Chapter 131.1: Long Night (2) (1) |
All of a sudden, it felt like the whole world had descended into chaos.
This chaos had nothing to do with Ji Jue, but once it reached him, it became a matter of life and death.
Within the villa, there was now only one person who held true authority—Ji Jue. Whether it was security protocols or personnel deployment, he had the final say in everything. Even Mr. Lin had no intention of interfering, and instead openly or subtly showed support.
First of all, Chen Yubo did not care about Ji Jue taking control in the slightest. Though lacking ambition and often indecisive, Young Master Chen’s greatest strength was knowing exactly what he was capable of, so he placed complete and unquestioning trust in Ji Jue.
Whatever Ji Jue said went. The haters should just keep quiet.
Blondie and A Yi were both from gangs, and one was a White Deer follower while the other was a Mirror follower. After the incident of rooting out the mole, they had become utterly convinced by Ji Jue’s abilities and no longer felt even the slightest dissatisfaction with him. Besides, Ji Jue’s only requirement was for the two of them to stay by Chen Yubo’s side twenty-four hours a day without leaving him for even a second. That was their job to begin with.
There was even less need to mention An Ran. Whatever Ji Jue said was law for the boy.
And then there was Tom, the rogue mercenary who was usually arrogant and full of his own ideas. At first he had wanted to compete for authority, but once he realized Ji Jue controlled the mission evaluations, he immediately pledged loyalty to him. Especially after personally watching Ji Jue bury hundreds of landmines right in front of him throughout the courtyard, bushes, corridors, beneath the floorboards, and even under the sofas...
More than eighty kilograms of phlogiston explosives were buried directly beneath their asses. Even when they were eating and sleeping, they were on top of a powder keg. With a single thought from Ji Jue, everything could be detonated.
Damn, does it really have to be this over the top? What kind of lunatic thinks, ‘As long as I blow up the employer first, nobody can harm the target I’m protecting?’ Where the hell did this psycho come from? And since when were Ember craftsmen this unhinged?
The moment Tom received the alert, he moved with lightning speed. He grabbed the employer by the collar, kicked both him and A Yi into the pure steel panic room, and slammed the door shut.
Then, everyone heard a continuous, thunderous rumble, as though the entire villa was about to be blasted into the sky.
The first unlucky attacker rushed through the door and accidentally stepped on the flowerbed. There was a sharp click. One, two, three, four, five, six—more than eight linked landmines detonated in an instant.
Flames shot into the sky.
The explosions rolled one after another without pause. A mangled corpse spiraled upward into the air, blown apart into countless chunks and leaving behind a rain of blood that splattered all over the people rushing out behind him.
“Fuck, there’s shit everywhere!”
One of those people wiped his face. As the stench surrounded him, he saw sticky filth smeared across his hand and instinctively staggered back several steps.
Then came another ominous click. Immediately after, hidden landmines across the entire courtyard lawn began detonating one after another as endless explosions occurred across the grounds, but the expanding shockwaves and raging flames froze in place before the old man leading the charge.
The veteran Chosen One known as Jin Wujiu, the trusted strategist and right hand of Lei Yaoxing, a man who had immersed himself in the path of Entropy for many years, slowly spread his arms wide. The flames and shockwaves began to flow backward.
Under the cover of surging spirit matter fluctuations, lightning manifested high in the heavens. Bolts of lightning descended from the sky like giant plows, crisscrossing through the air. In the span of a finger snap, every single mine hidden throughout the courtyard was detonated.
Amid the numerous explosions, waves of flame and lightning surged toward the nearby villa like a raging tide.
Beneath the villa’s exterior, its fragile spirit matter circuitry flickered into existence for only a moment before collapsing apart. The side building exploded, leaving only ruins almost immediately, while the front facade of the main structure split apart and caved in, causing clouds of dust to erupt everywhere.
“So there really was something fishy going on!”
Within Jin Wujiu’s pupil-less eye sockets, pale blazing light burst forth. Through his energy perception, he had already effortlessly seen through every secret hidden within the villa.
A cold sneer spread across his face.
“Chen Xingzhou really prepared quite the security force for his precious little brother. Don’t waste time. Kill them all. We still have a long journey ahead of us.”
Behind him, through the gradually shrinking and fading gateway, one figure after another stepped out. Crossing the ruins, they charged into the darkened villa. Gunfire thundered nonstop alongside explosions.
“What a pain in the ass...”
In the darkness beneath the extinguished lights, Ji Jue had already rushed into the garage. Lowering his head, he stared at the constantly flickering infrared camera feed on his phone screen. Combined with Gloria’s Transcendent Vision while in Hummingbird form, every change on the battlefield was reflected clearly before his eyes.
