Lu Yuan had barely raced his way out of the convoy and into the desert for half a minute before the entire Scorpion Slave Hunter squad erupted into chaos. The warlords in their heavily armed vehicles and the biker gang members sprang to action, all furiously gearing up and swearing they'd bring back the Heavenlander who dared to escape.
Inside the command truck, the Scorpion leader, Gao Jiu, was lying back comfortably on his luxurious bunk, legs up as a lackey massaged his feet. He'd just been contemplating how, once safely back at the Iron Plains Fortress, he'd extract every Heavenland secret hidden in Lu Yuan's mind—how to find their technology stash and keep this huge goldmine hidden from other hunting squads. But his dream hadn't even taken shape when the cooked goose flew the coop.
Fuming, Gao Jiu stormed out of the cab, angrily yanking open the rear cargo door. All that greeted him was a puddle of blood and a small piece of fingernail—nothing else. Furious, he slapped his two bodyguards across the face.
"Where did he go?!"
The bodyguards, well-accustomed to Gao Jiu's temper, knew the details didn't matter—it was time to find a scapegoat. Quickly, one of them dragged over the body of a biker Lu Yuan had stripped down to his underwear.
Gao Jiu leaned down to inspect, his expression darkening even more. The body had a skinner's knife stuck in its chest—Lu Yuan's obvious answer to Gao Jiu's earlier threat about chopping off his "third leg" if he didn't cooperate.
Sensing the smirks of the men around him, Gao Jiu wasn't about to let his authority slip. Pulling the knife out of the corpse, he shouted, "Tomorrow, I'm hanging that Heavenlander's 'third leg' on the flagpole, right next to his head!"
He then climbed into a spiked off-road vehicle, shoving the previous driver out of the way. His bodyguards, eager for a fight, cheered wildly, raising their fists and shouting "Yula Yula!"
"Wula lala!" The biker gang howled back, unloading their motorcycles. They ignored the biting cold of the desert night and any lurking dangers, throttling their engines and releasing bursts of nitrous oxide.
The convoy quickly spread out, with three spiked off-road vehicles and a dozen motorcycles, as most of the crew set off in hot pursuit of Lu Yuan, who had only a five-minute head start.
As the chasers sped off at full throttle, unaware, someone else was watching from a nearby low sand dune—a skilled and deadly spectator.
The desert night was rarely completely dark; under the open sky, the starlight and moonlight illuminated the sands better than any ruined cityscape. Earlier that evening, the Scorpion gang had posted bikers on the dunes to keep them under watch, preventing anyone from using the vantage points against them.
The plan was good in theory—but they hadn't considered the enemy. The camp remained intact, with its windbreak tent still in place and firmly anchored down. Upon closer inspection, though, the tent spikes were revealed to be the bodies of the very men who should have been inside.
A sharp female voice cut through the night, clear as a mountain bird's cry, undeterred by the howling winds.
Under the cool, silvery moonlight, the voice's owner became visible, the glow illuminating the windblown cloak that covered her knee-high boots. She stood with one foot on a weathered rock and the other on the chest of a dead sentry, whose throat had been neatly slit. A line of scarlet flickered across her—perhaps a fiery strand of hair or a glint in her eye.
"These scorpions seem to be in high spirits, racing around so late at night. It saves me a lot of trouble." She lowered her binoculars, pointing directly at the lead biker at the front of the convoy.
"Xiao Qian, stop that bike."
"Got it, sis."
"Peach, take a team and flank all the bikes leaving the camp. Don't join the main attack—just don't let anyone escape," she ordered as the Scorpion convoy zoomed over the sand dune, their headlights bright enough to be seen for miles.
"You're leaving me out of the main fight? Big Sis, I won't take that long!"
The woman smirked slightly, leaning forward with her hands on her knees, commanding with a fierce authority, "Send the signal! Prepare to strike!"
…
Most actors know they're performing. Good actors forget they're performing. The best? They convince themselves no one's watching. By this measure, Lu Yuan was certainly a great actor.
The nitrous was still going, but his speed had capped out at 100 mph, no matter how hard he twisted the throttle. Unfortunately, the Scorpion bikes behind him were closing in fast!
Damn this primitive junk, Lu Yuan cursed, his mind racing. He fought to steady himself, scanning for any hidden features on the bike that could give him an edge. Finally, beyond the dashboard buttons, he spotted a small, inconspicuous lever near the gas tank.
He knew the Scorpions had a whole toolkit of capture tactics; if they got within fifty meters, he'd be in serious trouble. With only a rusty handgun stuffed in his pocket—one he feared might misfire and hit himself—he didn't stand a chance of taking them out at this distance.
