Pursuit

Pursuit

Hong Mo's injuries were severe—extremely severe. At least half of his internal organs had been shattered. If such injuries had been inflicted on anyone else, they would have died several times over. But Hong Mo was fine; his internal organs were even slowly recovering.

Rapid regeneration truly was an immensely powerful ability. Having relied on it to save his life time and again, Hong Mo had long since lost his initial resentment toward it. Instead, he was immensely grateful for it.

What Hong Mo needed most urgently now was food—enough food, food rich in energy. Regeneration did not happen out of thin air; it was cellular division, and it required vast amounts of matter and energy.

Having just left the battlefield, Hong Mo raided a nearby barbecue restaurant for a huge pile of food: lamb, beef, pork, dog meat, snake meat... raw, cooked... vegetables, fruit. It had to be said that the restaurant's ingredients were truly plentiful.

This barbecue restaurant was the closest shop to the battlefield that had not been caught up in the destruction. When the young female workers inside saw Hong Mo rush in covered in blood, how could they possibly dare stop him? They could only watch as Hong Mo frantically looted food. Some of the fully cooked and half-cooked food went straight into his mouth. Then came the raw food, which Hong Mo swallowed in huge mouthfuls without hesitation.

Lingyin helped pass food to Hong Mo. The instant he ate it, the food was rapidly digested and absorbed...

Hong Mo took a stack of hundred-yuan bills from Lingyin, tossed it onto a table in the barbecue restaurant, then vanished into the crowd. It was only long after Hong Mo had left that the restaurant owner cautiously returned to inspect the place. When he discovered that more than half his food had vanished, he was left dumbfounded. Then he spotted the hundred-yuan bills on the table, and his worry immediately turned to delight.

The authorities' search efforts were immense, because many people had died in this incident. Under Hong Mo's barrage of indiscriminate super-electromagnetic cannon fire, at least a hundred bystanders who had gathered to watch had died. While one or two deaths were no longer as rare as they had been ten years ago, so many deaths at once still came as a shock.

Moreover, this incident had not been caused by mutated creatures, but by superpowered individuals. Thanks to Hong Mo, the peaceful Celestial Empire had become lively again. But for Hong Mo, this was far from good news.

Countless police officers were spread throughout the surrounding area, and the entire city carried the feeling of an impending storm. Hong Mo held Lingyin's hand and evaded countless blockades before finally escaping to the outskirts of the city.

Yet at that moment, Lingyin told Hong Mo that the little bats were hungry.

The little bats being hungry was a serious problem. After all, they had been the great heroes who saved him. He could not possibly let them go hungry.

Then, the next day, a group of people tracked them to the Wanzhou Liu Family Breeding Farm. News had spread from there that dozens of fat pigs at the farm had suddenly died overnight, all of them drained completely of blood.

After Su Mu returned to the organization, she had already submitted a complete report of the intelligence from that time. The final assessment was:

Tang Feng: An electromagnetic-type superpowered individual. Extremely powerful, skilled in mutually destructive tactics, ruthless.

Remilia Scarlet: Tang Feng's daughter. Superpower Level LV4. Keeps a group of bats. Ice-type superpowered individual.

Bats: Capable of sucking blood. Their saliva contains a disorienting substance. Non-toxic.

Tang Feng and Remilia were, of course, the names the fat man had helped register. Tang Feng was not too bad, but Remilia... everyone who heard it at the time had been stunned. Could this little girl really be that little vampire from the Scarlet Devil Mansion? She even kept a huge swarm of bats.

The final investigation naturally turned up nothing, though the fat man was found. Because he had a few connections and was not directly involved in the incident, he was released after paying a fine. When he learned about the great battle in Chongqing, he used his connections to obtain a video of it. He was instantly awestruck and became especially devoted to little Lingyin.

Because of the little bats, after the incident of the Liu Family Breeding Farm's fat pigs being drained of blood came to light, a new superpowered squad rushed over.

"Captain, it really is the target's scent. They fled toward Lichuan City," a man said after sniffing around the area.

"Lichuan... what's beyond Lichuan City?" the captain suddenly asked. The other four fell silent. After a long while, one man finally said, "Sorry, boss. Don't know."

The scene immediately fell silent, quiet to an almost horrifying degree. "Damn it, you're all pigs. Of course, I'm not much better—I don't even know the map properly myself." The captain suddenly cursed, then started laughing as he spoke.

The other four squad members all burst out laughing as well.

"Alright, alright. I know that before becoming superpowered individuals, we were all just ordinary people. None of us were some so-called elite. White Cat, use the computer to check what lies past Lichuan. Gray Dog, your nose is the sharpest, so lead the way. Everyone, pursue carefully. This time, be cautious—the target is different from ordinary rogue superpowered individuals."

The tall captain stood up and said solemnly to his four subordinates, "There's one more thing I need to make clear."

"Captain, go ahead."

