novelraw Chapter 350: Mountain Lord
Chapter 350: Mountain Lord
Thump! Thump!
The continuous sound of bodies hitting water shattered the morning tranquility of the jungle.
This was a natural waterfall pool located a few kilometers from the edge of the Garden of Eden basin.
The pool water gathered here, reflecting the azure sky above that was finally no longer obscured by the red poisonous mist.
Lin Jie surfaced from the water.
He gasped for air in huge gulps, the burning sensation in his lungs from prolonged oxygen deprivation finally easing slightly.
He wiped the water from his face and quickly scanned his surroundings.
Julian was clutching a piece of driftwood not far away, coughing violently, his signature curly hair now plastered to his forehead like a tangled mess.
Evelyn was being supported by Nadia as they swam toward the shore; the young female inventor had clearly exhausted her last ounce of strength in the previous rapids.
"Everyone's alive..."Lin Jie silently confirmed this fact in his heart.
"Julian, are you alright?"
Hearing this, Julian didn't rush to shore. Instead, he first reached into the leather pouch on his chest and felt around.
The alchemical vial filled with golden Ghost Mother Flower Nectar was still intact.
The warm sensation he could feel even through the metal container finally allowed his heart, which had been hanging in suspense, to settle.
This was something they had traded their lives for.
It was also William's only hope for survival.
"I'm fine." Julian nodded toward Lin Jie.
The four of them helped each other climb onto the riverbank. The solid, grounded feeling gave them a surreal sense of having returned from another world.
Each of their skins was covered with blood marks and bruises from being scraped by rocks. A bone-deep exhaustion made their muscles tremble uncontrollably.
But none of that mattered.
What mattered was that they had escaped from that hell.
"Boom—"
Just as they had collapsed onto the ground, ready to catch their breath, a dull, massive roar suddenly came from the deepest part of the jungle.
It was the direction they had just fled.
The location of that secret laboratory codenamed "Garden of Eden."
Lin Jie struggled to sit up. He turned his head and looked into the distance through the layers of trees.
He saw, above the valley shrouded in morning mist, a huge mushroom cloud mixed with dust, smoke, and some eerie green gas slowly rising.
Then came a violent tremor of the ground.
The hollowed-out underground base, having lost its support, collapsed. Millions of tons of rock and soil buried that palace of sin, along with all its secrets, forever deep underground.
"What about that monster?"
Julian took off his glasses, now missing one lens, his voice hoarse as he asked.
"It didn't die in the explosion. That kind of thing couldn't be killed so easily by an explosion."
"It indeed didn't die in the explosion."
Lin Jie's voice remained calm.
"But it shouldn't be feeling great either. Look at the air over there."
"The air?" Evelyn looked up, somewhat bewildered.
"Yes."
Lin Jie pointed at the dissipating green smoke in the distance.
"Do you remember the environment inside that cultivation tank?"
"The 'Living Holy Embryo' created by Yan Xilou was essentially a premature infant that hadn't fully developed, with an immune system practically at zero."
"When it was inside the laboratory, those devices maintained its vital signs."
"But when that environment was broken..."
Lin Jie paused, a flash of cold light in his eyes.
"It's like throwing a baby with no immunity into a sewer full of viruses."
After that massive roar, came a bubbling sound like countless bubbles bursting in a swamp.
That originally extremely powerful spiritual energy fluctuation attenuated and dissipated within mere seconds.
Finally, it completely vanished into nothingness.
"That madman..." Nadia sat on the ground hugging her knees. She looked at the distant smoke and dust, her expression complex. "Did he die?"
"Perhaps."
Lin Jie wasn't certain.
At the last moment, he saw Yan Xilou being blasted into the darkness.
For a scheming, formidable figure of master-level strength like him, as long as you haven't seen the corpse with your own eyes, you can never declare his death.
But one thing was certain.
His life's work in Borneo, his demon army that hadn't yet had time to march out of the jungle, and that crazy god-making project had all turned to dust with this collapse.
It was a costly victory.
...
At the same moment.
Hundreds of nautical miles away from Borneo, in Singapore.
Dawn here was not peaceful.
A city clearance battle, though not as grand in scale as the Garden of Eden conflict but arguably even more brutal in its intensity, was erupting on the fringes of this Straits Settlement.
Inside an abandoned sugar factory near the Tanjong Pagar Dock.
