Chương 173: Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Ninety-Seven

The criminal gang was run rather well, as such things went, and hadn't presented many openings for the guards to dig deeper. There were a number of suspicious circumstances involving a disappearance and gang members being sighted nearby at around the same time, but everything was still circumstantial. The only reason they suspected the gang was a guard scout had tracked a missing person to a bar owned by the gang, but they weren't able to search the building without a warrant.

Similarly, the guards had had scouting units find evidence of the criminal enterprise in the woods. They had also found very faint traces of four of the missing people in that direction, but the city guard simply wasn't equipped to deal with such a situation. The gang they could likely take care of without any kind of external help, but the large, well-armed, well-trained group in the deep woods was another matter entirely.

Beth did trust the information that the guards had collected, at least in terms of presenting a general picture of what seemed to be happening, but she did stick by the old saying in such circumstances, "Trust, but verify." The first thing they would be doing was scouting, something that Blood was becoming moderately proficient in.

None of the squad they had been assigned were particularly good scouts, so the girls had them on standby the next few days as they moved around the area, familiarizing themselves with the developed section outside the city before diving into the woods. The large force that was using the woods as their base was embedded deep within that area, and it took them two days to find their general area.

Beth stopped going along for a few days, as she wasn't as good at scouting and just wanted to get a good understanding of the area before Blood got a much better idea of what was going on. She spent a day going over the guard unit that she was assigned in detail, including sparring with the group, and that meant the whole group. The guards had been rather confident at the beginning of that Friday, but by the early afternoon were rather glad it was about to be the weekend and they wouldn't be needed for active duty.

Beth had driven them mercilessly for several hours before fighting, and beating them, in a one versus six. It was a very close thing, but she was able to take the whole unit out alone, which both demoralized and inspired them. It was a little dispiriting for them to find out they weren't quite as elite as they thought, but it was quite inspiring to know that the person leading them in the upcoming operation was so powerful and skilled.

Blood filled Beth in on all of her scouting endeavors, bringing her up to speed on what she had found during the last few days. The lupine woman had managed to get a much better bead on the group in woods, so much so that she had a rather accurate estimation of their size, strength, and number of captives. She had also thoroughly scouted the surrounding area, drawing her own quite detailed map, surprising Beth, who knew cartography wasn't as easy as it looked.

Blood had accurately mapped the terrain around the enemy outpost and had detailed notes on the outpost itself, the layout of the five buildings and rough walls that surrounded them marked in detail. With the scouting done, the location known, and the enemy strength roughly understood, their next task was to see what they could do about the criminals in the city.

After all, the organization in the woods wouldn't have nearly the same amount of success without the collaborators in the city helping secure them victims and cover the traces. This was certainly not their strong suit, but it was still something they were at least a little familiar with, though Beth thought the way they broke wide the drug running gang in that previous stage wouldn't work nearly as well here. They relied on Blood again, though Beth did at least participate in a peripheral way from the start.

They canvassed the seedier areas of the city, Beth borrowing some ordinary worker's clothes made of a linen-like fabric that allowed her to blend in better in that part of town. Though, without her realizing it, the disguise wasn't quite as good as she thought, in particular because of both how clean and how good looking she was. Most people in that area of town would be at least somewhat dirty, with more lines and harshness in their faces.

Not to mention, though Beth didn't think very highly of herself, someone with her level of beauty could get quite far on that alone, even in a smaller city. Still, the disguise was enough for her to spend two days getting to know the shadier parts of the city and learning the lay of the land. She did manage to catch sight of several of the suspected gang members during her time in the poor district, but she continued on as if she hadn't seen anything.

If there was one thing she'd learned so far in tracking others, it was you couldn't give any indication you were targeting them or the jig would be up, as it were. Even a single small mistake could snowball into a terrible mess, and going in fist first and asking questions later, if ever, wasn't always going to yield workable results. As satisfied as they could be with their scouting, they spent a day just with their heads together figuring out how they would tackle things.

Once they had debated it out and settled on a simple plan, they brought the unit they were working with in the next day. The unit had a number of questions and concerns, but ultimately, Beth was the one running the show. Despite their misgivings, they had seen her strength first hand, and if her companion were anywhere close to her, they were in very good hands during this mission. They brought Jenn in at the end to coordinate the guard response.

The plan was really straightforward; Beth and Blood would lead the team into the woods and to the bandit camp where the slavers operated from. Blood would then double back and watch what she suspected was one of the two main routes that the bandits and city gang used in moving back and forth to the camp. Jenn would then conduct an operation during the midday that would hammer the gang, capturing as many as she could.

Blood would operate on the paths during the raid to try to catch anybody fleeing from the guards' dragnet and heading toward the bandit camp. Once that was done, depending on how Blood's operation went, Beth would lead the guard unit in an assault on the bandit camp with a primary objective of securing all hostages and captured citizens. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

They put the plan into action the following day, with everyone moving into position, with the guards starting later so as not to alert the gang by moving too early. With everyone in position and ready, Beth sent a quick communication to Jenn to start the operation. Everything would be working based on timetables from this point on, as the guards had special permission to deploy jammers that would block standard communicator channels.

There were some more advanced communicators that weren't blocked by such jammers, but these communicators cost, individually, in the range of dozens of diamond coins, not something even a successful criminal operation could afford one of, let alone multiple. The guards handled their operation calmly and efficiently, raiding four different locations simultaneously.

