After arriving outside the manor, Zong Cheng realized he might have taken too big of a risk. The third ancillary branch was refusing to save him?
Zong Cheng was terribly upset as his ears were still ringing. Zong Cheng said coldly over the radio, "Fourth Brother, aren't you afraid the main branch will take revenge on you later if you refuse to help me? Our main house might not be able to do anything about the entire third house, but do you think you can get away if we're only fighting against you? There's only one supernatural being pursuing me, so the troops here are enough to handle him!"
Fourth Brother was the eldest son of the third ancillary branch, as well as the commander of the 1229th Battalion which was under the 107th Combat Brigade.
Fourth Brother lividly pondered this for a few seconds before saying, "Move the hedgehogs aside and let Zong Cheng through."
Seeing that the hedgehogs had been shifted away, Zong Cheng was overjoyed. Then he floored it and drove forward.
However, he did not stop after entering the defensive position and continued driving deeper into the manor. He was going to escape from the western entrance of the manor.
When Fourth Brother saw Zong Cheng continuing to flee, he felt that something was wrong. If the troops here were really enough to handle the supernatural being as Zong Cheng had claimed, why would he still need to run away?!
The Zong Consortium's Fourth Brother growled, "Zong Cheng, you treacherous bastard, you're despicable!"
"Sir, what should we do now?" the deputy commander of the 1229th Battalion asked.
"Defend the position! As if a supernatural being can take on an entire stronghold all by themself!" the Zong Consortium's Fourth Brother said.
As the steam locomotive approached the manor, Ren Xiaosu resorted to his usual tactic again and started dropping grenades on the defensive line to break it up. In between, he also threw out four "fives" from the Explosive Poker deck he had. However, the power of four "fives" was much weaker than that of four "sixes."
Then three soldiers on the Zong Consortium's defensive position carrying RPG launchers fired at Ren Xiaosu!
As the steam locomotive was a really large target, how could the RPGs miss?
But as they waited for the RPGs to explode, they saw the huge steam locomotive transforming into black mist. A second later, an armored being sprang out of the mist.
While still in midair, he contorted his body and dexterously dodged the incoming RPGs by passing through the gaps between them.
When the armor-clad Ren Xiaosu landed on the ground, he started charging forward, making the entire ground quake as he did so. The Zong Consortium's soldiers felt a sense of powerlessness. Seeing that their bullets were totally ineffective against their enemy and with their RPGs missing him entirely, they didn't know how to deal with him!
However, Ren Xiaosu did not engage the enemies here any further. He was only looking to destroy the manor quickly with his grenades and kill as many of the enemy's troops as possible.
The third house was doomed.
Of course, Ren Xiaosu could not guarantee that all the places he had just attacked would end up getting destroyed, nor could he finish off the soldiers and members of the Zong Consortium who had survived the blasts. Whether or not they were killed was all down to luck.
After the third ancillary branch's manor was attacked, an old man crawled out from under the ruins. When the Zong Consortium's battalion commander saw that his father was alright, he immediately ran forward to help him up. "Father, let's retreat. We can't stay here any longer!"
The old man looked especially comical when the combover used to cover his bald head were scattered. He snapped, "Retreat? Haven't you realized by now? This is the main branch's scheme! Zong Cheng has more than a 1,000 soldiers under his command, yet he couldn't even stop a supernatural being? No matter how strong a supernatural being is, they don't have an endless amount of mental strength. So why was that supernatural being still up and running? It's obvious that Zong Cheng is taking this chance to eliminate his dissidents!"
The expression on this battalion commander's face turned extremely sullen. Earlier, when Zong Cheng entered the defensive position and continued fleeing, he had already thought that something was amiss.
The elder's expression turned dark. "That little shit, Zong Cheng, has turned against our Zong Consortium, so don't blame me for not caring about our family ties! Call the fourth branch immediately! We must unite against the main branch!"
After so many years of infighting within the Zong Consortium, Zong Cheng's first thoughts after encountering Ren Xiaosu's attack on Stronghold 146 was to lead him to wipe out the third and fourth ancillary branches. At the same time, he also wanted to use the third and fourth houses' strength to wear down Ren Xiaosu.