The sounds of gunfire, explosions, and the roars of some beast interwove, turning this place into a slaughterhouse of flying flesh and blood.
This was not a sudden skirmish.
This was a long-planned operation by the I.A.R.C. Southeast Asia Division to close the net around the peripheral forces of the Black Lotus Sect.
The reason why Lin Jie and the others' operation in Borneo had been so "smooth," without encountering that kind of organized cult group encirclement and suppression, was largely because the main forces of the Black Lotus in the South Seas were pinned down here.
Since the "Tai Sui" incident in Saigon.
It wasn't just I.A.R.C. who realized the threat of the Black Lotus Sect; the colonial governments of various countries, feeling their rule threatened, also took notice.
At the proposal of the French, the I.A.R.C. French Cochinchina Division and the Straits Settlements Division reached a joint operation agreement codenamed "Iron Broom."
Over the past few months, they had been like a pack of tireless hounds, tearing at the tentacles of the Black Lotus Sect across Southeast Asia.
And today.
Was the moment to close the net.
"Hold the line! Don't let them break out!"
Colonel Jean-Pierre Leclerc, that iron-blooded soldier who had once crossed paths with Julian in Saigon, now stood behind a temporary barricade made of sandbags and wooden crates. He held a heavy machine gun, firing wildly at the smoke-filled warehouse door ahead.
A vicious scar now marred his face, a souvenir from an encounter in Malacca last week.
Beside him.
The Jiangshi master from Siam, Nai Mi, sat cross-legged on the ground. Before him lay the chilling Ghost-Feeding Jar. Countless black grudges, like tangible smoke, flew out of the jar, shrieking as they pounced on the black-clad believers trying to break out from the flanks.
And on a roof further away.
The always-silent Vietnamese hunter, Nguyen Van, lay prone between the roof tiles. The Living Vine Armor of Entwined Roots he wore had extended several tough vines, forming a giant spiderweb that blocked all aerial escape routes for the enemy.
This was a mixed unit composed of official elites and civilian experts.
Their target was to hunt down this last effective fighting force of the Black Lotus Sect in Singapore.
But it wasn't easy.
Because the commander of this remnant force was no ordinary believer.
"Roar—!!!"
A tiger's roar that shattered glass erupted from deep within the warehouse.
The sound contained a soul-shaking pressure, even suppressing the sound of Leclerc's machine gun fire with its sheer force.
The grudges released by Master Nai Mi, upon hearing this tiger roar, shrieked in fear as if encountering a natural predator, shrinking back into the jar, not daring to show themselves again.
"It's the Mountain Lord..."
Master Nai Mi's face turned deathly pale, his cloudy eyes filled with terror.
"That's a Black Lotus god-invocation master... He's invoked the Tiger God!"
Before his words faded.
A massive figure trailing black and yellow afterimages directly smashed through the warehouse's thick brick wall, charging into the I.A.R.C. encirclement like an out-of-control tank.
It was a giant of a man over two and a half meters tall.
He hadn't undergone biological modification like the test subjects in Borneo; his body still maintained the basic human structure.
But right in the center of his bare, scar-covered chest was deeply "stitched" a fist-sized, ferocious heart-protecting mirror forged from bronze and some grayish-white beast bone.
The surface of the mirror was carved with painfully distorted human faces. The edges of the mirror were a ring of sharp tiger teeth, deeply piercing his own flesh and blood, as if feeding on the host's life.
Grotesque Armament—Mountain Lord Mirror.
This was a forbidden armament within the Black Lotus Sect, bestowed only upon top experts who had reached the "Guardian" level.
Its core material was taken from the skull of a man-eating tiger that had cultivated for hundreds of years deep within the Changbai Mountains.
With his breathing, this Mountain Lord Mirror continuously spewed out a layer of visible black baleful energy in the shape of a ferocious tiger.
Black and yellow stripes appeared on his skin, and a blood-red divine character for "King" faintly glowed on his forehead.
His hands had transformed into tiger claws harder than steel, with revolting black energy swirling around his fingertips.
Those were "Chang Ghosts."
Legend says that people eaten by tigers have their souls turn into Chang Ghosts, attaching to the tiger to assist in its next hunt.
And now, the dozens of trapped souls bound by the Mountain Lord Mirror swirled around this man, howling in agony, forming a natural barrier of mental pollution.
"Those who stand in my way shall die!"
