After the Immortal Disappeared

Chapter 196: Chapter 197: Ghost Needle Stone Forest

Everyone understood. "When do we attack?" Captain Sun asked.

"What’s the rush? He’s commanding a large army and is certain we’ll launch a sneak attack on Wei City. He’s planning to lie in wait for us to walk right into his trap." The man leaned against the crenelation. "We might as well let him wait. This season is perfect for sleeping out in the wild."

The captains all laughed. In the late autumn of the Panlong Wasteland, nighttime temperatures plummeted to three or four degrees below zero. Stand guard in the open for one night, and the wind and sand would scour half the skin from your face. If their opponents had marched straight here from the Baling Kingdom, they were about to get a harsh lesson in the merciless nature of the Panlong Wasteland.

Two double-hours later, the well-rested Great Wind Army finally received the order to prepare for departure.

"Captain Sun, Captain Liu, you two will take five thousand men to Wei City. Fly my banner. The more ostentatious, the better," the leader finally commanded. "If you meet strong resistance, don’t get entangled in a prolonged fight. Just retreat to Puxi Gully and defend it."

"He’s a firm believer that speed is the essence of war, gambling over ten thousand men to catch us off guard. It’s a reckless advance. If it fails, he’ll have no reinforcements and no supplies. That’s his fatal flaw—poke it as hard as you can. By the way, if one of you gets a chance, shoot down that great eagle. We need to eliminate the enemy’s scout to make our next steps easier."

Both men’s eyes lit up. "Yes, sir!"

"Captain Xiao, bring the Baling Army uniforms you’ve prepared. The original plan stands: we’re taking Wei City by stealth."

A quarter of an hour later, the gates of Puxi Gully swung open, and the Great Wind Army charged out, a torrent of red armor and furious steeds.

Several large banners snapped in the wind, each bearing a single, striking, crimson character:

Red!

* * *

Upon entering the Ghost Needle Stone Forest, the air suddenly grew humid.

Autumn in the Panlong Wasteland was bone-dry; a single spark could scorch a vast swathe of land. But the Ghost Needle Stone Forest was riddled with holes and caves, a landscape of high cliffs and low valleys. The cliffs blocked the searing sun while the valleys collected rainwater. So, even though the river had long since changed its course, the Stone Forest was far more humid than the rest of the Wilderness.

In autumn, more than half of the dense vegetation was still a lush, oily green.

In the shade at the base of some rock faces, ponds and streams had even formed. Drummer shrimp and small fish lurked furtively in the crevices between the stones.

The vegetation released a gentle moisture into the air. Just as Hee Lingchuan entered, he spotted wheel ruts in the wet mud.

’This won’t do,’

"Is the whole path ahead this muddy?" The valley they’d entered was far too damp. It would be ridiculously easy for the Baling People to follow their tracks.

To evade their powerful foe and buy time, General Nanke had decisively ordered the army into the Ghost Needle Stone Forest. He knew full well that its paths were a labyrinth, some extremely wide and others impossibly narrow, none of them man-made or maintained. Funneling the entire army down a single path was out of the question.

So, he had split the army into four divisions of varying sizes, each taking a portion of the merchants and wagons with them.

The four divisions took different routes, a tactic meant to confuse the enemy and minimize potential losses.

Fortunately, the Ghost Needle Stone Forest was a well-traveled route for merchant caravans, so every division was assigned a guide familiar with the terrain.

In Hee Lingchuan’s division, Fire Chief Liu Tong’s luck was rotten. Of the sixteen squads, two had to draw the short straws for rearguard duty. While others cheered at their results, Liu Tong pulled his lot, glanced at it, and his face went pale as dirt.

It went without saying: their nine-person squad had to stay behind and cover the retreat.

Door Panel was so furious he could only glare and curse. "Did you take a shit and not wash your hands before drawing the lots?"

Liu Tong had no comeback. He hurried ahead to negotiate and at least managed to secure a guide for them.

The guide had a miserable, unwilling look on his face and didn’t even want to talk. One could only guess how disliked he must have been in the caravan to get tossed to the rearguard. How was this any different from a death sentence?

Hee Lingchuan clapped him on the shoulder. "Guide us well, and I guarantee you’ll live."

The guide sighed. "I’m counting on you, sirs. I have an eighty-year-old mother and a two-year-old child to feed."

"So your family is only four or five people," Door Panel said, pointing at Skinny. "His has more than ten, and they’re all depending on him."

"Alright, enough fooling around," Liu Tong said, his face stern. "This is a good spot. Let’s set some traps."

If just ten of them were going to slow down the entire Baling Army, they’d have to use every trick in the book.

They walked a hundred feet or so and entered a bamboo grove. Bamboo was a rare sight in the Panlong Wasteland. Despite the humidity, the stalks here weren’t nearly as thick as those in the south; they were long and thin, like whips.

Willow came from a family of hunters, so setting snares and traps was second nature to her. Hee Lingchuan’s last few dream-immersion missions had involved hunting demons, and he’d learned a few tricks from her that were now proving useful.

Working as one, the group quickly set up five or six traps. The simplest was a bent-back bamboo stalk studded with sharp spikes, held in place by a tripwire near the ground. Anyone who touched the wire would get a face full of bamboo.

With the added spikes, the result would be... exhilarating.

Once the traps were set, they carefully retreated another hundred feet and took cover behind some solid rock formations.

After the first wave of enemies sprang the traps, they would observe the Baling People’s movements before planning their next scare tactic.

