The Place Where Everything Begins - Chapter 171

Within the green temperate forest where a bloody battle had been taking place…

*Rustling*

*Rustling*

The grass and green plants were brushed apart by the rushing footstep of a creature, whereas small animals and fowl scurried away from the creature’s path in startle.

Albeit the creature was still invisible to one’s naked eyes, it still left a trail of blue blood on the soil along the escaping path. Also, it appeared that the creature was injured…

Meanwhile, another creature looking similar to the injured one was running roughly twenty meters away from the latter’s flank.

Undoubtedly, the two creatures were the kenkus, aka the Silencers…

One of them was injured by an arrow wound as it limped forward as fast as it could, whereas another looked pretty much fine with no wound on its body whatsoever.

Still, the healthy kenku’s expressions clearly showed how distressed it was from the trepidation and angst of the notion of losing its sole close friend.

Unexpectedly, after running and shooting arrows back and forth for a few minutes, the two kenkus were suddenly visible to everyone’s eyes as it appeared that the skill, Camouflage, had run out of its effective period.

“There! Those two kenkus are not invisible anymore!” shouted Trevor after seeing the opponents’ actual appearances. He was not surprised in the least that their enemies were kenkus, for he and most people had a prior guess and speculation about their ambushers’ identity.

As the kenkus’ figures became discernible to everyone, now the two bird-humanoid creatures would become much easier targets than before.

At this moment, the two kenkus were escaping while occasionally shooting some poisonous arrows at the humans pursuing behind them…

*Whoosh*

A wind sound generated from an arrow traveling at a breakneck speed flew accurately and swiftly towards the injured kenku’s back.

It looked like the arrow was not going the miss its target…

*Puchi*

The arrowhead plunged itself into the kenku’s back, causing its momentum to shift significantly. As a result, the limping kenku stumbled and dropped to the ground as it groaned in pain and despair.

Having heard the thudding sound coming from not far away from it, another kenku’s eyes widened in shock as it shouted aloud for its friend.

Yet, right before the kenku’s two black eyes…

*Puchi*

Another arrow embedded itself into the stumbled kenku’s back.

Unexpectedly, the two consecutive arrows that had hit the kenkus were fired from the same person, Rachel, the Killing Machine.

Although many deciduous trees stood densely in the path, even more than that, the target was also moving tens of meters away from Rachel, the first arrow still found its way to hit the target accurately, followed closely by the quick shot of the second arrow.

Such a feat was hard to accomplish even for an Olympic medalist back on Earth, yet after finally seeing her opponents’ visible figures, Rachel executed such an amazing exploit like it was natural for her.

Currently, before the still-fine kenku could even come out from its shock and disbelief, three more arrows traveled scatteringly towards the severely wounded kenku.

One arrow managed to hit accurately on the injured kenku’s thigh, causing the latter to whine in even more pain than before.

“Kiakkkkkk!!”

Having seen its friend dying, the other kenku shouted aloud in the humans’ direction with bloodshot eyes, whereas its hands never stopped, firing arrows consecutively in the humans’ direction.

But to no avail…

With such a mental state, every arrow had missed its target so badly.

Upon hearing its companion’s frenzied shout, the near-dead kenku promptly gained its sliver of strength back as it raised its head in the direction where its friend situated.

“Toukizt, Ksue hy!” shouted the injured kenku with all its might, with the words that meant ‘go away, revenge me!’

The voice was so loud and high-pitched that everyone within the battlefield had heard the injured kenku’s voice very clearly.

Upon hearing its companion’s voice, only then did the enraged kenku come back to its senses. It then turned to look at its dying friend, the two of them looked each other in the eyes for a brief second, yet the time seemed to slow down within their perception.

The dying kenku smiled slightly with its long beak dripping out blue blood before nodding its head slowly, desiring its friend to escape alone and revenge it later.

However, the other kenku seemed to be reluctant and unwilling, not knowing what to do anymore at this moment.

The two of them knew all too well that the more they delayed, the lesser opportunity for the other one to escape successfully.

So, the dying kenku did something unbelievably. It used every ounce of its remaining strength to bring out a knife strapped on its leather armor belt.

“Jakkkk!” shouted the dying kenku before plunging the knife at its own neck without any hesitation.

*Puchi*

The sharp knife went inside the kenku neck smoothly as fresh blue blood gushed out unstoppably from the gap of the knife wound.

The kenku finally stopped moving after a short second…

“…”

Having seen such a heartbreaking scene with its own two eyes, the other kenku stared deeply at its companion’s cold body for one last time before turning to look Rachel in the eyes with deep resentment and bone-chilling hatred.

Upon seeing the female human was aiming an arrow in its direction, the kenku’s gnashed its teeth heavily before turning back.

*Huuu…*

It let out a long breath to calm its chaotic mind before running away from the battlefield using its fastest speed.

“Chase after it!” shouted someone from team 5 who had a bow in his hand.

