novelraw Chapter 362: Rainy Night Alley Battle
Chapter 362: Rainy Night Alley Battle
The tropical storm that had been brewing for three full days finally tore away its last shred of restraint at midnight, unleashing itself with violent fury.
The funeral parlor's main door was cracked open a sliver. The dim light from the everlasting lamps inside swayed violently in the howling wind, casting the rain falling both inside and outside the threshold into a golden hue.
Lin Jie stood alone on the steps before the main door. Every midnight since that night, he had kept vigil here on time.
In Shuo’e Alley before him stood a team of figures that had appeared out of thin air.
There were ten of them, fully armed and clad in black.
They wore a type of black, standardized trench coat that had clearly undergone special waterproof and bulletproof treatment. They wore wide-brimmed hats, and their faces were covered by smooth, featureless silver metal masks.
Each of them held a short-barreled rifle with a thick barrel connected to a steam backpack on their back. At their waists hung alchemical restraint shackles, equipment only issued for handling high-risk anomalous events.
I.A.R.C. Internal Investigation Division, directly subordinate Inspector Squad.
These executioners, known as "Gardeners," had finally tracked the scent to their doorstep.
At the front of the squad stood two commanders who were not wearing hats.One was tall and burly, with short blond hair and typical Anglo-Saxon features. He wore a pair of massive metal gauntlets on his hands, studded with numerous brass exhaust ports and hydraulic linkages.
The other appeared gaunt and gloomy, sporting a Prussian-style mustache. Several silver metal javelins of varying lengths were strapped to his back, and his eyes were as cold and venomous as a snake's.
"Lin Jie, ID AS-091."
The British captain wearing the gauntlets stepped forward. His voice cut clearly through the dense curtain of rain to reach Lin Jie's ears.
He pulled out a document sealed with red wax from his coat and casually tossed it onto the waterlogged cobblestone road.
"According to Special Containment Order No. 73 issued by the Geneva Supreme Council, you and the members of your special operations team under your command are suspected of multiple Class 1 felonies, including severe violation of the Hunter Code, collusion with radical organizations, and illegal possession of prohibited holy relics."
"Now, I order you to immediately disarm, put on the magic-suppression shackles, and follow us back to headquarters to undergo memory review and spiritual nature stripping."
Memory review.
Within the Association, this term represented a punishment more terrifying than a death sentence.
It meant completely opening the subject's cerebral cortex and using crude alchemical means to forcibly browse, even modify and delete, all memories. After that process, the subject often ended up a drooling idiot or a mindless zombie with no sense of self.
Lin Jie took a deep drag of his cigarette, letting the pungent taste of tobacco cycle through his lungs once before slowly exhaling a plume of white smoke.
"Review?"
A mocking smile curled at the corner of Lin Jie's mouth.
"If you could bring this level of efficiency and such sophisticated equipment when dealing with those man-eating UMAs, I think the world would have been at peace long ago."
"Pity. Your courage and methods seem reserved only for your own people."
"This is a necessary sacrifice to maintain order."
The Inspector Captain showed no anger at Lin Jie's mockery. His eyes remained cold and resolute, the characteristic numbness of someone long brainwashed with the doctrine of absolute obedience.
"Since you refuse to cooperate, we have no choice but to resort to compulsory measures."
He slowly raised his massive metal right fist.
"Execute the purge protocol."
At his command, the ten ordinary Inspectors standing in the back row simultaneously pulled several black metal rods from their backpacks and forcefully drove them into the ground around the street.
"Hummm—"
A low, deeply unsettling hum of infrasound instantly reverberated through the entire alley.
The crystals at the top of the metal rods began to emit a dull, grayish light. In the air, they connected to form a faint gray, hemispherical force field visible to the naked eye, completely enveloping the entire front courtyard of the funeral parlor.
Lin Jie felt his body grow heavy.
It wasn't an increase in gravity, but a sense of suffocation originating from the spiritual plane.
He felt as if something was missing from within him. Even the flowing light on the surface of the [Black Mercury] trench coat dimmed considerably because of it.
"Anti-Magic Force Field."
The lead captain announced the device's name loudly.
