Chapter 267: A Plan With Poison
A large squadron of Blue Wind Kingdom soldiers with the coat of arms of the kingdom slowly marched as they led several chariots through the road. Their marching pace was orderly, and even their movements were perfectly synchronized with each other. Each one of the soldiers had a small fighting spirit leaking out from them. This was the spirit that only men who have been through countless of battles and have tempered themselves from their repeated close encounters with death could have. From this, it could be seen that these soldiers were the elite soldiers of the Blue Wind Kingdom.
Five kilometers behind, Jian Chen rode his Class 2 Magical Beast alongside a traveling merchant caravan. As he followed the soldiers, he began to think about just how he should put his plan into motion.
There were roughly two hundred soldiers in this squadron. While that wasn’t many, they were still soldiers who had the very essence of discipline and skill drilled into them, thus making them harder to fight against. There was a small pocket of Great Saint Masters while the rest were all Saint Master leveled soldiers. Compared to the mob of Xia clansmen he had went up against, the soldier’s fighting strength was equal if not stronger. Jian Chen could even sense that the commanders of the soldiers were practically all Earth Saint Masters.
After all, the amount of monster cores they were transporting as war preparations was by no means a small amount. It was naturally common sense for the Blue Wind Kingdom to dispatch their Earth Saint Master soldiers to guard them.
By the afternoon, the blazing sun hung high in the sky and sent extremely hot rays down toward the earth. As the earth grew baking hot from the temperature, Jian Chen continued to travel with the merchant caravan for a little longer before ultimately separating from them to follow the soldiers.
After separating from the merchants, Jian Chen began to follow the squad of soldiers by himself from afar. However, he had to increase the distance from five kilometers to eight because they were now walking through a plain. There was rarely any grass to obstruct vision, so with the vast line of sight, it would be easy to get caught if he stood close by.
In a flash, the day turned to night as Jian Chen followed the soldiers from afar, slowly making their way forward. There weren’t any cities close by, so the soldiers had to find an empty piece of land to rest up for the night and start a fire for a meal.
During this moment of rest, their guards would be on a strict vigilance. Every so often some soldiers riding on top of a magical beast would patrol the area. This had forced Jian Chen to be unable to make a move at all. Against such an elite force like this one where there were Earth Saint Masters mixed in, Jian Chen couldn’t be stupid and dash in recklessly.
By the following morning, the soldiers were already beginning to pack up with Jian Chen still following from behind. At this part of the road, there weren’t many caravans, so it was every so often that the soldiers came across a group of mercenaries or merchants. Because of those infrequent appearances, none of the soldiers took notice of Jian Chen. At times, when there came a group of merchants following the same direction, Jian Chen would blend in with them for added coverage.
At noon, Jian Chen had split ways from the merchant group once more and continued to follow them by himself. With the sun being stifling hot, the soldiers soon came to a stop by a nearby groove. Sitting in small groups on the grass, each one began to pull out their canteens to take a few sips of cold water.
“This damn weather is too hot! All of my water is already almost gone. We have to get to a water source soon with this hot weather. A man can go two or three days without eating, but they cannot go without water.” A high ranking soldier spoke out.
Another soldier by his side took out a map and began to inspect it closely. His eyes lit up as he pointed at a certain section of the map and spoke out, “Take a look at the symbol here, there’s a river not too far away! We could go there and get some water.”
A few of the high ranking soldiers immediately gathered together to take a look before commanding the rest of their soldiers, “Everyone, go task a person from your squad to go three kilometers southwest to fetch some water!”
“Yes, commander!” Immediately, a soldier collected everyone’s canteen into his Space Belt and immediately set off on his Class 2 Magical Beast mount toward the water source.
Soon enough, the soldier arrived at a small brook two meters wide in length. The water was so visible that the bottom of the brook could be seen.
Dismounting from his mount, the soldier immediately began to take out all of the canteens from the Space Belt and started to scoop water into them.
Suddenly at that moment, a silver ray of light flew from the tall grass at high speeds. Before the soldiers could even react, it slashed through his neck completely.
The blood of the soldier splurted into the air as the head of the soldier was completely severed. His blood spilt into the river and began to dye the water with it.
A white robed youth appeared from the bushes, it was Jian Chen.
Walking up to where the dead soldier was, Jian Chen thought for a moment before digging a hole to bury the soldier’s body in. At the same time the dirt where the blood had dripped on was covered up in order to prevent the smell from wafting into the air for a magical beast or humans to smell.
After all that was done, Jian Chen washed off the blood from the armor before taking off his own clothes to put on the armor. Taking some herbs, he began to disguise himself to look like the recently deceased soldier before finally filling up the rest of the canteens with water.
After all of the canteens were filled, Jian Chen immediately took out one of the venomous fangs of the Silver Striped Golden Snake before plunging it into the water supply of all the canteens.
The Silver Striped Golden Snake was a highly venomous being. Its venom ranked within the top three of its rank, and the venom from its fang was the most venomous part of it. Unlike the venom from its poison sacks, if the fang was soaked in water for a brief moment, the water supply would become an extremely deadly poison.
After plunging the fang into the water supply, Jian Chen repeated the process for all the other canteens. By the time he was done, all of the canteens were filled with the venom polluted water, making them all extremely poisonous.
After all of the canteens were filled with a good amount of venom, Jian Chen poured the rest of the venom into the high ranking soldiers canteens. Storing the fang back into his Space Belt, he began to inspect himself to see if there was anything out of place. Then, after making sure he didn’t overlook anything, he mounted the dead soldier’s mount and began to ride back to the groove.