1888: Memoirs of an Unconfirmed Creature Hunter

Chapter 336: Blood Droppers

After leaving the riverbank that had become the burial ground for the mythical beast, the team did not choose to continue along the seemingly flatter riverbank. Instead, at Nadia's insistence, they plunged headlong into the depths of the primal rainforest.

According to this Dayak guide, the Black Lotus Sect's patrols typically piloted shallow-draft steam gunboats along the main river channel for carpet searches. Furthermore, the observation posts installed in the canopy layer would focus their surveillance on the open, clear-sighted riverbank areas.

To survive in this place that had already become a military restricted zone, the only way was to make oneself like a pangolin or a chameleon, completely merging into this green hell where even sunlight struggled to penetrate.

The afternoon rainforest was like a high-pressure steam boiler running at full capacity.

Lin Jie walked second in the formation. Although his [Silencer] was sheathed, his right hand, clad in a black tactical glove, never left the hilt.

Ever since finding that Round Table knight insignia inside the Giant Nabau Serpent's belly, a prickling sense of crisis had persistently lingered in his heart.

"Halt."

Nadia, walking at the front, suddenly and without warning stopped. She raised a clenched fist, signaling everyone to stop.

This Dayak hunter, possessing a wild intuition, slowly crouched down, pressing her ear against the moss-covered giant buttress root of a tree. Her eyes were fixed dead ahead on a patch of seemingly ordinary shrubbery to the right front.

"What's wrong?" Julian asked in a hushed voice."The sound is wrong," Nadia's voice was very soft. "Listen to the birdcall over there."

Lin Jie held his breath and listened intently.

From the canopy of a massive strangler fig tree about fifty meters to the right, came a series of crisp and melodious bird calls.

The sound was very rhythmic, like the cheerful courtship song of a rare bird species called the "bird of paradise."

Hearing bird calls in this vibrant rainforest seemed like the most normal thing in the world.

"What's the problem?" Evelyn whispered. "It sounds normal."

"Precisely because it's too normal."

Nadia's gaze turned increasingly icy. Her hand slowly reached for the blowgun on her back.

"That's the call of the 'Yellow-crowned Bulbul'. This bird only calls at dawn when the sun first rises or when a heavy rain is about to fall. And they never waste energy on courtship at the hottest time of day like noon."

"And," she paused, her tone revealing a chilling murderous intent. "This bird's call repeats every three seconds. The frequency, pitch, even the ending vibrato are exactly the same each time. Like a machine programmed to a set pattern."

"A real bird doesn't call like that."

"That's a person."

The moment Nadia's words fell, a mechanical friction sound, one that would be impossible to detect without extremely keen hearing, suddenly emanated from the canopy layer above their heads.

It was a low-frequency hum produced by some kind of metal gear rotating at high speed, biting into the air.

"Scatter!"

Lin Jie's pupils contracted. A powerful premonition of death made his body react a step faster than his brain.

He instinctively lunged violently to the left, simultaneously reaching out to shove Evelyn, who hadn't reacted yet, down behind a large cluster of ferns.

A mere tenth of a second after they left their original position.

"*Whirrr—Whoosh!*"

A silvery-white flash of cold light tore through the layers of overlapping leaves and branches, slicing through the air with a whistling sound as it viciously chopped towards the clearing where they had just been standing.

It was an object of extremely bizarre shape, looking like an inverted metal rain hat. A circular flying object.

Its diameter was about half a meter. The edge was a sharp ring forged from some unknown high-strength alloy, covered in jagged, fang-like serrations. Inside that ring was a complex set of rapidly rotating blade structures.

"*Crack!*"

Although the spinning metal hat didn't hit a human body, it crashed into the trunk of a mahogany tree nearby.

That hardwood, tough as iron, was as fragile as a reed before this terrifying flying weapon.

Amidst the sound of splintering wood and the crisp snap of the trunk breaking, the large tree was severed at the waist, toppling to one side.

If people had been standing in that spot just now...

Then what would be rolling on the ground now wouldn't just be wood, but several human heads ground to pulp.

"What the hell is that thing?!"

Julian, hiding behind a moss-covered rock, watched as that metal monster, after cutting the tree, traced a bizarre arc in the air and flew back into the canopy. His face turned deathly pale.

"Blood Droppers."

Nadia's voice came from behind a tree root on the other side, carrying undisguised fear and hatred.

"It's the Black Ghosts' hunting party. They're here."

Before everyone could recover from this sudden attack, a series of dense gear-grinding sounds suddenly erupted from the silent jungle all around.

"*Clack-clack-clack...*"

Eight figures simultaneously emerged from behind the tall trees, from within the dense thickets, and from the dark canopy overhead.

