Book 2 Chapter 8.3 - Scorpions of the Night
Six Blue Scorpion snipers were already dead, and three more were locked onto by Su. It was unknown if there were more hiding in the darkness. Su decided that this possibility wasn't great, because the battle had already continued for a long time, and there was no way experienced snipers wouldn't find their targets by now. There were still five soldiers on Su's side. At least now, they've already proved themselves to be more than just targets to be killed.
Su put away the rifle and quickly moved through the cover of darkness. The uneven and rugged ground became his best protection. Twenty minutes later, the necks of two more Blue Scorpion snipers were twisted by him.
"There is one last one…" Su gently lowered the Blue Scorpion sniper that had already lost strength and gazed at a hill a thousand kilometers out. The third sniper had just moved there and aimed at Su. Su seemed to feel a stabbing pain on his chest and knew that this was the feeling of being targeted. Now, Su finally knew why it was so hard to lock onto Laiknar and O'Brien back then.
Su suddenly leapt outwards, and then all of his limbs moved about as he climbed about like a spider. His speed was incomparable swift and nimble. After just a few twists and turns, Su already moved over ten meters, and the stabbing sensation on his chest completely disappeared. This meant that the sniper had already completely lost Su.
Su began to increase his speed. Like a night wolf, he borrowed the power of the wind to quickly approach the last sniper. Su already knew that in one minute and five seconds, he would personally twist apart this sniper's neck just like what he did to the seven before him.
Su's speed became faster and faster, but right when he was about to reach a running speed in the darkness, he suddenly shivered. It felt as if a pot of cold water was poured over his head. Su's body bent over and shot out, and then he abruptly stopped! Less than a meter in front of him, large amounts of earth were suddenly blasted apart. Sand and stones blasted onto his face and shoulders, bringing about scorching pain. This was a high powered long-distance sniper bullet. If Su didn't suddenly become vigilant, he might have been hit.
Sure enough, there was a tenth sniper, moreover a sniper who could avoid Su's perception!
Su immediately looked towards the direction the bullet came from. With his body's control and precision of perception, his eyes wouldn't land on a point more than a meter away. As expected, Su was just in time to see another flash of blue radiance!
Su didn't take the time to think about things and immediately jumped to the right. When he landed, he made a tumble before flashing out like a streak of electricity again. Then, Su's entire body shook while in midair, as if a high voltage electrical stream landed on his body. When he landed heavily onto the ground, a great explosion of earth erupted behind him.
Close to a thousand pieces of information flooded into his brain. Su immediately knew that another bullet had brushed past his body, and that it brought a large chunk of his left arm with it. Fortunately, the remaining muscle fibers could still support his left arm's movements. Su immediately closed the veins on his wounds, and then while half-squatting, he took aim in the direction where the bullet came from.
However, there was no one in the area where his eyes landed on.
"How could that be…" Su frowned and quickly moved behind a large boulder. Then, he laid on the ground and began to move around like a lizard, becoming almost one with his environment. Just as he was slowly revealing his head from the mountain ridge in search of the sniper's traces, another bullet flew right past Su's head!
Several scorched black hairs floated down in front of Su's eyes. He saw the location where the sniper shot from, but it was already too late for him to return fire. Su stuck close to the ground and quickly retreated, and then he shifted to the side again. As expected, two seconds later, earth splashed out from the place he was previously hiding at. The sniper bullet made its way out from the ground and flew towards the boundless night sky.
This shot had borrowed the great power of the sniper bullet to pierce through the top layer of soil on the mountain ridge. If Su was still hiding in his previous location, then that shot would have landed in the middle of his chest.
This was a second brief encounter with the god of death. Su laid on his back against the back of the hill. Every muscle in his body was lightly trembling; his body was starting to show fear.
Su suppressed his body's fear and tried his best to think. His current body's temperature was no different from the surroundings, and his rifle had long been wrapped in composite material camouflage strips. There was no regular pattern to his own movements, and regardless of whether it was glimmer or infrared sight, it shouldn't be able to detect Su's position. As for life detectors, in order to detect humans under such a great distance, the bulk and power output of the instrument would be enormous. Su also did not sense the high frequency soundwaves of the Scorpions of Disaster's human detectors.
How was he discovered? And how was he going to lock onto his target?
This was the first time Su encountered an enemy like this. In the past, Su had also encountered many powerful people, and after entering the Black Dragonriders, even more experts could be found everywhere. However, this was the first time he faced someone who could completely suppress him in terms of sniping and wilderness expertise. Normal sniping and anti-sniping strategies seemed completely useless against this opponent.
This was an opponent who possessed outstanding abilities, concealment skills, as well as great patience. The moment he opened fire, Su could still lock onto him, even if it was for an extremely short period of time. However, what Su couldn't figure out was how the other party was able to detect him.
The importance of this problem laid in the fact that hiding was Su's greatest life-saving and attacking method. If he only fought through a frontal assault, perhaps a fifth level Combat Domain or Magic Domain ability user would be able to kill Su.
Su quickly reviewed all the detecting methods he knew about, but it was still useless. His concealment abilities and control over his body could completely defeat all of these methods, so it definitely couldn't be any of those.
Su decided to think about it from a different way. While thinking, he cautiously moved about. Large amounts of data were being collected by his body. His body's form became somewhat strange, and the main difference was that Su's limbs' crucial angles expanded to a strange degree. Right now, Su was more like an insect that was crawling on the ground.
At this moment, several gunshots sounded. There were three soldiers from Su's side that seemed to have fired at the same time. The bullets flew past the body of the last normal Blue Scorpion sniper. However, right at this moment, the sniper that hid within the darkness also opened fire. With a single shot, a spring of blood erupted from the top of a mountain. That soldier didn't even have the chance to release a miserable cry.
The location of the Blue Scorpion sniper was still the top of the same hill. He didn't change locations at all. This might be a display of his power, arrogance, or maybe a way of infuriating Su. Regardless of the reason, he didn't change sniping positions and directly fired from his original location, sending another soldier into the underworld.