CHAPTER 10: [The curse land] - [Smell lost] - [The army marches]

——{5 days later}——

The armies had been walking through the forest all day, resting only during the night. Gu-shisan had been undercover for 3 days, but nothing had happened during that time. He was beginning to think the enemy had noticed him and decided to temporarily stop any actions. He may as well be preparing a big attack that took time to put in place, this made him very worried and uneasy.

It was now night and soldiers were walking around the camp so no beasts or enemy attack while everyone was sleeping and the army was at its weakest state. Gu-shisan was part of one of the groups of night patrol and was walking in a timed manner so that there were no gaps in the camp's defense. He had joined the night patrol with a fake identity, as there was a great chance that the enemy would attack at night.

Around the camp multiple checkpoints had been set up and the night patrol would wait to receive a light signal from another group of night patrol to proceed to the next checkpoint after themselves sending a signal. It was a way to verify other night duty soldiers weren't ambushed. The light signals could also give the alert or transmit information.

——{military checkpoint}——

Six soldiers were kneeling in front of a being wrapped in a demonic aura. After receiving their orders they all got up and left in different directions, four of them went to the door facing the other checkpoint, gave them the green flag to come and left in their directions. The other two soldiers left in the direction of the camp.

The being was left alone in the tent that served as a checkpoint, the demonic aura dispersed and a lizard man appeared. He was tall and muscular and had dark scales that reflected the dancing flame of the fireplace, his stature was human-like, and his sharp eyes seemed like they could penetrate anything. His teeth and fangs were as sharp as shark teeth.

The lizard man sat on a chair and started making snake sounds. He was actually talking to another lizard man that had hid himself in the forest. Using *snake tong* they could communicate even when 50 meters away and other beings could not hear what they were saying because of the frequencies in which they were talking.

Using the same principle, humans had created the aura sound transmission. They vibrate their aura and send it in the air around them to transmit their thoughts. The more powerful the aura of the user is, the more frequencies he can do and the further he can send messages. The only problem with it is that if someone knows with frequency they're using, they can listen to your discussions, and that is when the mana encryption tool comes into play.

It uses the mana of the user to power itself and transform the message the user wants to send into a coded one. So that all users can communicate with people they want by putting in contact to both mana tools and then simultaneously sending their mana, creating a link between the two devices.

The humans then invented the mana signal relay, a device capable of relaying an encrypted signal to another person that is too far for the reach of the first user's mana encryption tool. It can also be used to link multiple mana encryption devices together easily when a lot of people need to be able to talk to each other.

The lizard's men exchanged a few words, then the lizard man got up his chair, stretched his arms in front of him and closed his eyes. After a few seconds, some dark daggers slowly started to form in his hands. They were pitch black, looking like made out of darkness itself, they seemed to suck the light off the room as the room started getting darker and darker as if the fireplace was being put out.

After one minute the tent was fully dark and nobody would have fought that there was still a fire burning in it. The fire had become part of the darkness and stopped producing any more light or heat, it had become a cold fire, something normally impossible.

The lizard man walked out of the tent, it started regaining its colors and the fire returned to its normal state. The lizard man's footsteps were nonexistent, even though he walked on the forest ground that was covered in leaves and branches. He had a heavy paste that strangely produced no sounds whatsoever.

At the same time, the two soldiers that had gone to the direction had just arrived at the center of the camp where the tents of the generals and Ying-ba had been set up. The two soldiers each took out the same dark daggers as the one the lizard man had created out of thin air.

The only difference was that they didn't seem to have the same black hole effect on the light, nevertheless they still seemed very omniscient and looked like they had been crafted by a peerless master blacksmith. They looked very sharp and reflected the image of the moon like a perfectly flat mirror.

They then both took out a pill and swallowed them, they were made with concentrated poison that killed 5 minutes after being taken. To prevent any backlash if their assassins were caught and interrogated, the lizard men had chosen to make them eat a poison pill before assassinating the generals and lord.

They could have given them a small poison bag tied near their teeth so that they could kill themselves if faced with a great danger, but preferred terminating them whatever happened. There was always the possibility of them not being able to swallow the poison in their mouths, so they had chosen to kill them, after all they were expendable.

The assassins cautiously entered Ying-ba's tent and after seeing he was deep asleep quietly approached his bedside. Once they reached a safe distance from Ying-ba they stabbed down, only for their daggers to be stopped by an intangible force. Suddenly, Ying-ba opened his eyes and as he deployed his aura manifestation.

The two assassins were flung away by the aura that was flowing from his body in all directions. Ying-ba had attained a level at which he could sleep while keeping a certain amount of his senses active, he was able to feel attacks directed at him during his sleep and could react to them instantly.