Precisely because of that, his headache only worsened. He could not help clicking his tongue. What the hell kind of insanity had possessed Lei Yaoxing? He suddenly made a move against Chen Xingzhou out of nowhere? If he wanted to kill Chen Xingzhou, then he should go kill Chen Xingzhou. Why target Chen Yubo instead?
No, wait. Since they had already targeted Chen Yubo, whether Chen Xingzhou was still alive or dead was impossible to say. Mr. Lin still had not replied to Ji Jue’s messages. All outside communications had been cut off.
It was not just communications that were blocked. After learning through their informants about the defensive surveillance deployed across the entire mountain, the enemy had actually spared no expense and hired a Chosen One of the Eternal Gate Path!
Among the Chosen One of the Twelve Supreme Benevolences, the rarest by far were those of the Eternal Gate Path. They were practically one in ten thousand, even rarer than the black and white bears of Shuzhou.
Any Chosen One capable of coming into contact with the Eternal Gate would automatically become a member of the Starcore Association, securing an iron rice bowl[1] for life with endless luxury, food, and entertainment. There was basically no way for outside forces to recruit them.
Just getting one of them to open a door usually started at several million, even tens of millions, with billing calculated by the minute. Lei Yaoxing’s people had even dragged one into the internal conflict of the Wasteland Assembly. At this point, it probably was not just a matter of throwing more money at the problem anymore.
Aside from that, more than forty people had already come charging through the gate. According to Gloria’s observations, over a dozen among them possessed powerful spirit matter and were likely Chosen Ones.
Ji Jue could only feel grateful for Xiao Jiu’s warning, along with the mist that had been arranged throughout the villa interior. Otherwise, if the enemy had teleported directly into their faces while they were completely unprepared, they wouldn’t have even been able to put up a fight. They might as well have surrendered on the spot.
Tom had moved fast indeed.
Chen Yubo was already inside the panic room by now. Even at a time like this, he still had not forgotten to clutch his two lousy cats in his arms. Beside him, A Yi had already activated the prepared crystal prisms.
As light refracted, spatial orientation shifted. Within the subtle distortions of refraction, the massive metal panic room vanished without a trace.
It was not merely visual concealment either. Once A Yi’s matrix activated, the panic room’s sense of presence had been reduced almost to nothing, blending seamlessly into the villa itself.
Unfortunately, A Yi’s level was simply too low. He was not even comparable to Ji Jue, who was only level one. Even if he pushed himself with every bit of strength he had, he could maintain this for around fifteen minutes at most.
“Fifteen minutes...” Ji Jue murmured.
Sometimes fifteen minutes was far too short; other times it was unbearably long. Too short to finish scrolling videos while taking a bathroom break, yet long enough to fight a war and watch hundreds or even thousands die.
On the monitors, one camera feed after another rapidly went dark. Every camera positioned out in the open had been destroyed in sweeping bursts of gunfire.
The enemy was moving unbelievably fast, almost as though they already knew the villa’s internal layout in advance. Maybe they had managed to get hold of the blueprints while surveilling the place earlier.
Before anything else, what Ji Jue heard first through the wireless earpiece were footsteps.
That sounds as if...
Ji Jue felt every hair on his body stand on end. Someone was right above him!
The ceiling trembled loudly before splitting apart with cracking fractures.
A massive figure covered head to toe in tattoos descended from above, wrapped in heavy armor with intricate spirit matter circuits layered across its surface. Within the intruder’s eyes burned familiar blood-red flames, making Ji Jue unable to stop himself from cursing aloud.
Swarm?! Swarm Chosen Ones again?
“How the hell are you people everywhere?!”
He no longer dared to compete with the opponent in terms of speed. Slamming his hand onto a sports car in the garage, he sent it racing forward, pushing himself backward to quickly create distance between them.
“Heh...” A cold laugh came from where the figure landed. The Swarm Chosen One’s gaze had already locked onto Ji Jue.
The Swarm was the shadow of war itself. Wherever flames of conflict burned, that shadow would inevitably follow.
“Ji Jue?” The tattooed Chosen One fixed his eyes on Ji Jue, recognizing his face. His exhale sounded almost regretful. “What a pity... you’re worth only 4.1 million.”
But it was enough.
The man drew two heavy-backed long blades from behind his back and lunged at Ji Jue, rapidly closing the distance between them.
And then he saw what Ji Jue had pulled out from the driver’s seat behind the car window: a short-barreled submachine gun, already fully loaded with the safety off. He took aim, locked on, and pulled the trigger. In less than three seconds, a torrent of metal poured forth in full, every bullet aimed straight at the enemy’s face.
Yet every single shot missed.
1. “Iron rice bowl” is a Chinese idiom used as a metaphor for a very stable job or position with no risk of unemployment. Such jobs typically have steady income, good benefits, and are not easily subject to dismissal.