The Extremis Virus Again

At the entrance of the underground parking garage, two business vans came to a halt, stopped only by two corpses lying in the gateway. The pungent stench of blood was strong enough to be smelled even from inside the vehicles.

Leaning his head out the window to inspect the bodies, the crew-cut man in the lead sneered, "These wastes. No wonder they're stuck in this slum; they can't even handle a simple task like this."

But after the outburst, he still had to call the AI company headquarters to report.

"Boss, it seems the Russians have run into trouble... Yes, I understand, the hostages are the priority... Fine, I will bring them back."

After a brief exchange, the crew-cut man hung up and spoke to his driver: "Drive straight in."

"Mr. Seven, the barrier at the entrance hasn't..."

The driver only managed half a sentence before being cut off by the man called Seven: "Idiot, I told you to drive straight in!"

A flash of red light flickered in the dark cabin, followed by a sudden wave of heat.

The engines roared to life, and the two vans surged into the underground parking garage one after the other. The barrier was smashed to pieces, and the two corpses on the ground were crushed under the tires until they were barely recognizable as human.

Seven did not know that the moment his vehicles reached the entrance, they were already being locked onto by the security cameras controlled by Violet, with all data relayed directly to Luo Xia's Tactical Goggles.

At this moment, Luo Xia was hiding behind a load-bearing pillar on the first basement level, while Matt had already led Harry and the old man away through a different exit.

Seeing the two vans charge in from the entrance, Luo Xia let out a sigh of relief.

Good, these people didn't run to the other exit to block the path. Either they're stupid, or they simply didn't know there were two exits. This was Luo Xia's assessment of the newcomers.

Regardless of which it was, it was good news for Luo Xia, as it greatly increased the chances of Matt and the others escaping safely.

The two roaring vans charged into the parking garage, but the moment they entered, all the lights went dark. The sudden blackout startled them; this was naturally Violet's handiwork—overloading the circuit to blow the main breaker was no difficult task.

Just as the vehicles prepared to switch on their high beams, Luo Xia suddenly lunged out from behind the pillar. With a flick of his wrist, he fired four consecutive shots from his Pulse Pistol, shattering the headlights of both vans and plunging the surroundings back into total darkness.

Darkness enveloped everyone, but for Luo Xia, equipped with his Tactical Goggles, this was his home turf.

In the pitch black, the men could no longer drive forward, so they were forced to exit the vehicles and use their tactical flashlights for illumination.

A series of rapid-fire gunshots erupted, with the men firing at any shadow they saw. The Russians who had been left as vegetables by Li Bai suffered a miserable fate; anyone caught in the beam of a flashlight was riddled with holes.

They hadn't lost their lives to the hands of justice-seekers like Luo Xia, but were instead killed by their own accomplices—a truly profound irony.

Through the X-ray vision of his Tactical Goggles, Luo Xia hid behind the pillar and clearly assessed the situation.

There were ten men in total, all looking like heavily armed, burly thugs. Judging by their disciplined movement and coordinated teamwork, they were either professional mercenaries or special forces—the kind of ruthless characters who specialized in killing.

If this were his past life, even if Luo Xia's own special forces unit had fought alongside him, they wouldn't have dared to claim an easy victory; even if they won, the losses would likely have been heavy.

Yet, now that Luo Xia had to face this heavily armed squad alone, he felt not a shred of fear, but rather a sense of absolute confidence in his victory.

All of this stemmed from the equipment he wore.

The Tactical Goggles rendered Luo Xia completely immune to the darkness; the enemy was exposed while he remained hidden, the fundamental advantage of fighting a superior force. Before these men had charged down, Luo Xia had stripped half a car to craft himself a new Sensor Glove. He had given one to Dr. Connors earlier, and now he had finally replaced it.

The Sensor Glove significantly boosted the strength of Luo Xia's hands, finally allowing him to dual-wield heavy Pulse Pistols.

With the rapid-fire power of the Pulse Pistols, he could dump all eighty rounds of ammunition in one go—enough to blow up a tank, let alone flesh and blood.

And that wasn't all. Luo Xia holstered his Pulse Pistols, dug his hands into the concrete pillar, and began to climb. Although the militants heard the noise and sprayed the pillar with gunfire, ordinary bullets could never penetrate the concrete to harm Luo Xia.

Once he reached a height of three meters, Luo Xia kicked off the pillar and performed a backflip onto the ceiling. At the same time, he drew his dual pistols and opened fire on the crowd below.

Pulse energy erupted in a rapid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh, dumping nearly half his ammunition in less than two seconds.

Furthermore, with the aid of his Tactical Goggles, Luo Xia activated his Target Lock ability. The jittering trajectory precisely delivered the pulse energy rounds to the front of every single militant.

By the time Luo Xia landed steadily on the ground, the area where the militants stood had been transformed into a bloody, mangled Asura field.

The power of a single pulse energy round was less than a grenade, but the concentrated explosion of nearly forty rounds turned the ten-man squad into a pile of mangled gore.

After landing, Luo Xia didn't let his guard down; he continued firing until the magazines were empty.

Through the lens of his Tactical Goggles, all the militants were unrecognizable. Such injuries were absolutely fatal for humans; there was no need for rescue.

However, that was only true for humans.

Just as Luo Xia blew the smoke from his gun barrels, intending to strike a cool pose, a ball of fiery red light appeared in the darkness.

Through his Tactical Goggles, Luo Xia could see clearly that the heat of this fire was over a thousand degrees.

Extremis Virus again! Luo Xia reacted instantly, immediately reloading his Pulse Pistols, determined to blast this guy into pieces before he could recover.

However, the thousand-degree heat ignited the pile of corpses; human fat and clothing caught fire, creating a massive blaze.

Amidst the flames, Luo Xia could only fire based on his previous intuition, unable to use the Tactical Goggles to lock on. After all, he couldn't see clearly, nor could he detect the target's exact position.

Even more troublesome was that the spreading inferno began to detonate the bullets and grenades carried by the militants.

Under normal circumstances, ordinary fire wouldn't be hot enough to detonate bullets and grenades, but it was clear that the heat generated by the Extremis Virus was no ordinary flame—it was more exaggerated than the heat of a steel-smelting furnace.

Therefore, when the first magazine exploded, Luo Xia knew he couldn't stay here any longer and scrambled toward the second basement level.

Sure enough, just as he reached the second level, a chain reaction of secondary explosions occurred above. While it wasn't enough to collapse the entire floor, the shockwave sent Luo Xia flying, leaving him unable to recover for quite some time.

Back in the inferno on the first basement level, a mangled human figure slowly stood up. The missing parts of his body began to regenerate, eventually reshaping into the likeness of the crew-cut man, Seven.