Star Odyssey

Chapter 1498: Tracking

Lu Yin’s gaze focused as he glanced around. A traitor must have killed this squad and then fled with some of the surviving terror ants, making them a hidden danger. To make things even worse, Lu Yin could tell that the void had been recently destabilized, and the local energy fluctuations were suppressing his star energy. In other words, this person was an Envoy.

This traitor was actually an Envoy.

In fact, this person might not just be a traitor, as they could potentially be a full Redback.

Shen Hai’s hand snapped back, and blood appeared on his fingertips. He quickly warned everyone, “None of you should touch the wounds on the corpses. There’s a powerful remnant energy left on them.”

The old man stood up, his face solemn as he looked over at Lu Yin. “It’s an Envoy.”

Lu Yin nodded as he stared off towards an angle to his right. “We should go that way to give chase.”

Shen Hai frowned. “Give chase? Brother Qi, we’re talking about an Envoy here.”

Lu Yin replied, “I know. As long as we can find a trace of the traitor and confirm their identity, we can then report back to the general. There’s no need for us to personally arrest this traitor.”

Shen Hai shook his head. “How could it be that easy to confirm an Envoy’s identity? You’ll be noticed before you even get close, and you’ll never be able to catch sight of them. This situation does need to be reported, but the fact that the enemy is an Envoy means that this is out of our scope. Our task is to eliminate the terror ants.”

Lu Yin thought for a while. “That’s true. In that case, you all keep going, and I’ll track down the traitor myself.”

Shen Hai’s expression changed, and the other squad members’ faces grew ugly. “Ah Qi, the general appointed me as the captain of the squad, and you can’t leave your squad without proper authorization.”

After seeing the tragic fate that had befallen the other squad, how could Lu Yin’s companions and Shen Hai possibly allow Lu Yin to leave?

“That’s right. Brother Qi, we also want to arrest the traitor, but we have to clear out the terror ants. Dealing with traitors is Humility’s Gate’s job, and it has nothing to do with us. It’s possible that Humility’s Gate is already chasing after that traitor,” someone suggested.

Everyone else in the squad agreed, as no one wanted Lu Yin to leave.

Lu Yin firmly stated, “I have to go.”

Shen Hai clenched his fists. “Ah Qi, I’m the one who was appointed captain by the general. If you dare to leave without authorization, I’ll have to report this matter to the general.”

Lu Yin’s face fell as he looked hard at Shen Hai.

For a moment, Shen Hai and Lu Yin stared at each other. Switching to a softer tone, the old man continued trying to persuade the youth, “People need to see the limits of their own strength. You’re only an Enlighter while this traitor’s an Envoy. No one will hold it against you if you don’t try to track them down. Let’s go. Trying to chase after the traitor will likely lead to nothing, so why bother? There are already methods in place for dealing with traitors, and they have nothing to do with us. We just need to focus on the bugs, and we’ll be able to return in no more than a year.”

“Yeah, don’t go.”

“That’s right.”

…

Lu Yin gently replied, “How do you know that I’m not one of those methods to deal with the traitors?”

Shen Hai’s expression suddenly changed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Lu Yin looked around. “I’m heading out. Everyone, take care.”

“Wait!” Shen Hai quickly stopped Lu Yin. He then turned to the rest of the squad. “I’m going to go with him. What about the rest of you?”

The other squad members glanced at each other, somewhat hesitant.

Lu Yin grew curious. “Why the change of mind?”

Shen Hai felt helpless. “This old man has been training for my entire life. I already know that companionship is more important than raising one’s strength. With you, we might be able to survive. But without you, we’ll all be dead if we encounter another group of corpse kings like before. If that’s the case, then all we can do is follow you and help you chase after the traitor.”

Everyone else felt that the old man’s reasoning was quite sound.

Half an hour later, Lu Yin and his squad were following the remnant energy fluctuations that led diagonally and upwards to the right. They soon ran into a group of people who were surrounded by terror ants.

