Silent Crown Chapter 158 Riot

Chapter 158 Riot

In an instant, the entire district was cast into a nightmare. The peace and serenity was gone, replaced by nightmarish spasms and struggles. Buildings were on fire. Illuminated by the flas, the streets crawled with thugs ard to the teeth. So were the Shaman’s n, so ca from other places, and others took advantage of the chaos to break into hos…

In a desolate alley, blood flowed over the stone tiles. Bodies were dragged and thrown into the sewer where they disappeared with the bubbling water.

Amidst the roaring and screaming, the people who had nothing to do with the fighting hid in their hos, trembling. They burrowed under their covers and prayed that this long night would end quickly and that disaster would not fall on them. The dark downtown was thrown into turmoil under the blazing firelight. Even Ye Qingxuan had fallen into so small trouble.

Two figures suddenly appeared before him in the alley, blocking his way. He looked back and saw that the other end was blocked by two n with swords as well.

"I’m just passing by. You don’t have to do this, right?" He sighed. "I’m in a hurry. Can you not waste my ti?"

Two muscular n with daggers exchanged glances and laughed. They closed in, eyes fierce. It seed that it was impossible to communicate with words.

Ye Qingxuan sighed again, fixed his hunting hat and reached out.

Boom! The approaching man flew back, as if they had been smashed in the face with a steel hamr.

The man blocking the entrance was stunned. Before he could react, a black shadow charged toward him at an impossible speed. He raised his dagger instinctively to protect himself. But then an arm swung over, bending the dagger and crashing into his chest. He was slamd against the wall.

Boom! Dust flew and the dagger fell, shattering.

The two n behind Ye Qingxuan froze. They reacted quickly and charged with a yell. Ye Qingxuan turned around, clenched his fist and swung! In an instant, his fist hit a shoulder blade. There was a crack, and the strong man fell to his knees. The other man was flipped over by Ye Qingxuan and was now under his feet. After implanting the Chainsaw monk’s skeleton, the Dungeon Gentleman was able to give Ye Qingxuan enough strength to flatten these thugs. If he ignored the consequences and put all his strength into it, he felt that he could arm wrestle with an elephant.

Doing all these moves and dealing with four n without even needing to catch his breath felt really good. The only problem was…they did not seem to have been dealt with completely.

Wrinkling his forehead, Ye Qingxuan looked down and saw that the n who had collapsed were now climbing back up. Soone picked up a sword and was rushing toward him. Ye Qingxuan reached out and gripped the blade. The steel skeleton in the black gloves slowly closed in around the blade and shattered it. Then he threw the attacker onto the ground. An average man would have been knocked unconscious with that thud, but this man was just dizzy for a bit before he started struggling again.

Ye Qingxuan stiffened his body and broke their right leg. But the strange thing was, they did not scream in pain when their right leg broke and bone pierced through their skin. Their movent did not even slow down. This was not natural.

"What is this?" Y Qingxuan poked their broken bone and saw no painful expression. His brows slowly furrowed. "Do you not feel pain at all?"

Suddenly, he flipped the others over and grabbed one man by the neck, bringing him closer. Under the dim light, he saw that the man’s eyes were bloodshot and crazed. His breath slled of alcohol, but there was sothing bitter in the sll, like extrely thick dicine.

"Illegal drugs?" he questioned, suddenly coming to the realization. "Looks like the Indians’ work." At this ti, the other guys slowly crawled over.

Ye Qingxuan looked at their zombie-like state and grew helpless. "You guys are so annoying. Do I really have to kill you?"

Boom! Before he could finish, one of their heads was crushed.

Boom! Boom! With two more sounds, the other two n’s heads were crushed as well. Brain matter flew, splattering onto Ye Qingxuan’s shoes.

Under the distant glow of the fire, a burly and inhuman shadow walked into the alley. It easily flattened the thugs on the ground as if it were stepping on bugs. When he walked into the alley, he practically filled up the entire space. It was chilling for one to see this figure walk towards oneself. He then took the man from Ye Qingxuan’s hands, put a hand on the head, and twisted.

Crack. The ripe fruit fell from its stem, blood spewing out.

Ye Qingxuan looked up at the face of the newcor—as expected, he was wearing a comical and nacing donkey mask. It was the Bloody Butcher.

The Butcher gazed at him and turned to the side, motioning for Ye Qingxuan to lead the way. The giant folded chainsaw was at his back. There were layers of dried blood on it and one could not see its original color.

Ye Qingxuan glanced at him. He could not see the Butcher’s expression under the strange mask, but he just wanted to laugh. The Professor had hired the Butcher to kill him, but now he was taking him to kill the Professor. How interesting.

