CHENG DU threw a desperate haymaker, but GAO TIANFANG simply backhanded him out of the air like swatting a fly.
Thwack! CHENG DU slammed into the concrete, spitting a thick wad of blood as his induced vitality instantly collapsed.
GAO TIANFANG didn't rush to finish him off. Instead, a grotesque smirk stretched across his battered face.
"I thought you two insects only knew how to scurry away. I didn't expect you to actually surprise me. Tell me what that thing was, and where you got it, and I'll grant you a quick death."
"Shameless bastard. Picking up a used Emergency Suppository and shoving it right in." SU JIN licked the copper-tasting blood from his lips, his boots scraping backward toward the window.
"Roar... Still stalling for time. Sunlight alters your strength. With the dawn breaking, your power should be hitting its peak," GAO TIANFANG rumbled with icy indifference. "But even your absolute zenith can't match my previous state. Do you honestly think you still have a chance?"
"Stop dragging this out. If you don't talk... I will flay you alive until you beg for hell!"
"Is that right... Trust me, you don't want to know where that thing has been." SU JIN's chilling gaze drifted right past GAO TIANFANG's massive shoulders, locking onto something on the far side of the room.
Slumped in the rubble, CHENG DU squinted through a haze of pain, trying to focus on his boss.
Outside, the blazing sun finally crested the horizon, unleashing a torrent of golden rays across the ruined world.
In that moment, SU JIN slowly spread his arms wide.
Back turned to the dawn, he bathed entirely in the brilliant light!
The musculature across his back rippled and expanded, bulging outward like the silhouette of a waking demon.
A rush of boiling adrenaline slammed into his cortex, and raw, unadulterated kinetic force rampaged through his expanding veins.
In mere seconds, his entire physical frame swelled a full size larger. Dense, steel-cable muscles gleamed beneath the morning sun.
"What exactly is it?! Where did you get it? Speak!" GAO TIANFANG demanded, taking a heavy step forward.
"Go ask your mother in hell.. Hehehehahahaha!" SU JIN threw his head back, his manic laughter echoing off the concrete.
"You truly aren't afraid of dying. Confident in your little trick, aren't you?" GAO TIANFANG's eyes froze over, his voice vibrating with lethal intent. "Basking in a mere sliver of sunlight, how much can your trash ability really output? Today, I will educate you before I kill you."
"You're wrong!" SU JIN snapped his hand forward, his voice a feral bark. "I'm not the one dying today."
"In fact... butchering you won't even take a single second."
"CHENG DU, USE THE ULTIMATE MOVE!!" SU JIN roared explosively. Leaving two craters pulverized into the concrete floor, he kicked off the wall and launched himself directly at the monster.
Reacting on pure instinct, CHENG DU threw his broken body into a low slide, aiming right for GAO TIANFANG's legs.
Triggered by the shout of "ultimate move," GAO TIANFANG instinctively diverted his attention, stomping down toward the sliding CHENG DU to crush the perceived threat.
It was a feint. SU JIN dropped his center of gravity, accelerating into a blur of pure kinetic violence, and tackled GAO TIANFANG squarely in the midsection, launching the massive behemoth entirely off the ground!
The two of them smashed through the drywall, blasted across the hallway, and careened straight into an adjacent room.
This room was windowless and utterly devoid of sunlight, but SU JIN's solar-charged momentum hadn't even begun to decay.
Grinding his teeth so hard his gums bled, SU JIN twisted his torso in mid-air, using the far wall as a springboard. From the corner of his eye, a manic glimmer of salvation locked onto the massive machine dominating the room!
The MRI machine was emitting a deep, rhythmic hum!
"With such weak power, you dare to challenge.. URGH AHH!!!" GAO TIANFANG's arrogant taunt was violently severed as SU JIN bear-hugged him and bodily shoved him straight into the cylindrical bore of the scanner.
An indescribable agony detonated deep within GAO TIANFANG's tailbone. It felt as though a dozen steel meat-hooks had snagged his pelvic cavity and violently ripped it inside out.
Caught in the crossfire of a ten-thousand-fold magnetic field, the metallic components of the Emergency Suppository were instantly subjected to an astronomical gravitational pull.
Both men crashed heavily against the curved interior casing of the machine.
The alien, hyper-dense casing of the Emergency Suppository didn't just maintain its lethal momentum; the magnetic field amplified it exponentially!
Superheated by the friction, the heavy metal plug blasted straight through GAO TIANFANG's sacrum like a bullet. Driven by the monster's thrashing muscles, the pulverized bone fragments acted like an industrial grinding wheel, shredding the nerve clusters along his spine into bloody confetti!
GAO TIANFANG unleashed a shriek unlike anything human. His eyes rolled back into his skull as shock overwhelmed his system, accompanied by a catastrophic hemorrhage from his groin and total, humiliating loss of bladder control.
SU JIN showed zero mercy. He viciously drove his knees into the mutating flesh again and again, sending a geyser of pulverized meat and viscous fluid spraying out of the MRI bore.
Blinded by the torturous pain, GAO TIANFANG clamped his massive arms around SU JIN's waist in a death grip, instantly snapping several of the manager's ribs with a sickening crunch.
Ignoring the structural failure of his own ribcage, SU JIN plunged both thumbs deep into GAO TIANFANG's eye sockets, violently gouging and stirring the ocular fluid.
Blood bubbled past SU JIN's lips, but he didn't care. He was utterly numb to the agony, entirely consumed by a manic, freezing tide of pure murderous intent!
"Can you block my Suppository Electromagnetic Cannon?! Soldier! King!"
...
Up on the rooftop, FU QINGDAI slammed the heavy access door open.
