The Almighty Ring

“0541, find me Shang Guanqi,” said Jiang Fei. While it would take a really skilled fighter to sense the presence of Shang Guanqi, Jiang Fei had the help of 0541 to do it for him.

“Scanning…”

“Target not found within 50 kilometers range. Suspected target deploying stealth technique.”

50 kilometer is a huge area. Even if Shan Guanqi was powerful, it was impossible for someone like her to run further than 50 kilometers in such a short time. Martial artists and Mutants differ from the type of energy they used in their body. With special techniques, they can escape detection.

“Increase scanning sensitivity,” said Jiang Fei as he was willing to invest a little power to find that troublesome girl. Like a needle in his head, he needed to find her.

“Understood, captain!”

With permission to utilize more power, 0541 was able to refine the search cross-section. Unlike the previous scanning technique, it would take more than a few seconds to detect a target that was either moving at high speed or hiding.

While 0541 was still scanning for Shang Guanqi, the battle in the mountain was still ongoing. All Level 4 Bio-Humans were dealt with and the enemies that remain a threat were 10 more Level 3 Bio-Humans. Due to the injuries inflicted on Yang Qing, Yang Po and the other girls were in a fit of rage, attacking the last of the enemies with all they had.

“Eat this,” said Jiang Fei as he handed two Grand Restore Pills to Yang Qing. Although the effect of putrefaction was removed from Yang Qing’s arm, she was still cripple since her muscles had fallen apart. Without proper treatment, there was still a chance that she would never be able to use her left arm.

“Thank you,” said Yang Qing. The heavily injured Yang Qing could still put up a smile even after losing her entire arm.

After consuming the pill, Yang Qing began to scream in pain as the healing effect kicks in. It got so bad that Yang Po who was fighting the Bio-Human had to stop and glance at her sister. Muscle fibers and nerve cells were growing from the wound and reconnecting to the exposed bones. The poor girl was in such agonizing pain that she lost the strength to scream. Her clothes were drenched in sweat as her arm was healing.

Yang Qing stopped writhing in pain after the arm had fully healed.

“Relax, my pills work. No one could tell that you just lost a huge chunk of your arm there,” said Jiang Fei. He had the utmost confidence in his pills.

“Eh?”

At that moment, the girls gasped surprisingly.

“What’s going on?” cried Jiang Fei as he heard the cries coming from the battle.

“These guys are not moving…” said Xue Aohan.

By the time Jiang Fei arrived, the remaining Bio-Humans were on the ground. They were still alive and breathing but like a fallen mannequin, they were not moving.

“Captain, I have detected Shang Guanqi’s position. 0700 direction, 30 kilometers away,” 0541 came back with a report.

“Just as I suspected,” said Jiang Fei. When he noticed the Bio-Humans were motionless despite being alive, he had guessed that Shang Guanqi must have gone on her own to find the pilots of these Bio-Human to finish them off.

“Well then, put them out of their misery,” said Jiang Fei as he gestured to Xue Aohan to slit their throats.

Before Xue Aohan could nod her head, Yang Po swung her sword and beheaded all the remaining Bio-Humans. It was a way for her to vent her rage for seeing her sister hurt.

After 5 minutes, Shang Guanqi reappeared in front of Jiang Fei with a huge make-shift bag.

She dropped the bag and revealed its content.

“These are the heads of the 17 operators who were controlling the Bio-Humans. I’ve made sure that no one had escaped,” said Shang Guanqi. Despite her cute and lovely voice, like that of a mature sweet elder sister, there was no emotion in her voice. For her to behead those people was like killing flies.

“Who allowed you to kill these people? Did you know that your selfish acts had put the lives of your teammates in danger? Why didn’t you save them first before heading off without my permission!” Jiang Fei roared at Shang Guanqi’s face. Even though she did what she did to kill the operators, she had blindly done so without Jiang Fei’s concern. Thank god that Yang Qing did not perish in the fight or Jiang Fei would have gone berserk.

“My mission is purely assassination. Rescue and assistance are not of my concern,” said Shang Guanqi with a straight face.

“Fine. You want to play it that way. Go back to China. I don’t need a one-man-army in my team!” Jiang Fei roared.

“Is that an order? My mission includes shadowing you. If you wish to remove me from the team, you could kill me or render me unconscious. Unless I am unable to, I will continue to follow you,” said Shang Guanqi.

The way Shang Guanqi talked was exactly the same as 0541… in a way. In fact, Jiang Fei could swear that Shang Guanqi was behaving more like a robot compared to 0541. Sometimes, 0541 could even make jokes and make sarcasm at Jiang Fei during critical moments.

Talking with Shang Guanqi felt extremely uncomfortable. The way she does things was extremely rigid. As she was trained in the Soaring Cloud Sect, Jiang Fei had become unfond of them. How was it possible to cultivate a person to become so much like a robot; emotionless, following orders blindly to the letter.

“Talking to you is like talking to a wall. Fine. Do whatever you want. However, since teamwork does not seem to exist in your dictionary. Do not expect me or the other girls to come to your rescue!” said Jiang Fei. Jiang Fei quickly calmed down as he had given up trying to reason with the robot. As long as she did not directly harm the team, there was no need for him to expel her right there and then.

Jiang Fei sighed heavily. Knowing that she would be on her own most of the time, Jiang Fei tried to think of a way to get rid of her. If he was alone, it would be an easy task to just disappear, but not with the shackles that were the girls, burdening him further like how Yang Qing got hurt.

“Back to the main topic. We need to leave now. This place is not safe anymore,” said Jiang Fei. Jiang Fei’s original plan was to kill all the Bio-Humans then and head over to operators and question them about the situation. Sadly, Shang Guanqi had ruined his plans to gather intel since she had already collected their heads.

The sun was going up and it was a bad time to move in the open. The best course of action then was to move along the forest to avoid detection. After trekking through roughly a hundred kilometers, Jiang Fei lost his sense of direction and needed 0541 to check the surroundings for him.

“I don’t feel anyone around here. Take this time and rest before we move again,” said Jiang Fei once 0541 had checked the surroundings for enemies. Unlike normal humans, martial artists had learned a different method of recuperation that only needed them to knelt down on one knee. Just by resting for 2 hours, it would be the same as sleeping for 8 hours for normal people.

Everyone knelt and rest while Shang Guanqi was still standing on one of the tree branches.

Two hours later, Jiang Fei woke up. Resting like that was not as satisfying as going into a deep sleep but it was enough for his physical body to regain its strength and vitality.

The sun was high in the sky this time and when Shang Guanqi had noticed Jiang Fei was awake, she quickly knelt and closed her eyes to rest.

“What a waste…”

Although Jiang Fei was not happy with Shang Guanqi’s attitude, she was the best fighter he has got currently.

While Jiang Fei could just close his eyes without worrying of an ambush, he had 0541 ready to help. The other girls were not as prepared as Jiang Fei. Even so, they did not even volunteer to be on the watch. Even so, they knelt and rest, completely forgetting about their own safety. As a result, Jiang Fei could see that the other girls were not as experienced as Shang Guanqi. Even though she had clearly stated that she did not care about the livelihood of the team, she stayed up to become the guard.

That was the difference between the girls and the robotic Shang Guanqi.