They maintained a chilling silence and order.

All eight wore deep cyan, form-fitting night suits specially treated to blend into the rainforest environment. Their faces were covered with black metal masks revealing only their eyes, and they wore soft-soled boots suitable for climbing.

Most eye-catching was the thing on their backs.

It was a rectangular metal case that looked immensely heavy.

The surface of the case was carved with intricate alchemical runes and markings resembling Eastern Bagua trigram positions. From the top of the case extended a metal chain that still glinted coldly even in the dim forest light.

And at the end of that chain was that terrifying hat which had just severed the tree, still spinning at high speed.

This was an elite unit.

They were killing machines specially cultivated by the Black Lotus Sect for special operations within this complex rainforest.

They had abandoned cumbersome firearms and inflexible blades, restoring and improving upon the legendary assassination weapon—the Blood Dropper—said to be capable of taking a person's head from a hundred paces away.

And this was a version that had undergone dual modification with Western alchemy and steampunk mechanics.

"Eight people."

Lin Jie calmly observed the situation through the gaps in the ferns. Although his [Mental Staircase] wasn't activated, the tactical intuition honed through countless battles was still rapidly processing.

"Deployed in a fan-shaped encirclement, blocking the front, left, and right sides. Only leaving the swamp-filled dead end behind us."

"They're not rushing to attack. They're... setting up a formation."

The leader, the tallest figure in black, slightly raised his black-gloved right hand and made an extremely complex gesture.

Following his movement, the other seven assassins moved simultaneously.

With remarkable coordination, they dispersed to different positions, using their ape-like agility to leap and move swiftly between tree trunks.

"Careful! They're weaving a web!" Nadia shouted, raising her blowgun and firing a poison needle coated with paralytic venom at the nearest black-clad figure.

But the black-clad man's reaction was astonishingly fast.

He merely gave a slight shake to the metal case on his back. The chain connected to the Blood Dropper snapped up, precisely intercepting the poison needle's flight path.

"*Ting!*"

The needle struck the high-speed spinning chain and was instantly deflected.

At the same time, the black-clad man flicked the chain in his hand.

The spinning metal hat arced around a large tree beside her, then, using the centrifugal force from its rotation, tightly wrapped around the trunk two times.

"*Click.*"

A soft sound of a mechanism locking.

That Blood Dropper was fixed in place, and the chain connecting to it was pulled taut under the black-clad man's control.

And it wasn't just him.

The other seven assassins were performing the same actions.

Using the surrounding towering trees as anchor points, they continuously threw, wrapped, and fixed their weapons.

Those slender, sharp metal chains shot through and interwove between the trees, like eight giant metal spiders weaving a death net large enough to cover the entire clearing.

These chains weren't meant for binding.

Lin Jie keenly noticed that the surfaces of the chains weren't smooth, but covered in countless tiny barbs and serrations.

When pulled taut, they became saw blades suspended in mid-air.

"Damn it, we're trapped."

Julian watched the increasingly dense metal web around them, his expression turning extremely grim.

He tried to raise his [Discipline] to find a firing angle, but in this complex jungle environment, with the black-clad figures using tree trunks as cover while moving rapidly, and with those crisscrossing chains severely obstructing sightlines and bullet trajectories, even with the guaranteed hit rule, landing a lethal shot became exceptionally difficult.

More importantly, this net was contracting.

The black-clad figures were using the winch mechanisms within the metal cases on their backs to slowly but powerfully tighten those chains.

As the chains tightened, the large trees serving as anchor points groaned under the strain, bark being severed, wood chips flying.

And this net composed of sharp chains was step by step compressing the four-person team's space to move.

Once this net contracted to its limit, those caught within it would be sliced into countless pieces of minced meat by the sharp chains and spinning Blood Droppers.

"We can't let them complete the encirclement!" Evelyn cried out anxiously. She raised her right hand wearing the [Tesla Coil Glove], attempting to discharge electricity at the nearest chain.

"*Zzzz—*"

Blue electrical arcs traveled along the chain.

But the black-clad figures were clearly prepared. Their gloves and the connection points on the metal cases were wrapped in thick insulating rubber. The electricity traveling over, aside from causing the Blood Dropper fixed to the tree to spark, inflicted no harm on the controller.

"Physical cutting won't work either." Lin Jie looked at the newly reforged short blade in his hand and shook his head.

These chains were forged from some extremely hard alloy. Even [Silencer] couldn't sever metal of this thickness in a short time. Moreover, once close, those high-speed spinning chains were lethal weapons in themselves.

This was a meticulously designed dead end.

