Muzzle flashes strobed like a frantic heartbeat. Fu Qingdai ground her teeth together, sweeping her assault rifle in a wide, desperate arc.
Her combat intuition was usually razor-sharp, but the sheer, suffocating density of the enemy's malice washed over her like a tidal wave, blinding her radar.
Therefore, visual observation was still the most reliable metric.
Time seemed to crawl. The moonlight bleeding through the smog was unnervingly crisp, casting long, sharp shadows.
In that pale glow, she tracked a shadowy silhouette violently zigzagging through the pitch black.
Brass casings rained down around her, a full magazine practically spent, yet the creature showed absolutely zero signs of stopping.
It was barely thirty yards away. How the hell was she missing? This was utter bullshit—movies never showed this part!
Cold sweat stung her eyes. She kept her finger pinned to the trigger, moving backward toward the building's entrance.
Finally, the rifle clicked empty. Liang Cui’s frenzied shriek tore through the alley: "You little bastard... out of bullets, aren't you?! Let's see you stop me now!"
Fu Qingdai didn't stop backpedaling, her right hand blindly reaching behind her back.
That freezing wave of murderous intent surged closer. Fifteen yards. Ten. Eight. Six.
At a mere five yards, Fu Qingdai abruptly whipped out the pump-action shotgun she’d slung over her shoulder, racked it, and squeezed the trigger.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!
In a single, fluid breath, she emptied the tube. She micro-adjusted her aim with every violent recoil, painting the entire zone of approaching malice with a dense cloud of buckshot.
A wet, meaty thud echoed from the dark, followed immediately by Liang Cui’s throat-tearing shriek and a fresh barrage of vitriol.
"You little bitch, you're courting death!!"
"You stinking whore, you really think you can take me?! Have you been eating shit all day, or are you just naturally brain-dead?!"
With her weapon dry, Fu Qingdai didn't even bother checking her work. She flipped a middle finger to the dark, spun on her heel, and sprinted into the building.
Liang Cui was definitely still breathing, but she was bleeding. The close quarters inside the building would be the real killing ground!
Meanwhile, in the dimly lit corridor of the Longlin Skyscraper's ninety-eighth floor.
"Interesting. Truly interesting." Gao Tianfang looked down his nose at Su Jin, a dark, amused smirk twisting his lips.
"I’ve butchered a lot of people, but none of them ever actually held my interest. Do try to entertain me. Before I rip you apart, tell me your name."
Su Jin gave a faint, exhausted smile. "This might be the last name you ever hear. Remember it well. I am..."
He cut himself off mid-sentence!
Both of his hands snapped behind his back. He ditched his useless steel knife, his fingers closing around a tightly bundled plastic bag taped to his lower spine.
His other hand immediately clamped onto the pistol grip of his shotgun.
He viciously hurled the bag of quicklime straight at Gao Tianfang’s face.
In the exact same heartbeat, the shotgun cleared his holster and he pulled the trigger!
BANG! A lethal spread of pellets shredded the plastic mid-air, creating a massive, blinding white cloud of chemical powder that washed right over his target.
But the instant Su Jin flinched, Gao Tianfang had already brought a massive arm up to guard his eyes.
The buckshot hammered into him, ripping his black tactical gear to absolute shreds.
But Gao Tianfang himself... didn't even rock back on his heels.
Was he completely immune to gunfire?
The brief spark of manic triumph on Su Jin's face instantly flatlined.
"Your petty corporate tricks are useless." Gao Tianfang kept his arm locked over his eyes, while his free hand grabbed the ruined remnants of his tactical uniform and ripped them completely away.
With the sickening sound of tearing fabric, a horrifying anatomy was laid bare.
Gao Tianfang had completely forfeited his humanity. Every inch of normal skin had been overtaken by thick, jagged plates of bone armor.
There were no weak spots at the joints; interlocking, razor-sharp bone scales covered his elbows and knees, allowing for utterly unrestricted, fluid movement.
His eyes... his eyes were the only fleshy target left!
Standard buckshot was useless here. But maybe the Silver Gun could punch through that carapace.
His brain crunched the tactical data in a fraction of a second. Su Jin racked the shotgun and fired again, aiming explicitly for the monster's skull.
Gao Tianfang just kept his guard up and casually strolled forward, ignoring the deafening blasts.
"You think my eyes are a fatal flaw? I just prefer not to deal with the stinging... What else is in your pathetic little playbook? Show me your ability."
Su Jin scrambled backward, his pulse pounding furiously in his ears.
This freak was toying with him like an HR rep dragging out a termination meeting. And worse, he was right—the ammo was running dry.
Pivoting his strategy, Su Jin snapped his barrel up and systematically blasted the overhead fluorescent tubes. Showers of sparks and glass rained down as the corridor plunged into suffocating darkness.
With the shadows deepening, his retreating speed exponentially spiked.