That’s right. The traps wouldn’t hurt many, but they would be a powerful deterrent, slowing their enemy’s advance.

Besides, tricks like Ghost Walls and Blinding Techniques were useful against common folk, but they were mostly useless against an enemy army also enhanced by Primordial Power.

As long as their Primordial Power wasn’t too weak, the enemy could see through such illusions in an instant.

Then, they waited with bated breath.

A good hunter must also be a patient one. Just last night, while hunting the Bear Demon, they had lain in wait by the pond for three whole double-hours.

So they stared at the bamboo grove before them, waiting for more than half an hour.

Skinny couldn’t help but mutter, "How are they not here yet?"

"Isn’t that a good thing?" Liu Tong hissed. "Shh!"

Another hour passed.

The sky darkened as the wind picked up, sending the bamboo into a rustling frenzy and scattering countless leaves.

But beyond that, there was nothing.

All Hee Lingchuan saw was a large toad nonchalantly crossing the path, hopping right over a tripwire.

’Can’t even catch a toad,’

"In another half hour, it’ll have been a full double-hour," Skinny said, swatting a mosquito on his face. "It’s a clear path of fifteen li. The Baling People still haven’t made it here?"

"We’re not waiting any longer," Liu Tong said decisively. "Let’s move on, while we can still see the ruts."

What they didn’t know was that the Baling Army had already reached the Ghost Needle Stone Forest long ago.

The army had arrived in force, but they refused to enter.

Torches were lit in the rear to illuminate the path, but an order quickly came from the front: "Extinguish all torches! Every last one!"

The leading Grand General had a scar on his face—it was Hua Mucuo, the Baling Main General who had captured Wei City. He stared at the iconic stone formations at the entrance to the Ghost Needle Stone Forest for a long moment before asking his subordinates, "Nanke’s army went inside. Are you certain?"

"The eagle in the sky saw it clearly. Nanke himself entered, and his army split into several groups. But the mist and tree cover in the Stone Forest are too thick; the eagle lost sight of them."

"As long as they’re inside, that’s all that matters." A strange smile touched Hua Mucuo’s lips. "The four-thousand-man rear flank will swing around and guard the northern exit of the Ghost Needle Stone Forest. Remember, no one lights any fires—not even a spark. And no one sets a single foot inside the Ghost Needle Stone Forest! If any of Panlong’s soldiers come out, kill them on sight!"

His subordinate acknowledged the order and departed.

Hua Mucuo gazed at the Ghost Needle Stone Forest, now cloaked in twilight, and spoke slowly. "Nanke, oh, Nanke... I hope you make it out alive. It’ll be so much more satisfying to gouge out your eyes and peel your skin myself, to appease my brother’s soul in the heavens!"

...

Hee Lingchuan and his squad followed the direction the main column had taken, making sure to erase the wagon ruts as they went.

But the path behind them remained quiet. No one was in pursuit.

The sun had set, plunging the Ghost Needle Stone Forest into darkness. The Baling Army shouldn’t have had any scruples; by all rights, they should be lighting torches and chasing them down.

Yet behind them, there was only pitch-black darkness and the moaning of the wind.

’Did they not give chase?’

’Or maybe we just got lucky, and there are no pursuers on this particular route?’

Door Panel muttered, "My prayers to Lady Mitian before we left really worked!"

Willow shot him a sideways glance. "You never used to pray."

Door Panel laughed sheepishly. "Well, not that I never did. Sometimes I just get too busy..."

A sharp "Shh!" from nearby cut them off.

But it was Hee Lingchuan, not Liu Tong. His voice was low and urgent. "Movement up ahead!"

Another gust of wind carried the sound to them. Willow, Skinny, and the others heard it too—the distant sound of human voices.

They were far off, but they sounded like... screams?

They exchanged a look and crept forward.

Moving silently through the forest required one thing above all: slowness. This was especially true when each of them was leading a horse that also had to be kept quiet. After about a hundred feet, they saw the flicker of firelight ahead, heard the shrieks of men and the neighing of horses, and noticed thin white threads appearing on the surrounding plants.

’Is this... a web?’

The guide grabbed Liu Tong’s arm, shaking his head and waving his free hand frantically, trying to signal them not to go.

The squad paid him no mind.

As the rearguard, it was their job to find out what was going on.

They hid downwind and peered through the thick foliage. Ahead of them, a slope led up toward a cliff face. On it were sixteen or seventeen men and seven or eight horses.

The men were waving torches, stabbing their swords down at the ground.

They seemed to be surrounded by a black tide, one that moved and hissed and was... furry...

In the flickering torchlight, Hee Lingchuan finally saw what was surrounding them, and his blood ran cold.

Spiders!

A tide of spiders, each bigger than a cat, was frantically attacking the small group of Patrol Guards. The sound of tens of thousands of spider legs scraping across the ground was a rustling SHHHHH that sounded just like waves crashing on a shore.

Dozens of spiders were being cut down every second, but more would immediately take their place, lunging forward recklessly to bite and claw. Some were like bombers; after a moment’s pause, they would turn, aim their abdomens at the men, and spray a thick, heavy wad of webbing.

The webbing was incredibly sticky. Even with blades enhanced by Primordial Power, it was difficult to slice through. Several of the Patrol Guards were already draped in the stuff, with no time to clear it away before more was added, entangling them further.

Some of the spiders were enormous, nearly the size of jackals. After spraying their webs, they would grab the strands and pull, trying to drag the men down the slope.

They showed no fear of the torches, nor were they deterred by the soldiers’ Primordial Power, relentlessly surging forward wave after wave.

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