Resonance

Aside from the pre-existing clutter piled in the center, the barricade blocking the intersection had only been strung with a few token arresting cables—an entrance and exit the Moss Gang had left for their own people. Yet the gang members stationed behind it had caught glimpses of the commotion up ahead. Having heard their leader's orders, they immediately dragged over several improvised spike strips and laid them across those openings. The rest crouched behind the barricades, pulling out crossbows and firearms and aiming them forward. The moment they saw the Jiade car heading their way, they opened fire before it had even drawn fully near. Most of the bullets went wide. Only a few struck the Jiade car's armored plating, throwing up sparks before ricocheting away. From behind the wheel, Chen Chuan glanced ahead, stomped on the gas, shifted gears, and rammed straight into the obstacles. The gang members blanched in terror, diving aside in frantic leaps. With a resounding crash, the debris was blasted into the air, and the Jiade car roared right through. Chen Chuan felt only a violent jolt shudder through the chassis. Youxing had reinforced the vehicle extensively, however, and it came away largely unscathed; the modifications had evidently accounted for ramming through roadblocks. The car jolted a few more times as though running over scattered debris. Once it stabilized, he swung the steering wheel hard into a wide arc, turning onto an adjacent avenue. A gang member immediately used his boundary credential to report what had happened to the gang. Once out on the wide road, Chen Chuan felt his mind and body enter an extraordinarily active state, his physical form seemingly more receptive to his willpower's command. He focused on his sensations and soon realized that the process of eradicating the urban legend had similarly delivered a stimulating impact to his body. Thinking about it, that made sense. Under the stimulation of an urban legend, mutated tissue could grow rapidly. Now, under the dual effects of medication and breathing techniques, his mutated tissue was constrained to grow in a specific direction. All it lacked was the driving force and mental guidance to push it across the threshold. An urban legend could be treated as a formidable adversary that also possessed the mysterious properties he found intriguing. The feedback gained from cleansing such things was no less rewarding than dueling Hongfu. In the past, each time he eradicated an urban legend, it felt much like defeating a powerful enemy— Cao Guixi had once said that whatever method suited oneself was the right one, but he had never said there was only one way. In that case... besides sparring with Hongfu, he could also try hunting down some urban legends. That might stimulate the growth of his mutated tissue even better. While he was pondering this, Wu Bei's voice came through the boundary credential: "Brother Chen, quite a few people are attacking your boundary credential and tracking the direction you're currently driving." To make it easier to assist Chen Chuan, he had set a field alert on Chen Chuan's boundary credential; the moment someone launched a field attack, Wu Bei would receive an alert immediately. Chen Chuan considered this and said, "It should be the Moss Gang. I just had a bit of a run-in with them." Hearing that the opponents were gang members, Wu Bei perked up even as he helped Chen Chuan fend off the incoming data intrusions and interference. "Brother Chen, leave them to me." Chen Chuan hummed in acknowledgment. He had no desire to bother with these people. Gang members were like a muddy pit: step on them, and you only got mud on your shoes. In Center City, gangs operated by district. Each had its defined territory and would not reach into other areas. As long as he left Hongsheng District, they wouldn't be able to reach him. After driving for a stretch, Wu Bei's voice sounded again: "Brother Chen, gang members might be blocking the intersections ahead. I'll find an alternate route out for you. It might be a little roundabout, but you won't have to stop for traffic lights." Chen Chuan said, "Thanks for the trouble." He followed the directions Wu Bei marked out, and the road ahead indeed went smoothly. When the Moss Gang's resonators realized they couldn't cut him off, they quickly responded. As regulars in Hongsheng District— Wu Bei had noticed the situation as well and was attempting to disrupt the transmission of information between the boundary credentials. However, the Moss Gang members were clearly accustomed to operating around Hongsheng District's boundary points and had left behind numerous field lodges across the area. There were quite a few of them too; even with a resonance nest, Wu Bei was constrained by the speed of transmission between boundary points. He could only suppress them one by one, incapable of blocking them all at once. Recognizing this, he gave Chen Chuan a quick heads-up before executing a tactical retreat outward. Thinking he was running away, several Moss Gang resonators pursued the trail of his signal. Fighting within the Hongsheng District field was one thing, but the moment they stepped outside the district's boundary points, their home-field advantage vanished. They fell right into several data traps Wu Bei had laid in advance, which flooded their systems with massive volumes of undecipherable field signals. The brain implants of those resonators were instantly overloaded