The two assassins broke through his tent's cloth and landed a couple meters away, unable to move their bodies. Ying-ba silently came out of his tent and proceeded to examine the soldiers to see if they had any poison in their mouth. They were both too crippled to run away or even to attempt to drag themselves.

After bridging them to his tent, he asked them questions promising to soften their punishments for their attempt in murdering him, but they refused to respond. He then chose to use other methods to make them talk.

As he was going to start his integration on the first soldier when he started convulsing and paled in seconds and began coughing blood. Ying-ba quickly understood that they had taken poison and gave them both his most powerful anti-poison pills. The pills didn't have any effects, and the second soldier started to vomit blood. Moments later they were both dead having lost all their blood from vomiting blood, crying crimson tears and nose bleed.

'Whoever is at the origin of their killing attempts must be very strong to be able to convince them to take poison before attempting to kill me, he also anticipated the fact that I could disable them and remove their poison.' Ying-ba thought angrily as he could not get any information about the man behind them.

——{somewhere in between the military checkpoints}——

Gu-shisan's night patrol group was walking in the direction of the next checkpoint after receiving the signal to go when they came across another group that were walking in their direction.

"Comrades, what are you doing here? You should be on your way to the next checkpoint. Why are you going in the opposite way?" Asked one of the soldiers of Gu-shisan's group.

The four soldiers didn't respond and continued closing the distance between the two groups in an orderly manner. Gu-shisan felt uneasy as they got 3 meter close to his group, and quickly reacted when one of the soldiers suddenly attacked.

He jumped in front of his group and parried the incoming attack by a small margin. All the soldiers started fighting and Gu-shisan quickly used the strength of his leg to send a powerful hit to the opponent, to whom he had just parried the hit. Gu-shisan was surprised to see that the enemy's sword seemed to have absorbed most of the attack, thus rendering his attack unsuccessful.

'With the force this soldier has he shouldn't be in the night patrol squad, he seems to have abilities that could rival a sergeant rank individual. The night patrol members were supposed to be at least two times more powerful than normal soldiers. He had the level of a sergeant, a rank higher than night patrol that was only second to general.'

The enemy quickly swung his sword a second time and Gu-shisan felt that the hit was stronger than the previous one. He decided to make some distance between them and jumped backwards. Landing 15 meters apart, showing the fact that he wasn't just a general for his abilities to hide his presence or for infiltration talent, but the fact he had other competences useful in real wars and duels.

He wanted to assess his enemy's strength by looking at his movement and way of moving when trying to catch up with him. Strangely, the enemy seemed to have gained even more speed and power compared to his state at the beginning of the confrontation. He quickly got in sword range and swung it, surprising Gu-shisan with his speed. Thankfully, Gu-shisan dodged the hit at the last moment thus minimizing the damage taken, only a light cut could be seen on his torso.

He then decided to finish the fight quickly as he could see that as the fight went on the enemy was becoming stronger and stronger, he could feel that If the fight continued he would be on the losing side. Gu-shisan took a strong foothold on the ground and jumped back at his opponent, attempting a kill strike to his head. The soldier deflected the hit but was forced back. Gu-shisan's opponent then tried to quickly take back a proper footing to prepare for the incoming hit, but was stopped by Gu-shisan who swung his sword at him.

Gu-shisan faked a lateral slash and by correcting the trajectory of his blade he turned it into a straight hit, like a fencer would. He had stopped limiting his strength as he knew all of his group would die if he didn't, he had to sacrifice his hard made cover. His sword gained speed and stabbed his opponent in the shoulder, rendering his arm useless. The soldier changed his sword from hand and retreated to a nearby tree branch, he then removed the sword embedded in his shoulder and threw it meters away in the night's darkness.

Gu-shisan didn't attack right away, as he knew a saying that told that an injured lamb must be feared more than a healthy wolf. The saying explained that injured enemies must never be taken lightly, as when facing death they may become terrifying monsters that would put everything on the line to survive. He decided to first observe his opponent before acting.

He was disturbed when he saw the behavior of his opponent, he wasn't looking at him. He turned his head to witness what was more important than their fight, and was shocked when he saw one of the four soldiers stabbing a soldier from his group through the stomach. Gu-shisan couldn't see farther than this in the obscurity, so he didn't know what happened to the rest of his comrades.

Understanding that his opponent was waiting for backup, he chose to attack first and dashed to the opponent that had just killed a member of his group. Not because he was overwhelmed by rage, but because he could feel that he was the weakest of the two opponents he had to face.

TO BE CONTINUED…