novelraw Chapter 483: The Cleansing Flame
Chapter 483: The Cleansing Flame
Lu Li's left hand, clutching the shard of the ancient statue, remained raised, bathing the area in light and leaving no shadows for the corruption to hide in.
Thirty silver bullets hovered nearby. Lu Li unholstered his Second Pistol, took aim, and pointed the barrel down into the hold.
There was no need for careful aiming into the writhing mass of Gnashers. Singling out the head of one monster, Lu Li pulled the trigger.
Crack!
A muzzle flash and a plume of smoke erupted. The report of the gunshot echoed off the port walls and faded into the fog.
The exorcists, who had retreated to the bridge, looked back in surprise toward the source of the shot.
Lu Li released the pistol, took up the Third, and aimed at a Gnasher whose wounds were oozing infectious fluid.
The monster's body froze. It was hard to tell if it was dead, but a moment later, it was swallowed by the teeming mass of other Gnashers.
“It’s dead.”
Unfortunately, as Anna observed, killing Gnashers with the other spirit pistols did nothing to replenish his vitality.Lu Li nodded, shifted his aim to the next monster, and squeezed the trigger again.
Crack!
...
The second shot echoed across the port, reaching the exorcists at the bridge.
“Is someone still in there?” one of them asked in astonishment.
No one answered. Gnashers couldn't use spirit pistols. They could only guess whether it was an exorcist or a survivor firing...
A third shot rang out.
The exorcists concluded there was likely more than one person in the port—the intervals between the shots were too short.
Remembering how the Gnashers had flooded the port, one of the exorcists yelled, “The shooting isn’t stopping! Someone’s trapped! We have to help!”
But before anyone could respond, the member of the United Organization who had brought the news spoke up. “That must be the Senior Investigator. He’s in the port.”
The man looked at him, bewildered. “We’ve been here the whole time. No one entered the port.”
The organization member hesitated before replying in a strange tone, “He flew in.”
...
Three spirit pistols hovered near Lu Li. He would fire one, release it, and another would appear. Now there were four.
Anna was managing the Fourth Pistol, the one from the port, reloading it for him. The Atonement was no longer considered one of his primary weapons.
Lu Li took the First Pistol. The rose on its grip bloomed ever so slightly. He aimed at the Gnasher he had wounded with his first shot, which hadn’t yet been consumed by the others, fired, and immediately grabbed the Second Pistol.
With Anna’s help, Lu Li was firing a shot every two to three seconds. Reloading on his own would have taken at least five, and even longer if he had to holster and draw each time.
Crack!
Another shot. Lu Li took the Third. In the pause between the echoing reports, he said, “Your power has grown.”
Anna was silent for a moment before replying, “Yes.”
More and more Gnashers were pouring from the port and tumbling into the hold. There were already six hundred, seven hundred, maybe even more.
The immense mass of monsters writhed in the hold like waves on a stormy sea. It was becoming harder for Lu Li to aim. He missed three times, hitting bodies instead of heads, and the wounded Gnashers vanished beneath the pile of others.
“Let me.”
Anna said. Even though the roses on these pistols hadn't bloomed yet, they still drained Lu Li's mind level.
Lu Li didn’t argue. He unclenched his hand, keeping his grip on the statue shard.
Anna had no intention of firing normally. Shielding the pistols from contamination with her power, she flew down to the hold and pressed the muzzles of all four guns to the heads of four different Gnashers.
BOOM!!!
A deafening volley echoed through the hold. The point-blank shots obliterated the monsters’ heads, and a rain of foul slime showered down.
Treating the epidemic, one bullet at a time.
Half a minute later, Anna returned to Lu Li with the empty pistols and holstered them.
The rose on one of the pistols had almost fully bloomed.
“Almost done.”
Lu Li said. The stream of Gnashers from the port was beginning to thin, and the light from the statue shard was weakening—its perimeter had nearly reached the port’s edge.
Over the next three minutes, fewer and fewer Gnashers emerged from the port, drawn by Lu Li. Finally, the makeshift bridge of decking fell empty.
The shard’s light barely reached the bridge.
Half the cargo ship was once again swallowed by the fog, and the Gnashers in the hold resembled a writhing, viscous sludge.
“Go ahead,” Lu Li said. “Take the ship away from the port and set it on fire.”
Anna nodded. A chilling aura spread from her. She extended a hand toward the hold and clenched her fingers slightly.
An invisible hand plunged into the hold, seizing several dozen Gnashers along with barrels of kerosene and squeezing.
Squelch.
A sound like crushing flesh echoed out, or perhaps it was just an illusion. In any case, when the invisible hand released its grip, kerosene mixed with the pulped bodies, and the writhing Gnashers were instantly coated in the mixture.
Clank... clank... clank...
The heavy anchor, attached to its thick chain, began to rise slowly.
Anna’s hair whipped in the wind. Her soul-freezing aura erupted, and like an unseen force, it began to push the multi-ton cargo ship, filled with Gnashers, away from the pier.
Lu Li took an oil lamp and tossed it into the hold.
In the light of the statue shard, the tiny flame tumbled down, disappearing into the writhing mass of monsters.
Lu Li waited patiently. One second, five seconds, ten...
The ship slowly drifted away from the shore. Suddenly, a flicker of light ignited in the pile of Gnashers, like an ember glowing beneath coals, and then the blaze erupted.
The flammable Gnashers, soaked in kerosene, instantly went up in flames. Their twisted bodies vanished into the raging inferno.
A colossal pillar of fire, dozens of meters high, roared into the sky as if trying to consume everything around it. The heat could be felt even a hundred meters away. The blaze painted the fog crimson, and the glow was visible even from the shore.
It was almost over.
Lu Li tore his gaze from the fire, and he and Anna flew back to the shore.
As the ship moved further away, the intense heat gradually subsided.
Returning to the port, Lu Li informed Rachel, the deputy mayor, and the assembled exorcists that most of the Gnashers had been destroyed.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and thanked Lu Li for his feat. There were likely still some Gnashers left in the port, but the others could handle them now.
Rachel led Lu Li away from the grateful crowd—or rather, rescued him from it. She could see that Lu Li disliked excessive attention.
It was one of the reasons he remained so enigmatic.
“You became a Senior Investigator less than three days ago? I’ve never seen such a fast promotion,” Rachel said to Lu Li in a cafe on the shore, gazing out the window at the bustling members of the United Organization.
The atmosphere on the street had become much lighter than before.
“Anomalies didn’t used to appear this frequently,” Lu Li replied calmly.
Anna sat beside him, casting cold, hostile glances at Rachel.