The various squads had been sent here to clean up the terror ants, but it was not unusual for a team to be surrounded and devoured instead.

Shen Hai led their squad to take action, but it took them more than half an hour to eliminate all of the terror ants.

The captain of the rescued squad was named Cheng Ji. He was another powerhouse whose strength was comparable to Shen Hai’s, and his weapon of choice was a bizarre scimitar. The ants had devoured a few members of his squad, not even leaving bones behind. Even after being saved, the rest of the captain’s squad mates were still numb from fear.

“Thank you, Captain Shen, for your help,” Cheng Ji said gratefully.

Shen Hai replied, “How long were you trapped for?”

As the old man spoke, he looked at the scimitar. This blade did not match the wounds that the slaughtered squad had suffered.

Cheng Ji sighed. “We were stuck here for two full hours. If not for Captain Shen and the rest of you showing up, we would have all been finished off by now.”

Lu Yin’s eyes swept over the squad. The traitor was not among them. Rather, they had just happened to be in the path of the fleeing traitor. Had that person deliberately passed by this squad? If so, that meant that the traitor was incredibly cautious. Just on the off chance that they were being pursued, they had purposefully passed by a squad. It was even possible that they had led the terror ants to the squad just to further delay any potential pursuers.

They were chasing after a traitor, who was trained in deception and subterfuge. There were many valid reasons as to why humanity had never been able to eliminate all of the traitors and Redbacks despite so many years of efforts; their targets were simply too shrewd and cautious.

Due to the Cheng Ji and the others’ fight against the the terror ants, the remnant energy trail in the void had been dispersed, which meant that Lu Yin and the others were no longer able to continue tracking the traitor. They had no choice but to give up.

Shen Hai let out a sigh of relief. If possible, he had absolutely no desire to chase after an Envoy, so he felt immensely grateful towards Cheng Ji and his squad. With this thought in mind, Shen Hai felt that Cheng Ji had suddenly become much more pleasant.

Nearly half of Cheng Ji’s squad had been wiped out, so they had no other option but to join Shen Hai’s squad. The old man did not refuse, as this also made their squad stronger.

Lu Yin was unwilling to abandon his task, and so he suggested that the squad continue on in the direction that they had been traveling. Shen Hai had no objection to the proposal.

Cheng Ji glanced over at Lu Yin in surprise. It was very obvious that the larger squad had a great deal of respect for this youth.

Everyone continued traveling in the same direction as before, and after two days of travel, they encountered another squad that was surrounded by terror ants. Once again, Shen Hai and others immediately attacked.

Lu Yin acted the same as before. Before meeting up with Cheng Ji’s team, he had asked everyone to keep his strength a secret, and during these battles, he also used clumsy moves to deliberately conceal his strength, which made everyone believe that Shen Hai was the strongest squad member.

It did not take long for them to rescue the second squad from the terror ants, but their captain had already sacrificed himself, and there were less than five surviving members.

After another day, the growing squad ran into yet another squad that was surrounded by bugs.

This did not feel right. These squads were tasked with eliminating terror ants, and they were not supposed to be fleeing from them. While it was expected for one or two squads to run into large swarms of terror ants and be devoured, running into three consecutive squads all facing the same crisis clearly indicated that something was wrong.

“They chased after us from below. There were too many of them, and we couldn’t recklessly fight them with fewer than a thousand people,” the third squad captain explained. While Cheng Ji looked middle-aged, this third captain was older and was actually from Shen Hai’s generation.

There were also certain people who deliberately made themselves look older so as to not be looked down upon.

“Are there are a lot of terror ants down there?” Shen Hai had a bad premonition.

Someone from the second squad spoke up. “We ran into the terror ants from just above, but they chased us all the way down here.”

Lu Yin still remembered the dead squad they had first met. Those ants had seemed to be making their way upwards. With this thought in mind, Lu Yin looked over at Shen Hai, and the old man’s heart sank. “We need to go. We need to head upwards on a diagonal to the left.”

