The thoughts that came through the mark were chaotic and disjointed.
They were like a madman babbling amid a storm, or the storm itself howling out something incomprehensible.
As those frenzied, tangled thoughts repeated endlessly, they eroded He Ao's mind like a contaminant.
This madness was unlike anything He Ao had encountered in anyone he had marked before. Amid the chaos, he could hear more than just the voice of Black Snake before him.
As he listened, He Ao glanced around.
Dozens of puppet-like figures were closing in fast. Their eyes remained dull and lifeless, but they had taken up positions, weaving past one another to form a wide circle.
At its center stood He Ao and Black Snake, the gaunt woman with enormous phantom snake heads looming behind her.
Beyond the circle, two or three sniper scopes seemed to glint in the silent darkness.
Farther away, atop what looked like a fortified building, some kind of gun barrel was adjusting its angle.
Black Snake possessed considerable strength for a B-class, only a little weaker than He Ao when he activated Hyper-memory and used his fist technique.
The puppets whose souls were entwined with little black snakes could fight at a pseudo-C-class level. Individually, they posed little threat to He Ao, but a coordinated swarm could pin him down and hurt him.
Farther away, gang members operated Heavy Gauss Sniper Rifles and a Railgun in support. Those weapons could injure a C-class.
If Lynn's body had truly been B-class, these weapons would only have held him back. That was probably how Black Snake had intended to use them.
But Lynn was merely a C-class—and, because something had gone wrong with his advancement, frailer than an ordinary one.
Hyper-memory and the fist technique could raise He Ao's strength only briefly. They