Deep in the night of Bandzhen City.
After the martial law order was issued, the streets turned utterly silent.
Except for patrolling Peace Officers, ordinary citizens all shut their doors and stayed inside, afraid of getting into trouble.
At the entrance to the Headquarters, several people preparing to take over patrol duty were idly chatting.
"They even replaced the Director, it must be serious?"
"I heard from Intelligence that something big happened. A lot of people died."
"To be honest, the new Director is really unpleasant! He probably never did public security work before, just gives orders randomly."
"Who told you he’s the Divine Child's trusted subordinate… huh? Is someone over there?"
As they spoke, they suddenly saw a hooded figure approaching the Headquarters gate with both hands in his pockets.
During martial law, this behavior was illegal.
"Hey! You over there—what?!"
Before the scolding finished, the Peace Officers saw the person pull his hand from his pocket, revealing several objects clenched in his palm that were clearly explosives.
"Explosives!"
"Get inside, now!!"
The officers panicked and rushed into the Headquarters.
A moment later, explosive booms rang out from the street, and the front glass of the Headquarters shattered from the blast.
Alarms blared. Every on-duty Peace Officer rushed to get their weapons and gear. People called in reports and requested backup.
But when they stormed outside, the bomber had already vanished. Also, the explosions happened in the street; the perpetrator hadn’t thrown the bombs into the building.
"Search! The suspect must be nearby, don’t let them escape!"
Anyone bold enough to throw explosives at the Headquarters gate was no ordinary criminal and had to be tracked down thoroughly.
On the west side of the city, at the other end, one street away from the Falling Sakura Official Residence, Uenoshi watched the shadow that had suddenly appeared and asked, "Where did you go?"
They had planned to raid the residence tonight and attack the Divine Child. After arriving here, Shadow had left briefly and just returned.
"Caused some chaos to divert attention," Guan Tong said, "so a bunch of Peace Officers won’t come and get in the way later."
"…"
"Come on, let’s do the job."
During the day, Guan Tong had already scouted the Falling Sakura Official Residence thoroughly.
Besides some concealed sentries, surveillance cameras were deployed around the area; any stranger appearing near the residence would be quickly spotted.
However, if the attackers intended a frontal assault, those cameras and sentries wouldn’t mean much.
That was exactly what Guan Tong and Uenoshi were about to do.
To muddy the waters, Guan Tong also brought a large number of helpers.
He had summoned hundreds of living dead with the Corpse Whistle in advance and stored them in the page shelter. At once he released them and gave them follow orders.
In an instant, a huge force appeared on the street by the residence. The watching sentry was stunned for two seconds before sounding the alarm inside the residence.
Obviously, a sudden hundred-strong crowd made a powerful visual impact.
Their purpose was clear, and they rushed toward the mansion. Guan Tong pulled an iron hammer from his storage ring and smashed at the serpentine family crest on the front door.
"Crack!"
Defense barriers were effective against Mind Power attacks, but they did nothing against mundane cold-weapon strikes.
A mere wooden door could not withstand Guan Tong’s hammer. After only a few strikes, a large hole was smashed through it.
"Who’s there?!"
"How dare you assault this place!"
Guards inside the residence arrived, shouting while raising their guns and opening fire.
Although the living dead made an imposing sight, they were not sturdy; under a hail of bullets, many fell quickly.
Guan Tong told Uenoshi, "You handle these people, I’ll get the Divine Child."
He ordered twenty or thirty living dead to rush into the residence and blended in himself, releasing numerous shadow lines to locate the target.
Uenoshi obeyed and charged the armed guards.
Bang bang bang bang!
They fired at her, but bullets hit her and merely made a crisp sound before falling off—unable to perate her scale armor.
Her speed made it impossible for anyone trying to aim for her head to do so. She had achieved third place in the Marathon Rules competition thanks to her snake-like agile movements.
In no time she knocked several guards down.
One of them screamed and pulled a grenade, about to detonate it. Uenoshi glared; the man froze, then his body began to contort and transform.
