"So you're saying the watcher is a Barbarian scout?"
Li Yue sat back down. As long as the Barbarian camp had been destroyed, the remaining Cross-Border Barbarians couldn't cause too much trouble.
"Yes. But they don't dare show themselves — our advantage here is too overwhelming. Adai rules the sky. Their flying Hunting Pets won't co out. Without aerial superiority, all they can do is observe from a distance. The north bank is completely flat — the mont they appear, Zhao Xuanxuan and her team will roll right over them. Even Five-Star Cross-Border experts can't take that kind of charge."
Liang Yuzhi said it with cold satisfaction.
"That's true. Sword Caster Destiny Title, Blood Burning talent, 4 4 3 2 attributes — nearly full Level 2 Awakening across the board. Four-Star Enchanted Heavy Armor. Three-Star Warhorse. On flat terrain, even I'd feel the pressure without a mount."
"Though if her warhorse could reach Four-Star, she'd have no weaknesses at all. Not that it matters now — because I'm here."
Li Yue said it with quiet confidence. Liang Yuzhi, unusually, didn't mock her. She just said calmly:
"Keep waiting. For now, we're in an unassailable position. But I'd suggest you go to Riverside Fortress. So things need Li Wei to decide himself. Right now I'm worried he might crack — because the opportunity to grind Farr Destiny Grid is too rare to waste. Oh — he also has a Five-Star Hunter Card set aside for you."
"And personally, I'd prefer you to stay over there. I've already prepared a fresh batch of potions here. I can't upgrade the Three-Star Warhorses to Four-Star, but upgrading the Two-Star Warhorses you brought to Three-Star is no problem. With holding the base, a hundred-unit Magic Ore Vein, and that little nace Zhao Xuanxuan — as long as we find a good position along the river to build a Southern Fortress to complent the Northern Mountain Fortress, no one's taking this place unless they co with a full army."
Liang Yuzhi said it with full conviction.
Li Yue didn't question it. She knew it was simply true. A Magic Ore Vein with a hundred units of magical energy reserve made Liang Yuzhi an essentially unlimited-mana caster battery.
As for the fortress location — that still needed more surveying, including studying the river's hydrology on the south side. No rush.
A silence settled between them. Neither quite knew what to say.
"I'm going."
"Don't let the door hit you."
Li Yue rose quietly. She was used to it. Neither of them wanted to go back to the old days of trading barbed insults and cutting each other down. But calling each other sisters and sharing drinks over heart-to-heart talks — that was equally awkward.
The best arrangent was simply not to be in the sa room too long.
Li Yue had taken only a few steps when Liang Yuzhi couldn't hold it in.
"Actually, you could wait until tomorrow. Let Adai go with you."
"You think I'm afraid of a Barbarian scout?" Li Yue frowned. A wordless killing intent began to radiate from her.
Liang Yuzhi pressed her lips together. So people never changed. But fine.
"I made food. And there's wine — Three-Star. Want so?"
"Hmph. Fine."
—
While Li Yue and Liang Yuzhi shared a quiet drink, twenty-plus kiloters south of the territory, in the river that stretched two to three hundred ters wide, a dark shape surfaced — just a head above the water — carefully scanning the north bank. It didn't dare co ashore. It fixed its gaze on the direction of the Magic Ore Vein, occasionally slipping back beneath the surface whenever a massive owl swept through the sky overhead.
Insufferable.
That mutant owl had beco one of the big crow's subordinates. Every night it flew circuits around the territory's periter.
On this flat riverbank terrain, there was nowhere to hide.
But that didn't an there was no option. For now, it simply wasn't ti to act prematurely and alert the enemy.
A mont later, the dark shape erged on the south bank and vanished into the dense undergrowth.
Half an hour later, it reappeared in a concealed valley over thirty kiloters away. A small temporary camp had been established here — over fifty Ability Users gathered, clearly the Frost Duke's people, their appearances wildly varied and misshapen.
By comparison, the two Neanderthals among them looked almost handso.
"Strategist — what did you find? What is that accursed outsider Li Wei up to? Has the right mont to attack still not co?"
A powerfully built centaur spoke in a low voice. He looked about sixty, face lined with deep wrinkles, but still radiating ferocity.
Facing the centaur's question, the Neanderthal scout replied imdiately in the sa language: "Respected Count, I understand your impatience. But forgive my directness — now is still not the ti to attack. In fact, the Duke himself shares this view."
