1888: Memoirs of an Unconfirmed Creature Hunter

Chapter 337: Phantom vs. Blood Droplet

As the leader's throat sprayed blood that dyed the rotten leaves beneath his feet red, the flawlessly interwoven Bagua hunting array revealed a fatal gap at this moment.

The remaining seven elite Black Lotus Blood Droppers did not let out any panicked screams or show the slightest sign of collapse due to their leader's death. These killing machines, who had long shed most human emotions through brutal training, made the most instinctive stress response upon realizing their prey had not only broken free of the net but had bitten back.

The dense sound of mechanical gears meshing in the air grew more rapid and sharp.

Seven figures scattered among the surrounding tree trunks and shadows simultaneously pressed the high-pressure ejection switches on the sides of their backpack-style metal cases. The chains serving as the net's nodes instantly retracted and were primed to launch again, driven by steam pressure.

This time, they no longer sought to construct a space-sealing formation.

That was an execution method for trapped prey.

Faced with this dangerous target before them who could sever the main chain and complete a decapitation in an instant, they chose a more direct, more violent, destructive strike.

"Bzzzz—"

Seven silvery-white streams of death, carrying shrill whistles, simultaneously converged from seven different directions toward the black figure still standing beside the corpse.

The high-speed spinning Blood Droppers traced dizzying arcs through the air. The circle of serrated teeth made of special alloy along their edges emitted a teeth-gritting vibration sound under centrifugal force.This kind of omnidirectional saturation attack theoretically sealed off conventional evasion routes.

But in Lin Jie's eyes, this was precisely the opportunity he had been waiting for.

When the enemy abandoned their spatial lockdown in favor of instantaneous explosive lethality, it meant they had given up the space-restricting ability that he found troublesome, and entered the field of close-quarters combat that he excelled at—a contest of speed and reflexes.

Lin Jie stood quietly in place, his deep black eyes reflecting the seven cold gleams assaulting from all directions. His breathing was steady, his left hand slowly rising to press lightly against the hem of his trench coat.

Just as the seven Blood Droppers reached the critical distance of less than two meters from his body, the airflow from their rotation already stirring the stray hairs on his forehead.

He moved.

This time, the initiation had no warning.

The unique phase force field was activated to its extreme state at this moment.

His body, defying the laws of inertia, slid toward the seemingly most dangerous angle to his right front. His entire being detached from the certain-death center point like a drop of black mercury rolling rapidly on a hot pan.

"Zzz—"

The instant his figure vanished.

The spot where he had stood left behind a solidified black afterimage in the air, still maintaining a sword-drawing posture.

When movement speed reaches a certain degree and disturbs the surrounding space through spiritual nature, that brief residue on the visual and material level is enough to deceive eyes reliant on motion capture.

The seven Blood Droppers, with their unstoppable momentum, slammed viciously toward that "Lin Jie."

"Crunch!"

Accompanied by a heart-stopping snapping sound, the seven metal "hats" accurately enveloped the afterimage's head, chest, and limbs. The internal meat-grinding blade mechanisms shot out, attempting to shred the captured prey into mincemeat.

Yet the tactile feedback was empty.

Those sharp blades merely sliced through a dissipating mass of black light and shadow, colliding with each other to produce a grating screech of metal friction and sparks.

"It's an afterimage!"

A black-clad man hiding behind a tree let out a low roar of shock and fury.

But before he could even begin retracting the fully extended metal chain in his hand, an unprecedented sense of crisis made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Because he saw that black ghost, who should have been at the center of the encirclement just moments ago, now appearing beneath the very tree he was in.

Lin Jie looked up at the figure hiding in the tree fork.

He raised the [Serene Heart] in his hand.

"First one."

He silently counted in his heart.

The silenced bullet struck the winch bearing of the metal case in the black-clad man's hand, which was frantically winding, trying to retrieve the Blood Dropper.

While the Blood Dropper weapon was immensely lethal with extreme attack range, it had an insurmountable mechanical physics flaw: an extremely brief but absolutely fatal period of vulnerability during the retrieval phase after a missed attack.

During this high-speed retrieval process, the precision winch responsible for winding the chain bore immense mechanical stress, making it the most fragile link in the entire weapon system.

"Snap!"

Along with the crisp sound of metal snapping.

A noise of shattered gears came from the metal case. The rapidly retracting chain lost power, and the Blood Dropper fell limply, smashing hard against the tree trunk.