It appeared that the speaker was Gerard as he somehow survived thus far and could even hit the kenku’s thigh with an arrow earlier.

Upon hearing Gerard’s words, the surviving people hesitated and started looking around in wonder after not hearing their leader’s permission to chase after the remaining kenku.

After a few seconds of looking around yet still not seeing Mylah anywhere, people who were preparing to chase after the opponent became even more hesitant.

At the end of the day, nobody wanted to die from chasing after a bird-humanoid marksman with the ability to make itself become invisible.

Thus, most people eventually stopped chasing after the escaping kenku after seeing the latter sprinting madly into the deep temperate forest.

“Stop chasing!”

Rachel shouted to erase everyone’s sliver notion of chasing after the kenku.

She knew a beast would struggle as hard as it could if cornered, so it’s better to let that kenku go. After all, the team was also not ready to undergo another tough battle with the cornered beast.

“Where is Mylah?” asked Trevor after the surviving nine people of team 5 grouped up together.

Having heard the question, most people shook their heads in denial as they didn’t know where their team leader was. To be honest, they had chased after the two kenkus for almost a mile, leaving behind their dead companions and other injured people.

After all, it was Mylah’s order that had made them pursue the two opponents in the first place. However, right now, the team leader herself was nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t tell me… Mylah is…” said one of the only two females left alive within team 5, Kate.

“Shhh! What are you saying? She must be fine,” replied a man, whom Jeremy remembered his name as Dalton.

“But, where is she?”

“…”

“…”

Having heard Kate’s question, everyone fell silent as they didn’t know where their leader was.

To add insult to injury, most people here had just lost their brothers and sisters; their mind was a mess right now. Their fellow team members were shot by poisonous arrows, dropping dead to the ground like fallen leaves. Now, even their leader was nowhere to be seen while the vice leader was long dead from the initial period of the ambush.

The situation couldn’t be any worse for team 5…

As most people furrowed their eyebrows and fell into deep thought about what to do, someone’s voice was heard all of a sudden,

“She is dead. I saw she was shot by an arrow when we chased after the two kenkus.”

Gerard said with a slight mocking smirk plastered on his face as if feeling glad that his counterpart was finally dead.

“You!”

Trevor said with a suppressed, enraged tone of voice after seeing Gerard’s smirk. He was ready to pounce at the latter anytime now.

Meanwhile, Gerard was also ready as he gripped his bow tightly while an arrow was in his right hand, ready to shoot at Trevor any moment.

Within Gerard’s mind, he had only stated the truth about their team leader being dead, then the guy, Trevor, wanted to pounce at him all of a sudden. Altogether with the stress accumulated from the bloody battle earlier, Gerard was ready to vent his frustration at Trevor all the same.

Simultaneously, Trevor felt that there was nothing wrong with Gerard speaking the truth, but the real problem was the latter’s mocking smirk on his face while saying that their leader was dead. Such behavior was unacceptable to Trevor.

*Sigh…*

Rachel promptly sighed in helplessness after seeing the two adult children were going at it in this kind of situation.

“Stop it. We are in no situation to quarrel with each other. First of all, we have to decide what to do from now on,” said Rachel as her pretty face morphed into an upset one.

She felt somewhat humiliated from letting her own team being ambushed and slaughtered like sheep by just two kenkus.

From the past three days of having stayed within the second stage, her team was always the one who ambushed the kenkus.

Unexpectedly, today was exactly the first time she requested a special mission, then her temporary team was played with by the opponents instead.

It wasn’t strange that Rachel would feel upset…

Even though they had successfully killed one of the two ambushers, it couldn’t be denied that Rachel’s pride as a number one fighter in the human camp was hit pretty hard.

“I’m not the one who starts this shit; why don’t you tell him to stop instead?”

Gerard said with narrowed eyes, looking at the enraged Trevor with a death stare.

“Hmph!”

Trevor harrumphed with a disgusted expression at Gerard before turning back and walking some meters away from the latter for fear that if he stayed near the guy for too long, there might be a nasty conflict between them happening again.

“Now what?” said a man, who Jeremy hadn’t known his name.

The man had a sword and a big shield within his hands. The shield was big enough to deflect most arrows coming at him, so he managed to survive the accurate arrows fired by the kenkus.

Having heard the man’s words, most people fell into their own thought before someone suddenly spoke up,

“According to the prior arrangement, in case both the leader and vice leader are dead, the one who will be the temporary leader is the lookout of the team,” said Kate, reciting one of the rules, word by word.

Upon hearing Kate’s words, the other people, including the silent Jeremy, turned their heads towards one man.

He had white hair and looked to be in his fifties while in his hand was a crossbow, and behind him was a quiver of arrows.

The man was the team’s lookout named Kelvin…

…

[A/N: In these past three days, I’ve been uploading only one chapter per day, but the word count was approximately 2x words compared to the past chapters. So, the length should be somewhat the same. Regarding the reason, it’s because I think you guys can immerse in the story better this way. The fun fact below…]