The Arican cowboy's face still wore that mocking expression.
In his script, the next scene should have been that Oriental panicking and trying to flee.
Then, with his flamboyant marksmanship, he would shoot the man's limbs one by one like shooting skeet, until the man finally knelt in despair and begged for rcy.
But he never expected that the "rat" did not run.
Instead, Lin Jie actively charged toward him!
This completely exceeded the cowboy's comprehension.
After a brief mont of stunned disbelief, the mocking smile at the corner of the cowboy's lips grew even more intense and cruel.
"Stupid Yellow Monkey, since you're in such a hurry to et God, I'll grant your wish!"
The cowboy raised the two silver revolvers in his hands, their muzzles aid at the charging figure, ready to tear him to shreds.
However, just as he was about to pull the trigger, the Iron Cross captain's furious roar ca from the top of the bell tower.
"Forget him! Deal with the two who took the thing first!"
The cowboy's movent froze.
Only then did he realize he had almost been drawn into the rhythm by this Oriental's suicidal charge.
"This Oriental's target isn't . He's just trying to use his own life to draw fire, creating an escape opportunity for his companions!"
Understanding this point, the cowboy imdiately swung his guns, preparing to gun down the two figures who were almost disappearing into the shadows on the western side of the cetery, right beneath the wall.
But he was still a step too late.
And he didn't know that Lin Jie's charge wasn't ant to be a suicide run.
It was to close the distance.
The mont the cowboy swung his guns, Lin Jie's body slid sideways at an impossible angle. The revolver in his hand, pressed close to the ground, spat silent fire.
A bullet precisely struck a weathered tombstone by his feet!
"Boom!"
The tombstone shattered from the bullet's kinetic energy. Rubble of varying sizes shot toward the cowboy's lower body like buckshot!
Caught off guard, the cowboy grunted in pain as several wounds were cut into his calf and ankle by the flying stone shards. His body staggered, nearly falling.
Although the injuries weren't serious, the sudden, intense pain caused him to lose the best opportunity for pursuit.
And Lin Jie, using this as cover, vanished into the complex shadows ford by tombstones and withered trees within the cetery.
"Bastard!"
Clutching his bleeding calf, the cowboy let out an angry curse.
He fired several shots wildly toward the direction Lin Jie disappeared, but aside from kicking up so dust, he achieved nothing.
At the sa ti, the Iron Cross captain atop the bell tower, having also lost the optimal firing angle, could only watch helplessly as Brewer and White Ghost's figures scaled the wall and vanished into the night.
"Worthless!"
The Iron Cross captain angrily slamd his Discipline against the bell tower's railing.
"Couldn't even keep watch over two wounded stragglers!"
The trap he had painstakingly set was torn open by that Oriental using a "cheap trick."
The prey that was already in hand had just flown away.
"What now?"
The Japanese samurai asked in stiff English.
"What now?"
A flash of murderous intent passed through the Iron Cross captain's eyes.
"Of course, we first dig out this rat hiding in the gutter, then crush him inch by inch!"
Although the Plague Heart was taken, as long as they captured this Oriental, they would have a bargaining chip.
Moreover, in his view, dealing with this petty trickster was rely a trivial matter.
"He can't have gone far."
The cowboy said viciously after bandaging his wound.
"This cetery is already sealed off by us. He's like a beetle trapped in a jar. We just need to slowly..."
Before he could finish his sentence, a faint cracking sound suddenly ca from a small tomb chamber not far behind them.
The cowboy imdiately turned around alertly, aiming both guns toward the direction of the sound.
"Co out! I know you're there!"
However, there was no movent from the tomb chamber.
Just as he focused his attention on the tomb, a rusted iron chain on a withered tree branch on the other side suddenly rattled without any wind.
The cowboy's heart tightened, and he imdiately swung his guns toward that withered tree.
"Stop playing ghost gas! If you have the guts, co out and fight fair and square!"
He roared, trying to use his voice to mask the unease rising from deep within.
Only silence answered him.
But then, more sounds began to co from all directions.
A stone rolled off the top of a statue.
A loosely closed iron gate creaked.
The crushed fragnts of a dried leaf rustled against each other.
...
These sounds were all faint, but in the quiet cetery, they seed particularly clear and eerie.
Lin Jie was like an invisible ghost, constantly moving around them, using everything in the environnt to convey a chilling ssage: "I am right beside you. I am everywhere."
"Split up and search! Force him out!"
The Iron Cross captain finally lost his patience.
He leaped down from the bell tower to join the search.
He understood clearly that this kind of psychological pressure was far more draining on one's will than a direct firefight.
The three hunters ford a triangular formation and began carefully searching for the enemy in this maze.
This was a classic, classic battle of ambush and counter-ambush where the weaker overca the stronger.
Lin Jie did not choose a direct confrontation. He turned this complex terrain into his own stage.
