The Outsider's Cannon (Part 2)

Point one: the description "Skillful Hands" stood alone on the wanted poster, seeming to be a trait distinct from demonic possession. Chu Hengkong guessed it might be some local standard for judging strength.

As he ran, he gripped the Iron Ring, which had darkened in color, and asked the veteran beside him, "Does the enemy have what it takes to smash through the water curtain in the sky?"

"He was dreaming the dream of a fool." Ji Huaishu was dismissive. "Even if you found a thousand Skillful Hands, they couldn't interfere with the water curtain. He seized the tower most likely because he wanted to modify the salvage device the same way he modified the Riptide Gun, turning that thing into an oversized water cannon."

Chu Hengkong recalled the salvage scene. That white column of water had been enough to reach the weapon Tide in the sky. If an oversized Water Bullet exploded within the weapon Tide...

"Knives will rain from the sky."

"Right, so we should speed up." Ji Huaishu said, "I'll take over the next fight. You said you could do more than kill people, didn't you? Then report the enemy positions."

Ji Huaishu's demand was practically absurd. The inside of Graystone Tower had a square-loop layout, with the central square housing the out-of-service elevator. The two of them were running through the four-sided corridor. The bandits were either hiding on higher floors or in unlit rooms; in the dim environment, there was simply nowhere to find them.

Yet Ji Huaishu's shield was the brightest light source in the tower. As long as the bandits poured bullets toward the light, they would hit. In this situation, where the enemy lurked in darkness while they stood exposed, even professional assault teams needed thermal imagers to locate targets. Chu Hengkong, let alone having professional equipment, did not even have a pair of glasses.

"Three ambushers, three meters to the right. One above, five meters ahead, preparing to strike." Chu Hengkong said.

Chu Hengkong reported the positions as fluently as if reciting lines. He had clearly not glanced to the right even once, yet he was utterly certain of his conclusion. Three meters ahead was a lounge with its door tightly shut. He knew two people were lurking by the window, ready to fire and draw attention, while the last was hiding behind the door, intending to shoot Ji Huaishu in the back after she passed. Ji Huaishu had only one shield, and it had to be saved to defend against the hail of bullets from the left-hand corridor. He really wanted to know how she planned to attack.

Ji Huaishu switched the shield to her right hand. A layer of Faint Light formed a spherical energy shield, replacing the shield itself in defense. As the shield changed hands, the translucent light shield rapidly reshaped like gelatin. Its lower half narrowed into a "short handle," while the removed portions rose to the top and formed a shield-shaped "hammerhead."

She lifted this strange light hammer one-handed and smashed it into the door on the right. The wooden door shattered at once, and the ambusher behind it was left with a bloodied head. That unlucky man was sent flying by the sudden blow, while Ji Huaishu's feet never slowed in the slightest. She charged forward with sheer brute courage, the light hammer smashing through stone walls and glass with irresistible force and blasting the other two people in the room away as well!

This could not even be called combat. It was demolition. When the blonde girl turned ruthless, she was like a golden storm that ground both her surroundings and her enemies into pieces. After they rushed through the room, a violent crash sounded ahead. A gigantic iron spike smashed through the floor's ceiling and drove straight at Ji Huaishu's crown. Ji Huaishu swung the light hammer upward from below, forcibly batting the iron spike back. The ambusher on the upper floor was knocked unconscious by his own weapon instead.

Chu Hengkong shot her a sidelong glance. "Someone just said law enforcers should show mercy."

"If I got serious, they'd have already become minced meat." Ji Huaishu said. "Your skill at locating targets by sound isn't bad. Are assassins from your homeland all this professional?"

"I'm the top of the profession."

Chu Hengkong leaped up first, hooked one hand over the edge of the hole, and flipped onto the upper floor. There were no enemies within sight. He clenched the sensing Pendant and tapped the stone wall with the Iron Ring, now gray, producing a crisp echo through the corridor.

Ding. Ding.

