The tropical storm that had been brewing for three full days finally tore away its last shred of restraint at midnight, unleashing itself with violent fury.
The funeral parlor's main door was cracked open a sliver. The dim light from the everlasting lamps inside swayed violently in the howling wind, casting the rain falling both inside and outside the threshold into a golden hue.
Lin Jie stood alone on the steps before the main door. Every midnight since that night, he had kept vigil here on ti.
In Shuo’e Alley before him stood a team of figures that had appeared out of thin air.
There were ten of them, fully ard and clad in black.
They wore a type of black, standardized trench coat that had clearly undergone special waterproof and bulletproof treatnt. They wore wide-brimd hats, and their faces were covered by smooth, featureless silver tal masks.
Each of them held a short-barreled rifle with a thick barrel connected to a steam backpack on their back. At their waists hung alchemical restraint shackles, equipnt only issued for handling high-risk anomalous events.
I.A.R.C. Internal Investigation Division, directly subordinate Inspector Squad.
These executioners, known as "Gardeners," had finally tracked the scent to their doorstep.
At the front of the squad stood two commanders who were not wearing hats.
One was tall and burly, with short blond hair and typical Anglo-Saxon features. He wore a pair of massive tal gauntlets on his hands, studded with nurous brass exhaust ports and hydraulic linkages.
The other appeared gaunt and gloomy, sporting a Prussian-style mustache. Several silver tal javelins of varying lengths were strapped to his back, and his eyes were as cold and venomous as a snake's.
"Lin Jie, ID AS-091."
The British captain wearing the gauntlets stepped forward. His voice cut clearly through the dense curtain of rain to reach Lin Jie's ears.
He pulled out a docunt sealed with red wax from his coat and casually tossed it onto the waterlogged cobblestone road.
"According to Special Containnt Order No. 73 issued by the Geneva Supre Council, you and the mbers of your special operations team under your command are suspected of multiple Class 1 felonies, including severe violation of the Hunter Code, collusion with radical organizations, and illegal possession of prohibited holy relics."
"Now, I order you to imdiately disarm, put on the magic-suppression shackles, and follow us back to headquarters to undergo mory review and spiritual nature stripping."
mory review.
Within the Association, this term represented a punishnt more terrifying than a death sentence.
It ant completely opening the subject's cerebral cortex and using crude alchemical ans to forcibly browse, even modify and delete, all mories. After that process, the subject often ended up a drooling idiot or a mindless zombie with no sense of self.
Lin Jie took a deep drag of his cigarette, letting the pungent taste of tobacco cycle through his lungs once before slowly exhaling a plu of white smoke.
"Review?"
A mocking smile curled at the corner of Lin Jie's mouth.
"If you could bring this level of efficiency and such sophisticated equipnt when dealing with those man-eating UMAs, I think the world would have been at peace long ago."
"Pity. Your courage and thods seem reserved only for your own people."
"This is a necessary sacrifice to maintain order."
The Inspector Captain showed no anger at Lin Jie's mockery. His eyes remained cold and resolute, the characteristic numbness of soone long brainwashed with the doctrine of absolute obedience.
"Since you refuse to cooperate, we have no choice but to resort to compulsory asures."
He slowly raised his massive tal right fist.
"Execute the purge protocol."
At his command, the ten ordinary Inspectors standing in the back row simultaneously pulled several black tal rods from their backpacks and forcefully drove them into the ground around the street.
"Hummm—"
A low, deeply unsettling hum of infrasound instantly reverberated through the entire alley.
The crystals at the top of the tal rods began to emit a dull, grayish light. In the air, they connected to form a faint gray, hemispherical force field visible to the naked eye, completely enveloping the entire front courtyard of the funeral parlor.
Lin Jie felt his body grow heavy.
It wasn't an increase in gravity, but a sense of suffocation originating from the spiritual plane.
He felt as if sothing was missing from within him. Even the flowing light on the surface of the [Black rcury] trench coat dimd considerably because of it.
"Anti-Magic Force Field."
The lead captain announced the device's na loudly.
This was an area suppression weapon developed by the Association's Technical Departnt specifically to deal with rogue hunters who relied on grotesque armants or their own spiritual abilities. It could forcibly disrupt the activation of etheric energy by emitting interference waves of a specific frequency, thereby rendering most alchemical items and supernatural abilities ineffective.