Meanwhile, after the third house was implicated, they did not choose to flee, nor mention anything about organizing a search party to hunt down Ren Xiaosu. Instead, they immediately wanted to join up with the other faction to get their revenge!
But when their call to the fourth ancillary branch connected, the person answering immediately said, "That little shit, Zong Cheng, brought a supernatural being to our manor. Hurry over here! We need reinforcements!"
The third house fell silent. It seemed that the fourth house was done for as well.
Stronghold 146 was in utter chaos now. However, Zong Cheng could no longer clearly hear the nearby explosions due to the ringing in his ears.
He looked in his rearview mirror and was surprised to see the armored being still chasing after him. However, it seemed to have slowed down somewhat.
Zong Cheng sneered to himself. He felt that his plan had probably succeeded. Zong Cheng did not even consider the possibility that Ren Xiaosu might be tricking him. Even if Ren Xiaosu were a god, he would still get tired after battling for so long!
He took a phone out of his pocket and called his father. As soon as the call went through, Zong Cheng quickly said, "Father, that Ren Xiaosu should be at his limits. I'll lead him to our manor right away, so get ready for battle. After we kill him, we can consolidate the resources left behind by the third and fourth houses."
On the other end, his father shouted, "Don't you fucking bring him here!"
But Zong Cheng could barely hear anything due to his tinnitus. He said, "OK, I'll bring him over right away!"
Then Zong Cheng ended the call and focused back on driving. He even looked at the fuel gauge. Although the gas tank was close to empty, there was enough for him to drive back to the entrance of his manor.
But as he was making his escape, Zong Cheng suddenly felt an inkling of danger. He saw the Shadow Door appear next to him in the vehicle, then felt a saber gently slash him before disappearing.
Zong Cheng was shocked. When the black saber disappeared, he immediately began to inspect his wound. However, he realized that it was just a superficial injury. Learning this, Zong Cheng felt slightly relieved. It looked like his enemy had missed.
But before he could dwell any further on it, the Shadow Door appeared again. He felt another slash that left a wound on him that was neither shallow nor deep.
Would Zong Cheng still not understand what was going on at this moment? His enemy was obviously trying to torture him!
Ren Xiaosu clearly had the chance to kill him, yet he did not seem to be in a hurry to do so.
Zong Cheng felt humiliated. This was his first time facing this type of situation.
There was nothing he could do but step harder on the gas pedal and continue to escape.
At this moment, Zheng Yuandong was standing on the roof of a tall building that overlooked the stronghold. He was stunned by what he saw.
Previously, he thought he had overestimated Ren Xiaosu's abilities. But right now, this Qing Consortium spy was finding it a little hard to believe. A lone supernatural being was absolutely dominating the entire Zong Consortium's Stronghold 146?
Zheng Yuandong knew that a lot of what was happening here was mainly opportunistic. For example, Ren Xiaosu had disrupted the entire Zong Consortium plan by attacking their military base. While the troops that were scattered around the stronghold wanted to return as reinforcements, they were not as mobile as Ren Xiaosu. Therefore, they could only rush back in small waves like servers sending dishes to a table in a 10-course dinner.
Of course, Ren Xiaosu would not have achieved this either if he were not ruthless enough.
Zheng Yuandong had seen for himself how Ren Xiaosu had used an unknown method to somehow blow up the Zong Consortium's defensive positions. Furthermore, he could even protect himself with steel armor, drive a steam locomotive, and not feel threatened by firearms and explosives.
Zheng Yuandong had taken a shortcut to the manor of the Zong Consortium's main house. When he saw how the third and fourth houses were destroyed, he knew that Ren Xiaosu's next target would most likely be the main house.
But Zheng Yuandong was worried about how Ren Xiaosu had wasted some time to destroy the manors of the third and fourth ancillary branches.
As such, the Zong Consortium's main branch had already reorganized some of the stray troops and gathered them outside of their manor.