Chapter 115: Investigation (2)

It was a small group of Ferocious Race soldiers.

They were all wearing felt caps and thick hides. The frozen ground crackled and snapped underneath their feet.

With but a glance, Su Chen immediately identified these Ferocious Race individuals as not from the Red-Eagle Tribe.

The Red-Eagle Tribe did not have a habit of wearing felt caps. They preferred theirs to be made of fur, as felt caps weren’t as effective at keeping out the cold and would freeze more easily.

If they weren’t local Ferocious Race soldiers, then why would they be here?

As he considered all this, Su Chen didn’t leave. Instead, he found a tree that hadn’t completely fallen over yet and hid behind it.

The faraway Ferocious Race soldiers gradually approached. It was obvious that they were a trained group, and the leader of the group was covered in darkly colored inscriptions. Obviously, he had quite the high social status, and was roughly equivalent in strength to a Yang Opening Realm cultivator. Even though his style of attack was probably very simple and straightforward, his power was definitely extraordinary. The Ferocious Race leader was even emanating Origin Energy, implying that he was also probably a Temple Warrior.

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This was going to be a bit troublesome. His opponent was an official Origin Qi Scholar, and one with an incredibly strong physique at that.

Unlike humans, Ferocious Race individuals were primarily body cultivators.

They relied on Totemic Inscriptions, which were split into four different tiers that corresponded to the Origin Energy system’s Qi Drawing Realm to the Light Shaking Realm. It was virtually impossible to go any higher; in other words, if a Ferocious Race inividual relied solely on their system, they would only reach the Light Shaking Realm. However, by going through the Origin Energy Temple. they could also obtain a cultivation system like that of the humans, giving them a way to progress from the Qi Drawing Realm to the Light Shaking Realm in a more traditional sense.

However, these Ferocious Race members would need to go to the Origin Energy Temple every time they wanted to advance a tier. As such, all of the high-tier Origin Qi Scholars among the Ferocious Race had entered the Origin Energy Temple multiple times. However, an individual could enter the Origin Energy Temple at most six times, meaning that the Temple Warriors could only reach the Thought Manifestation Realm at most, and never the Ultimate Emperor Realm.

However, their lack of Origin Energy power was supported by their incredibly powerful physique. Since the Temple Warriors were cultivated both systems at the same time, they could break through the restrictions of their physique after reaching the Thought Manifestation Realm and achieve harmony between the two cultivation systems. With unrivalled physical power and and a Thought Manifestation cultivation, they could absolutely fight against an Ultimate Emperor Origin Qi Scholar.

The Temple Warrior before him had quite well-developed inscriptions, and it was very likely he had been baptized in the Temple before. Su Chen just didn’t know how many times. Even if it was just once, his opponent was obviously going to be a handful, and that was not even considering the seven or eight Ferocious Race soldiers behind him.

This was obviously an elite group of soldiers. It was even possible they were a group that focused on secret operations group, Su Chen thought to himself.

He noticed that one of the Ferocious Race individual’s eyes were clearly different, as they were glowing with a strange green color.

A Clairvoyant.

Clairvoyants weren’t produced by the Divine Shrine; instead, the army had to use a secret skill to train them, and they specialized in seeing through people’s disguises.

Su Chen’s disguise would be very difficult to maintain in front of the Clairvoyant.

The Ferocious Race had few individuals with specialized professions, and Clairvoyants were no exception. Amongst the Ferocious Race’s army, not even the investigations units had a Clairvoyant in every team. Only the elite ones would be assigned one.

A high-tier Totemic Inscription Temple Warrior and a Clairvoyant? Without a doubt, the Ferocious Race team before him was an extremely elite group.

What would an elite investigations unit be doing all the way out here?

It couldn’t be......

A feeling of unease began to surface in Su Chen’s heart. At the same time, he concealed himself in Shadow Substance — he wasn’t confident that he would be able to trick the Clairvoyant.

The small Ferocious Race squad finally arrived at the scene of the Yellow Dragon Forest.

The Ferocious Race captain waved his hand, and the Clairvoyant stepped forwards, scanning the surroundings of the forest quickly.

After searching the place, he said, “The fire happened about fifteen days ago. It’s not easy to start a fire in the Permafrost Wastelands, and the Yellow Dragon Forest is even harder to ignite, but it still happened. The ashes indicate that the source of the fire was Origin Energy related. In other words, this fire wasn’t a coincidence — someone set it ablaze on purpose. There were also many points of origin for the fire, at least thirty of them.”

“At least thirty points of origin for the fire?” the Ferocious Race captain asked.

“Yes!” the Clairvoyant responded with confidence. “The most interesting thing is that because of how cold this place is, most of the ash has frozen over, but from the amount of ash left behind we can tell that not many of the trees were actually burned down. See......”

The Clairvoyant pushed aside a pile of ash, revealing the tree trunk underneath. “There’s traces of an axe-slice, meaning that they were most likely felled before the fire was started.”

A few members of the investigations squad glanced at each other, and the captain said, “Check out the other places.”

All of the Ferocious Race soldiers began to spread out and push the ash aside.

“The trunk over here has axe marks.”

“Same here.”

“Here as well. All of the large trees were chopped down, not burned to the ground!”

The yells continued to spread, and the Ferocious Race captain’s expression sank. “Indeed, these crafty humans are doing something behind our backs. Their true motive for coming here was probably the Yellow Dragon Wood!”

“Why exactly would they want this Yellow Dragon Wood?” the Clairvoyant asked. Even though he could tell that the opponents’ actions were suspicious, he didn’t know exactly what they were planning.

The Ferocious Race captain shook his head. “I don’t know either, but the general definitely will. Since he sent us over here, he must have a guess in mind. Let’s go back and send the news to him.”

As he spoke, the Ferocious Race captain prepared to lead his squad away.

Just as he was about to leave, a sudden feeling of danger surfaced in his heart.

This feeling had been honed through countless battles. Almost instinctively, the captain leapt forwards to dodge.

Whoosh!

A streak of blade light arced through the air, whizzing past his back and piercing towards the Clairvoyant.

Not good! The Ferocious Race captain knew the situation wasn’t good. The assassin was actually after the Clairvoyant.

The Clairvoyant’s response wasn’t slow either; he contorted his body strangely in this critical moment of danger, and the Mountain-Beheading Blade whooshed past his body. One of his arms, however, flew into the air.

“Careful, there’s an ambush!” A cry of warning finally came.

Three or four Ferocious Race soldiers simultaneously flew towards the decaying trees.

A violent wave of energy slammed into the large tree, penetrating through the tree. With a creaking noise, the large tree fell to the ground, but other than that there seemed to be no further movements.

“He’s over there!” the Clairvoyant pointed to the air as he howled loudly.

Su Chen’s Shadow Concealment was indeed not effective against the Clairvoyant, given that he hadn’t been able to kill the Clairvoyant in a single blow. His movements were now being immediately called out.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t trying; hiding behind that tree would make it extremely hard for him to display his full strength. If it weren’t for his Soul Armaments and the fact that Patelocke had the ability to pursue targets autonomously, he might not have even been able to claim that arm.

These soldiers were truly elite!

As the Clairvoyant called out Su Chen’s position, six Ferocious Race soldiers charged forwards. Rather than directly attacking Su Chen’s position, they instead aimed at his left and right, sealing off Su Chen’s paths of escape. At the same time, two of the soldiers retreated to protect the Clairvoyant. The remaining Ferocious Race captain stood in the middle of the formation for support.

He glanced at the ground, observing as light footprints appeared on the frosty ground.

Then, he attacked.

He unleashed a booming fist strike that landed precisely thirty feet in front of him.