This was an area suppression weapon developed by the Association's Technical Department specifically to deal with rogue hunters who relied on grotesque armaments or their own spiritual abilities. It could forcibly disrupt the activation of etheric energy by emitting interference waves of a specific frequency, thereby rendering most alchemical items and supernatural abilities ineffective.
"Before the rules, your power is worthless."
The Inspector Captain snorted coldly. His tactical boot stomped down, shattering the paving stone beneath. His entire body shot towards Lin Jie like a heavy tank.
The exhaust ports on his right fist suddenly released several jets of high-temperature steam. Using this reactive force, the heavy iron fist was propelled forward with a terrifying speed that broke the sound barrier, aimed squarely at Lin Jie's face.
But Lin Jie didn't even make a move to dodge.
He simply counted down silently in his heart.
Three.
Two.
One.
Just as that iron fist was less than ten centimeters from the tip of Lin Jie's nose.
The shutters on the second floor of the funeral parlor were suddenly kicked open from the inside.
Evelyn's figure appeared at the window.
In her hand, she held a massive industrial knife switch connected to several thick cables.
Those cables ran all the way to the drainage copper pipes and metal lampposts surrounding the funeral parlor.
This had been a carefully laid counter-trap from the moment they decided to hold their ground at the funeral parlor.
"Let's give you a taste of overload!"
Evelyn yanked down the knife switch.
"Zzzz—BOOM!!!"
An electromagnetic pulse impact invisible to the naked eye.
All the electrical energy stored in the modified battery bank was converted into a pure, powerful magnetic field storm.
The "Anti-Magic Force Field" targeting spiritual frequencies was itself an extremely precise etheric wave interference technology. Under this chaotic, powerful magnetic field impact, the stabilizing crystals inside the black metal rods embedded in the ground shattered one after another due to frequency resonance.
The gray hemispherical force field dissipated like a punctured bubble.
The flow of spiritual nature was restored.
The cold glint in Lin Jie's eyes surged at this moment.
The [Black Mercury] trench coat regained its dark blue luster after the return of spiritual nature, its Phase Slip characteristic fully activated.
At the instant the iron fist was about to strike him, his body slid a step to the left.
"Whoosh!"
The heavy fist, trailing steam and a sonic boom, brushed past his ear and struck empty air. The wind from the punch even stung Lin Jie's cheek.
"Now, it's our turn."
Lin Jie flicked his right wrist.
The [Silencer] short knife, trailing a deathly gray-white light, stabbed viciously towards the gap in the armor at the Inspector Captain's exposed armpit—a vulnerability revealed by his over-committed attack.
The melee erupted in full force at this moment.
"William!"
At Lin Jie's low roar.
The funeral parlor's main door was smashed completely open.
A burly figure charged out, radiating the ferocious aura of someone who had just returned from hell.
Having undergone physical rebirth with the [Ghost Mother Flower Nectar], William was currently at the peak condition of his life. The terrifying power contained beneath his nearly bursting linen shirt, swollen with muscle, was enough to tear tigers and leopards apart bare-handed.
Since the [Church Holy Cannon] was not with him, William held a heavy iron shovel in each hand as he crashed into the formation of ordinary Inspectors.
William roared. The iron shovel in his hand whistled through the air, directly smacking a short rifle out of an Inspector's grip. Then, using the momentum, he swept it horizontally, smashing another enemy trying to surround him, shield and all, sending him flying backward.
His movements held no flourish, but his thousand-times-honed military combat techniques, combined with his now superhuman strength, displayed a lethality that struck fear into the heart.
The Inspectors, who relied on equipment and formation, stood no chance of stopping this enraged veteran once they lost the suppression of the "Anti-Magic Force Field."
Above the battlefield.
Julian had already climbed onto the funeral parlor's roof via a drainpipe.
Even in this raging storm, he remained steadily crouched on the slippery roof tiles. The muzzle of his [Discipline] pistol constantly swept across the battlefield, seeking high-value targets.
His eyes were as cold as the rain pouring from the sky.
"Target locked."
Julian murmured softly.
In his field of vision, countless red threads of causality were marking out the enemies hidden behind their masks, one by one.
"Bang!"
The first shot rang out.
An Inspector who was about to raise alchemical shackles to ambush William from behind had his wrist instantly blossom with a spray of blood. The hand holding the shackles was severed clean off, falling into the muddy water.
