In the dense jungle, a group of bandits were sitting around a fire. They were biting into pieces of meat cut from a half-roasted beast, with sinister expressions on their faces.
There are still various strange sounds in the nearby mountains and forests, accompanied by the crackling sound of fire burning wood, which is not out of place in this not-so-silent environment.
"Boss, Jack and his group have definitely been killed now... Although they are not from the same group as us, their deaths... are too tragic." A middle-aged bandit with a scar on his forehead, carrying a bow and arrows Sitting next to the fire, chewing the blood-streaked meat in his mouth, he spoke.
Sitting there, Daos, the burly bandit leader, had a serious look on his face. He ignored the noise of his men and just ate his barbecue with his head down.
These people have been running rampant in the vicious forest for many years. At that time, Count Fischereau also sent troops to clear out the bandits in the northern part of the forest, but the results could only be described as average.
These bandits come and go without a trace, hiding in the mountains and forests, and disperse when they encounter a large army. It is really not easy to find them.
It is really not cost-effective to use a large army to find these bandits in the mountains, so the officials of the Wright Kingdom have always been reluctant to spend money to use troops to find trouble for these villains.
Over time, these bandits lingering in the Vicious Forest have become real local snakes, and the Vicious Forest has become a lawless place.
Here, everyone has their own territory for activities, and generally they do not attack or annex each other, because everyone knows that once the scale grows and the transportation line of the Vicious Forest can be truly cut off, everyone will have no food. have eaten.
Therefore, everyone maintains a basic tacit understanding on the scale of robbery, and most bandit teams only have about ten people.
This scale has been proven by long-term experience: if the scale is too small, it will be easy to be hacked by peers or unable to complete the plunder operation. If the scale is too large, it will attract official attention and lead to the liquidation of their troops, which will cause trouble.
Among these bandits, Jack and Dawes are the two gangster teams that are larger in scale, more famous, and fierce in style.
One of them was operating on the east side of the traffic line in the Vicious Forest, and the other was on the west side. The traffic line was the boundary. On weekdays, neither one would cause trouble for the other.
The scale of the two teams is actually very large. Jack has 25 experienced bandits in his hands, and Dawes has 28 equally evil villains in his hands.
In the Vicious Forest, no one does not know their vicious reputation, and some small bandits try their best to avoid the main areas where they operate.
However, recently there was a ridiculous rumor circulating among some bandits that they encountered by chance, saying that the entire vicious forest was echoing with ghostly gunshots, and many bandits died inexplicably, making everyone very nervous. .
In order to confirm what this news was about, Dawes sent someone to contact Jack, hoping to inquire about the situation from the other side.
As a result, those who went brought back news that surprised Dawes - Jack's bandit group was completely annihilated!
There were traces of bullets flying everywhere, and holes where the skin and flesh were torn open could be found on the bodies. Jack's body, which had not been eaten clean by wild beasts, was also found, and the two Cyric flintlock pistols that Jack never left were missing.
Things seemed to be developing in a direction that was beyond Dawes' control, because the traces of tragic battles at the scene showed that there was a large-scale army that was also familiar with mountain warfare and was operating in the vicious forest.
In the past, when armies entered the mountains, they marched along the lines of communication with great fanfare, carrying heavy carriages and transporting large amounts of gunpowder and supplies.
At this time, as long as the bandits stay away from traffic lines and hide deep in the forest, they can avoid the army's capture and preserve their own strength.
Moreover, with the rate of fire of the Cyric flintlocks in the hands of the officers and soldiers, after one fire, the bandits had time to disperse and escape, and there was almost no possibility of being gathered together and annihilated.
So Dawes still can't figure out why the army went to great lengths to secretly cultivate a force that can operate in the mountains, and why they are suddenly interested in killing bandits in the vicious forest.
"After eating in a while, clean up here! Erase as many traces as possible!" Dawes finally swallowed what was in his mouth, looked at a capable man, and ordered: "Ghosts definitely don't exist. , I think it was the officers and soldiers who did it.”
"I think so too." The second in command of the entire bandit team, a man with the same sturdy build sat on the other side and nodded in agreement: "It's not just Jack, do you still remember the place we passed by last night?"
Yesterday evening, after learning that the Jack Bandit Group was completely wiped out, they no longer dared to camp on the same spot and moved to another backup stronghold together.