He filtered out the gunfire, ignored his own breathing and the background noise, and focused only on the tapping. In less time than it took to breathe, the soundprint had swept across the floor. Changes in the vibrations faithfully relayed everything in the surroundings. He could "see" the ambushers waiting in the next room, and he could "see" the enemy behind them trying to crawl closer.

Locating targets by sound. It was a common method in dark environments, but even someone as sharp as Chu Hengkong could not achieve such unbelievable precision on his own. The key to sensing his surroundings lay in the sensing Pendant in his hand. The Relic enhanced all of his senses, including sight and hearing. Even if each enhancement lasted only one to three seconds, it was enough for him to sketch a simple map in his mind.

"If you want to save time, let me lead." Chu Hengkong tapped faster and faster, while the Iron Ring gradually turned black. "Turn around and charge straight back. Two on the left, five ahead."

Ji Huaishu, who had caught up, nodded. This time, she restored the light to the shape of a shield and charged directly toward the area with the most enemies. She ran as swiftly as a gust of wind. When the bandits in the room on the left tried to extend their guns from cover, she had already rushed into their formation behind her shield and swept the light shield with brute force, knocking all five down. Chu Hengkong followed closely behind her, his voice as steady as ever as he called out positions. "The floor directly above is cracked. Smash it."

Ji Huaishu turned the light shield into a hammer and threw it upward. The already damaged stone-tiled floor shattered beneath the monstrous blow. She jumped lightly, stepped on the light hammer hanging in midair, and vaulted to the floor above. Upon landing, Ji Huaishu whistled. The staircase to the top floor stood directly ahead of her, and the bandits guarding it wore expressions as though they had seen a ghost.

"You really can do more than kill people."

"If I'd led the way, we would've been here long ago."

By the time Chu Hengkong jumped up to the next floor, the bandits guarding the stairs had already been knocked unconscious by the swinging light shield. The two temporary partners charged toward the top floor, one ahead of the other. The instant they emerged from the stairwell, black Water Bullets swept toward them like a storm.

Ji Huaishu repeated her earlier tactic and raised her shield to defend, but this time she could not advance immediately. The black Water Bullets came in dense waves, mixed with two exceedingly thin streams of water. The attack looked weak, yet carried an extremely powerful impact. Ji Huaishu was forced half a step back, and even the light on her shield dimmed under the assault.

Chu Hengkong realized what the attack truly was. Ultra-high-pressure water cutters—water compressed again and again before being released through a tiny opening, with enough impact on contact to slice through trees and even metal.

The two streams came from the wanted criminal's deformed wrists. From his elbows down, his arms had mutated into teardrop-shaped bony structures, and the water cutters sprayed from the "tips" of those two droplets. Behind the water-cutter nozzles, his former fingers had mutated into ten transparent tubes, each connected at the end to a bizarrely shaped machine gun.

The short man stood with his back to the salvage device, a smug gleam flickering in his small eyes.

"You bumpkins, this is what they call saturation firepower tactics!" San Sen Wangxiang shrieked with laughter. "No gunpowder? No problem! I'll bury you beneath quantity and momentum!"

Ji Huaishu did not move a step, not because she did not want to, but because she could not. Ten Water Bullet machine guns and two water cutters laid down a barrage net that covered heaven and earth. There was not an inch of space on the top floor of the Gray Tower to dodge into. Under such dense firepower, the spherical shield would not last even one second. She had to use the light shield to hold the line. But pure defense would not solve the problem. The salvage device behind San Sen Wangxiang was vibrating violently, white lines across its cylindrical exterior expanding and contracting like breaths. Even an outsider like Chu Hengkong could tell that something was very wrong.

San Sen Wangxiang burst into laughter. "Prepare to welcome death! In just a few seconds, you'll witness the earth-shaking Veil-Breaking Cannon!"

Chu Hengkong's gaze swept over the support frames of the ten machine guns. He pinched his last hidden weapon between two fingers.