"Before the rules, your power is worthless."
The Inspector Captain snorted coldly. His tactical boot stomped down, shattering the paving stone beneath. His entire body shot towards Lin Jie like a heavy tank.
The exhaust ports on his right fist suddenly released several jets of high-temperature steam. Using this reactive force, the heavy iron fist was propelled forward with a terrifying speed that broke the sound barrier, aid squarely at Lin Jie's face.
But Lin Jie didn't even make a move to dodge.
He simply counted down silently in his heart.
Three.
Two.
One.
Just as that iron fist was less than ten centiters from the tip of Lin Jie's nose.
The shutters on the second floor of the funeral parlor were suddenly kicked open from the inside.
Evelyn's figure appeared at the window.
In her hand, she held a massive industrial knife switch connected to several thick cables.
Those cables ran all the way to the drainage copper pipes and tal lampposts surrounding the funeral parlor.
This had been a carefully laid counter-trap from the mont they decided to hold their ground at the funeral parlor.
"Let's give you a taste of overload!"
Evelyn yanked down the knife switch.
"Zzzz—BOOM!!!"
An electromagnetic pulse impact invisible to the naked eye.
All the electrical energy stored in the modified battery bank was converted into a pure, powerful magnetic field storm.
The "Anti-Magic Force Field" targeting spiritual frequencies was itself an extrely precise etheric wave interference technology. Under this chaotic, powerful magnetic field impact, the stabilizing crystals inside the black tal rods embedded in the ground shattered one after another due to frequency resonance.
The gray hemispherical force field dissipated like a punctured bubble.
The flow of spiritual nature was restored.
The cold glint in Lin Jie's eyes surged at this mont.
The [Black rcury] trench coat regained its dark blue luster after the return of spiritual nature, its Phase Slip characteristic fully activated.
At the instant the iron fist was about to strike him, his body slid a step to the left.
"Whoosh!"
The heavy fist, trailing steam and a sonic boom, brushed past his ear and struck empty air. The wind from the punch even stung Lin Jie's cheek.
"Now, it's our turn."
Lin Jie flicked his right wrist.
The [Silencer] short knife, trailing a deathly gray-white light, stabbed viciously towards the gap in the armor at the Inspector Captain's exposed armpit—a vulnerability revealed by his over-committed attack.
The lee erupted in full force at this mont.
"William!"
At Lin Jie's low roar.
The funeral parlor's main door was smashed completely open.
A burly figure charged out, radiating the ferocious aura of soone who had just returned from hell.
Having undergone physical rebirth with the [Ghost Mother Flower Nectar], William was currently at the peak condition of his life. The terrifying power contained beneath his nearly bursting linen shirt, swollen with muscle, was enough to tear tigers and leopards apart bare-handed.
Since the [Church Holy Cannon] was not with him, William held a heavy iron shovel in each hand as he crashed into the formation of ordinary Inspectors.
William roared. The iron shovel in his hand whistled through the air, directly smacking a short rifle out of an Inspector's grip. Then, using the montum, he swept it horizontally, smashing another enemy trying to surround him, shield and all, sending him flying backward.
His movents held no flourish, but his thousand-tis-honed military combat techniques, combined with his now superhuman strength, displayed a lethality that struck fear into the heart.
The Inspectors, who relied on equipnt and formation, stood no chance of stopping this enraged veteran once they lost the suppression of the "Anti-Magic Force Field."
Above the battlefield.
Julian had already climbed onto the funeral parlor's roof via a drainpipe.
Even in this raging storm, he remained steadily crouched on the slippery roof tiles. The muzzle of his [Discipline] pistol constantly swept across the battlefield, seeking high-value targets.
His eyes were as cold as the rain pouring from the sky.
"Target locked."
Julian murmured softly.
In his field of vision, countless red threads of causality were marking out the enemies hidden behind their masks, one by one.
"Bang!"
The first shot rang out.
An Inspector who was about to raise alchemical shackles to ambush William from behind had his wrist instantly blossom with a spray of blood. The hand holding the shackles was severed clean off, falling into the muddy water.
"Bang!"
