Fierce Battle

Twenty-five minutes after the explosion, word came over the comms that Team Two had linked up with Team One. Immediately following was another dense burst of gunfire. "Enemies are armed! Taking fire, taking fire!" Watching from the perimeter as flames flared intermittently from the windows, Zhang Like could tell from the victories reported over the channel that floor after floor of enemies was being cleared by the Special Counter-Terrorism squad. The gunmen were likely all ordinary men, completely powerless against the squad of all-superhuman operatives. At present, the most widely inherited Fate Bone in the Federation belonged to Earth, one of the Five Elements, tracing back as far as the Qin Dynasty. In modern times or antiquity alike, the petrified body granted by Earth nature offered an immense advantage. A petrified body was equivalent to a suit of iron armor, rendering a person impervious to blades and bullets. Modern body armor combined with petrification could withstand rifle fire, and operatives breaching a point with ballistic shields were virtually invincible. In a firefight, a single shot often decided life or death, not to mention that the Special Counter-Terrorism breachers were equipped with drum-fed shotguns; at close range, practically no one could stop them. Soon, the building to the right of the mahjong parlor was cleared, while the left flank was pinned down by Zhang Like's Team Three, unable to even raise their heads. Yet no one dared let down their guard for a second; command kept reiterating vigilance. Because from start to finish, the enemy superhumans had not yet appeared. Inside the command center. The members of the special investigation team had already fallen into disarray. If Lin Zhiyan had not remained seated calmly, issuing orders with methodical composure, the entire situation would have collapsed. "I am going to the front line." Lin Zhiyan suddenly announced her decision. Her assistant almost jumped out of his skin, urging, "Team Leader Lin, we still hold the upper hand. The Special Counter-Terrorism unit has wiped out most of the enemies—there is no need for you to take risks." Setting aside Lin Zhiyan's background, as commander she shouldn't place herself in danger. "No, the situation is dangerous," Lin Zhiyan said, shaking her head. "We took casualties before the enemy's superhuman forces even moved. They must have an ulterior motive for staging this. I'm not going to the front line to press the attack; I'm going to cover the withdrawal of the frontline personnel." "But you still can't put yourself in harm's way! Your status is—" Midway through his sentence, the assistant was cut off by her icy glare. "If I die, it is no different from them dying." In a tone that brooked no argument, Lin Zhiyan ordered, "Get the car. We're heading to the front line." *** Flames spread through the building. The members of Team Two leaped straight down from the second floor; even laden with dozens of kilograms of gear, they still moved like the wind, at worst running with a slight limp. At this moment, they were immensely grateful for the physical prowess brought by life-force development. Though they could not fly through the skies or burrow through the earth, it was far beyond what ordinary people could match. On the third floor of a building fifty meters behind the mahjong parlor. Lao Gao and a brown-skinned Siamese man watched the battlefield through a window. Just then, the short Shan Yong ran in from outside, burn marks on his face, and said excitedly, "Fuck yeah! That blast knocked those cops completely dizzy! A few more rounds and we'll blow them all to kingdom come!" Having just used his earth-burrowing ability to observe from a concealed alley, it was the first time he had ever seen the cops battered so thoroughly. Lao Gao asked, "How many casualties did the cops take?" "Judging by the numbers, probably four or five dead. Most of the rest are injured, and one team is completely untouched." "What about our men?" "Uh... more than half are dead." Back and forth, the excitement on Shan Yong's face slowly faded as reality set in. They had recruited dozens of gang members from Cangwu City; though they were all ordinary men, an ambush should have let them take down at least several cops. Yet in this initial clash, even with the element of surprise, they had only killed four or five, while the other Special Counter-Terrorism squad that rushed in had slaughtered more than half of them in return. "Not a bad result." Lao Gao was not particularly surprised. How could a bunch of aggressive street thugs compare to Special Counter-Terrorism? If not for Ah San beside him, the cops might not have suffered any injuries at all. He turned toward the Siamese man and asked, "How many more blasts can you pull off?" The Siamese man's ability was to trigger an explosion, but its range was only a hundred meters, and in open areas the blast's power diminished severely. "Three." The Siamese held up four fingers. Lao Gao pushed down one finger for the uneducated man and said, "Wait for my signal later. Use one to cover my approach, use the second once Yong-zi brings you close to detonate right in the crowd, and use the last one however you see fit. "Yong-zi, stay sharp. I'm going to leave them all dead here." "Damn! Going that big?" Shan Yong said worriedly, "Killing this many cops all at once might draw even more powerful superhumans after us." "It's the mission," Lao Gao said, his voice hardening. "If we don't muddy the waters, the iron chain across the border will only tighten, and not a single fleeing brother will be able to slip through. "Just like us these past few days—every move we make only lets the cops pinpoint our location more precisely." Across the Federation, authorities were hunting down the Greenwood bandits, dropping in small task forces from outside and leveraging local resources to launch encirclement campaigns. The cops could receive supplies and reinforcements anywhere, anytime, while the Greenwood brothers were on their own. Merely meeting the metabolic demands of their life-force development was exhausting all their energy. If this went on, not a single one would get out. He had come this time precisely to kill. As long as the border region was thrown into chaos, forcing the authorities to pull reinforcements, their fleeing brothers would have room to breathe. Lao Gao was the first to crash through the window, his figure slipping into the dark alley like a specter. *** Near the newsstand. The members of Teams One and Two retreated to Team Three's position where Zhang Like was stationed. Taking a brief moment to regroup, they awaited further instructions from command. Boom! A blast erupted out of nowhere on the street in front of the mahjong parlor. Flames burst from thin air as violent shockwaves laden with gunsmoke and scorching heat slammed hard against the men behind the newsstand and surrounding cover. "Cough... cough, cough..." Thick smoke instantly swallowed their field of vision, choking them and stinging their eyes shut as their ears rang deafeningly. Amid the smoke, a figure closed in rapidly. Over the comms, Lin Zhiyan's voice came through: "Someone is closing in directly ahead of you!" The moment the words fell, the squad machine gunner fired without hesitation, tongues of fire licking wildly into the thick smoke. But in the very next instant, a bizarre change occurred. Zhang Like finished changing his magazine, finger touching the trigger. Sssss! The barrel of the rifle in his hands melted in an instant, as if encased in an invisible furnace—yet strangely, when droplets of molten metal splashed onto his hand, he felt no heat whatsoever. "The barrel melted?!" Exclamations rang out around him, and the machine gunner's fire ceased as well. The figure had already reached the first Special Counter-Terrorism operative. Seeing no way out and weaponless, the operative spun around and lunged forward. "Courting death!" Lao Gao merely lashed out with a casual swing; the twisted iron blade in his hand severed the man at the waist. Seeing this, the other operatives charged forward without hesitation. But disarmed and facing a vicious bandit whose life-force development was clearly higher than theirs, they held no advantage in either divine power or physical conditioning. Even a petrified body could not stop his iron blade. Thud! Two more men collapsed to the ground. Just as Lao Gao was about to slaughter the rest, his vision suddenly warped violently. An invisible surge of psychic power rammed into his mind. The ground ceased to be the ground; the sky spun upside down. Relying only on hearing, he slashed his blade wildly in all directions. In the nick of time, another explosion erupted across the open area around the newsstand.