Lord of the Desert

Chapter 429 True Bug

Chapter 429 True Bug
One day later, it was the 28th day of the first lunar month.

After a night's rest, Hong Fan's energy and mood returned to their best.

Searching for someone in an area of hundreds of miles by one person is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It is obviously not possible to do it by brute force, so he first puts himself in Gu Yixin's situation and thinks about the other party's possible behavior.

First of all, my sworn brother would not run away alone. He would bring his family with him and probably the whole village, young and old. And with his kind heart, if he saw any scattered people along the way, he would surely help them.

When people move in groups, their movement speed is bound to be slow, and it is impossible for them to race against the insect tide along the main road, so they will avoid the evil river line in the middle.

Mount Longsa in the north and Mount Saga in the south are both safer areas, but considering that the Aku River is wide and requires a ferry, going south is the best option.

Judging from the bloodstains left in Maoyan City, it must have been less than twenty days since the city was captured. Based on the upper limit of forty miles a day, the farthest they could have traveled was eight hundred miles, which is exactly close to the cruising distance of Hong Fan in one hour.

In addition, the escape was hasty and it was impossible to have much water reserves, so when searching, one only needs to focus on large and small water sources as much as possible.

Although this analysis is reasonable, it is still extremely difficult to find it.

For a total of three days starting from the 28th day of the first lunar month, Hong Fan searched along the northern foothills of Mount Saga, just south of Maoyan, but found nothing except many large and small wild beasts that had fled.

Starting from the last day of the first lunar month, Hong Fan turned the search direction to the east, advancing more than 200 miles a day, and encountered more reconnaissance flying insects - they were obviously of low intelligence, and would blindly follow and attack when they saw the target, without even considering the comparison of the combat power of both sides.

When they reach the confluence of the evil river, ground-crawling insects begin to appear in large numbers.

These worker insects are similar in size to domestic geese, weighing 20 to 50 kilograms, with sharp blade-like feet and mouthparts, and their speed is similar to that of an adult walking briskly. Whenever they see humans or animals, they will hunt in groups, and then disperse after dismantling and devouring them. Their mechanical numbness makes it seem as if they are not killing living things but carrying goods.

If no animals are found for a long time, the worker insects will eat the grass and trees on the spot until the grass withers and only a few exceptionally old and tall trees are left.

Rather than being survivors of the great tide of destruction, these big trees are more like green Jingguan.

Passing through the land densely infested by insects, Hong Fan approached the Chaojiang River basin and searched along the south bank.

On the third day of February, when he had almost given up, he finally found traces of a large camp on the banks of a forest stream, eight hundred miles away from Maoyan City.

The time was within three days, the number of people was over 200, and the traces were heading north.

Chaojiang River is a hundred miles to the north and is in its dry season, so it is obvious that this group of people wanted to cross the river.

Hong Fan immediately cheered up and headed north at full speed. He crossed the river at the beginning of the afternoon. Half an hour later, he saw the first group of living fellow humans in several days.

The team, with four carriages as the core, and three Guantong realm masters leading ten armed guards, were engaged in battle.

Their opponents were more than sixty ground-dwelling insects, most of which were the low-level worker insects that they had seen frequently in the past few days. Only two of them were as big as cows, each with a tail spike and huge claws, and their thick metallic exoskeletons were covered with sharp bristles.

The battle went on for a while.

Two people were leaning against the carriage, and more than twenty worker insect corpses were lying in front of the human line.

The giant insect at the core of the battle group had one of its blade-like legs broken, and the carapace on the side of its head was damaged by the steel whip of the warrior, oozing dark green blood.

But it had no intention of retreating. It just kept chewing the dead worker insects in its mouthparts while moving forward.

Hong Fan suppressed his disappointment and dived faster.

After a few seconds, the wind rustled for the first time.

A stone spear fell from the sky and pierced the giant insect in front into the ground.

Both sides were stunned and the battle was interrupted for a moment.

Unable to crawl, the giant insect tried to straighten its body, clamped the spear handle on its back with its huge claws, and pulled it out violently.

Green blood splattered, and the shell made a sound when rubbing against the rock.

The wind whistled a second time.

Everyone saw a figure falling at a high speed, stepping on the back of the giant insect. The impact was so great that the four pairs of knife feet penetrated into the sand half a foot, and three joints exploded.

The insect was actually stunned by the shock.

[His strength is roughly at the upper level of the Guantong Realm, but his ability to withstand damage is even greater than that of a warrior in the Hunran Realm.]

Hong Fan tightened the sleeve of his left hand and evaluated silently.

On the other side, the second giant insect noticed the uninvited guest who killed his teammates.

It raised its head, and the cystic tissue on the side of its neck expanded slightly, shooting out a three-inch sharp spike, which was caught by Hong Fan.

[The speed is comparable to that of a crossbow arrow, about fifty meters per second, and can penetrate leather armor without any problem.]

He thought to himself and threw it back, hitting the second giant insect's compound eye and penetrating its skull. The charging giant insect suddenly fell over, its blade legs flickering and its mouthparts biting randomly, struggling to its last before death.

The crisis was resolved, and everyone in the convoy felt relieved and hurriedly provided first aid to the injured.

Among them, a young man in a brocade robe was obviously of the highest status and walked towards Hong Fan in small and quick steps.

"What kind of insect is this?"

Hong Fan asked as he looked at the twitching giant insect.

"Your Excellency, these are the land-walking insect soldiers among the real insects, specializing in combat."

The young man in brocade robe bowed and saluted, lowering his head to reply - the title "Venerable" is usually used for Yuanci warriors.

"Real bugs?"

Hong Fan nodded and casually threw out dozens of sand spikes, killing the remaining worker insects that were trying to escape.

When the young man in brocade robe saw this iconic sand-controlling method and noticed the overly young and handsome appearance of the person in front of him, he couldn't help but be stunned.

"Could it be Jin Hai Chi Sha in person?"

he guessed.

"it's me."

Hong Fan nodded.

"It turns out to be Master Hong! My humble self is Shen Shaochuan."

The man bowed again.

"As for the real insects you just asked about, according to legend, they are the improved insect species prepared by the tree gods. The remaining ones that are smaller in size and extremely large in number are selected protozoan insect species, which are called sub-insects."

Knowing that they were of the same generation, his expression relaxed a little.

"Mr. Shen, did you come from the south bank of Chaojiang River?"

Although the number of people and the traces did not match, Hong Fan still confirmed it.

"No, Shen is from Liudi City."

Shen Shaochuan replied hurriedly.

"When the insect tide came, Shen was staying with his wife and children in a farm outside the city. Luckily, they escaped the disaster and then took shelter in a cave under Longsha Mountain for seven days. After the insect tide passed, they looked for a boat to cross Qiaojiang from the ferry."

(The hand-drawn map was relatively crude before, and Tiewa Pass was certainly not built on Qiaojiang River, but in the mountains on the east bank of the river)
"How is Liudi City?"

Hong Fan nodded and asked again.

Liudi City is at the intersection of Longsha Mountain and the Two Rivers. He has not been there in recent days.

After hearing this question, Shen Shaochuan was speechless at first. After a moment of silence, he waved his hands with red eyes.

The words were stuck in my throat for a moment.

"Are you going north?"

Hong Fan broke the silence.

"I'm planning to go to Tiewa Pass."

Shen Shaochuan replied.

"As far as I know, the Iron Frog Pass has been breached."

Hong Fan hesitated for a moment and then told the truth.

"How could this happen?"

Shen Shaochuan was surprised and retorted instinctively.