"Boss, even if you don't say it, we've more or less guessed."

The captain waved a hand, telling everyone to be quiet. "Just as Full Pig said, perhaps you've all guessed it, but I still need to make it clear."

"This opponent is extremely powerful. You all know the Fourth Squad, right? Qin An, Su Mu, Long Hanyu, Bai Cangye, Zhao Qiong—everyone knows these five well. Last time they fought this target, everyone except Bai Cangye was present. And everyone knows the result. Long Hanyu died in battle. Zhao Qiong died. Qin An fell unconscious, with half his body cooked by electricity. As for Su Mu, she was injured too—supposedly quite badly."

By this point, the five-person squad had lost their playful expressions. All of them looked grave.

"To be honest, our Eighth Squad is a pile of shit compared to the Fourth Squad. I'm not putting myself down; that's simply the truth. Don't argue. We've worked together for years, so everyone knows what everyone else can do. We're all flesh-type superpowered individuals, and the kind with no real potential at that. I think our role in this mission is simply to serve as cannon fodder."

"Captain, how about we defect too?"

The captain abruptly turned and stared at a pockmarked man. "Toad, don't say that. Do you think defecting is so easy?"

"Brother Iron Ox, have you heard news about the Fourteenth Squad?" Toad was not frightened by the captain's rebuke. Instead, he guessed at something.

"Forget it, enough talk. White Cat, report the target's location. Gray Dog, lead the way. Everyone, catch up with them. Mm, slowly. Don't throw your lives away."

"OK, Captain. We're not idiots. None of the higher-ups are standing around watching us every second, so why risk our lives?" Gray Dog wrinkled his nose, grinning smugly.

What Hong Mo did not know was that his whereabouts had been exposed so quickly. Fortunately, this squad was not particularly invested in the mission. At that moment, Lingyin was complaining to Hong Mo about something.

The little bats said that fat pig blood tasted bad.

Hong Mo did not understand how the little bats communicated with Lingyin, but it seemed Lingyin was not lying. Hong Mo helplessly scratched his head. This was truly troublesome. It was already good enough that they could find blood to drink, yet these little bats were actually picky eaters.

It had to be said that regeneration truly was an exceptionally powerful ability. After several days of fleeing, Hong Mo had recovered seventy or eighty percent. His previously shattered right hand had grown back as well. With this regenerative ability, Hong Mo felt like he was developing toward the cockroach model.

They boarded a bus, and the onboard television was playing the news. The news concerned Hong Mo and Lingyin. The police were calling on the public to contact them immediately if they spotted the targets.

A woman beside Hong Mo kept looking at the news, then studying Hong Mo, making him extremely irritated. Fortunately, both of Hong Mo's hands had now fully regrown, and Lingyin was no longer wearing that Gothic Lolita outfit. They did not quite match the news report's description of a target with a blown-off right hand accompanied by a cute Gothic-style little girl.

"We're getting off." When the bus stopped at a small station, Hong Mo took Lingyin's hand and got off. As he watched the bus drive away, Hong Mo expanded his superpower field to its limit.

At two hundred meters, the woman took out her phone. At two hundred and fifty meters, she dialed a few numbers, then stopped. At three hundred and fifty meters, she rubbed the phone in her hand a few times before slipping it back into her pocket.

Hong Mo let out a soft breath. It seemed that woman did not intend to call the police. Still, that was far from safe.

Wanzhou County was very close to the Yangtze River. Hong Mo opened the electronic map on his phone. They should move along the river. If they encountered pursuers, escaping would be easier. He truly did not know when they would finally be able to live a stable life.

"Come on, let's go see the Yangtze River." Hong Mo patted Lingyin's head and smoothed down the hair the wind had blown loose.

"Mm, is the Yangtze River beautiful?" Lingyin asked obediently.

"The Yangtze? Even I'd never been there. I had the chance before, but no time. By the time I wanted to go later, I couldn't anymore." The only time Hong Mo had seen the Yangtze had been just a single glimpse, and it was far from a pleasant memory. He recalled the scene from ten years ago, when Mu Siyu had been thrown into the river. After a brief moment of melancholy, Hong Mo laughed heartily. "Come on, let's go to the Yangtze."

Guided by the electronic map, Hong Mo led Lingyin in circles for quite a while before finally reaching the banks of the Yangtze. What he didn't know was that this decision caused a group lying in ambush on the roads of Lichuan City to wait in vain.

"Captain, what exactly is the target doing?" White Cat followed behind Gray Dog with a patter of footsteps. Their squad had also been trailing Hong Mo in circles around Wanzhou, nearly running into him several times.

"How the hell would I know what he wants to do? If I were that smart, I wouldn't be Iron Ox." The two-meter-tall Captain Iron Ox wore a sullen expression.

"Captain, the target is up ahead. Should we go?" At that moment, Gray Dog suddenly pointed into the distance.