The man, resembling a humanoid tiger, let out a roar. He ignored the dense bullets fired at him.
Large-caliber machine gun bullets hitting the baleful energy armor on his body actually produced a metallic clang, then were directly deflected by the shockwave force.
He charged up to the barricade.
And swung a claw with immense force.
"Boom!"
The sandbag barricade was smashed apart like a pile of building blocks.
Two mercenaries providing covering fire were swept in half by the black-energy-wreathed tiger claw, blood and intestines instantly spraying everywhere.
The newly departed souls of the dead were immediately captured by the Mountain Lord Mirror embedded in his chest. With shrill wails, they turned into new Chang Ghosts, swirling around the man, emitting gleeful, aiding-the-tyrant cackles.
"Stop him!"
Accompanied by an angry roar, three agile figures charged out from the shadows on the flank.
It was a Russian strongman wielding a heavy steam-powered shield and two local bounty hunters armed with poisoned Malay swords. They attempted to use their well-rehearsed "shield wall and poison bee" tactic to restrict this monster's movements.
But it was meaningless.
The Russian strongman's alloy shield was as fragile as a damp biscuit before that tiger claw. The claw easily pierced through the shield and proceeded to crush half of the strongman's shoulder, slamming him into the nearby brick wall like a ragdoll.
The two Malay hunters trying to launch a sneak attack from the blind spot couldn't even get close before being tightly entangled by the Chang Ghosts swirling around the Guardian.
Invisible grudges drilled into the living men's seven orifices, creating terrifying mental illusions. The two battle-hardened hunters instantly lost control of their bodies, watching helplessly as a tiger tail, with a whistling wind, shattered their spines.
This was absolute power suppression.
Before this beast in human skin, so-called tactical coordination and fine equipment became laughable toys.
"Is this all you foreign devils are capable of?"
The man sneered, his voice completely altered, carrying a grating quality.
He casually threw a motionless corpse into the distance, his beast-like eyes flashing with arrogance.
"You want to destroy us? Do you even have the right?"
He exerted force again, this time his target directly aimed at Commander Leclerc.
"Fire the cannon!"
Facing this certain-kill attack, Leclerc didn't retreat half a step. He threw aside his empty machine gun and roared toward the darkness behind him.
"Bang!"
A loud report came from that direction.
A fist-sized alchemical cannonball covered in sealing runes shot through the air with a whistling sound, impacting the man's chest.
This was I.A.R.C.'s specially prepared trump card for dealing with such troublesome enemies—Demon-Breaking Grenade.
"Boom!"
A blinding white purification fire exploded on the man's body.
The flames specifically designed to counter spirits and baleful energy instantly ignited the Chang Ghosts surrounding him. Those vengeful souls let out screams as if finding release, dissipating into green smoke.
"Ah—!!!"
The man let out a pained roar.
Having lost the protection of the Chang Ghosts, his physical body was finally no longer invincible.
The explosive force blasted the flesh on his chest into a bloody mess. The enhanced state brought by the Tiger God possession also showed signs of instability.
"Now! Trap him!"
Leclerc drew the command saber at his waist. Nguyen Van on the roof reacted immediately.
He jumped down from above. The vine armor on his body disassembled, transforming into several thick vines that tightly bound the injured man in place.
Master Nai Mi also bit his tongue, spraying a mouthful of vital blood onto the Ghost-Feeding Jar.
Countless black ghostly shadows rushed out of the jar. Seizing the moment of the man's weakness, they pounced on him like a school of piranhas, frantically devouring his spiritual nature.
Simultaneously.
All the surrounding bounty hunters raised their weapons, unleashing all their firepower onto the target trapped in the center.
This was a brawl with no chivalry.
It was also a war where only one side could survive.
The man possessing the power of the "Mountain Lord," though powerful, under this targeted trap and saturation bombardment, eventually began to falter.
His roars changed from initial arrogance to desperate howls.
But he still didn't fall.
Even though his body was riddled with holes, even though the divine power of possession was rapidly fading, he still fought on without retreating, like a true tiger.
"It's over."
Leclerc watched the formidable enemy who had finally knelt in a pool of blood, unable to rise again. He coldly sheathed his command saber.
He turned his head, looked toward the southern sky, took out a cigar, lit it, and took a deep drag.
"Clean up the battlefield. No survivors."
With that order.
Gunfire rang out once more.