"Bang!"
The second shot.
An enemy trying to charge through the funeral parlor's doorway was shot in the knee, screaming as he fell to the ground.
Julian was like a merciless god of death, controlling the rhythm of the entire battlefield from his high vantage point. Any attempt to threaten his teammates would meet the inescapable strike of his rules.
But he didn't have much time to clear out the foot soldiers.
Because a more dangerous enemy had already set his sights on him.
The German Deputy Captain, who had remained at the rear without making a move, showed extreme calm when he saw the anti-magic device fail. He drew a silver metal javelin about one meter long from his back.
He glanced at Julian on the roof, a cruel smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Little rat playing with guns."
The muscles on his arm bulged as he assumed a standard javelin-throwing posture.
"Die."
"Whoosh!"
The short javelin, trailing a piercing shriek through the air, transformed into a silver streak of light aimed straight at Julian on the roof.
Julian reacted with extreme speed. The moment he saw the other's movement, he had already pulled the trigger, attempting to intercept the javelin mid-air with his unerring bullet.
But something bizarre happened.
Just before the bullet was about to hit the javelin, the metal javelin suddenly exploded in mid-air.
It split into dozens of micro-metal spikes, each only as thick as a chopstick and as sharp as a wasp's stinger.
Like a swarm with a collective consciousness, these metal spikes nimbly evaded the intercepting bullet, then covered the roof area where Julian was with even more ferocious speed.
Grotesque Armament — [Swarm Stinger].
This was a long-range killing weapon forged from the core of a certain insect-type UMA with a powerful group consciousness. It possessed the characteristics of splitting, reassembling, and group consciousness.
It was like a storm of death composed of metal, impossible to block by conventional means.
"Damn it!"
Julian's expression changed drastically.
Faced with this kind of saturation area attack, his [Discipline] could guarantee a hit, but it couldn't shoot down dozens of targets simultaneously.
He could only abandon shooting, rolling backward in an attempt to find cover.
But the metal spikes were too fast. Moreover, they seemed to have locked onto Julian's aura, changing direction nimbly in the air.
Just as those sharp spikes were about to turn Julian into a pincushion.
Julian drew the cane from his waist — [Withered Thorns].
"Order... Attenuation!"
He slammed the cane down heavily on the roof tiles.
A spherical force field reeking of decay expanded with him as its center.
The metal spikes that charged into the force field's range suddenly seemed to plunge into a pool of viscous glue. Their speed slowed to a crawl, and their sharp metallic nature grew dull under the erosion of the attenuation power.
Seizing this gap, Julian scrambled behind the chimney.
"Thud thud thud thud—"
Several metal spikes embedded themselves in the spot where he had just been standing, shattering that section of the roof to pieces.
"Interesting."
The German Deputy Captain beckoned with his hand. The metal spikes embedded in the roof flew back, reassembling into a complete javelin in his grasp.
"Let's see how long your turtle shell can hold."
He raised the javelin again, preparing to launch a second, even more ferocious attack.
But at that moment, an extremely faint sound of friction came from the shadows behind him.
That was... the sound of paper rubbing.
The Deputy Captain whirled around.
To his horror, he discovered that dozens of paper effigies that should have been placed inside the funeral parlor were now silently standing behind him, holding sharp bamboo knives.
Su Sanniang was not on the scene.
But her spiritual nature-imbued paper guard squad had become a deadly ambush force in this chaotic battle.
"What the hell are these things?" The Deputy Captain had no choice but to turn and swing his javelin, sweeping several of the charging paper effigies into shreds.
But these paper effigies felt no pain and feared no death. Even after being sliced apart, their severed limbs and torsos continued to writhe on the ground, trying to trip him up.
This gave Julian the chance to catch his breath and counterattack.
From behind the chimney, he raised [Discipline] once more. This time, his target was the German's head, now entangled by the paper effigies.
Meanwhile, on the main battlefield.
The fight between Lin Jie and the British Inspector Captain, named Cavendish, had reached a fever pitch.
"BOOM!"
A tremendous sonic boom exploded between the two of them.
Cavendish's iron fist, spewing high-temperature steam, slammed into the ground where Lin Jie had just been standing. The hard stone pavement shattered and collapsed under the blow, forming a terrifying crater two meters in diameter.