Gao Tianfang’s ears twitched at the shifting air currents. His grin widened.
"So, your mutation falls under the same category as mine."
"But you're a slave to the lighting... your physical stats violently fluctuate based on mere lumens. Out of every power I've analyzed, yours is by far the most unreliable garbage."
After saying this, Gao Tianfang finally dropped his guard, exposing a hideous, teeth-baring sneer. His heavily armored legs kicked off with enough explosive force to generate a gale, charging down the hallway like a runaway Abrams tank.
The sheer kinetic violence of the man's approach sucked the oxygen straight out of Su Jin's lungs.
Driven by pure feral survival instinct, Su Jin kicked off the floor, sprinting vertically up the drywall to hang suspended above the kill zone.
"Absolutely worthless!!" Gao Tianfang roared, leaping off the ground with a maniacal cackle and throwing a devastating, armor-plated right hook.
The sledgehammer fist connected dead center with Su Jin's chest!
With a sickening crack of bone and drywall, Su Jin was launched backward like a ragdoll. He cratered into the far wall, hawked up a mouthful of copper-tasting blood, and crumpled heavily to the floor.
His shirt was utterly shredded. The reinforced briefcase he had meticulously rigged to act as chest armor tore loose and clattered onto the linoleum.
Gao Tianfang landed heavily, halting his assault.
A smug, mocking sneer on his face, he cracked his neck and simply waited for Su Jin to peel himself off the floor.
"Trying to out-stat me by playing with the light switches? Too naive... You'd better start showing me some real ROI, otherwise this whole evaluation has been a complete waste of my time."
Su Jin remained on his knees, hacking up clots of blood. A high-pitched ringing drowned out his hearing, his vision blurring in and out of focus.
Jesus Christ. He was way too strong. If that briefcase hadn't acted as a makeshift plate carrier, his ribs would be shrapnel in his heart right now.
The bastard had zero exploitable structural flaws. If he could manage to plunge the entire floor into pitch blackness, maybe—just maybe—he could kite him with enough speed to survive.
But at this rate, his operational lifespan was about to hit zero.
The fact that he was still breathing wasn't some cliché cat-and-mouse trope. This psychopath was gathering data. He wanted to vivisect his ability in real-time.
Using the wall for support, Su Jin staggered upright. He haphazardly smeared the blood off his chin with the back of his hand and let out a broken, raspy chuckle.
"Alright, alright, take it easy, big guy. No need to rush deadlines. I can play this game all day."
Gao Tianfang narrowed his eyes, tilted his head... and genuinely laughed.
In that microsecond of distraction, Su Jin fast-drew the Silver Gun from his hip, leveled it, and double-tapped center mass.
He wasn't stupid. In terms of raw combat metrics and physical hardware, Gao Tianfang completely outclassed him.
The freak also kept an incredibly tight guard around his skull.
A headshot was the optimal play, but the risk of a miss or a ricochet off an armored forearm was statistically unacceptable.
The torso was a massive, unmissable target.
CRACK! CRACK! Gao Tianfang, who hadn't even bothered to brace himself, violently flinched, his smug expression shattering!
The impregnable bone armor protecting his sternum exploded outward, sending jagged shrapnel flying across the hallway.
Two massive, jagged craters had been excavated from his chest, arterial blood spraying furiously into the air.
Finally registering actual mortal danger, Gao Tianfang lunged into an adjacent office. Pressing his back firmly against the doorframe, he hissed in shock:
"What the hell kind of gun is that?!"
"The kind that files your death certificate! Come the fuck out!" Su Jin roared, his adrenaline fully hijacking his exhausted nervous system.
He didn't even glance at his dropped briefcase, abandoning his armor as he sprinted madly toward the fire escape.
He burst into the stairwell, nearly bowling over Cheng Du, who was hustling up the steps with a glaring flashlight.
Cheng Du’s face lit up with idiotic hope. "Boss! Did you smoke him?"
"Smoke my ass! What the hell are you doing back here?! Run! Fucking RUN!!" Su Jin shrieked, practically hauling Cheng Du by his collar as they plunged down the steps. "Who authorized your return?! Where are the old folks?!"
"I stuffed 'em in the car and doubled back! You can't take Gao Tianfang by yourself, boss. Without my backup, your ass is grass!"
The two of them exchanged panicked shouts, their boots hammering against the concrete stairs.
They had barely dropped one floor when the heavy, booming thuds of armored footsteps echoed from the landing above.
Su Jin whipped his head up, scanning the switchback stairs above, then glared down into the abyss below.
Bad strategy. They couldn't get bottlenecked in the stairwell. If that tank caught up to them here, they’d be crushed like bugs in a trash compactor.
Doing the math in an instant, Su Jin violently yanked Cheng Du sideways, desperately dragging him through the fire doors and into the maintenance floor.