Before that black-clad man could react to the shock of his weapon's destruction, a black shadow had already "slid" up along the dangling chain in a gravity-defying manner.

Lin Jie, utilizing the frictionless property of his trench coat, used the rough chain as a slide rail. Propelled by inertia, his entire being shot up to the five-meter-high tree fork in an instant.

A cold light flashed.

The ash-white short blade in his right hand traced an arc.

That black-clad man only felt a slight chill at his neck, then the world before his eyes began to spin wildly. He saw his own headless corpse, still clutching the smoking metal case, spurting blood.

After the decapitation, Lin Jie used the reactive force from the branch to kick back violently, pouncing toward an adjacent large tree like a hunting leopard.

The second enemy was hiding there.

The other black-clad men finally reacted now.

They realized they had made a huge mistake—in this narrow, obstacle-dense rainforest environment, facing an enemy with ghostly speed and close-quarters slaughtering ability, dispersing and using long-range weapons not only failed to create suppression, but instead allowed the enemy to use the terrain to divide, encircle, and pick them off one by one.

"Contract! Form up!"

A black-clad man who seemed like the deputy leader shouted loudly.

While desperately turning the winch to retrieve his weapon, he tried to move closer to his teammates.

But how could Lin Jie give them a chance to reorganize their formation?

This was a solo dance belonging to "Scalpel," one he had rehearsed countless times in his mind.

Relying on the combat instincts honed through several brushes with death, he turned this jungle into his operating table.

He darted at high speed between trees.

Each movement would stir up patches of black afterimages. Those Blood Droppers trying to lock onto him again could only futilely shatter those illusory shadows time and again.

"Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Two more sounds of projectiles cutting through the air.

Lin Jie executed a high-difficulty mid-air twist, his left-hand revolver firing two bullets in the nick of time.

This time, he didn't attack the weapons.

Because those two black-clad men were in the vulnerable state of retrieving their weapons, their chests completely exposed to the gun muzzle.

Two blood blossoms bloomed on the dark blue night-walker attire.

Those two black-clad men didn't even have time to scream before the massive cavitation effect of the specially made dum-dum bullets exploding within their chest cavities utterly destroyed their hearts. They fell limply from the trees.

In the blink of an eye.

Only four of the eight elites remained.

The iron-tight encirclement had completely collapsed.

A trace of fear finally surfaced in the eyes of the remaining four black-clad men. They had never seen such an efficient, cold, and unreasonable way of killing.

The opponent didn't engage in any form of protracted struggle or contest of strength with you. He was like a black wind; wherever he passed, someone would fall.

"Don't panic! He's on the ground! Use tripwires!"

The deputy leader was still trying to salvage the situation.

The remaining three obeyed the order, abandoning their high-ground advantage and jumping down to the ground.

The chains in their hands swept rapidly along the ground, attempting to use the serrated chains to block Lin Jie's movement space and sever his legs.

This low sweeping attack covered a vast area and was difficult to detect in the bush-covered ground.

If Lin Jie were an ordinary hunter relying on footwork for movement, this would indeed be a very effective restrictive measure.

Unfortunately.

He was not.

Facing the serrated chains sweeping toward him simultaneously from three directions, Lin Jie did not jump up, nor did he retreat.

He actively charged toward those chains.

At the instant of impending contact, his trench coat once again glowed with an indigo-blue light.

Phase Slip, full power output.

"Screech—"

When the sharp serrations contacted the trench coat armor on Lin Jie's calves, it was as if they encountered some extremely hard yet incredibly smooth force field.

They simply couldn't bite, couldn't cut, and could only helplessly slide away along the trench coat's surface.

Those deadly thorns not only failed to harm Lin Jie, but instead became springboards for him to accelerate.

He stepped with one foot onto a sweeping chain.

Using the tremendous force of the chain's backswing, his speed surged again. His entire being practically flew along the ground toward that deputy leader.

That deputy leader's eyes were filled with terror.

Watching the black death god charging toward him, ignoring physical rules by stepping on the killing chains, his movements faltered.

And this hesitation was his death sentence.

Lin Jie slid right in front of him.

The distance between the two was less than half a meter.

At this range, the long chain and cumbersome Blood Dropper became completely useless burdens.

Lin Jie raised his right hand.

[Silencer] pierced the deputy leader's abdomen.

A twist of the wrist, then a fierce upward slash.