"Ah!!!"
A blood-curdling scream, the ripping of clothes—the guard quickly changed from human into a grotesque snake-bodied creature, the byproduct of her Serpent Servant ability.
Uenoshi looked at the serpent servant crawling and waiting for orders and showed a touch of reluctance.
If not necessary, she preferred not to use this power. Turning humans into monsters was, to her, even crueller than killing.
Inside the residence, because the three-story house wasn’t large, Guan Tong’s shadow lines surveyed it quickly.
He found a room protected by a barrier device—clearly where the Divine Child slept.
An outer mansion barrier wasn’t enough; the bedroom had its own small barrier…
Guan Tong thought to himself, this Divine Child is overly cautious.
I must act fast. If he escapes with a teleportation item, it’ll be troublesome. Once he gets defensive, chances like tonight will be hard to come by.
He moved to the top of the room and formed a little spatial pocket in his palm, smashing it down.
Silently, a hole appeared through the barrier and the roof.
Shadow slipped through the hole and found the Divine Child sitting in the middle of the room.
Guan Tong activated Body Swap, exchanging positions with Shadow, and at the same time pressed the palm-sized pocket of space against the Divine Child.
In the blink of an eye, a silhouette silently appeared behind Guan Tong and swung a knife at his neck.
Both attacks happened almost simultaneously. The blade’s strike seemed intended to force Guan Tong to abandon his attack on the Divine Child to save himself.
But Guan Tong did not stop.
As the little space struck the Divine Child, the blade cut into Guan Tong’s neck.
This knife appeared to have a special property; it sliced through the Shadow Armor Guan Tong used for defense, yet failed to sever his head.
There was another layer of protection within the Shadow Armor.
A Mind Power Flow-formed protective shield pressed the blade in place, preventing any further peration.
Meanwhile, the Divine Child attacked by Guan Tong had half his skull swallowed by the pocket of space.
Maybe a heart could be saved if only one side was damaged, or by some special item, but a destroyed brain left no hope.
Guan Tong’s strike succeeded. He spun and swung, sending numerous shadow spikes at the one who had slashed him. The attacker nimbly dodged, leapt, and then vanished into thin air.
"Invisibility…"
Guan Tong thought of the bandaged, masked figure dressed like a ninja. That person must have invisibility-related abilities; otherwise Shadow wouldn’t have failed to detect him.
He glanced at the Divine Child fallen on the floor.
A large force would probably arrive soon. Since the objective was accomplished, there was no need to keep tangling with an invisible bodyguard.
Strangely, this invisible person seemed to be the Divine Child’s personal guard. He had used only one move and then hid. Didn’t he want to avenge his lord?
Guan Tong was puzzled but this was not the time for speculation. He burst out of the room and then used Body Swap to leave.
A moment later, amid the chaos and commotion outside, a strange scene unfolded.
The Divine Child, his skull half swallowed by the pocket of space, twitched on the floor, then slowly sat up.
"Shin." The Divine Child’s voice came from his chest.
The earlier invisible ninja appeared, dropping to one knee.
"Cut off his head."
"Yes."
Shin’s blade came down and severed the Divine Child’s mutilated head cleanly.
The next second, a new head squeezed up from below and took its place.
After rotating a few times to adapt, the Divine Child spoke, "Did you see clearly?"
"Seen clearly," Shin said. "Shadow’s special attack has a very small effective range, but immense power. It erased your brain directly, and it seems related to space. He also has a teleportation ability, but this ability appears to have a cooldown and cannot be used continuously."
"Not bad… this is very valuable intelligence."
"I didn’t expect him to dare come directly to assassinate me. But he doesn’t know…"
A ferocious smile slowly took over his face.
He ripped open his tight robe, revealing that the usual chest, abdomen, and waist parts a normal person would have were all missing.
In their place, a string of closed-eyed heads were connected together.
"A giant snake actually has eight heads… Shadow, you destroyed one of them. We’ll tally the score slowly…"
Reviews
All reviews (0)