"Co with ," he said as he took the lead. "There are a lot of people near the factory. To avoid getting too much attention, I…" Ye Qingxuan paused, his voice cutting off.

The youth looked up and saw a man on fire. He ran out of a burning building and rolled on the ground before finally crawling toward a dirty water ditch with a wail. His movents stopped before he reached it. He was dead.

Behind his dead body was an entire street was bathed in light emanating from the dancing flas. Amidst the flas, the crazed and dazed thugs swallowed the drugs and were subrged in ecstasy. They broke into every ho and dragged the hiding civilians out…

Ye Qingxuan sighed. He could not walk further. "What a group of scum," he thought.

--

As the fire spread gradually and illuminated the entire downtown, the din was suffused in the ocean wind.

The guards of the only entrance to midtown from downtown—the Tower Bridge—gazed at the fire from afar and readied their weapons. Occasionally, soone with sharp eyes would see the group of ard thugs and would doubt whether his police weaponry had any aning…if a few dozen n rushed over, the checkpoint would collapse entirely.

Behind the checkpoint, the officer in charge of tonight’s shift had turned ghastly pale. He had received a ssage that there would be so riots in downtown, but he did not think that it would be this big.

It was like the carnival had co early. The bonfire was lit and the cheering people drank and partied through the night. But instead of flowers, they held swords, and instead of decorated masks their faces were covered in blood.

"These thugs…" He took a step back subconsciously and raised his voice. "Riders, be fully prepared. If soone attacks the checkpoint, push them back! Why hasn’t the ssage from the headquarters arrived? Do the higher-ups not care about this at all?!"

As soon as he spoke, the clattering of hooves traveled from behind him. He spun around as if his savior had arrived and saw a black horse. The ssenger raised a lantern, illuminating the road before him as he galloped through the dark night. The badge of the Royal ssenger was on his saddle. It would occasionally bounce up and fall into the light, reflecting a chilling flash.

He had rushed over from uptown, passed through midtown, stepped onto the Tower Bridge and galloped before finally stopping at the gate before downtown. He raised his badge and announced, "Everyone gather and retreat behind the bridge. Call back all riders. All Avalon policen must stay behind the Tower Bridge!"

The officer was stunned. "Then what about here?"

The ssenger gazed coolly at the distant firelight and squeezed out between clenched teeth, "Drop the gate."

"But…"

"Both sides are trash and it’s best if they all die out. Just let them fight each other." He waved coldly, motioning for the hesitant officers to hurry up. "Your task now is to control the chaos and make sure it doesn’t expand. As for these dogs, just let them burn!"

The officer fell silent. After a long ti, he sighed and took the hamr from his saddle. Raising it up, he swung it down on the cable before him.

Boom! The hamr buried into the wood and cut the cable in two. The cable whirred sharply as it was pulled by the powerful group of pulleys and flew into the air.

Above the Tower Bridge, the heavy gate hovering in the air shook. Large pieces of rust and tal dust fell. Piercing groans ca from the pivots and axis that had not moved in years. Amidst the scraping of tal, the gate fell from the sky and crashed onto the ground, sealing the only path between downtown and the rest of the city. In the chaos behind the gate, soone let out a shocked cry.

The commoners that had been running gasped as the gate fell from the sky, blocking their way to safety. The chasing sounds behind them neared.

"Wait! Wait… we…" A frantic woman shook the gate with all her might. Hopelessness was written all over her bruised face. "Please save us!"

The distant group of thugs with their torches gradually approached while shouting. The infant in the woman’s arms was frightened awake and began crying. The man beside them fell into despair too. He tried to crawl in under the gate.

"You can’t just leave us here! Let us in! Let us in!"

"Stand back! Stand back now!" In panic, the officer yelled repeatedly, "Don’t attack the checkpoint! Do not attack…" But he could not continue. He could no longer bear to look at those pleading eyes. Turning around with difficulty, he gazed at the ssenger. His lips quivered as if he wanted to beg on their behalf, but he did not know what to say.

The ssenger on the horse seed to sense his eyes. Sighing, he turned the horse around and uttered the final command, "Kill everyone who attacks the checkpoint!"

--

The fires of the burning buildings along the street had been put out. The only sound in the deathly silence was the wailing that had lted into the wind. The chilling lody word into the people’s ears.

A lonely figure stood in the heart of the blood-covered road. He gazed around in silence. Other than he and the Butcher, every other living thing was now lying on the ground. So were shaking. The horrifying pain from the deepest part of their soul attacked their minds, and now they would forever be subrged in a nightmare, drowning in the black river.

