As billowing smoke surged across the bridge deck, it served as an unmistakable beacon. The assault team members still airborne converged toward it one after another and leaped down from above.
This time, their only concern was the attack, with no need to mind anything else, because behind them, others were already moving to obstruct any rescue forces arriving beneath the overpass.
At the same time, two Third Limit fighters they had hired were already stationed at the end of the bridge nearest to the Center City District. They bore no responsibility for the actual strike, but were tasked with turning back anyone attempting to make their way onto the overpass.
Along both sides of the bridge, figures were rapidly surfacing from beneath the sea and scaling the piers. It was not just the section flanking the convoy; silhouettes were appearing in succession at both the forward and rear stretches of the bridge, clearly in considerable numbers.
These forces had all been lying in ambush ahead of time. Some belonged to the strike team itself, while others were armed outfits hired from the open seas.
In truth, these mercenaries were merely cannon fodder meant to sow chaos and bolster offensive firepower, never expected to achieve much. From the very beginning, the team had planned to discard them.
By now, the corporate security guards with the convoy had reacted as well. They fired continuously at the figures dropping from above and those bounding forward. Yet with a mere blur of their bodies, the assailants vanished from where they stood, moving faster than the naked eye could track.
Realizing something was wrong, the security guards' implants swiftly secreted hormones and injected stimulants, sharply boosting their neural reaction speeds. Even so, they could only barely track those rapidly shifting and bounding silhouettes. Though their firearms kept firing without pause, not a single shot found its mark.
And the members of this assault team did not consist solely of Third Limit fighters; there were also First and Second Limit armed shock troops.
Once they hit the ground, they too returned fire against the security personnel taking cover behind the vehicles.
As both sides were outfitted in protective suits, gunfire crackled incessantly, yet no one fell to bullets for the moment. But as the Third Limit fighters charged forward, the security personnel blocking their path were either hurled through the air from direct collisions or swatted aside; even vehicles positioned horizontally as barricades were blasted apart with ease.
By then, Sister Huan had detached her parachute, letting it drift toward the sea, while she landed steadily atop a guardrail post along one side of the overpass. Looking at her team members ahead, she asked, "Where is Jiang Huowang?"
A squad member answered, "He's already moved in."
Within the convoy, the moment Chen Chuan's dedicated car received the alert and halted, he took hold of the Xuejun Saber and pushed open the door.
He first surveyed the surrounding situation, spotting figures continuously climbing up both sides of the overpass, while others glided overhead, maneuvering hang gliders as they flew in one after another.
He paid no heed to the ordinary gunmen and assailants; what mattered were the Third Limit fighters mingled within the attacking horde.
A single glance told him that today's force was no smaller than the Viper Team from before, and they similarly hailed from a coordinated outfit.
His gaze then swept past the crowd toward the distance, where he saw an ear-length short-haired woman in a form-fitting suit and goggles, her curves pronounced, standing atop a high guardrail pillar.
Poised on tiptoe with her legs aligned front and back, her hands slightly parted as she held two long spikes, the taut muscles in her legs were exceptionally pronounced, leaving no doubt about the formidable power coiled within.
From the reactions of those around her and the position she occupied, he could sense that she was likely the leader of the group.
Right then, the light overhead dimmed as his line of sight was cut off, and a figure landed with a heavy thud on the ground before him.
Chen Chuan looked over to find a young man with medium-long hair, a lock of which concealed half of his face, leaving only the other half exposed.
The man's skin had a faint bluish-green tint, his pupils unnaturally dark, and in each hand he gripped a three-bladed long knife, resembling extended claws, the tips glinting with a sharp, cold sheen.
The man seemed intensely agitated, staring straight at him as he spoke in Great Shun dialect tinged with an oceanic accent: "You're that Chen Chuan. Come on, fight me..." followed by a string of unintelligible gibberish in an unrecognizable tongue.
Even as he spoke, his emotions seemed to overwhelm him, his body already lunging forward ahead of his words. His momentum was explosive; the ground fractured beneath his feet, and with a whoosh, he was right in front of Chen Chuan.
Chen Chuan cast a sidelong glance. Figures had appeared to his front, rear, and flanks—all the Third Limit fighters he had spotted earlier. Every one of them was staring fixedly at him. Though they held back from striking for now, they were unmistakably exerting pressure and posing an imminent threat.
Even as he observed, his biological field expanded outward, allowing him to immediately detect anyone encroaching into range or attempting an attack. Not only that, he skillfully altered his field so that none could fathom his true depth.
With his concentration heightened to its peak, everything around him seemed to slow abruptly, including the man charging straight toward him.
Watching the claw blades reach forward and close in, along with the frenzied face behind them, Chen Chuan's gaze remained utterly calm. Lowering his center of gravity slightly, he shifted his footing backward.
Turning sideways to evade the claw blades, he reached out with one hand and clamped down onto the man's arm. With a single surge of strength, a sharp crack resounded as the arm twisted and fractured unnaturally. Just as he was about to exert further force, he sensed something, tilting his head aside to dodge an incoming bullet.