LIANG CUI was still relentlessly hunting her from behind, though with both eyes ruined and sightless, the crazed woman's pace had slowed significantly.
The moment her boots hit the rooftop concrete, FU QINGDAI bolted straight for the ledge and peered over the dizzying drop.
Far below, FU HU stood pacing with agonizing anxiety. His squad members were scattered into defensive formations, holding wide perimeters, though she noticed their numbers seemed slightly depleted.
A flicker of profound relief washed over FU QINGDAI's pristine features.
Her father was still downstairs. He hadn't rushed blindly into the trap; he must have deduced the situation.
The missing personnel were undoubtedly deployed to extract her, likely infiltrating the lower levels of the residential complex.
By tracking the brass casings she had deliberately scattered during her tactical retreat, they could triangulate exactly which unit she was cornered in.
After quickly assessing the battlefield below, FU QINGDAI reached over her shoulder toward her quiver...
...
Down in the courtyard, FU HU was panting heavily, his chest burning with suffocating dread.
His daughter was missing in action. The situation was completely unclear.
But a quick tactical assessment of the chaos painted a terrifying picture... it was an ambush.
FU QINGDAI wasn't an impulsive rookie who lacked strategic vision. If she broke formation and ran off alone, it was specifically to kite a high-threat target away from the main group.
And there was only one target horrifying enough that she felt she had to isolate it!
That succubus from earlier. The female infected capable of chemically hijacking men. Left unchecked, that single monster could slaughter the entire evacuation center.
The female guards didn't have the combat specs to handle her, and the male guards were active liabilities. He couldn't personally abandon his post, as he had to coordinate the perimeter defense.
All he could do was dispatch a squad of his most disciplined veterans into the building for a search and rescue... though he grimly acknowledged the odds of success were terribly low.
ZHANG WAN stood trembling beside him, looking like a shattered husk of a woman. The sheer stress was giving FU HU bleeding ulcers.
Every paternal instinct screamed at him to breach the building... but he couldn't condemn the hundreds of helpless civilians huddled behind him to death.
Right as the paralyzing dilemma threatened to break his resolve, a single arrow plummeted from the sky, shattering against the pavement.
FU HU whipped his head upward. Upon spotting that familiar, elegant silhouette standing on the edge of the roof, his bloodshot eyes flared with hope!
"Qing.. Everyone, maintain absolute silence!" Catching sight of FU QINGDAI pressing a slender finger to her lips, FU HU frantically signaled his troops to hold tight.
With cold military precision, FU QINGDAI flashed two rapid tactical hand signals down at him, before her figure vanished from the ledge.
...
The heavy rooftop door was blasted open once again. LIANG CUI staggered onto the roof, her hair a matted, bloody mess.
A macabre, ear-to-ear grin split her ruined face. "Run, you little bitch, keep running! Let's see where you can scurry off to now!"
FU QINGDAI calmly walked backward, her right hand resting steadily on the quiver strapped to her back.
LIANG CUI tracked the sound of her footsteps flawlessly. "Don't think I can't smell exactly what you're plotting. You think just because I'm blind, you can trick me into tumbling off a ledge to my death?!"
"So naive... My senses are a hundred times sharper than yours. Sight is a crutch. In a minute, I'm going to snap all four of your limbs, skin you alive, and make you watch as I feast on your warm intestines..."
The carbon-fiber shaft scraped softly as it was drawn from the quiver. FU QINGDAI's voice echoed, cold and unbothered as a winter breeze.
"At this range, a single arrow is more than enough to end your life."
"An arrow? Hehehe, I'd like to see you try. Let's see if I catch it." LIANG CUI sneered, lazily flexing her bloodstained claws in the empty air. "You landing a hit earlier was pure, dumb luck."
"If your first shot doesn't kill me, I'll rip your throat out."
FU QINGDAI abruptly rushed forward with a swift stutter-step. Startled, LIANG CUI immediately backpedaled, tilting her ear toward the threat, muscles coiled like a spring.
"Shoot! What's wrong, too scared?!"
Watching LIANG CUI back herself perfectly onto the absolute edge of the roof without realizing it, FU QINGDAI slowly lowered her bow.
"You're already dead... you ignorant trash!"
"What?"
"FIRE!!!"
A deafening chorus of assault rifles erupted from the courtyard below. In a fraction of a second, LIANG CUI's body was shredded into a grotesque fountain of exploding blood and pulverized meat.
The riddled corpse tipped backward into the abyss, plummeting stories down before slamming heavily into the pavement. A look of total, uncomprehending bewilderment remained permanently frozen on her mutilated face.
FU QINGDAI slowly stepped forward, peering over the ledge to confirm the kill.
LIANG CUI was reduced to a mangled smear on the concrete. Not a shred of possibility for survival remained.
The huddled masses below stared up in absolute awe. The morning sun cast a brilliant, blinding halo around FU QINGDAI, making her look indescribably sacred.
"Is that incredible woman really our little girl?" FU HU wrapped his arm around ZHANG WAN, a proud, exhausted grin finally breaking through his stoic facade.
High above, FU QINGDAI let out a long, shuddering breath, tilting her head back to look at the vast sky.
There was no glorious euphoria of victory. Her chest just felt hollow, burdened by the messy, traumatic reality of surviving another nightmare.
It wasn't until her eyes caught a bizarre, unnatural cluster of golden clouds gathering on the distant horizon that she snapped back to reality.
Shaking off the encroaching melancholy, FU QINGDAI tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, stared down at the stunned survivors waiting for her orders, and took a deep, steadying breath.
"Dawn has broken. Pack it up, we move out!"