3 03. Ambush
As the sedan was passing by through the line of his sight, Roy threw a black stone like object in the palm of his hands towards it.
Boom!
The black stone like object fell in front of the sedan and exploded with a bang.
"Ambush!"
The soldiers screamed as they put on their guard. But it was already too late as similar small stones fell from the sky and exploded sending small iron and glass splinters in the air. These iron and glass splinters were too small and too fast to be stopped, they went through the leather Armor of the soldiers and hit their vital organs. Although severely injured none of the soldiers died, but the attack didn't end here. More small metal canisters fell on them which didn't explode but instead sent out a white gas that caused irritation in their eyes and reduced visibility. It was then, that the combo of multiple arrows rained from above and killed almost 80% of the severely injured ones.
It happened so fast that none of them could react within time, all they could do was scream 'ambush' as all the attacks rained down from the sky causing a massive blow to the men.
These were all the ideas and creation of Roy through the whole year.
The iron splinter bombs were a roughly made version of war grenades. It was made by using charcoal, nitre and sulphur stuffed into a three layer of an oxidizer with ammonium nitrate. This bomb had small iron and glass splinters in it, which under high pressure exploded and were able to shoot and penetrate almost anything— unless steel. Though it might have sounded impressive, it was all just basic improvisation of elementary chemistry knowledge. Basic hand grenades were differently made, they were installed with ammonium nitrate as the explosive with fuel oil as the oxidizer and an inbuilt detonator. While, these hand-made one were instead lunged with high speed causing pressurized explosion.
The charcoal was artificially made by Roy himself. Charcoal was basically just wood burnt in reduced oxygen, the nitre was mined from the toilets—found in abundance in piss stains from toilet bowls, as for sulphur—it was sold as brimstone in the market. The ammonium nitrate was produced by mixing nitric acid and ammonia.
As these were hand-made grenades, quite a few of them didn't explode, though the ones which exploded were quite deadly.
The tear gas was just mixing oil extracted from hot pepper plant with water and aerosol. It stays liquid in room temperature, thus a high pressure employing substance was used in the canister which caused the liquid to spew like droplets in the air and thus reducing visibility.
This almost reduced the victim's strength by half. As they say— 'A cultured person is more terrifying than a sword wielding person'.
...
12 of the soldiers died— 9 were seriously injured by the unavoidable iron splinters and then their vision were reduced due to the tear gas bombs, which caused them to die from the arrows. The rest three of them were quite severely injured which rendered them unable to fight.
"Charge!"
Five men suddenly screamed and lunged out from the ground as they charged towards the three injured soldiers with blades in their hands. Before the injured soldiers could put up a fight, they died at the hands of these scoundrel men. The blade ran through their flesh as the ground was dyed red with blood.
"Damn it!" A man cursed from behind the bushes as he jumped out before flitting towards the ambushers. But before he could reach them, a masked man flashed before him and blocked his path.
"Your fight is with me!" Roy stated as he threw out a fist towards the person.
Tianu frowned as he reacted with a punch of his own. As the two punches clashed, Tianu jerked two steps back whereas Roy slid five steps back. The difference in strength was quite visible, but Roy charged up again. 'Very well I shall end this fight soon and after that— I shall go kill those five bastards!' Tianu thought as he started exchanging blows with his opponent.
As for the five, they were closing in on the sedan. Suddenly from within the sedan two men came out. The former were quite startled, according to the information they had there was supposed to be only one person in the sedan— the prince. But here in front of them there were definitely two people.
'If there are two people, then we shall take down both of them.' Thinking so, the five rushed up with their blades. The two men unsheathed their own blades as they rushed forward to clash with their opponents
Roy suddenly took out a dagger from his back and stabbed towards Tianu's chest, but Tianu was faster as Roy's dagger missed his chest and slashed at just his arm, blood poured out of his arm. Even though he was a body refiner, he was nothing but a novice. Looking at his bleeding arm, Tianu's chest puffed with rage, as he threw a fist packing his whole power towards Roy. The fist hit Roy's chest as it sent him flying out, spewing blood from his mouth, he tried to get up but fell as he died. Tianu just looked at Roy for a second before flashing towards the five— now three who were fighting in the distance.
Two of Roy's companion had already died. The power of the two people, even though not as strong as Tianu, were still strong enough to overpower the five together. Seeing that Roy had already fallen, the moral of the rest touched ground bottom. Soon, with Tianu joining the fight, they were killed.
...
"Dispose of the corpses. Send the news that the prince has been kidnapped." Tianu said as he sat down.
"Yes, Elder Tianu." The two replied in unison, as they huffed with weariness.
"This is the fifth ambush. To think that the queen would be this malic... Puu!" As Tianu kept on speaking, he suddenly spurted a mouthful of blood. Looking at the blood and then the wound on his arm, he realized that he had been poisoned— the dagger was laced with poison.
Boom!
A white flash came with a deafening sound and blinded the three of them instantly but it didn't end there, with a 'puchi', the sound of blade running through the skin rang out. Tianu was already at the ends of his rope, as for the other two— they died at the hands of Roy.
As Tianu's vision came back he looked at Roy in disbelief. He was sure that the punch landed on Roy but now that he was seeing his standing here in front of him, he would obviously be stunned. His face twisted with rage and helplessness as he fell to his death.
Roy walked up to him and felt Tianu and the other two corpse's bodies. He searched thoroughly, even stripping them to nudity but all he got were three booklets. Opening the booklets and having a quick surf, Roy nodded with satisfaction. These booklets contained their written experiences of daily practices of body refining and experiments with it. Even though these weren't true techniques, it was enough for Roy to gain a basic understanding of the technique.
Roy looked at his surroundings once before cleaning up the area. He burned the corpses and the sedan along with his traps, then buried whatever remained of it deep into the ground. After all was done and cleaned up, the sky was already dark. Roy soon fled the scene. He already had a hunch from the beginning that the prince wouldn't be here.
As for this sedan, guards and all...
This was just the divergence of the prince or some minister. The news was probably leaked by some political figure in the court for maybe planting an instability for personal gain to cause the accidental assassination of the prince. Roy already thought of this, but he didn't expect it to be the 'Queen' in this case, as Tianu leaked out before his death. The prince must have made it sound like he would be taking this path, but instead this was just a fluke and the real technique was safe with the prince who chose another path for reaching the capital. Even though Roy predicted all of this, he still couldn't resist the temptation of the small hope but it was in vain. Still, he didn't regret it, getting the experience record of three novice body refiners was enough of return for Roy.
He didn't feel much regret for his companions dying, he already had his own plans from the beginning. Their deaths were already in his expectation. He didn't have much of a kinship for them too, they just planned this for their own individual benefits. Even if they lived, after this they would probably have parted and went on their own ways.
As for now Roy would just rest in some place away from here and recuperate. Even though he didn't die from Tianu's fist, it still injured him quite severely. He would at least need a year or more to recuperate.
...