with data. Unable to endure the surge, they immediately began vomiting on the spot. The worst off among them rolled his eyes back and foamed at the mouth. After passing two more intersections, Chen Chuan glanced in the rearview mirror and saw two modified open-top cars tailing him, clearly packed with Moss Gang members. He thought for a moment and contacted the city patrol team directly, identifying himself as Chen Chuan, a reserve law enforcement officer of the Disposal Bureau. He reported that he was being pursued by gang members in Hongsheng District, and added that if the city patrol chose to let this slide, he would handle it the Disposal Bureau's way. Not long after the city patrol received the report, having apparently conferred with the Moss Gang's leadership, most of the participating gangsters backed off. Yet there were still those who refused to comply. When the leader in one of the two cars tailing Chen Chuan received word from the gang ordering them to stand down, he spat curses: "Fuck that! Our brothers got hurt by him, and Yuan Biao might not even make it! They want us to back off? Since when do I have to give face to the city patrol? Tell them to go to hell!" He grabbed a gun and fired wildly ahead. Within moments, he had emptied a magazine, but such emotional outbursts posed little real threat beyond making noise. The two cars followed the Jiade car across another street. Suddenly, a sea of bright red text appeared on their boundary credentials, declaring that they were all wanted suspects and ordering them to pull over for inspection immediately. The Moss Gang members in the cars didn't take it seriously at all. Their gang was packed with wanted criminals; they had never given a damn before. An inspection? Inspect their mothers! Who cared about warnings from the patrol team? After tailing him for another ten minutes, just as the cars passed another intersection, an armored patrol cruiser suddenly broadsided the lead open-top car from an alley. The vehicle flipped over violently; only the leader, who possessed neural augmentations and modified tendons, managed to leap clear before it rolled. The passengers in the trailing car panicked, swerving desperately to steer clear, and narrowly avoided rolling over themselves. Only then did they realize that, at some point, the street had been emptied of all civilian traffic. Both ends of the road were barricaded, and armored patrol cruisers were closing in from either side. This time, the patrol officers didn't bother issuing verbal warnings. They drew their weapons and opened fire in a coordinated volley. Although the gangsters had subcutaneous armor implants, they couldn't withstand being pelted by so many firearms simultaneously. One after another, they collapsed with agonized screams. Seeing how bad things had turned, the leader who had jumped clear activated the burst-hormone gland in his implants, immediately spiking his blood pressure and heart rate in an attempt to break away. Caught in the crossfire from both flanks, however, he had barely made it seven or eight meters before being gunned down on the street. The city patrol team rarely moved with such heavy force; after all, their usual duties were maintaining routine public order and cleaning up after incidents. But chasing down and shooting at a reserve law enforcement officer on public streets was another matter entirely. Furthermore, with the Center City arena tournament approaching in a few days, their superiors had instructed them to tighten security. These brainless thugs had been warned yet still dared to act out, giving them zero face—naturally, there was no longer any need to be polite. Meanwhile, on the other side of the district, in an apartment building not far from the hotel where the urban legend had appeared, the young boy who had earlier warned Chen Chuan carried a large container of nutritional paste to a room where the curtains were drawn shut. He gently pushed the door open. Inside sat a tall, burly figure with his legs crossed, the greater part of his body veiled in shadow. Strangely, without seeing him face-to-face, one couldn't sense his presence at all. Yet from the contours of his face, the man looked exceptionally martial and dignified. Most conspicuous was the hammer hanging from his waist. The boy set down the container. "Sir, today's ration." The man reached out a large hand, grabbed the nutritional paste, tore it open, and began eating. The boy stood up, his eyes lingering on the hammer at the man's waist before he turned to leave. At that moment, the man paused slightly, looking up at him. "Kid, you want to learn this?" The boy froze, then broke into a look of delight, nodding vigorously. "I do!" Yet the man said nothing more, merely continuing to eat. The boy waited for a while. Seeing no response, he couldn't help feeling a wave of disappointment. Just as he turned to leave, the man spoke again: "Now that the anomaly ahead is gone, I won't be staying here much longer." The boy paused, asking anxiously, "Are you leaving, sir?" By now, the man had finished the entire box of nutritional paste. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, "I'll stay for a few more days. How much you can learn depends on your own ability." A rush of immense joy immediately washed over the boy. "Don't celebrate too early," the man said, rolling his neck as he slowly rose from the floor. Looking down from above, he added, "My training isn't so easy to survive."