This was an extremely cruel anatomical movement designed to cause maximum damage in the shortest time.

"Ugh…"

The deputy leader's body convulsed violently. He felt his internal organs being shredded to pieces. The neurotoxin and Wither principle attached to [Silencer] instantly eroded his entire body through the massive wound.

The metal case in his hand fell to the ground.

While completing this strike, Lin Jie's body had already spun around once like a top. Using the force of this rotation, the [Serene Heart] in his left hand fired three consecutive shots at the two black-clad men behind him attempting a sneak attack.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The bullets accurately struck one man's forehead, blasting his skull cap away.

Although the other blocked the bullets with the metal case in his hand, the tremendous impact still made him stagger back, losing his balance.

Lin Jie released the already dead deputy leader.

He pounced toward the last off-balance black-clad man like a giant black bird.

"No… don't…"

That black-clad man was scared out of his wits. He threw away his weapon, trying to turn and flee.

But he wasn't faster than Lin Jie's blade.

A gray stream of light swept across his back.

Thus.

This jungle clearing, once filled with killing intent, returned to dead silence.

A heavy scent of blood permeated the sultry air, attracting several unknown scavenging insects to circle nearby.

Seven corpses lay haphazardly in the bushes.

Their postures varied, but the expression on each face was frozen in a twisted state mixing shock and fear.

Lin Jie stood at the center of the clearing.

He slowly wiped the blood off [Silencer] on a corpse's clothes, then sheathed the blade.

The [Black Mercury] trench coat on him remained spotless; the splattered blood and dirt slid off the moment they contacted the coat.

He breathed slightly heavily, adjusting his heart rate.

Although this battle seemed like a one-sided slaughter, the high-intensity continuous maneuvering and maintaining the phase force field still took a significant toll on his stamina and mental energy.

"Brilliant."

Julian walked out from behind a distant rock. He was still holding the [Discipline] that hadn't had a chance to fire, his eyes carrying complex admiration.

"Compared to the rookie who still had to rely on others at the beginning, even William probably couldn't beat you now, could he?"

"Utilizing the environment, utilizing the enemy's inertia, utilizing every rule that can be used."

"This isn't combat." Julian pushed up his glasses. "This is a precise surgical procedure with killing as its purpose."

Evelyn and Nadia also walked over.

Nadia looked at the corpses strewn across the ground, then at Lin Jie who was completely unscathed. The reverence in her eyes deepened another layer.

"You are more terrifying than the fiercest headhunter of the Dayak tribe."

She said in a low voice.

"These Blood Droppers have killed many of our people in the jungle. We've never been able to do anything about them."

"But before you, they were like a group of children who haven't even learned to walk."

Lin Jie didn't show the slightest hint of pride because of this praise.

He walked to a corpse, bent down, and picked up the metal "hat" that had fallen on the ground.

It was an exquisitely crafted killing machine.

The gears and blades inside were still rotating slightly, emitting a smell mixed with oil and blood.

"This thing's construction is quite interesting." Lin Jie handed the Blood Dropper to Evelyn. "Take it back for research. It might give you some inspiration."

Evelyn took the heavy weapon, looking at the complex mechanical structures on it, a flash of excitement in her eyes.

"This is a very advanced transmission structure." She immediately entered engineer mode. "If we could modify it into something defensive…"

"That's for later."

Lin Jie interrupted her musings.

He looked up, gazing deep into the jungle.

That black-clad man who had fled at the last moment was not among the pile of corpses.

"One got away."

Lin Jie said calmly.

Julian asked, "Should we pursue?"

"Of course."

A cold smile curled at the corner of Lin Jie's mouth.

"I intentionally let him go."

"In this maze-like rainforest, to find that deeply hidden 'Garden of Eden' laboratory, a map alone isn't enough."

"We need a guide rat."

"A rat scared out of its wits, wanting only to flee back to its nest seeking shelter."

He glanced at the bloodstains on the ground.

That deserter was injured in the back. Though not fatal, it was enough for him to leave a clear trail.

"Nadia."

Lin Jie turned to the young guide.

"This is your specialty."

Nadia nodded. She crouched down, dipped a finger in some blood on the ground, smelled it, then looked in a certain direction.

"He ran that way."

"That's the direction leading to the 'Demon Flower's' territory."

"Good."

Lin Jie tightened his trench coat, a cold light flashing in his eyes.