Lord of the Desert

Chapter 565 Trap
Back in the backyard, Hong Fan instructed his servants not to disturb him. Then he used his fire energy to melt the ice and snow, bathe and cleanse himself, evaporate all the alcohol residue, and change into a plain black cloth outfit without any odor.

Pushing open the door, the sounds of toasting, drinking games, and singing were drowned out by the snow, ethereal and distant; the gentle, pure silver light of the full moon spread everywhere, and the footprints of the journey had been taken away by the heavy snow without a trace.

Hong Fan closed the door and quietly left the city, heading west.

A distance of three hundred miles, a sand wing can cover in just a quarter of an hour.

The night sky over the Throat Mountain was clear and there was no snow. All the explosives and animal-attracting incense had long been sealed by the Sand World in the dry and pure rock cave.

Hong Fan took out what he needed and set up a trap in a valley seven miles outside the Gu Diao's nest. It was a pit surrounded on three sides and open on one side, which could be hit in a straight line by the predetermined firing port and could also maximize the explosive power of the energy.

Secure the explosives and conceal it with a thin, shaped rock slab.

He killed a strong adult moose with a shockwave, cut open its belly and stuffed it with animal-attracting incense; catalyzed by the fresh blood, a strong, fishy smell quickly spread in all directions...

Three mountain peaks away, the Gu Diao lay dozing in a cave on the mountaintop.

As a naturally powerful alien species, it doesn't actually need much sleep; it simply prefers this state of being thoughtless, unaware, and doing nothing.

Just then, a loud, rousing roar echoed into the cave.

The Gu Diao's pointed ears turned, and it suddenly raised its head.

The mountain occasionally experiences "thunder and snow," but on average less than once each winter; relying on its extraordinary hearing, it can determine from the dynamic vibrations that the roar comes from a living creature.

[This sounds like a very powerful individual.]

The Gu Diao shook its body, narrowed its yellow-based black eyes, and strode out, standing atop the towering cliff, overlooking its kingdom.

The icy wind flowed over the feathers on the beast's head and neck, and then blew waves across its bright yellow fur.

The earlier howling sound had already crossed countless mountain peaks.

But it gleaned more information from its nose—a very faint smell of blood and flesh, brimming with vitality, and utterly pure.

The Three Hundred Mile Throat Mountain had never before seen such tempting prey.

The Gu Diao raised its head and opened its mouth to breathe more fully, with newly secreted viscous saliva sticking between its upper and lower beaks.

Desires rooted in instinct can quickly become uncontrollable.

It found its direction and leaped down, plunging five hundred meters vertically in one go. The rocks it stepped on were as soft as mud, and it made a thunderous, explosive sound.

The three mountain peaks passed in the blink of an eye.

The night is still young.

The full moon glides across the roof of the world.

Using the cold glow reflected from the snow-covered mountains, the Gu Diao spotted the source of the scent.

A strong moose that died suddenly in the snow.

The blood was clearly frozen, yet the smell in the air became even more alluring.

Throughout its long life, the Gu Diao had witnessed countless times the traps set up by dire wolves hunting deer on the snowy plains, and immediately realized that it was a trap.

It recognized all kinds of strange beasts in the Juehou Mountain, but there were none of them, such as moose. If the animals that died in the valley were just ordinary wild beasts, the vitality in the stench would not be so strong.

This must be a trap, but the question is, where is the enemy?

The Gu Diao perched high on the mountainside, its eyes, sharp as a comb, scanning the entire valley—there was no snow tonight, the view was excellent, and everything was bright and clear under the moonlight.

The stench emanating from the moose carcass grew increasingly strong.

Saliva dripped from his mouth, and his throat felt slightly itchy...

The Gu Diao had a feeling that if it swallowed the source of this scent, its long-stagnant power would be enhanced once again.

After observing for a long time without finding any clues, it suppressed its anxiety and wandered along the foothills of the valley, carefully passing through several woodlands.

The king of Deadthroat Mountain is not afraid, only cautious.

After carefully searching for a quarter of an hour, the location of the Gu Diao gradually descended the mountainside, less than two hundred meters from the valley floor, and then suddenly emitted a sharp and eerie roar.

Within a radius of several miles, all beasts crouched and trembled at the sound, and the timid ones even died of fright.

There are no traps here.

