A metal rack weighing over a hundred pounds slid past at tremendous speed and slammed into the ninja's knee.
The ninja's body folded forward.
Lynn was already closing in, holding a surgical suture needle in his right hand—a size 10 needle threaded with silk.
To an ordinary person, it was just a tool for stitching wounds. But Lynn knew the precise locations of the body's acupoints.
The needle's tip pierced a point two millimeters below the Shousanli Acupoint on the ninja's right shoulder.
Precise damage to the superficial branch of the radial nerve at that spot would instantly rob the entire right arm of control.
The ninja's flail slipped from his loosened grip and hit the ground.
Lynn drove his left knee into the man's liver.
The third one went down.
Back entrance—clear.
Three men, in less than thirty seconds.
Not a single sound louder than the ambient noise had been made.
But that was only a quarter of them.
His Super Senses told him the three on the south side had already climbed the fire escape and entered through a second-floor window.
The three on the north side were on the roof. The three on the east were getting ready to enter through the front door.
Lynn picked up the flail from the ground and gave it a heft. The weight and length felt just right.
He headed for the stairs.
The three on the south side had already made it to the second floor.
Their footsteps stopped beside a folding bed. No one was on it, but the blankets were still warm.
They knew their target had left only moments ago.
Lynn stood at the foot of the stairs on the first floor and looked up toward the landing.
Three sets of footsteps moved from the second floor toward the stairs. They planned to sweep downward.
Perfect.
Higher ground was a familiar advantage for ninjas.
But in a narrow stairwell, having the high ground also meant your ankles were the first thing your target below could reach.
The first ninja's foot appeared around the landing.
Lynn swung the flail.
The metal chain wrapped precisely around the ankle.
Lynn yanked hard, and the ninja was dragged straight down the stairs, the back of his head striking the edge of a step.
Less than half a second later, the second ninja leaped down from the landing, a kunai thrusting straight at Lynn's face.
His combat instincts took over.
Lynn twisted his upper body inward, dodging the kunai's direct thrust. At the same time, his right hand released the flail. At close range, a fist was faster than a weapon.
Aikido's irimi technique.
Lynn's right arm hooked in from the outside, slipping inside the elbow of the ninja's kunai-wielding right arm. His palm pressed against the joint from the opposite side. The weight of his whole body, combined with thirty percent of his Superhuman Strength—
Joint locked. Destroyed.
A muffled cry escaped the ninja's mouth, barely audible.
Lynn smacked the back of the man's head with his left palm, slamming his forehead into the wall.
The third ninja jumped down the stairs.
He didn't use a weapon. Instead, he formed a hand seal with both hands—a kind of force-gathering technique from the Hand's ninjutsu.
Interesting.
Lynn took half a step back.
The ninja thrust both palms forward, releasing a wave of force that struck Lynn in the chest.
The power wasn't great, but it had considerable penetrating force—a hidden energy that bypassed the surface defenses and acted directly on the internal organs.
If Lynn had taken this hit three weeks ago, he might have suffered internal bleeding.
But now, Indestructible hadn't just improved the hardness of his skin. His muscles and internal organs had grown more resilient, too.
The hidden force felt like someone giving him a hard shove. It jolted him, but did no damage.
The ninja's expression changed in the dark.
His hidden force should have been able to punch through a bulletproof vest. Yet the young man in the white coat had only taken half a step back?
Lynn gave him no time to think.
He tucked his chin in with a standard Krav Maga movement, gripping the man's head with his left hand as he drove his right knee up. The two forces struck together.
The ninja's body folded in half.
The three on the south side were down.
By the time the three who had entered through the front door arrived, Lynn had returned to the first floor.
They opened the clinic door more cautiously than the earlier groups. They had probably noticed that their companions at the back entrance had gone missing, and that there had been no response over the communicators.
The three spread out in a fan formation.
The one in the middle wasn't holding a short knife. He had a Wakizashi, a cut above the weapons carried by ordinary ninjas. A squad leader.
Lynn stood in the doorway of the exam room, his right hand braced against the doorframe and his left tucked into his white coat pocket.
He didn't hide.
"Your people are all lying out back," he said, his voice carrying calmly through the darkness. "If you want to take them with you, I won't stop you. But if you want to keep going, I suggest you reconsider."
The three ninjas held their formation.
The squad leader spoke from behind his mask, his English carrying a faint Japanese accent. "You're the healer?"
"I'm a doctor."
"The Hand needs your power. Come with us, and you won't be harmed."
"I don't like people making decisions for me."
The squad leader said nothing more.
He drew his Wakizashi.
The two ninjas on either side moved at the same time.
One cut in from the left while the other circled in from the right.
The squad leader supported them from the center. Their coordination was flawless.
They were nothing like the scattered fighters Lynn had faced before.
In Lynn's Super Intelligence analysis, their movements formed a highly coordinated geometric pattern. Each man was positioned to seal off as many of Lynn's escape routes as possible.
But three men had their weaknesses, too.
Their coordination depended too much on their fixed formation.
Lynn did something they hadn't expected. He didn't dodge or retreat. He charged forward.
Straight into the center of their formation.
It went against every principle of combat.
When surrounded by multiple opponents, an ordinary person's first instinct was to create distance, find a way out, and take them down one at a time. No one would willingly charge into the very center of the encirclement.
But Lynn's calculation was clear: at the center of the formation, the three men would get in each other's way.
Their weapons needed room to strike. At too close a range, they couldn't swing their knives and Wakizashi freely without risking a friendly hit.
Lynn plunged into the gap between them.
The knife in the left-side ninja's hand came to a sudden stop. Any farther, and he would hit the squad leader.
That moment of hesitation was all Lynn needed.
His right hand seized the left-side ninja by the collar, and his Superhuman Strength kicked in.
He lifted the ninja, who weighed over a hundred and sixty pounds, and hurled him at the one on the right.
The two men collided and tumbled away.
Only the squad leader remained.
His Wakizashi came down in a slash.
Fast and at a tricky angle.
Lynn turned sideways.
The Blade grazed his shoulder, cutting another tear in the white coat.
The squad leader's swordsmanship was indeed strong. Stronger than anyone Lynn had faced before.
In the same instant, Lynn's Super Intelligence analyzed his swordsmanship.
It was based on Iaijutsu, fused with Southeast Asian short-weapon techniques. He favored slashing diagonally upward from the lower left.
The second strike came.
From the lower left—
Lynn dodged to the right.
But the squad leader changed his move.
The diagonal slash became a horizontal sweep halfway through, the Blade's tip shooting straight for Lynn's throat.
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