Chapter 73: Fire Within the Lake (Part 1

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The shock grenade exploded behind her and Rui Wen threw herself head first onto Wall Five’s body. The intensely shaking air, her body and her soul all rumbled and swayed.

Yet prior to this Rui Wen had her body and soul maintain the state of upheaval, steadily seizing the tempo. She was like a veteran boatman steering a boat at flying speeds within the enormous gale and waves. Even if she were to face greater stormy seas, she was experienced to the point of proficiency. The coming situation was sheared continuously, leading her to actually cancel out the majority of the attack.

This sort of excellent battle intuition was truly formidable and terrifying.

Rui Wen performed a roll on the shield and then jumped up. She walked out two steps with somewhat of a slight stagger. But Luo Nan’s Format Pyramid flashed outside her body, soon pacifying this little bit of aftermath damage.

Rui Wen twisted her head to look all around, searching for traces of Jack. There was not a soul in sight within the corridor of the apartment. The windows and even half the wall had been smashed to pieces in the stairway. With the Deep Blue Walkers’ large sizes, it wasn’t easy to use the elevator or stairs. So, they had directly smashed through the window and wall to come in directly from the air.

Jack ought to have fled through there.

Heavy footsteps echoed within the room. The gun-wielding Deep Blue Walker, Gun Four, rushed out the door. His magnificent body performed a tactical maneuver from up high in the air and he landed half kneeling onto the ground. He blocked in front of the shield-wielding man, who was unable to get up any longer. The muzzle of the gun locked onto Rui Wen, but he didn’t pull the trigger.

Even though he was a Deep Blue Walker, two of his comrades had fallen in a row. Clearly, fear was born in his heart, restraining him. He had to think about how to proceed in order to control the problem with the ever decreasing number of members on his team.

Rui Wen did not consider him to be of importance. She spoke not a word from beginning to end. She just shot a cold glance at the pitch-black muzzle of the gun and directly leaped down from the smashed window and wall.

This time she really did leap down.

Gun Four didn’t attack. Artillery Six had walked to the front door. He looked at the remains of the exploded shock grenade over here. His mouth was mumbling whispers; it was unknown what he was saying.

Three Deep Blue Walkers were in the narrow staircase and front entrance area, filling the space completely. One was standing. One was kneeling. One was lying down. This kind of tactic-less and undisciplined behavior made the leader, Brain One, truly furious:

"Are you guys just going to give up like this!?”

“In any case, there’s only one third…… Cough! Helmet!”

Wall Five was the one to respond. His air continued to grow weaker after finishing his sentence. Gun Four hurried over to help him remove his helmet in order to avoid Wall Five from choking on his own fresh blood and die.

Gun Four and Artillery Six looked at each other in dismay when seeing Gun Five’s appearance. They then asked: “How’s Fist Two?”

“His right arm’s broken. Part of his heart lost functionality. He’s being prepared to be sent to the hospital…… Wall Five, just take a car and go.”

“Ah, then things turned out alright.”

The problem was, there was no one who was able to laugh at the clumsy jest from Brain One aside from the big-hearted Wall Five.

From the beginning of the attack until now, just over a minute had passed. Rui Wen had gone back and forth between the front door and the balcony, defeating two Deep Blue Walkers and cutting the Burner Jack’s calf. In the end, she withdrew with ease.

Even if their hands and feet were somewhat tied with having the objective of capturing the target alive, what the hell was this feeling that came from collapsing due to a single touch?

Artillery Six tossed away the remains of the shock grenade in passing. It seemed he wasn’t affected by giving up the search for Rui Wen, so he asked: “Are we still going to enter the second position?”

Brain One didn’t respond immediately.

In the end, Gun Four couldn’t help asking: “Are you sure we’re not facing a mutant?”

“Looking at the data, half an hour ago the target slaughtered a Greatmaw Basilisk like slaughtering a chicken…… You should be asking why a transportation mission had suddenly turned into a siege fortification mission!”

