Heart of ash
Since he couldn’t sit still, Xie Luan got up from the stool and cast his eyes on the person beside him, “I’ll go and have a look with you.”
There were a dozen cubs in the house. Xie Luan naturally could not take all these cubs with him, especially as many of these babies had just been born a few days ago.
But as Nick wanted to follow him, Xie Luan felt that it would be no problem to bring one big muka cub with him. As for the other cubs, an adult muka came over to look after them.
Adding the humanoid form of the nox to the little group as well, Xie Luan followed the person next to him and together they left the village.
The planet the mukas lived on really had comparatively low vegetational coverage, but it was not a desert. For the uninhabited areas, it was actually better fit to describe them as “wilderness”.
After Xie Luan left the village, he traveled through the zone lacking jurisdiction and was met with this kind of scene.
A vast land with sparse vegetation— some bushes and a bit of green grass, a few trees could also be seen. Even though it wasn’t much, at least it made the land look less barren.
“If there were many trees in this place…”
Looking at the wilderness as they traveled, Xie Luan walked up to the person leading the way and put forward his idea, “If we plant a protective forest here, the sandstorms should not affect the village too much.”
Wind breaking and sand fixation, it was some knowledge Xie Luan had acquired in his original world, he had not expected it to be useful here.
Although mukas had been able to adapt and survive in the current environment, if they could create a more comfortable living environment, why shouldn’t they?
Duke nodded and took note of what he said. Walking through this uninhabited and desolate area, he did not dare to relax his vigilance.
Contrary to what one might expect, Duke wouldn’t normally worry too much about his safety. However, now there were a few adult mukas who hadn’t returned to the village when they were supposed to, this made Duke subconsciously wonder whether those mukas had encountered something on their way back.
Due to the zones with lacking jurisdiction on Saina, some wanted people in the interstellar who needed to conceal their identity may come this planet in order to go into hiding for a while. This was also the reason Saina was considered to have poor security.
Normally, the criminals who went to Saina to evade the law would not dare to provoke the native people of this planet. After all, the fighting prowess of the mukas was obvious to all in the interstellar. Moreover, the mukas lived in large groups and their numbers were not few, to provoke one was equal to provoking a group.
If you wanted to fight against a group of mukas, you would have to be a professional squad, otherwise there was no need to even think about it.
It went without saying that as they needed to hide their identity, fugitives who evaded the law would naturally try to keep a low profile. But this time was an exception.
As Xie Luan and the others gradually neared the mine, the several adult mukas they worried about were at this time indeed in the middle of confronting a group of enemies.
The four members of the group had chosen to come to Saina in order to escape the Star Alliance’s bounty and to temporarily lay low. These four had originally belonged to a space pirate gang which was quite famous in the interstellar, of course, it was an infamous kind of fame.
In recent years, the Oka space pirate group had been jointly wanted by multiple races due to their rampant crimes. The Star Alliance had played its role well and soon after also issued a reward for their capture.
Roughly three months ago, the space pirate gang split up while pursued by multiple armies. Most of the members of the space pirate gang had already been arrested and imprisoned at the Star Alliance prison.
Unfortunately, the pursuing party had not been able to smoothly capture the person presumed to be the leader and he, together with a few high ranking personnel of the space pirate gang, had slipped out of their grasp. The ones who got away were the four people who had fled to Saina at this time.
Only three of his men remained. Taking them with him and going into hiding on Saina, Feilun originally wanted to just quietly bid his time. As long as he avoided this round of pursuit and relied on the money he had previously hidden on a small remote planet, he wouldn’t need to worry about not getting a chance at a comeback. [1]
But when they came to this area and saw the few mukas with a cart full of baseda ore, the four couldn’t help but start formulating a plan.
Baseda ore, something that would forever be in short supply on the interstellar market. It had always been a scarce resource on the market, in other words, it was very valuable.
The mukas had not raised the price for many years, but this kind of rare ore actually sold on the black market for more than ten or even twenty times the price. As space pirates who lived by plundering, seeing a pile of glittering money in front of their very eyes, of course, they couldn’t help themselves.
When facing a group of mukas, they also did not have the guts to be thieves.
However, there were merely three adult mukas transporting this cart of baseda ore, this could be considered as close to one. They would be able to take them down as long as they could find a place to ambush.
They had been hiding on this planet for a while and had already more or less avoided the limelight. After going over the pros and cons, Feilun soon made up his mind.
Although he knew that the adult mukas possessed very strong close combat capabilities, Feilun was still confident in the ambush’s success. All four of them were ability users.
The ambush was very successful. The three adult mukas transporting the small cart could not guard against the sudden and unexpected attack.
Fearing the combat prowess of the adult mukas, the four people who launched the attack didn’t really want to fight the mukas. They just intended to use their abilities to restrict the opponents’ movements.
Injured mukas were likely to become enraged and their fighting more fierce, they didn’t need to increase the risk for themselves.
The movements of the few adult mukas had already been temporarily limited. The four people dashed over to the small cart filled with baseda ore, ready to snatch the goods and run away.