Every move he made was calculated for angle and timing.
Every sound created by the silent shots from his Serene Heart was a ticulously designed psychological misdirection.
This tornt of an unseen enemy was more terrifying than a hail of bullets.
The Japanese samurai was the calst of the three.
Gripping the tachi at his waist, he moved silently with small steps between the tombstones.
The Japanese samurai's eyes sharply scanned every inch of shadow around him.
He believed that as long as the opponent was human, they would inevitably reveal a flaw.
Suddenly, his ear twitched slightly.
He heard it.
From behind a large family tomb chamber ca the faint sound of fabric rubbing against a stone wall.
"Right there!"
A flash of sharpness passed through the Japanese samurai's eyes. His body instantly transford into a black shadow as he circled toward that tomb chamber!
His speed was extre. The mont his tachi left its sheath, it had already drawn a tragically beautiful silver arc under the moonlight!
But when he circled to the back of the tomb chamber, all he saw was a tattered trench coat hanging on a tombstone.
The trench coat, stirred by the night breeze, gently rubbed against the stone wall, producing the sound he had just heard.
"Bad! It's a trap!"
A warning alarm blared in the samurai's mind. Without thinking, he tried to retreat.
But it was already too late.
A cold presence pressed against the back of his neck.
He didn't even sense how the other person had appeared behind him.
That person seed to have grown out of the shadows.
The Japanese samurai's reaction was also extrely fast.
He abandoned retreating, rolling forward instead. Simultaneously, he swung his blade backhand, slashing fiercely toward the lethal presence behind him!
"Withered Cicada, Extinction Slash."
This was his Grotesque Armant, Withered Cicada.
This blade's core ability was a bizarre concept—Extinction.
Objects struck by this blade would have the life force or spiritual nature contained within them forcibly extinguished.
Returned to their most primitive state.
It was a weapon specifically designed to counter UMAs or armants possessing special abilities.
The Japanese samurai believed that as long as this slash could touch the opponent, even just grazing the skin, it would render that Oriental combat ineffective.
However, his seemingly certain slash cut through empty air.
As he turned, Lin Jie's body had already shifted half a step to the side.
It was precisely this half-step distance that allowed him to perfectly evade the edge of Withered Cicada.
At the sa ti, Lin Jie's folding scalpel, Silencer, finally sang its first aria in the night.
A flash of blade light ca and went.
So fast the samurai couldn't see how the other had struck.
He only felt an extrely slight, stinging sensation in his right wrist, the one tightly gripping Withered Cicada.
And then...
There was no 'and then.'
The Japanese samurai discovered in horror that his right hand had suddenly beco utterly unfamiliar.
He could clearly see his own fingers still tightly gripping the hilt, but he couldn't feel any temperature, nor the familiar texture of the hilt.
He wanted his fingers to loosen, or to grip tighter, but that hand was like a piece of wood that didn't belong to him, utterly unresponsive to any command from his brain.
Sensory loss!
The Japanese samurai had lost control over his own weapon!
"You... what did you do?!" he let out a shriek, his other, empty hand instinctively reaching for the wakizashi at his waist.
But Lin Jie would never give him that chance.
After succeeding with the first strike, Lin Jie didn't pause. His entire offensive unfolded like a storm!
The Serene Heart in his left hand and the Silencer short blade in his right ford an efficient, coordinated attack.
Every shot from the revolver was to block the samurai's dodging routes or attack the ground beneath his feet, using rubble to disrupt his balance.
anwhile, the Silencer in his right hand slashed each ti from tricky angles toward various joints of the Japanese samurai's body!
The Japanese samurai was stunned.
He possessed exquisite swordsmanship, but under the circumstances of losing his dominant hand and being shrouded in the fear of "sensory loss," he couldn't unleash his true strength at all.
The samurai could only clumsily wave his wakizashi with his other hand, performing futile blocks.
But Lin Jie's attacks clung to him like a bone-devouring maggot, impossible to shake off.
What made the samurai feel even more despairing was that, as ti passed, the parts of his body grazed by Silencer also began to lose sensation one by one.
First the left shoulder, then the right knee, and finally the neck...
He felt as if he were being dismbered piece by piece.
Not physical dismbernt, but a stripping away of his senses.
This feeling was ten thousand tis more terrifying than being directly killed!
"No... please don't..."
The Japanese samurai's ntal defenses collapsed.
He abandoned resistance, threw away the wakizashi in his hand, turned, and tried to flee.
But Lin Jie's icy voice sounded behind him.
"I said, none of you are leaving."
Silencer's blade flashed one last ti, slicing open the samurai's throat.
The fearful light in the Japanese samurai's eyes gradually faded.
His body swayed, then finally fell heavily among the cold tombstones.
Lin Jie wiped the blood staining Silencer clean on the dead man's clothes.
Then, he lted back into the deep, dark cetery once more.
The counterattack had only just begun.
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