novelraw Chapter 647: The Disruptor
Chapter 647: The Disruptor
Chapter 647: The Disruptor
“What are you waiting for?” Harding’s voice rang out amid the wind and rain. “Attack!”
The capture team members reacted immediately.
They strengthened their control over the formation’s power, raising the intensity of the sealing formation by another level.
With Harding, an elite, leading the entire capture team and supported by the sealing formation and lighting arrays, they unleashed their full firepower.
The Shadow Thief began to be suppressed.
Its dark film continuously contracted under the storm’s assault, retreating from the walls, retreating from the machinery, and being gradually compressed back into that small area in the center of the factory building.
Endless bolts of lightning formed a sealed “wall” around it, preventing it from spreading again.
“Sealing formation, prepare to close in!” Dirk shouted.
The capture team members quickly adjusted the positions of the runes. The formation’s light began contracting inward, further compressing the Shadow Thief’s range of movement. Everything was progressing in a favorable direction.
If nothing unexpected happened, they should soon be able to suppress and seal it.
If nothing unexpected happened…
The eastern side of the factory building bordered the edge of the abandoned industrial zone. Beyond that was a dirt road leading to the old district.
Suddenly, points of light appeared on the dirt road.
The captain of the capture team on alert narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the source of those lights.
His night vision was much stronger than that of ordinary people, but the lights were wrapped in thick fog, allowing him to see only blurry outlines.
As they drew closer, the outlines became clearer.
They were people.
Many people.
They wore black robes with hoods that covered their heads and faces, revealing only their chins and mouths.
Each person carried a kerosene lamp. The flames inside flickered slightly in the night wind, their dim yellow light spreading into blurry halos in the thick fog.
They formed a single file, moving unhurriedly and silently toward the abandoned factory.
Gunfire erupted on the eastern road of the abandoned industrial zone.
The alert group of the capture team held their rifles, standing behind roadblocks with eyes pressed to their scopes, spotting the line of dim yellow lights through the thick fog.
“Stop! This is a restricted area ahead. Halt immediately!”
The shout echoed in the night sky.
There was no response.
The line of black-robed figures did not stop.
The figures carrying kerosene lamps continued walking toward them at the same unhurried pace. Their faces beneath the hoods remained hidden in shadow, only their chins and tightly pressed lips visible, showing no expression.
The alert group leader, a man in his early thirties, saw their reaction and did not issue a second warning.
“Open fire!”
Five rifles spat tongues of flame simultaneously.
Bullets tore through the fog, ripping through the air, and accurately shot toward the black-robed figures at the front of the line.
The alert group members were all Association field personnel. Although not elite Spirit Mediums, marksmanship was basic training.
At this distance and under these lighting conditions, the hit rate would not be below ninety percent.
But the result was not as expected.
The five black-robed figures in the center of the line did not even attempt to dodge.
When the bullets reached about half a meter in front of them, they seemed to hit an invisible wall.
The air rippled faintly, and the bullet heads were deflected, clattering onto the stone-slab road.
The other black-robed figures quickly scattered.
Their movements were fast—faster than ordinary people.
Some rolled sideways and hid behind abandoned vehicles by the roadside. Some flickered and vanished into the shadows of buildings. Some even took the bullets head-on. The rounds struck their black robes with dull thuds before falling powerlessly to the ground.
Their reaction speed far exceeded that of normal humans.
They had injected gene enhancement drugs—and not the lowest-grade ones.
As for the five in the center who could not even be touched by bullets… they were Spirit Mediums!
The alert group leader immediately made a judgment about the enemy based on experience, his pupils contracting.
He did not hesitate and immediately pressed the button on his communicator: “Enemy attack on the east side! At least five Spirit Mediums and over ten armed personnel! Requesting reinforcements!”
As soon as his words fell, a black shadow shot out from the center of the black-robed line.
It was a mass of constantly churning, dark, thick fog, shaped like some amorphous twisted creature.
It surged from one black-robed figure’s palm, expanding in the air as it lunged toward the alert group.
The alert group leader instinctively pulled the trigger, but the bullets passed through the black fog without any effect.
The black fog continued its advance. Its “body” had already opened wide, like a massive mouth ready to swallow everyone on the road.
Then, the black fog shattered.
A silver-white light shot in from the side, precisely striking the core of the black fog.
The instant light met fog, the black fog was torn apart from within by some force. It let out a screech that was not quite a sound, then rapidly collapsed and vanished.
Two figures emitting fluorescence emerged from cover beside the road.
They wore dark blue uniforms with silver trim on the collars and cuffs, and star-shaped marks embroidered beneath the emblems on their left chests.
They were members of the other elite squads Harding had seen earlier—a man and a woman, both in their early thirties, with stern faces and steady steps.
The man walked in front, his right hand still in the posture of having thrown something. A trace of silver-white light lingered at his fingertips.
His expression was calm, as if handling a routine task.
The woman followed behind him, her gaze sweeping across the scattered black-robed figures with a cold smile on her lips.