Pressing his space button, the three subordinates began to load the baseda ore from the cart into Feilun’s interdimensional space.
But just as the first ore was loaded, an invisible blade of air, sharp like the edge of a dagger, swiftly shot forward and in a flash interrupted the four men’s actions.
Almost at the same time, they sensed a violent space distortion close by and warning bells urgently rang in their heads. This made the four turn to the side and dropped to the ground in an emergency maneuver. Going from being close to pulling it off to all of a sudden crawling in the dirt, they really cut a sorry figure.
The four instantly knew what kind of situation they were in.
They spotted several silhouettes coming from the left, among them three were in humanoid form and there was also one who, from the build, seemed to be a cub of the muka race. Feilun’s eyes darkened, his bandit nature had now also been triggered. The four prepared for battle.
None of them noticed the iconic silver tail behind one within the group. Having thrown themselves onto the ground in order to avoid the attack, the four people only saw that there was a human in the group that arrived by foot and that human, who clearly lacked combat strength, naturally became their first target.
These four would not be easy to deal with.
As soon as he saw the other party’s sinister eyes, Duke felt that these people were criminals up to no good.
Furthermore, the other party had to his surprise been able to restrict the movements of several adult mukas… Duke’s heart became heavy once more as he somewhat processed this completely unexpected situation.
The attack came very quickly. As an ordinary human, Xie Luan’s senses could not react in time. Nearly in the blink of an eye, a figure closed in on him from a distance, followed by an impending cold blade.
But this cold blade could not truly get close to him. Almost at the same moment the figure drew near, an ice-cold silver flashed before Xie Luan’s eyes.
He then distinctly heard a bang-like sound that seemed to originate from a ruthless blow. The person who took the blow and was sent flying did not even have the time to issue a pained grunt before he hit the ground not far away. Afterward there intermittently came some pain-filled groans from where he laid.
Obviously, he was seriously injured. He had taken a direct hit from the silver tail, at present this man could already not even drag himself up anymore. There was nothing he could do.
Although his senses could not keep up, based on the result, Xie Luan also knew what had transpired just now.
Raising his eyes, he saw the side of the face of the nox who was standing beside him in his adult form. Different from his usual cold look, Ya Yi’s face was now slightly strained and the pupils in the cyan eyes were also tightened into a thin line.
Rather than cold, it was better to describe the expression as ice-cold.
At this moment, Xie Luan felt that the nox in front of his eyes seemed to for the first time have truly entered a type of battle mode.
What kind of battle mode did the nox race have? The four people who just noticed the silver tail now at last got to widen their knowledge.
Not even the slightest bit of air was left untouched by the space attack. Not even the slightest bit of concern for the spiritual power consumed, the frightening ability was not suppressed in the least.
Their surroundings had already been turned into distorted space, encircling them, just one reckless step would lead to the loss of an arm or leg. The four people who had just attempted to attack were now staying in place and doing their utmost to shrink their bodies, afraid that the distorted space around them would suddenly further close in.
Didn’t the nox race go extinct several decades ago? Why did they meet with an adult nox on this planet? Faced with this unexpected development, the four people had now basically lost their ability to think.
As their space had been compressed and they were in a state of panic, the four people trapped by the space distortion had no thoughts of escaping. Whether physical or psychological, all of them had received a heavy blow and were now in fact also not capable of escaping.
It was not until the end of the battle that the muka cub, who had continuously been blocking Xie Luan with his body, at last agreed to obediently retreat to the side.
This muka cub had from a moment ago immediately used his own body to completely shelter Xie Luan. In order to prevent the latter from being attacked like earlier, this cub had blocked the front of the youth with his body while his forearms were crossed behind the youth, forming the perfect protected area.
Because he knew that the nearby youth had lacking defense and was quite easily wounded, the muka cub had instinctively done this.
He had blocked him like this, so that the one blocked by him would not be harmed.
Several of the previously restricted adult mukas was now able to move. Ya Yi stopped using his ability, whereafter Duke went to tie up the four people who had already lost their ability to move.
After tying up these four people, Xie Luan and the others returned to the village.
From the starnet, they found out that these four were wanted by the Star Alliance. Duke contacted the relevant department of the Star Alliance and it seemed that they would be able to get a big reward for handing over these people.
The four who were tied up in a small room had not expected that they would be able to smoothly escape from all the pursuing armies and successfully lay low on Saina for such a long time, only to be caught on this very planet when they were almost about to make a comeback.
If they were handed over to the Star Alliance, they feared they would never again set foot outside prison in this lifetime.
When thinking that this was the most likely outcome, the four people who were tied up in the small room immediately felt their hearts turn into ash. [2]
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Translator’s note:
Muahahaha, that is what you get for attacking our precious mukas. ψ(｀∇’)ψ
[1] – There is an idiom here, “To return to office after living as a hermit on Mount Dongshan”, it basically means to make a comeback.
[2] – They are feeling dejected, as if their hearts have died and turned to ash.
Thanks for the hard work love the story ^_^