The Black Lotus Sect's "Blood Dropper" unit knew this jungle like the back of their hand and had thorough countermeasures for various conventional breakout methods.

They didn't engage in gunfights or supernatural ability clashes. Instead, they used this nearly unsolvable mechanical formation to trap you to death.

"If it's a net, then there must be nodes."

Lin Jie's gaze rapidly scanned between the constantly moving black figures and the crisscrossing chains.

His brain once again entered that state of absolute, cold analysis.

Although these chains appeared chaotic, in reality, every anchor point selection, every wrapping angle had been precisely calculated.

These eight individuals, though acting independently, moved like a single entity breathing.

This was their strength, and also their only weakness.

As long as any single link was broken, this seemingly impregnable net would instantly lose its balance.

"Nadia."

Lin Jie suddenly spoke. His voice came clearly through the earpiece to everyone.

"Can you climb trees? The tallest ones."

Nadia was momentarily stunned, then understood Lin Jie's intent.

"As long as you distract those two 'spiders' over there, I can get up."

"Good." Lin Jie nodded.

He then looked at Julian.

"Your gun. Can it sever the chain's connecting axle?"

Julian adjusted his glasses, his gaze locking onto the core part of the Blood Dropper fixed to the tree trunk.

It was a rotating bearing, only the size of a walnut, connecting the chain to the blade disc.

"If it's a stationary target, one hundred percent," Julian replied. "But under these conditions of high-speed rotation and vibration..."

"I'll make it stop."

Lin Jie turned his head, looking at Evelyn.

"How many more full-power discharges can your glove manage?"

"Two." Evelyn glanced at the gauge on the back of her hand displaying the charge level. "If we disregard burning out the circuits, maybe barely three."

"Enough."

Lin Jie took a deep breath.

He pulled the collar of his [Black Mercury] trench coat higher, covering half his face, leaving only a pair of eyes gleaming with cold light.

"Listen up."

"This is a net-breaking operation."

"Nadia, you're responsible for cutting off their line of sight. Once up the tree, use your blowgun to disrupt their movements."

"Evelyn, the moment I charge out, direct all your electrical current into that... thickest main chain."

Lin Jie pointed at the chain in the lead black-clad figure's hand.

That chain not only connected to the largest Blood Dropper, but also seemed to be the core load-bearing point of the entire formation.

"That instant of intense current might not electrocute anyone, but it's enough to cause the precision gears inside that metal case to jam for a few tenths of a second due to magnetization."

"Julian, that's your opportunity."

"Sever that bearing."

"As long as one breaks, this net is broken."

"What about you?" Evelyn couldn't help but ask. "What will you do?"

Lin Jie drew the ashen-white [Silencer], his body slightly crouching, assuming a sprinting stance.

"I'll be the bug... that crashes through the spiderweb."

Before the words finished.

Lin Jie's figure had already vanished from his spot.

Relying on the extreme mobility granted by [Black Mercury] and the physical deflection properties brought by [Phase Slip], he charged directly into the contracting metal web.

"*Whirr-whirr-whirr—*"

Sensing the prey's resistance, the surrounding chains tightened. Several Blood Droppers that weren't fixed came shrieking from all directions, aiming to shred Lin Jie.

But Lin Jie didn't slow down, nor did he evade.

He was like a madman, charging straight towards the point where the densest concentration of chains intersected.

At the instant those terrifying spinning blades were about to slice him to pieces.

His trench coat suddenly shimmered with a layer of deep blue light.

"*Zzz—Screeeech—!!!*"

Those Blood Droppers that should have cleaved his flesh unbelievably slid to either side upon contacting the coat's surface.

Although the tremendous kinetic energy still shook Lin Jie, making his blood and energy churn, he ultimately passed through the first line of blockade unscathed.

"Now!"

Lin Jie roared.

"*Zzzt—!!!*"

The blue-white electrical arc from Evelyn's hand arrived as promised, striking that core chain.

Simultaneously.

"*Bang!*"

Flame spat from the muzzle of Julian's [Discipline].

The bullet, carrying the law of guaranteed hit, within the thousandth of a second the Blood Dropper's bearing jammed due to magnetization, accurately drilled into that tiny gap.

"*Snap!*"

A crisp snapping sound echoed through the jungle.

The main chain that maintained the balance of the entire encirclement net was severed.

The taut metal net slackened. The massive recoil force caused the lead black-clad figure to lose balance, stumbling.

And this was the opportunity Lin Jie had been waiting for.

A black afterimage flashed past.

The ashen-white blade edge sliced through the air, leaving a trail of deathly silence.

A thin red line appeared on the black-clad man's throat. He collapsed limply.

The encirclement net was broken.