So had dared to approach the Butcher and now they were broken, scattered all over the ground. He was in the distance, finding the ones who he had missed the first ti. He would gently caress the back of their head before wrenching it off. In the end, he gazed toward another street as if he still wanted more…

"Enough, we still have our own thing to do. Avalon is too big for us to take care of everything." The youth’s voice traveled over and the Butcher stopped.

He turned and saw the youth walking in the direction of their final destination, no longer stopping here. The wind carried his hoarse murmur.

"But I think I can understand the Shaman now." The voice was quiet, but cold and resounding. "This city needs to be cleaned up."

--

Ye Qingxuan quickly discovered that having a beast like the Butcher really helped save ti and effort. Ghosthand was old and could not perform so physical tasks, but they were all no problem for the Butcher. With his donkey mask, it was clear that he was not a good guy. Ye Qingxuan did not feel bad about ordering him around either. He had paid, after all! The money was from the Shaman, but Ye Qingxuan was still the direct boss.

After he calculated the location of the sewers, the Butcher used his inhuman strength to punch a hole in the ground without much effort. He stuck a head in to look around and then jumped in. Following right behind him, Ye Qingxuan slid down a rope into the darkness.

It was undoubtedly Avalon’s sewage tunnel. There was even a naplate on the wall with a raised serial code. But it seed as if it had been abandoned for years.

This was not strange, or rather, Ye Qingxuan had expected this. Ever since Avalon was created, the underground sewage system had been continuously expanded into a vast and complex system. Sotis even the construction workers would be lost.

When a new tunnel was created, the old one would be abandoned. So of the abandoned ones were sealed, while others were simply forgotten. After centuries of additions and changes, this place had beco a complete maze. No one knew where the water would flow. This was heaven for rats and trash. It was used specifically for hiding dirty secrets.

Hariti’s old lair had been made from an abandoned well in the system. The smuggler that the Professor had killed had sothing to do with this, too. Being tortured to death was partly his fault.

"It should be here." Ye Qingxuan ran a hand over the moss on the walls. He could feel the powdery texture through his glove. "I don’t know what the Professor is trying so hard to find, but if we go down this trail, we’ll discover sothing."

As he searched in silence, Ye Qingxuan suddenly halted and lowered his head. He seed to be able to see sothing clearly through the heavy darkness.

In the corner was a weathered and withered skeleton on the ground. The skull had rolled into its arms after the neck snapped. Its mouth was open wide to the sky in a leering smile. For so reason, there was sothing raised subtly on the skull like a broken horn.

The bones before its chest had been broken entirely, as if the man had ran here with the last of his strength after being stabbed by a sword and had finally ran out of strength. And so he had died here in this dark corner.

Ye Qingxuan reached over to pick up a fallen bone fragnt. The fragile thing snapped between his fingertips and fell to the ground.

"It’s been at least ten years." The silent Butcher had suddenly spoken in his scratchy voice. The eyes behind his donkey mask shone blood-red in the darkness, as if he could see everything clearly in the dark.

"Ten years?" Ye Qingxuan was stunned. He did not understand how a tunnel that had been abandoned for so long would have a ten-year-old skeleton. He waved his hand and a breeze appeared to blow away the thick dust on the skeleton. It revealed the ragged clothing underneath. It was a thin coverall with a strange design, like the uniforms given to prisoners. Was this a dead prisoner?

Quickly, Ye Qingxuan went further down the tunnel. For so reason, the further he walked, the more unsettled he felt. There was a strange sll in the wind.

"Wait." Ye Qingxuan raised his hand, motioning for the Butcher to stop. He gazed around and his brows furrowed. The sll was not right.

In the tunnel, a breeze ca from the distant darkness, bringing with it a pungent sll. It was neither a vile nor fragrant scent. It was the sll that often lingered in a dream. "Disinfectants?" Why would a long-abandoned sewage tunnel have this kind of sll?

Suddenly, Ye Qingxuan felt dazed. Bits of scenes flashed past his mind as if the mories sleeping in the darkness were finally awakened. The ghastly white light, the cold tal bed, the n wearing white robes, the sharp lancet blades in their hands and…the pungent sll of disinfectants. In that unique sll, there was also the sll of blood. Blood.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of Ye Qingxuan’s neck rose and he spun around. Before he could move, the darkness began dancing, disturbed by the wind created by a giant figure. It was the Butcher.

The Butcher stepped forward and expanded his bone saw. When folded up, it was like a giant razor. But after expanding, the bone saw beca a terrifying weapon that could split bodies.

Chop! The bloody bone saw swung in Ye Qingxuan’s direction. The sharp edge practically grazed his head!

Boom! As if a bag of water had suddenly split open, sothing that had fallen from the top of the tunnel was cut in half by the bone saw. It smashed against the wall with a piercing screech.