The second shot.
An enemy trying to charge through the funeral parlor's doorway was shot in the knee, screaming as he fell to the ground.
Julian was like a rciless god of death, controlling the rhythm of the entire battlefield from his high vantage point. Any attempt to threaten his teammates would et the inescapable strike of his rules.
But he didn't have much ti to clear out the foot soldiers.
Because a more dangerous enemy had already set his sights on him.
The German Deputy Captain, who had remained at the rear without making a move, showed extre calm when he saw the anti-magic device fail. He drew a silver tal javelin about one ter long from his back.
He glanced at Julian on the roof, a cruel smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Little rat playing with guns."
The muscles on his arm bulged as he assud a standard javelin-throwing posture.
"Die."
"Whoosh!"
The short javelin, trailing a piercing shriek through the air, transford into a silver streak of light aid straight at Julian on the roof.
Julian reacted with extre speed. The mont he saw the other's movent, he had already pulled the trigger, attempting to intercept the javelin mid-air with his unerring bullet.
But sothing bizarre happened.
Just before the bullet was about to hit the javelin, the tal javelin suddenly exploded in mid-air.
It split into dozens of micro-tal spikes, each only as thick as a chopstick and as sharp as a wasp's stinger.
Like a swarm with a collective consciousness, these tal spikes nimbly evaded the intercepting bullet, then covered the roof area where Julian was with even more ferocious speed.
Grotesque Armant — [Swarm Stinger].
This was a long-range killing weapon forged from the core of a certain insect-type UMA with a powerful group consciousness. It possessed the characteristics of splitting, reassembling, and group consciousness.
It was like a storm of death composed of tal, impossible to block by conventional ans.
"Damn it!"
Julian's expression changed drastically.
Faced with this kind of saturation area attack, his [Discipline] could guarantee a hit, but it couldn't shoot down dozens of targets simultaneously.
He could only abandon shooting, rolling backward in an attempt to find cover.
But the tal spikes were too fast. Moreover, they seed to have locked onto Julian's aura, changing direction nimbly in the air.
Just as those sharp spikes were about to turn Julian into a pincushion.
Julian drew the cane from his waist — [Withered Thorns].
"Order... Attenuation!"
He slamd the cane down heavily on the roof tiles.
A spherical force field reeking of decay expanded with him as its center.
The tal spikes that charged into the force field's range suddenly seed to plunge into a pool of viscous glue. Their speed slowed to a crawl, and their sharp tallic nature grew dull under the erosion of the attenuation power.
Seizing this gap, Julian scrambled behind the chimney.
"Thud thud thud thud—"
Several tal spikes embedded themselves in the spot where he had just been standing, shattering that section of the roof to pieces.
"Interesting."
The German Deputy Captain beckoned with his hand. The tal spikes embedded in the roof flew back, reassembling into a complete javelin in his grasp.
"Let's see how long your turtle shell can hold."
He raised the javelin again, preparing to launch a second, even more ferocious attack.
But at that mont, an extrely faint sound of friction ca from the shadows behind him.
That was... the sound of paper rubbing.
The Deputy Captain whirled around.
To his horror, he discovered that dozens of paper effigies that should have been placed inside the funeral parlor were now silently standing behind him, holding sharp bamboo knives.
Su Sanniang was not on the scene.
But her spiritual nature-imbued paper guard squad had beco a deadly ambush force in this chaotic battle.
"What the hell are these things?" The Deputy Captain had no choice but to turn and swing his javelin, sweeping several of the charging paper effigies into shreds.
But these paper effigies felt no pain and feared no death. Even after being sliced apart, their severed limbs and torsos continued to writhe on the ground, trying to trip him up.
This gave Julian the chance to catch his breath and counterattack.
From behind the chimney, he raised [Discipline] once more. This ti, his target was the German's head, now entangled by the paper effigies.
anwhile, on the main battlefield.
The fight between Lin Jie and the British Inspector Captain, nad Cavendish, had reached a fever pitch.
"BOOM!"
A trendous sonic boom exploded between the two of them.
Cavendish's iron fist, spewing high-temperature steam, slamd into the ground where Lin Jie had just been standing. The hard stone pavent shattered and collapsed under the blow, forming a terrifying crater two ters in diater.