His mind had somewhat flown into a rage from the humiliation. He wasn’t the one who ordered the mission to be completed as fast as possible, but all the following tactical deployments came from his own mouth. He couldn’t help being furious from facing today’s complete failure.

“I have the same misgivings as well. But we don’t have the ability to look into who’s responsible for the time being.”

A sudden radio wave entered the internal communications channel of the group of Deep Blue Walkers. Yan Yongbo’s figure occupied a small portion of their tactical visor.

“Captain.”

All registered Deep Blue Walkers of Quantum Corporation were part of the Sky Blue Security1 company. Yan Yongbo held the identity of assistant director in Sky Blue Security. He held the post of Captain with four of the Deep Blue Walker teams in Xia City. He was their immediate superior.

Right now Yan Yongbo was still sitting within the office. His clasped hands blocked half his face. No one could tell whether he was delighted or furious: “I’ve already informed the Government, the Military…… and the Ability User Society that a Human-Faced Arachnid has appeared in Kailan Avenue Park 23. While a team of Deep Blue Walkers from my company were transporting en route, they discovered that a Human-Faced Arachnid had encroached on city residents, so they set out to stop it. The half-complete body of the Human-Faced Arachnid stimulated the potential of an unidentified person, causing their ability to awaken. According to the relevant clauses of the memorandum, I allowed the temporary use of deadly weapons and submitted a report.”

“Emergency authorization?” Brain One, who acted as the team commander, understood Yan Yongbo’s thought process in a flash. It actually came as quite the surprise to him.

The Deep Blue Walkers of Quantum Corporation were not permitted to be deployed with highly deadly weapons under the authority of the government and military. The Deep Blue Walkers specialized with powerful equipment could only stay idle in weapon warehouses or atop of transport vehicles…....

Their group was originally assigned a transport mission where they would need to pass through the wilderness, so they were allocated with the appropriate amount of deadly weapons. The weapons were all stored on the transport ship. The original intention was to equip and use the weapons after arriving in the wilderness to protect themselves. But now they had to be used in accordance with Yan Yongbo’s wishes.

The pressure Yan Yongbo was receiving this time was extremely large. If he didn’t handle the situation well, the emergency authorization wouldn’t pass deliberation. His position in the company would probably slide all the way to the bottom under the pressure from the government and the military.

Yan Yongbo certainly knew the consequences. But the consequences were nothing in comparison to letting Rui Wen escape under his own eyes.

He continued speaking: “Your mission is extremely critical. You need to eliminate the Human-Faced Arachnid and protect the innocent civilians as best you can at the same time……”

“What about those under the arachnid’s control?”

“Do your best to reduce the damage, but your own safety is still the most important. Use the appropriate terrain and choose long-range weapons.”

“Understood.”

Brain One had understood tacitly and terminated the call with Yan Yongbo. He switched to bossing around his underlings: “Let’s carry out the orders then. Luckily there’s a particle cannon in the vehicle. This apartment building looks quite decent. Go mount the particle cannon here. Aim at Park 23. Faster……. Unless you guys want to send Snake Seven, who’s already in place, into the enemy’s mouth?”

Luo Nan’s gaze followed Rui Wen all this time and he followed her to jump down together. Right now the severely limited range of his senses had finally approximately scanned the external properties of the apartment building. His luck was quite decent too. He barely caught a glimpse of the logo of the apartment.

This information was transmitted back to his soul body on the spot. His mind branched out and Luo Nan suddenly discovered that his soul body was already extremely close to the location of the incident.

Before the thought could fade away, the surrounding dusky and muddled area turned radiant in an instant. Luo Nan’s view had changed. The map of his all-encompassing senses unfurled in no time. The range increased dramatically. The environment turned complex. The information was in great quantities. It was as if a hurricane on the ground had surrounded him within.

Then Luo Nan had a certain unprecedented feeling of permeability.

The night wind that brushed past his body was slightly cool.

1. Sky Blue Security is first mentioned in the end of chapter 11. It is said that they are an organization within Quantum Corporation that deals with Quantum Corporation's security.