On the way to the stronghold, they saw the bodies of a small group of annihilated bandits. These corpses had been dead for some time, and most of them were covered with maggots, exposing their white bones.
Everyone who saw that scene felt a little nauseous. After all, although they, the bandits, killed people and stole goods, they never had the habit of returning to the scene of the crime to observe.
There are a lot of bones in the Vicious Forest, but there is a fundamental difference between skeletons and bones and half-rotted corpses...
Especially, this time, these corpses are not those of the passing merchants, but those of the bandits - under the sorrow of the death of rabbits and foxes, everyone sitting here inevitably has a lot of pessimism.
"Damn it! When this news is over, we must find out which bastard summoned the army, and I will kill him without any body parts!" A bandit cursed angrily in the distance.
Soon, such emotions spread among the bandits. A bandit holding a sword on his waist also had a ferocious look on his face. He stared at the fire and gritted his teeth and said: "And these officers and soldiers who came into the mountains, they deserve to die too! "
"Bang!" Just when the bandits were cursing the officers and soldiers with the same hatred, a sudden gunshot echoed in the forest.
Daos instinctively rolled on the spot, avoiding the position where he was originally sitting. Then he raised his head slightly and looked around.
A bandit who had been shot slowly fell down, clutching his chest. The gunshots from the other side suddenly became denser, like continuous thunder.
The bandits who were shot screamed and fell down one after another. In an instant, seven or eight of them lost their fighting capacity.
The second-in-command of the bandits drew a long sword from his waist with one hand, and a musket from the other side with the other hand.
It is actually not easy to preserve gunpowder in a place like this, so a team with several muskets is already the best among bandits.
As the largest bandits in the entire vicious forest, they have 29 people and four muskets, so they are already quite large.
But after the sharp round of gunfire just now, they already had seven or eight people lying on the ground. And these poor bandits have not yet fully woken up from the shock of being ambushed.
They always ambush others, how could they be ambushed one day? Daos hid behind a big tree, with half of his face exposed, secretly observing everything around him.
He wanted to find the enemy who opened fire. The soldiers of the Wright Kingdom were wearing bright yellow military uniforms and were actually very easy to identify in the jungle.
But this time, he did not see the officers and soldiers wearing bright yellow clothes. What surprised him even more was that he did not see the conspicuous clouds of smoke that filled the air near the muzzle after firing.
Just like that, after a brief silence, the sound of the second round of musketry was heard again intensively, crackling and echoing in the jungle.
At this time, Dawes saw a green, vague figure flashing past behind a group of bushes.
He raised his pistol and aimed at the bush, but he was too trembling to pull the trigger under his finger, and he didn't have the courage to fire a shot in return.
Before he could fire, the second leader of the bandit who was hiding not far from the fire rang out. The sound of a gunshot echoed suddenly in the mountain forest, and then a conspicuous cloud of white smoke filled the place where he was hiding.
This is why Dawes didn't have the courage to fire back. The white smoke was so conspicuous that he couldn't hide it no matter how hard he hid.
But what shocked him was that the ghostly and terrifying entities who had been firing on the opposite side did not even have thick smoke to spread over the location where they fired! This made Daos subconsciously recall the legend about ghosts.
Then he saw his second-in-command, who always charged forward in every battle, was hit by a bullet from behind and fell to the ground with a scream.
He saw with his own eyes that the second master's blood dyed his tattered leather armor red, and he saw with his own eyes that the second master was lying on the ground struggling for a few times, and then he lost more air and lost more air.
The third round of gunshots reached Dawes's ears, bringing his consciousness back to the tragic battlefield.
After careful observation, he still saw the faint muzzle flash and the faint, almost unrecognizable billowing smoke.
He picked up the musket in his hand for the second time and pointed it in the direction where he had just seen the muzzle flash. Then he hesitated again.
Because the screams and shouts of death have gradually subsided, there are not many people left standing in the bandit gang of more than 20 people.
Just now, a coward who couldn't hold his breath and wanted to escape ran a few steps away, but fell to the ground after a gunshot, and died without even a grunt.
The scene gradually calmed down, with fewer and fewer bandits fighting back and hiding, and more and more corpses lying on the ground.
After a while, there was no more gunshots. In the silence, a man wearing a gray-green military uniform held a rifle with a bayonet, pushed aside the grass in front of him, and slowly stood up.