The Gu Diao pondered in his mind. [If a supreme human expert truly arrives—like that dwarf who came before—I can make my move the moment I reveal myself.]

Having lived for over a century, it naturally possesses some knowledge.

In the south, the humans have ballistae and flying stones; in the north, the giants have formations and wolf soldiers.

However, the surface of the entire valley is intact, and the innate spiritual energy is smooth, making it impossible for a large-scale ambush to occur.

Observe, think, and judge.

Humans cannot imagine things beyond their comprehension, and neither can strange beasts.

Caution did temporarily suppress the beastly nature, but as time went by, the latter retaliated twice as fiercely.

Unable to suppress its inherent arrogance and desire, the Gu Diao leaped off the cliff.

Floating, soaring, rubbing against the atmosphere, letting the moonlight cleanse every hair on its body, imagining the vibrant flesh breaking apart in its beak and melting in its throat...

What would that feel like?

The Gu Diao narrowed its eyes...

On the other side of the valley, Hong Fan, who was hiding under the sand and whose breathing and heartbeat were as slow as a rock, ultimately did not fire the shot he had been holding back for so long.

It's not that I'm soft-hearted, it's that I don't need it.

The strong cotton medicine is an extremely unstable compound. When it was impacted by the enormous Gu Diao flying down from the sky, it detonated without hesitation.

Time is blurred at this moment.

In Hong Fan's sensory world, where neural reflexes are as fast as five milliseconds, a dazzling golden light flashes for a moment, igniting the snow covering the mountain, followed by a surge of snow and mud that expands like a ball.

The shockwave expanded in a ring from the mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke, shaking the withered branches and rustling the rocks along its way.

One second after the explosion, fragments of rubble and bone debris flew in front of Hong Fan;
At 2.5 seconds, the roar passed by my ears;

After three more breaths, the pure white mountains on the left and right sides cracked open at the steepest point, revealing the dark, unsightly nature of the rocks in the wounds.

The avalanches continued unabated.

The roar echoed through the valley, like the groan of the earth.

Hong Fan remained silent and observed as planned—he had never fought against a beast with peak Yuan Magnetic combat power, and was unsure whether four thousand catties of explosives would be enough to kill it in one blow—however, the misty golden light accumulated in the roots of the Dragon Soul Tree made him completely relax.

The Gu Diao was completely dead.

Over the years, Hong Fan has accumulated a lot of empirical summaries about the function of the Destiny Star—for example, the efficiency of absorbing life force is about one-tenth—and estimated that the total amount of life force of the Gu Diao is five times that of his own.

It's slightly better than I expected.

Hong Fan was slightly lost in thought, many names flashing through his mind.

Liu Rui, Duan Tiannan, Feng Mubai, Xiao Tanghuang, Zhe Lei, Han Yun...

He witnessed the fall of these powerful individuals firsthand, but at that time he was too weak to quantify the gap, yet now he can look up to them with envy.

As the mushroom cloud slowly dissipated, Hong Fan broke free of his disguise and descended the mountain.

The valley was thick with the smell of gunpowder, and the intense heat lingered in the huge explosion crater.

The moose carcass has completely disappeared.

Although the Gu Diao was dead, its remains were still half a story high. The most severely damaged parts were its lower abdomen and chest – its organs and forelimbs were completely destroyed, half of its skull and thoracic bones were broken, its jaw was missing, and its horn was broken off.

Based on structural reconstruction, its torso was about nine meters long, its shoulder height was four meters, and its weight was over fifty tons.

Based on the price of the remains of Yuan Magnetic Warriors on the black market, this incomplete corpse should easily fetch tens of thousands of strings of cash, enough to subsidize the Red Sand Army for several years.

Driven by greed, Hong Fan had no choice but to transform into a garbage collector and search the valley with all his might, eventually scavenging back hundreds of kilograms of blown-up flesh and bones, as well as fur that, when pieced together, was about the size of two quilts.

"It's a pity that all the blood in his body has frozen into the ground. No, we have to get someone to dig these clods of earth back in, otherwise they'll just be wasting the local wild animals' time..."

As Hong Fan muttered to himself, he carried the corpse, weighing over thirty tons, on his shoulder and dragged it along—the hardness of ordinary soil and rocks was far different from that of the Gu Diao's body, so there was no need to worry about wear and tear.

(End of this chapter)