Grotesque Armant — [Shockwave Pulverizer].
The core of this equipnt ca from a certain deep-sea crustacean-type UMA that could use sonic vibrations to pulverize its prey.
Through its internal high-pressure steam boost system, it allowed the user's fist speed to break the sound barrier in an instant, generating highly destructive shockwaves and cavitation effects.
Facing a pure power-type opponent, a head-on confrontation was tantamount to suicide.
Lin Jie's gaze remained fixed on the brief mont after Cavendish threw his punch, when the steam backpack was depressurizing and recharging.
That mont lasted less than a second.
But in Lin Jie's eyes, with [ntal Staircase] activated, this second stretched into long minutes.
He could see the vortex trails ford in the air by the white steam jetting from the gauntlet's exhaust ports. He could see the slight relaxation in Cavendish's tensed muscles at this mont. He could even see the bulging veins around the eyes hidden behind the mask, strained from excessive force.
This was an opening.
A fatal opening.
Lin Jie's target was the connecting pipe supplying power to the steam backpack for the gauntlet.
It was a flexible hose woven from brass, responsible for transporting high-pressure steam. Although protected under the armpit, during such a wide, committed attacking motion, it was inevitably exposed.
"Surgery... begins."
Lin Jie's figure left a black afterimage in the curtain of rain.
He shot like a streak of light, skimming low along the ground towards Cavendish's flank.
Cavendish also sensed the danger and tried to retract his right arm to block.
But the force of inertia made his movent half a beat too slow.
A flash of gray-white blade light passed.
The blade of the [Silencer] cut cleanly through the brass hose.
"Shhhhh—!!!"
A sharp hiss of escaping gas erupted.
Scalding high-pressure steam gushed madly from the severed end, directly spraying onto Cavendish's side.
"Ahhh—!!"
Even a strictly trained Inspector Captain couldn't help but let out a scream when faced with a direct blast of several-hundred-degree steam.
Half of his body was instantly scalded. The intense pain threw him off balance, and he staggered to one side.
His iron fist, now deprived of its power source, beca a heavy burden, preventing him from mounting any effective defense.
Lin Jie gave him no chance to catch his breath.
The [Serene Heart] in his hand was practically pressed against Cavendish's chest when he pulled the trigger.
Two bullets pierced the bulletproof trench coat. Though stopped by the soft armor inside from penetrating the heart, the trendous impact still shattered several of Cavendish's ribs. He completely lost the ability to resist, crashing heavily into the muddy water.
"Captain!"
The Deputy Captain, still entangled with Julian and the paper effigy army, saw this scene, and his face turned deathly pale.
The tide had turned.
Their anti-magic device was disabled. Their strongest fighter was down. Not only did their opponents possess grotesque armants on par with their own, but they also had despair-inducing tactical coordination and ho-field advantage.
Continuing the fight would only lead to their complete annihilation; it was rely a matter of ti.
"Retreat!"
He let out a roar of unwillingness.
He threw his javelin, which exploded into a sky-full of tal needle rain, forcing back Julian and the paper effigies attempting to pursue.
Then he turned and ducked into a dark alleyway. Using his familiarity with the terrain, he vanished into the rainy night after a few leaps.
Seeing this, the other ordinary Inspectors also dropped their fallen comrades' bodies and scattered in all directions.
The battle was over.
Lin Jie walked over to Cavendish, who was still groaning in pain on the ground, and looked down at this purger.
His gun was still pointed at the other's head.
"Tell those old masters still dreaming in Geneva."
Lin Jie's voice was as cold as ice.
"We are not trash to be cleaned up at will."
The fear brought back by a living failure held far more deterrent power than a corpse.
Lin Jie holstered his gun and turned to look at his teammates behind him.
William stood there, covered in blood, several knocked-out Inspectors lying at his feet. Evelyn leaned out from the window, giving him a victory sign.
Julian sat on the roof, looking sowhat fatigued, but his eyes were brighter than ever before.
And there were the paper effigies, standing silently in the rain.
They had won.
But this was only the victory of a single skirmish.
Lin Jie understood clearly. After this battle, the last shred of pretense between them and the I.A.R.C. higher-ups had been completely torn away.
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