to remain at fifty percent, and the pain energy she had collected was gradually dissipating.
Twenty minutes later.
George and his group came into view. Ji Ma utilized her dwindling pain energy to chop the ratman guard to death, reclaiming the dimension stone coin from him and giving the corpse a kick off the bridge, raising the light stick to wave.
When George’s group arrived, Ji Ma wiped the sweat from her forehead and exclaimed, “You finally made it! I just snatched the light stick back from that stinky ratman.”
It made it seem like she had been waving the light stick all along.
George glanced at the ratman’s corpse on the ground, his expression one of shock—there was a deep wound at the front of the neck, with only a bit of flesh connecting it to the head.
He nodded and said, “Thanks for the effort.”
Ji Ma turned to Jenna, her eyebrows raised in delight, “Did you enjoy the kills? So many ratmen gathered together.”
Jenna shook her head, saying, “I feel quite awful.”
It was truly pitiful not to gain enjoyment from the slaughter.
Originally wanting to hear praise, Ji Ma looked at Jenna with pity.
Beside them, Felix was panting, his face pale, with some vomit lingering by his mouth.
But he lifted his head and said cheerfully, “What a great battle! I didn’t expect that heroes could be so powerful—just one light can eliminate so many evil creatures.”
Ji Ma reminded him, “My contribution in gathering the monsters is unparalleled.”
“Then tell me about it.”
They chatted as they walked.
Ji Ma boasted of her bravery in secretly assassinating the ratman leader, nearly revealing herself in the process but cleverly deceiving them. In the end, she said that she guided the team to the cave and that a ratman had tried to snatch the light stick from her.
Ji Ma wasn’t worried about George discerning the lies because nearly everything she said was false.
George suddenly asked, “So you tricked that ratman into waving the light stick for you, and then you ambushed and killed him?”
“Ah, you caught me,” Ji Ma said, displaying a pure and innocent smile, “Is it because the wound’s location was wrong? I specifically called out to him, made him turn, and then chopped down.”
“No.” George replied, “I saw from a distance that the one waving the light stick was a ratman.”
“Oh dear.” Ji Ma grabbed George’s arm, leaning against him, “As expected of my fiancé, such keen observation. How can you be tricked?”
Felix understood why George’s lifestyle choices were questionable, exclaiming, “The church demands too much.”
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By the way, not many people probably know what an axe gun looks like. The prototype comes from the image below, primarily used as a weapon by knights.