His eyes flickered slightly; he immediately realized the enemy had a Third Limit marksman—a rare breed indeed. While this thought flashed across his mind, the man whose arm had just been broken seemed entirely oblivious to the pain, swinging his other claw blade up at him. Chen Chuan redirected his momentum with a pull of his hand, hurling the man far away.
Sister Huan saw Jiang Huowang flung aside in a single exchange, yet her expression showed no ripple of surprise, and the other team members remained equally composed.
They knew Jiang Huowang possessed an extraordinary constitution, secret arts to concentrate and cultivate vital essence, and an immense capacity to absorb medicinal agents, allowing him to rapidly regenerate using the stored medicinal properties and drugs within his body.
Just as the two clashed, the assault team members along both guardrails fired net guns across the gap. Harpoons slammed with sharp cracks into the railings and pavement thirty-odd meters away on the opposite side, instantly stretching a gigantic net over the heads of Chen Chuan and the surrounding convoy.
While this could not stop a Third Limit fighter from breaking through, causing even a momentary hindrance was more than enough for their purposes.
Inside the convoy, Meng Shu sat calmly in her dedicated vehicle. Her car had been specially reinforced, boasting thick armor plating and an exceptionally rigid frame that could never be easily cleaved or smashed open.
The instant the attack struck earlier, anchors had deployed from the undercarriage, pinning and locking the vehicle firmly to the bridge deck so it could not be easily shifted or overturned by external force.
Even though bullets pelted the chassis continuously, she remained composed.
Security personnel and escort vehicles moved up from behind without pause to form a defensive ring around the primary car. Not a few among them were fighters, watching their surroundings with vigilant eyes to guard against the enemy deploying armor-piercing explosives.
Although communications had been jammed immediately at the outset, they promptly activated the field organism on the communications vehicle to establish a high-strength signal bridge, maintaining intra-convoy communications.
Over the boundary credential, a security captain suggested, "Miss, the main enemy force has been drawn off by Consultant Chen. We can try to clear a path. Miss, should we escort you in a breakout?"
Meng Shu replied calmly, "No. Stay here."
Then she spoke softly, "Liying."
Light flickered before her, and Liying's figure materialized on the seat opposite her. Smiling, she said, "Miss, what are your orders?"
This time, Meng Shu was not only traveling herself but also preparing to transfer Liying back to the company; Liying's physical body was right behind them inside an armored cargo truck.
Looking at her, Meng Shu asked, "Liying, I want to wipe out all the attackers right here. Without deploying your physical body, is that possible?"
Liying possessed direct offensive capabilities, but that required the deployment of her true body. That was a measure reserved solely for the most extreme circumstances, because the Great Shun government remained intensely wary of active conscious entities, and major corporations did their utmost to avoid doing so.
Liying smiled and said, "The key right now lies with Consultant Chen. As long as he can eliminate the attacking forces, Miss's wish will not be difficult to fulfill."
Meng Shu asked, "Liying, what do you think Consultant Chen's chances of winning are?"
Liying glanced outside and gave a figure: "Ninety-eight percent." Looking back at Meng Shu, she said with a smile, "Even without my intervention, Consultant Chen is capable of wiping out every single attacking enemy on his own."
Back on the bridge, though Jiang Huowang had been thrown, his mangled, fractured arm was visibly knitting back together at high speed, while the look on his face twisted into frenzied madness.
Seeing that expression, the strike team members felt an inward chill and instinctively drew back, for whenever he got like this, he tended to attack friend and foe alike.
With a strange shriek, Jiang Huowang lunged at Chen Chuan once more.
The secret art he practiced was exceedingly peculiar; upon entering a certain state, his speed and strength surged accordingly. Coupled with his formidable regenerative capability, he was indeed an exceptionally difficult opponent in close-quarters skirmishing, which was precisely why he had been recruited in the first place.
Chen Chuan watched him charge over. Though the man was swift, he was still not fast enough in Chen Chuan's eyes. With a single shift of thought, his Second Self merged with him instantly, and he stepped half a pace to the side.
Jiang Huowang's vision blurred, losing track of Chen Chuan. Then his arm tightened as he was seized once again in the exact same spot as before.
Next, he felt himself dragged by an overwhelming force, followed by a dizzying spin, and with a thunderous bang, he was slammed brutally onto the bridge deck, the point of impact spiderwebbed with fractures.
Yet despite having several ribs broken, his life field burned as vigorously as ever, and the fractures were already mending rapidly. Chen Chuan raised his fist, aimed squarely at his head, and smashed it downward!
Boom!
At the very moment the fist descended, a deafening gunshot cracked in the distance.
It was the Third Limit marksman, seizing the opening to fire. He was confident Chen Chuan could never dodge this shot; even if it didn't kill him, it would inflict grievous injury.
Yet as he looked across and took in the scene ahead, his mouth fell open in shock.
On the bridge deck, Jiang Huowang still lay there, but his head had already been hammered into a pulpy ruin of blood and mangled flesh!
Chen Chuan pulled his steaming fist back from the crushed mess of a head, slowly straightening up. Beside his temple, a deformed bullet dropped and bounced with a crisp clatter onto the pavement.
...
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Chapter 419