"I still have one pebble." he said.

"Throw it as many times as you can." Ji Huaishu raised her voice. "Throw!"

Everything that followed happened in an instant. With a flick of Chu Hengkong's fingers, the final pebble flew into the storm of gunfire, threading through the gap between the two water cutters and shooting straight for San Sen Wangxiang's throat. Ji Huaishu's shout alerted San Sen Wangxiang to the danger. He hurriedly drew his wrists together at the center, attempting to destroy the hidden weapon with Water Bullets.

At the same time, Ji Huaishu pressed both hands against her shield. Her light shield rapidly brightened, its surging radiance suddenly exploding like a miniature sun. That sun reflected in San Sen Wangxiang's eyes like a bomb detonating inside his eye sockets!

San Sen Wangxiang let out a terrified scream. The intense light itself had no killing power, but at such close range, its burst of radiance was enough to scorch his retinas. The sudden agony blinded him. He repeatedly told himself to stay calm and not move recklessly, but one breath later, a familiar whistling sound came from every direction.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

The sound was exactly the same as when Chu Hengkong fired pebbles. To San Sen Wangxiang's senses, it was four lethal hidden weapons descending from beyond the heavens. San Sen Wangxiang completely panicked. He hurriedly waved his hands, changing the machine guns' directions as he tried to crush the hidden weapons beneath his barrage. Yet heavy vibrations rose from directly ahead, and blazing light swept in with the impact!

Once the enemy threw himself into disarray, the water cutters and barrage no longer formed an airtight defense. Ji Huaishu effortlessly dodged the crossing water cutters, using only the light shield to block the nearest barrage. In less than a breath, she arrived before San Sen Wangxiang. An uppercut glittering with radiant light sent the wanted criminal soaring more than ten meters into the air.

"Ah—!"

The ten tubes controlling the machine guns were torn apart by the force of that punch, and the Water Bullets filling the sky abruptly stopped. At that moment, Chu Hengkong in the rear sprang upward with all his strength. He slipped the blackened Iron Ring over his tentacle, whose tip was wrapped around the Silver-Eyed Tome.

The Charge Bracelet faded, and the power stored within the ring erupted. The tentacle crashing down from high above became a silver sledgehammer. The tome's corner punched through the iron wall, smashing the cannon that was about to fire into a lump of scrap metal!

Boom! Boom boom boom!!

Ominous reverberations sounded from within the ruined cannon. Pure white waves of water burst from the cracks like fountains, causing a localized rainstorm beneath the summit of Graystone Tower. San Sen Wangxiang did not fall until two seconds later, crashing into a pile of twisted scrap. Ji Huaishu did not even look at him. She summoned a spherical light shield to shelter the two of them from the rain.

One of the girl's hands was hidden behind her back, where a shadow on the verge of taking shape silently dissipated. She looked at Chu Hengkong with a smiling gaze, her words carrying a trace of approval. "Your reaction wasn't bad~ I was worried you wouldn't have enough force."

"I carry this book around because it's hard enough." Chu Hengkong withdrew his tentacle and sighed. "Next time, tell me about your ability beforehand. My eyes are killing me."

The tentacle twitched in midair as though struck by electricity, producing a crisp crack. The "hidden weapon sounds" San Sen Wangxiang had heard were nothing more than Chu Hengkong snapping an empty whip a few times.

Could one distinguish the subtle differences among various sounds? Could one think of ways to exploit sound? Could one use sound as a breakthrough point for thought? The answers of "yes" and "no" to this series of questions were precisely the gap between professionals and amateurs.

Chu Hengkong rubbed his aching eyes. Perhaps the flash from earlier had been too powerful, but in his whitened vision, he saw a bizarre phantom.

That phantom floated out of San Sen Wangxiang's body, floated out of the bodies of dozens of bandits inside and outside Graystone Tower, and gathered atop the Gray Tower into a bone-white seahorse.