Something occurred to Cheng Ji as well, and he agreed with the captain of the third squad. Soon, a group of more than thirty people made their way upwards on a left-leaning angle.

After three days, they ran into a dense swarm of countless terror ants.

When he saw the ants up ahead, Shen Hai bitterly said, “You were right. We’ve been surrounded by the ants. They’ve set up a massive encirclement, and all of our teams were trapped inside.”

Cheng Ji gritted his teeth. “There has to be an ant queen. There’s no other way the terror ants could be so coordinated with their movements as to actively surround us.”

“It would be great if we found the queen. Without her, these terror ants will naturally disperse. However, who could find the queen within all this?” Shen Hai commented quietly while instinctively looking over at Lu Yin.

Lu Yin stared up ahead. “We need to temporarily retreat and avoid making contact with the terror ants. Then, we can contact the general to request help and also discuss our options. There might be other squads that can help us, and we’ll only be able to break out after gathering enough people.”

Shen Hai felt helpless, but this was truly their only option. Everyone had the same thought as they quietly retreated, and all of their faces were pale.

They were well aware that they would not be able to remain safe for much longer. The ants’ encirclement would continue to tighten. Quite soon, not only would they face an endless horde of terror ants in one direction, but they would also be surrounded on all sides. Thus, the sooner they tried to break out of the encirclement, the fewer ants they would have to face.

Everyone fell into despair as they saw the black line off in the distance slowly draw closer.

This was not a situation that they could settle quickly. If it was that easy to deal with terror ants, then they would have never posed a risk to the Mother Tree.

With his domain, Lu Yin noticed another person. Lu Yin turned to look, and he saw a panic-stricken man who was about the same age as him running for his life.

Lu Yin had seen very few youths his age on this battlefield so far. In general, those as young as him on the battlefield had either been forced to come or had done so to gain experience.

The other people also noticed the man, but none of them were surprised. This person was most likely another survivor from some other team.

Shen Hai carefully observed the fleeing man, but the youth was not an Envoy. In fact, the man was not even an Enlighter. Shen Hai felt relieved, because he was still concerned about the Envoy traitor that they had been chasing.

“The gods are merciful! I’ve finally found other people! This is great! I’m saved!” The young man was ecstatic, and excitement was written all over his face. His eyes were even framed with red.

One person in the large squad unhappily muttered, “We’re all about to die, so why are you so excited?”

The young man ran over, but when he heard the person’s words, he blinked in confusion. “No way! How could such a large squad die?”

Cheng Ji quickly grew impatient. “Focus on what’s important. Are you alone?”

The young man nodded as he mournfully explained, “Everyone in my squad died. There were just too many terror ants! If not for my innate gift, I would have died as well.”

The large group of people quickly retreated a sufficient distance, and some of them did not want to pull back any further.

“We should keep going. We might find more people,” Shen Hai pushed.

Cheng Ji frowned. “We can’t go any further. The further we go in, the less space we’ll have to maneuver, and the more terror ants we’ll be forced to face.”

“It’s really a pity that we can’t find the queen ant. If we could, it would be better to fight to the death than just wait here to die.”

As things became more desperate, people would become more restless. However, the person who remained the most relaxed throughout the whole ordeal was Lu Yin. Even if he was directly thrown into the middle of the terrifying terror ant swarm, none of them would be able to wound him in the slightest.

“Well, are you going to go look for the queen ant? I know where she is,” said the young man who had been the last to join the group. As he stepped out from within the crowd, he cautiously raised his hand.

Everyone turned to look at him in surprise.

Lu Yin’s eyes flickered as he studied the young man.

Cheng Ji dragged the young man out front. “Do you really know where the ant queen is?”

The young man nodded. His neck ached from Cheng Ji’s tight grip as he yelped, “Let go! Let go! You’re about to strangle me to death!”

Cheng Ji quickly relaxed his hand, and the young man gasped for air as everyone stared at him.