They were able to contain everything in those raids, but they weren't able to hit every location the gang had, though that was due to not having discovered every bolt-hole rather than to poor planning or execution. This meant Blood had several fights to engage in on the paths between the city and the slaver's base, fighting off a trickle of gang members and bandits that showed up in several small groups of two, three, or four.

The distance between the city and bandit camp let them conduct their operations while avoiding the guards but, in this case, it worked against them, as the hyper-speedster Blood was able to pick off all the rats scurrying back to their hideaway before they could get more than halfway home. Blood made it back to the bandit base with extra time, based on their agreed-upon timetables, before the assault started. Having her was a welcome relief for the guard unit, though Beth hadn't worried either way.

Not that she was reckless, certainly not even as much as most young warriors, but she had a firm belief in her own strength and skill. She was miles beyond where she had been when that bastard Rothande had nearly killed her, to the point where she was looking forward to there being a Wayfarer having undergone one or more rebirths in the camp. She had made it quite far already in the Trial, and anywhere they failed out at this point would be good enough for her.

She was much more concerned in taking advantage of the Trial for what it was, an opportunity to learn things in a relatively safe manner that she might never have the opportunity to learn otherwise, at least, not without much, much greater risk. The assault went much as Beth had predicted, somewhat to the guard unit's surprise. They caught the bandit camp completely off-guard, particularly with the fact that they seemed to know the layout of the bandit's base without having to explore it.

Beth and Blood were in among the bandits in an eyeblink, mowing them down like wheat before the scythe. The chaos that their entrance and overpowering performance caused allowed the guard team to move in behind them and start taking care of the weaker opponents that Beth and Blood either injured or just ignored.

It took a surprisingly long time for Beth to be confronted by the bandit ringleader, but that was from a combination of their raid being a surprise and the amount of damage Beth and her team were wreaking on the base. When they did clash, Beth was a little disappointed, not having expected someone who had already undergone a rebirth and climbed back above level one hundred to be so… average.

The man wasn't weak, by any means, and could even generally match Beth in terms of raw stats if not actually exceed her at one level lower than she was, but his skills were nothing to write home about. He didn't seem to have any powerful offensive skills in Silver rank, and only one moderately strong defensive skill was in Silver, based on Beth's estimations. Not only that, but he seemed like a fresh Journeyman with his Axes skill, far behind Beth's high-level in both Swords and Unarmed.

The fight took a while, just because the leader of the bandit group was strong and had rather well-made armor, but the outcome was inevitable. Beth and Blood swept the whole camp, crushing anyone who stood against them, while the guard team had already moved on in the operation, focusing on the rescue of the captives and prisoners. The operation was a resounding success, at least in Beth's opinion, and the wrap-up only took a couple hours.

Unfortunately for Beth and Blood, their sneak attack hadn't been quite as successful as they had hoped, as the bandit leader had time to destroy a number of important documents. Still, they had managed to smash a slaver ring, rescue a ton of slaves, and get some information on who was fronting the funds to acquire the slaves. The stage ended shortly after they had reconvened with Jenn and gone through the after action report.

They got a slightly better reward for this stage, Beth checking through the messages and then her level as soon as the stage was over. For performance beyond the stage condition, additional rewards are granted. Reward of compounding experience granted. Applied granted reward. They had both jumped to level one hundred nineteen from the experience reward, and quickly distributed their points. An annoyed cough brought them both back to reality, quickly hurrying away from the array and the annoyed glare of the Warders.

Moving through the lobby, they headed back to their room, where they rested and refreshed themselves before getting ready for the next stage. They went through the whole usual routine before waiting to enter a portal, stepping through a red portal at the Warder's signal. The start of stage twenty-five saw them in a large arena, though it was rather different than the CRA arenas they were used to. This one was more like a classical coliseum, though the 'stands' were rather widely spaced and large.

This was explained by the fact that they didn't appear to be for the purpose of seating, but were filled with statues standing in neat rings around the arena floor. The statues were incredibly detailed, with everything from their weapons to their armor to their facial features carved exquisitely.

"Uh, I think I know where this is going," Beth said.

"What-" Blood started to ask but was interrupted as two of the statues in the stands suddenly trembled. Their eyes began glowing a faint red as they came alive, moving a step forward with their right legs, eerily in sync, before suddenly pushing off the floor and leaping forward and up, flying through the air before landing in the center of the arena with a heavy slamming noise.

Both of the statues moved with a preternatural grace, their silence as their heads smoothly pivoted to lock onto Beth and Blood quite off-putting. Beth wasn't one to sit around and wait, darting forward as the statue focused on her raised its arms to bring its sword into a ready position. Beth hadn't even drawn her blade, making a maybe slightly dangerous assumption about the enemy, but it payed off.

The statue was made of some kind of enchanted or living stone, and Beth's Crush -empowered fist dealt heavy damage to its left arm and threw off its first attempt at a wide slash. Beth ducked under the diverted swing and punched again, further cracking the arm before side-stomping the inside of the statue's left knee, knocking it off balance and dealing heavy damage to one of its legs.

She had to pace herself as, if the stands were any indication, they were in for quite a long fight ahead, and burning through her mana early would not be a good idea. Beth continued to hammer the statue with just her mana steel gauntlets, crushing it into rubble. It took her a surprisingly long time, even considering she wasn't using mana, to smash through the recalcitrant mass of stone.

Blood fared little better, though it was a good chance for her to focus on Blood Queen's Claws, developing the skill further as she concentrated on using less mana to cast it and being far more precise with where and what the energy blades hit. She was able to cut apart the statues limbs with carefully aimed claw blades before smashing its head apart with heavy force.