But the Scorpions had plenty of tricks: lever-action rifles, hood-mounted grappling hooks, blast rods. Any one of these would mean his end if it hit him.
Lu Yuan was not planning to say goodbye. Deciding to try his luck, he reached down and pulled the small lever.
*Splat!*
The moment the lever was released, a narrow tube hidden beneath the bike's exhaust pipe began spewing a black, sticky fluid. It poured out in a long, greasy line, stretching over twenty meters across the desert sands.
"Faster! Faster!" Gao Jiu shouted, urging his team to keep up. One of his bodyguards leaned out with what looked like a bottle of hot sauce, spraying a steady stream of liquid into the intake valve. Each squirt sent a burst of flames out of the exhaust, making the car surge forward with renewed speed. With this technique, the off-road vehicle kept pace with the bikes.
Hearing Gao Jiu's command, a biker near the front of the pack twisted open a second nitrous valve. Blue flames shot from his exhaust, and the bike rocketed forward, flying over the sand at well over 100 mph. As the group sped ahead, the front bikes aligned themselves side-by-side with Lu Yuan's, forming an unbroken line of pursuit.
One biker desperately tried to position his fuel bottle near the carburetor's intake valve. But before he could reach it, the sudden slick beneath him made his wheels spin out. Traveling at such high speeds, he instantly lost control. Instinctively, he hit the brakes, causing the bike to spin out in a wild, spiraling motion. He and his bike were sent flying, his scream echoing as he crashed to the ground.
The slicked path tripped up several more riders, sending three of them skidding off course, their bodies tossed painfully onto the sands. One biker, flipping through the air, ended up right under Gao Jiu's off-road vehicle, which unceremoniously crushed him as it rolled past.
Gao Jiu snarled, grabbing the oil bottle from his lackey and leaning halfway out of the car. Holding two bottles at once, he sprayed gas directly into the intake, cackling as flames roared from the engine. For a moment, he almost singed his own eyebrows.
The engine's RPMs were pushing the limit, the custom desert off-roader with its powerful V8 engine straining to its peak. If it weren't for the rough sand and wind-battered conditions, there was no way a mere motorcycle could outpace this beast, a top-grade desert runner straight out of the Wandering Fortress.
Seeing Gao Jiu's off-road vehicle suddenly pull ahead, Lu Yuan muttered, "Damn, are you that desperate to catch me?" With no other options, he drew his handgun and fired back.
*Bang!* The recoil was much stronger than Lu Yuan had expected, kicking up a huge cloud of sand next to the off-roader. Distracted by the kick, he accidentally emptied the entire clip in one burst—there wasn't even an automatic safety on this thing!
Now, with nothing left to his name but his growing frustration, Lu Yuan just gripped the throttle harder. Maybe it was pure determination, but the speed increased slightly—only to drop again before his disbelieving eyes.
The nitrous had run out!
Gao Jiu knew nitrous wasn't going to last forever; grinning, he eased up on the gas, slowing down just enough to tail Lu Yuan like a hunter chasing a frightened hare, calmly closing one eye to line up a shot at Lu Yuan's back.
But tonight, Gao Jiu wasn't the only hunter, nor was Lu Yuan the only prey. Out here, everything was just another part of the desert's deadly ecosystem.
Lu Yuan was still struggling to stay ahead when suddenly, a flash of blinding light flared in front of him, forcing him to close his eyes. The light was so intense that even his eyelids couldn't completely shield him from its searing brightness.
The flash only lasted three or four seconds, but that was long enough for the bike to veer wildly for a hundred meters. As he opened his eyes, a streak of red blazed toward him, and suddenly, his front wheel lifted, and he was airborne.
For a heartbeat, Lu Yuan's heart stopped as he flipped through the air. In that split second, he glimpsed a streak of crimson cutting through the chasing motorcycles behind him, scattering them like buckshot. That single second stretched endlessly.
His years in the military had trained Lu Yuan to react instinctively; even the alcohol hadn't dulled his nerve—he was still every bit the champion paratrooper.
As he was thrown from the bike, Lu Yuan tucked his arms around his head, bent his knees, and curled his body tightly into a ball.
*Thud...* Lu Yuan crashed into a sand dune, the impact jolting him close to blacking out. Luckily, his helmet shielded him from the worst, keeping the sand from burying him completely. Driven by pure survival instinct, he clawed his way out of the sand.
He looked up to see the endless starry sky above, and below it, the chaotic clash of vehicles tearing across the desert. At some point, more vehicles had joined the fray, their blood-red lights blazing as they stormed into the fight. The flash of headlights and spinning shadows reflected in his wide eyes, leaving him dazed, unable to move.
In the distance, sparks lit up the horizon like a wildfire—a fiery, crimson butterfly flaring its wings and whipping up a storm of flame!