“Judging by your outfits, you must belong to some kind of evil cult,” her voice was not loud, but every word carried undisguised contempt. “You actually dared to intrude into our territory. You really don’t know how to court death.”
The alert group leader saw the two appear and his tense shoulders relaxed slightly.
He raised his hand and made a gesture: withdraw.
The alert group members quickly lowered their rifles and retreated under mutual cover, re-establishing firing positions further back while keeping their muzzles trained on the black-robed figures.
With elite squad members present, their mission shifted from “intercept” to “support.”
The five black-robed figures in the center did not respond to the woman’s words.
They did not even show any extra body language. The moment they saw the two, they acted immediately.
The five simultaneously released their Stranges. Twisted powers instantly invaded the surrounding space.
At the same time, the black-robed armed personnel on the periphery also moved.
They emerged from behind their respective covers and opened fire.
These cultists wielded short-barreled submachine guns with high rates of fire and fierce firepower. A rain of bullets poured down.
Their shooting accuracy was inferior to that of the Association’s alert group, but they had numbers and dense firepower.
The Spirit Medium Association side returned fire without hesitation.
The two elites engaged the five black-robed Spirit Mediums.
The man swung his right hand again. Silver-white light exploded in the air, slicing the incoming black fog into fragments.
The woman released her Strange.
A pale blue light membrane appeared around her body. Fine electric arcs danced across its surface.
When the dark tentacles struck the light membrane, the arcs immediately conducted back along the tentacles, exploding them segment by segment.
The two worked together with great coordination.
The man handled frontal breakthroughs. His silver-white light acted like a sharp scalpel, precisely cutting apart every attack.
The woman handled defense and counterattacks. The pale blue light membrane enveloped both her and the man. Any attack that drew near would be met with electric arc retaliation.
Although the five black-robed Spirit Mediums had a numerical advantage, their strength and coordination were clearly inferior to the Association’s elites.
Their attacks were disorganized and lacked effective synergy. Their Stranges even interfered with one another. One black-robed figure’s black fog collided with another’s tentacles. The black fog corroded the surface of the tentacles, greatly reducing their offensive power.
Thus, even after fully releasing their Stranges, the black-robed side could not defeat the two opponents.
“Rabble,” Jie Ming inwardly gave his evaluation.
He then looked at the capture team in the rear.
Their combat strength was also formidable.
Although most were ordinary field personnel, a few among them were Spirit Mediums who had sealed Hazard Grade Stranges.
Their marksmanship, tactical coordination, and use of Strange abilities in the firefight far surpassed those of the black-robed armed personnel.
More importantly, there was a gap in equipment between the two sides.
The Association’s combat equipment was quite comprehensive. Their firearms were standardized, with high accuracy and low failure rates. Their bulletproof vests could block most pistol rounds and rifle bullet fragments.
The design of the uniforms themselves was even more ingenious. Every Association uniform emitted a faint fluorescence in the darkness.
This design was very clever.
It ensured that Association members would remain in a “lit” state even if they accidentally fell into darkness—for example, if lighting equipment was destroyed or they were dragged outside the coverage of the lighting arrays.
Although the light was not strong, as long as there was even a little light, the “Night” would not attack.
It was different for the black-robed figures.
Several black-robed individuals had their kerosene lamps shattered during the firefight.
The instant the lamps broke, the darkness around them immediately became thicker.
Fear appeared on their faces. They subconsciously reached for the watches on their wrists.
These were small backup light sources with fluorescent dials that could provide weak illumination in the dark.
The dim yellow light barely dispelled the darkness within about a meter around them.
Their expressions relaxed slightly, but their movements became noticeably more cautious. They no longer dared to boldly lean out and shoot as they had before.
Jie Ming’s gaze swept across the shattered kerosene lamps scattered at the edges of the battlefield.
The black-robed people’s lighting methods were too primitive and overly reliant on a single light source.
Once their kerosene lamps were shattered, they could only rely on the tiny watches on their wrists.
The light from the watches was so weak it could only illuminate less than a meter around them, and the brightness was still decaying over time.
Several black-robed figures had their watches shattered by stray bullets during the fight.
Jie Ming saw their figures stiffen for an instant in the darkness, and then… disappear.
The “Night” had taken them away—cleanly, without a trace.
Overall, the Spirit Medium Association truly lived up to its status as an official organization.
Even when coming to capture a single Threat Grade Strange, they had deployed sufficient combat strength to ensure no one could interfere.
The east side had an elite squad holding the line, and the fighting on the south and north sides was equally intense, indicating that the other two elite squads were also engaged with the black-robed forces there.
A three-sided pincer attack with no dead angles.
And without a doubt, with such a large commotion, reinforcements from the Spirit Medium Association would arrive soon.
However… the other side seemed very familiar with the Association’s arrangements.
If so, they definitely would not have come with only this level of preparation.
Jie Ming shifted his gaze away from the battlefield and looked toward the sea.
That was the western side of the abandoned industrial zone. There was no land route there—only a not-too-steep embankment and the gray, foggy sea surface.
Thick fog surged across the sea, obscuring everything in the distance from view.
Jie Ming’s gaze deepened.