Bear School Astartes-Chapter 563 - 565. Tracking

Chapter 563: 565. Tracking
The search process went smoothly. Now it was getting late, and the armed squads coming out in groups should also be looking for places to set up camp.
Moreover, their warhorses had to carry people, armor, and supplies, but Lann was leading Bopai by hand.
Human endurance far exceeds that of horses.
A seemingly counterintuitive fact is that in long-distance marches, infantry generally wait for the cavalry to catch up.
The longest continuous running time record for ordinary humans is more than twenty-five hours.
But for Lann, who had already implanted the gene seed and undergone three surgeries, he could not be measured by the standards of ’ordinary humans.’
The winter woods had already almost shed their leaves and transformed into branches reaching towards the sky.
The sky was getting darker, and the branches appearing to pierce the sky looked grotesque and sinister under the dim lighting.
The cold wind blew through the gaps in the forest, twisted into strange whistles.
Bopai had already exerted its maximum potential as a purebred Codwin warhorse.
Its muscles swelling and veins bulging as it galloped was a sight that artists could capture and preserve in expensive paints for posterity.
In its eyes, the strangely dim woods around it passed by like silhouettes.
But in front of it, there was always a tall figure.
Heavy footsteps like a warhammer!
But above this heavy mass, there was a swift figure!
The proportions of the Astartes’ body looked like an enlarged human figure.
No problems like elongated limbs, unstable center of gravity, which those who grow to this size conventionally face.
If one must describe Lann’s current sense of speed, it would be Olympic sprint champions’ sprinting speed plus three hundred kilograms of mass!
The massive weight carried a fierce wind, enough to break the branches and twigs that it passed!
Finally, after a not very long pursuit, Lann spotted a faint glimmer of firelight in a clearing in the forest.
There were about fifteen people, gathered around a campfire preparing to rest.
They wore glossy, dark full-body armor, with a pair of black wings seemingly about to soar skyward on the sides of their helmets.
Their longswords were sharp, with sturdy crossbows and strong bows; in terms of appearance and presence, they were more refined than the Northern soldiers Lann had known.
After all, even in Baron Velen’s Viserad’s cavalry squad, the leader Philip was a dirty person with a blackened neck and hair matted under his leather cap.
Their tattered cotton armor would be stained with alcohol, thick phlegm, snot, and other substances.
Lann’s heavy footsteps, along with Bopai’s heavy breathing, awakened this group preparing dinner.
They all became alert, arrows notched, bows drawn, longswords unsheathed.
In terms of neat military bearing, it was another area in which they were superior to the Northern Army.
Lann let go of the reins, allowing Bopai to walk away and rest on its own.
He himself stood in the heavy shadows cast by the firelight.
His rapid travel had not even displaced his hooded cloak, and standing in the shadows, only a giant silhouette could be seen.
The Niflgaard soldiers opposite murmured to each other.
"A giant?! I thought that was just a Northern bumpkin’s superstition!"
"This is a wood, a plain forest! Not the mountains, where would a giant come from? Even if it’s a legend, I think it should be a Deerhorn Spirit!"
In the south, most of the creatures common in the north had become material for legendary tales.
The southerners even mocked Northerners for their superstitious ignorance.
And now, these soldiers fighting in the north for the first time felt fear born from the unknown.
Following that, influenced by armor and sharp swords, fear turned into aggression.
Under his hood, Lann could hear the increasingly heavy breathing of those opposite, along with the puffs of white mist coming from their mouths.
"Just in case."
Lann spoke calmly in the darkness, without a hint of fluctuation, only a large puff of white vapor from the heat floating from the shadow into the firelight.
"I want to ask you Southern gentlemen something: I passed a village here heading eastward. That village was slaughtered, the perpetrators burned the corpses and used torture... was that you?"
As Lann spoke the first words, the expressions of those opposite visibly relaxed.
Being able to speak human language, he wasn’t a northern monster from the stories.
But the second sentence immediately made these slightly relieved Niflgaard soldiers... laugh out loud.
The laugh was filled with astonishment.
Usually, Lann wouldn’t mind. After all, the transition from tension to relaxation, with a laugh along the way, seemed natural.
But this laugh was different; it gave Lann the feeling that—
"Someone actually asked us this?" and "I actually got tense because someone asked such a silly question?"
There was no need for a reply.
The mocking laughter was the answer.
A Niflgaardian aiming a crossbow at Lann still had a mocking smile on his face, but his finger had already begun to tighten, the mechanical spring was about to activate, launching the bolt on the string.
But in the next moment...
"Whoosh!"
An intense wind pressure appeared out of nowhere, nearly pressing the lively and bright campfire into a thin layer!
The ordinary person’s sight and reaction speed couldn’t even spot Lann’s shadow under such circumstances!
They still stared blankly at where Lann had been standing, where a large cloak fluttered in the sky.
But causing this powerful wind pressure... was a gigantic human body!
"Boom!"
A massive palm completely enclosing the Niflgaardian’s head!
And with just this one action, the noise it made was like a hammer hitting a helmet!
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Lann almost appeared instantly, infiltrating their formation!
Those cat eyes glimmered in the darkness, observing the entire situation.
The crossbowman’s head being struck heavily triggered the mechanism in his hands instinctively.
"Whiz" sounded the bolt with a trident head flying past Lann and directly into another Niflgaardian’s armor neck gap!
Then, without even turning his head, it was as if Lann had planned it in advance, lifting the Niflgaardian in his hand to his side with one hand.
The next moment, the "whiz whiz whiz" of arrows cutting through the air arrived.
Arrows fired by bows or crossbows sparked on the Niflgaardian’s armor, with a few at tricky angles piercing weak points of the armor and lodging into their bodies.
The person ’shield’ in Lann’s hand fell silent.
The Niflgaard Army was indeed formidable.
Whether it was their quick reaction ability or the quality of their arsenal, it was considerably better than the Northern Army.