"The Duke's orders are to scout the strength and weaknesses of the false Baron Li Wei, and simultaneously to cut off his communications with other outsiders. Over the past month, we have fulfilled this strategic objective well. The false Baron Li Wei has made no attempt to push east and contact the false Baron Zhao Kewu. That alone is a significant strategic victory for us."
"Furthermore, respected Count, I believe that rather than forcing a direct assault on Li Wei's territory, it would be more effective to present him with a false strategic objective — drawing him into a costly arms race. For instance, you could lead more of your forces to build a fortress south of the great bridge east of Li Wei's territory, forcing them either to attack or to build a matching fortress on the north side of the bridge."
"This would better capture their attention and drain their limited developnt potential. Once the Duke finishes isolating and eliminating the other outsiders, what awaits Li Wei will be total destruction."
"What do you think?"
The Neanderthal guided the centaur patiently, gesturing and sketching until the centaur was thoroughly convinced and imdiately issued orders to begin preparations. Only then did the scout turn with quiet satisfaction to the second Neanderthal, who had been silent throughout.
The second one looked back without speaking — just a questioning glance. That's it?
If relying on the Frost Duke could eliminate these human players, what need was there for them? The Frost Duke's plan was a fallback at best. The real killing blow was theirs to deliver.
The credit would go to the Frost Duke. The dirty, brutal, exhausting work would fall to them.
The outco mattered less than this: killing as many high-potential human players as possible was the most efficient use of their ti.
Like that Li Wei.
The Neanderthal scout's brow shifted slightly. He quietly activated a tool card, then adjusted his voice to sound more like a local. "After all this surveillance, I've actually found a real operational gap in Li Wei's territory. His territory and the fortress he's garrisoning can't be taken by force or infiltrated. Their strategy is to race against ti and develop fast."
"But between the two locations, there's a vulnerability — not fatal, but significant. Ore. Iron ore, stone, coal, lead, listone. For the past month, their transport vehicles have been running daily, hauling massive quantities of ore to supply both the territory and the fortress."
"I've calculated: to sustain that volu of extraction, they need at least fifty skilled miners. But I've never seen miners return."
"So I'm requesting permission to slip in at night, find those miners hidden in the deep mountains, and eliminate them. Not to cause catastrophic damage — but even a delay in Li Wei's developnt increases our advantage."
The silent Neanderthal adjusted his own voice — noticeably less fluent than the first — and produced only a few syllables: "Confident?"
"So confidence. But also so risk — because this may be a trap. A trap set for us. We both know Li Wei is an exceptional scout. If not for him, our plans wouldn't have been disrupted. So this is the best opportunity for a real contest — a true peak battle between two top-tier scouts."
"I'm not fully in agreent. Your 6 Perception doesn't guarantee victory. But I can't stop you. Your call. The Frost Duke doesn't truly trust us — he's a cunning old thing."
"Yes. I know. Even this conversation is being monitored. That's why we have to speak in this clumsy language — though theoretically they can't make anything out of it."
The Neanderthal scout grumbled, then rambled on with aningless chatter as cover. A few minutes later, he disappeared again into the night.
A scout's true battlefield was never the front line where armies clashed. If a scout was forced onto that kind of battlefield, it was already a failure.
Concealnt, infiltration, intelligence gathering, sabotage — that was the real work.
So as the finest scout on this mission, he absolutely could not accept what had happened months ago — having his carefully built base destroyed by so insignificant human scout.
At the ti, he had been dispatched to survey the Frost Duke's territory and hadn't given Li Wei on the opposite bank a second thought. By the ti he returned, his painstakingly constructed camp had been wiped out. Anyone would be furious.
Now that an opportunity had presented itself, why would he go to the open battlefield and face that fast-mounted, heavy-bladed female knight head-on? No — he would take Li Wei down in the domain where he himself excelled.
For this operation, he had spent twenty-four patient days observing, recording, and analyzing. He had morized the big crow's flight patterns, daily habits, and the patterns of all its subordinates. Beyond that, he had detoured over a thousand kiloters north, crossed the mountain range, and observed Li Wei's territory from high ground — cataloguing every person, every piece of construction equipnt in detail.
And from all of that, he had found 129 vulnerabilities.
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