Grotesque Armament — [Shockwave Pulverizer].
The core of this equipment came from a certain deep-sea crustacean-type UMA that could use sonic vibrations to pulverize its prey.
Through its internal high-pressure steam boost system, it allowed the user's fist speed to break the sound barrier in an instant, generating highly destructive shockwaves and cavitation effects.
Facing a pure power-type opponent, a head-on confrontation was tantamount to suicide.
Lin Jie's gaze remained fixed on the brief moment after Cavendish threw his punch, when the steam backpack was depressurizing and recharging.
That moment lasted less than a second.
But in Lin Jie's eyes, with [Mental Staircase] activated, this second stretched into long minutes.
He could see the vortex trails formed in the air by the white steam jetting from the gauntlet's exhaust ports. He could see the slight relaxation in Cavendish's tensed muscles at this moment. He could even see the bulging veins around the eyes hidden behind the mask, strained from excessive force.
This was an opening.
A fatal opening.
Lin Jie's target was the connecting pipe supplying power to the steam backpack for the gauntlet.
It was a flexible hose woven from brass, responsible for transporting high-pressure steam. Although protected under the armpit, during such a wide, committed attacking motion, it was inevitably exposed.
"Surgery... begins."
Lin Jie's figure left a black afterimage in the curtain of rain.
He shot like a streak of light, skimming low along the ground towards Cavendish's flank.
Cavendish also sensed the danger and tried to retract his right arm to block.
But the force of inertia made his movement half a beat too slow.
A flash of gray-white blade light passed.
The blade of the [Silencer] cut cleanly through the brass hose.
"Shhhhh—!!!"
A sharp hiss of escaping gas erupted.
Scalding high-pressure steam gushed madly from the severed end, directly spraying onto Cavendish's side.
"Ahhh—!!"
Even a strictly trained Inspector Captain couldn't help but let out a scream when faced with a direct blast of several-hundred-degree steam.
Half of his body was instantly scalded. The intense pain threw him off balance, and he staggered to one side.
His iron fist, now deprived of its power source, became a heavy burden, preventing him from mounting any effective defense.
Lin Jie gave him no chance to catch his breath.
The [Serene Heart] in his hand was practically pressed against Cavendish's chest when he pulled the trigger.
Two bullets pierced the bulletproof trench coat. Though stopped by the soft armor inside from penetrating the heart, the tremendous impact still shattered several of Cavendish's ribs. He completely lost the ability to resist, crashing heavily into the muddy water.
"Captain!"
The Deputy Captain, still entangled with Julian and the paper effigy army, saw this scene, and his face turned deathly pale.
The tide had turned.
Their anti-magic device was disabled. Their strongest fighter was down. Not only did their opponents possess grotesque armaments on par with their own, but they also had despair-inducing tactical coordination and home-field advantage.
Continuing the fight would only lead to their complete annihilation; it was merely a matter of time.
"Retreat!"
He let out a roar of unwillingness.
He threw his javelin, which exploded into a sky-full of metal needle rain, forcing back Julian and the paper effigies attempting to pursue.
Then he turned and ducked into a dark alleyway. Using his familiarity with the terrain, he vanished into the rainy night after a few leaps.
Seeing this, the other ordinary Inspectors also dropped their fallen comrades' bodies and scattered in all directions.
The battle was over.
Lin Jie walked over to Cavendish, who was still groaning in pain on the ground, and looked down at this purger.
His gun was still pointed at the other's head.
"Tell those old masters still dreaming in Geneva."
Lin Jie's voice was as cold as ice.
"We are not trash to be cleaned up at will."
The fear brought back by a living failure held far more deterrent power than a corpse.
Lin Jie holstered his gun and turned to look at his teammates behind him.
William stood there, covered in blood, several knocked-out Inspectors lying at his feet. Evelyn leaned out from the window, giving him a victory sign.
Julian sat on the roof, looking somewhat fatigued, but his eyes were brighter than ever before.
And there were the paper effigies, standing silently in the rain.
They had won.
But this was only the victory of a single skirmish.
Lin Jie understood clearly. After this battle, the last shred of pretense between them and the I.A.R.C. higher-ups had been completely torn away.