Storming the Enemy Camp (Second Update)

Maiweia Club, third basement level.

A partition wall cut off one-third of the parking lot. Behind it stood several heavily overloaded freight trucks, each guarded front and back by armed men. They wore black robes and protective masks resembling crows. Club enforcers in gray suits opened the cargo containers and carried away box after box of relics in batches. Visaf and Carmel stood to one side, watching in silence throughout.

This was not Visaf's first time "unloading goods," yet he still felt a faint tension. These Black Workshop killers were as cold as pig iron; no one could connect them with that smooth-talking workshop master. As though noticing the young man's restraint, Kaning poked his head out from the passenger seat and greeted him.

"Is the quantity enough?" Kaning asked brightly. "Don't worry about security. Every item was shipped directly from the workshop. Our own ship, our own vehicles."

That was precisely why Visaf could not relax. Their own ship... Weren't the City Lord's Manor's Rising Dragon Ships the only vessels capable of traveling between the upper and lower levels? Where had the Black Workshop gotten a ship? But he could not show his concerns before his closest partner. He smiled elegantly. "Better than we expected, Mr. Kaning. As agreed, we shall pay on the spot..."

"Visaf?" Kaning asked with concern.

Visaf's expression changed drastically. His gentlemanly face went white as paper in an instant, and beneath his bloodless skin, black blood trembled like snakes. A woman's mournful cry rang out behind them. Carmel dropped to her knees, clutching her face tightly.

"No! Big Brother!!" she wailed in grief, black blood seeping from the corners of her eyes like tears. "No!!!"

Visaf gasped urgently. The communicator in his pocket vibrated madly, its frequency proclaiming the patriarch's fury. He took out five bottles of "Parent's Blood" and stuffed them all into Kaning's hands through the car window. "A small situation has arisen. I must take my leave first." "You don't look well," Kaning said. "Please excuse me. I'll handle it soon... Take Mr. Kaning away!"

After giving the order, Visaf seized Carmel and hurried away. After only a few steps, he discovered that the freight elevators were all occupied by relics. They had no choice but to go around to the other side and take the passenger elevator upstairs. The discovery made him even more furious, while Carmel shrieked hysterically. "I'll kill him!! Skin him alive!!"

Visaf still barely retained some reason. He immediately contacted Master Yan. "Master! The City Lord's Manor has made its move. Please lend us your aid! We'll meet before the portrait!"

Kaning gave Besen, who was driving, a helpless gesture. He waited quietly until the footsteps had faded away, watching the freight elevator laden with relics rise from -3 to 17. A suited enforcer came up and knocked on the car door.

"My apologies, honored Mr. Kaning." The enforcer faithfully carried out his orders. "Please--"

Kaning drew his pistol. A brass bullet blew the enforcer's head apart.

"What a coincidence. The City Lord's Manor chose just this moment to launch an attack," he said cheerfully. "Besen, please go destroy the main switch. The elevators are moving too fast. Let's make our friends take their time getting upstairs!"

Besen left the puppet and passed through the wall like a ghost, heading upward. Whistling, Kaning stepped out of the truck and skipped into the stairwell. Behind him, the men in pig-iron masks raised their guns, and a short, dense burst of gunfire echoed through the parking lot.

Before two breaths had passed, the club enforcers lay in pools of blood.

Chu Hengkong opened his eyes to a sea of gold and red.

A scarlet carpet stretched in a straight line, while oil paintings in gold frames covered the walls. Soft, warm-toned lighting blanketed every corner. Like most casinos he had visited, the club had no windows. With no sight of the outside world, one's sense of time became ambiguously blurred.

A pair of polished leather shoes stepped out around the corner. A man in a gray suit poked his head out. "Brother Whitebrow--"

His greeting was shoved back into his mouth by an impact. Ji Huaishu hurled the light shield in her hand forward, knocking the man flat in a single blow. The two advanced at once. Chu Hengkong laid his knife against the enforcer's neck and quickly searched him with his tentacles, while Ji Huaishu snarled, "Where are the children you captured?"

"Do you know what you're doing?!" the flustered enforcer blustered. "This is the club's--Aah! Aah!!"

Chu Hengkong stabbed through the enforcer's left hand, then raised the knife and pierced his right. He did not even glance at him as he delivered those two stabs, as casually as flicking away a cigarette butt.

"The next strike takes your life," he said.

The enforcer was utterly stunned. More than pain, he felt terror. This was a real fiend—he would not even blink when killing someone! Then he realized who the two were, and the last scrap of responsibility in his heart collapsed on the spot. "He takes children upstairs every time! I don't know which floor!!"

Ji Huaishu knocked him unconscious with one punch. Chu Hengkong sheathed his knife, rose to his feet, and tossed his teammate a yellow jade token. "Probably an elevator card." "What card?" "The thing that opens the elevator. Brace yourself!"

Both grabbed the wall. They could feel a massive vibration coming from above, and the chandelier on the ceiling swayed uneasily. Then the true form of that tremor appeared before them. It was a roar from the top floor, a man's hoarse, heart-rending shout.

"--Blood for blood!!"

Every crystal chandelier shattered at once, shards dancing through the air. Cries of alarm came from afar as the club's gamblers trembled in fear. The roar was so loud that they could not make out its words; they could only feel invisible bombs exploding one after another, until even the air itself quivered.

Chu Hengkong shook his head. His hearing was too sensitive, and he had nearly been injured by the roar.

"Good news. Maiweia is on the top floor."

Ji Huaishu covered her ears. "Is that all you have to say...?"

"Should I marvel at how loud his voice is?" Chu Hengkong turned into a side passage. "Better hurry and kill his whole family."

Thanks to that shockwave-like roar, he had roughly "heard" which floor they were on. The teleportation jade token was a Level Two relic, but its range was limited. It had only brought them to roughly the fourth to sixth floors. Judging by the speed at which the vibrations traveled, Maiweia should be above the fifteenth floor. Even in the enemy's headquarters, they needed to take the elevator if they wanted a swift battle and swift victory.

Ji Huaishu quickly caught up to him. At the end of the passage, the elevator doors happened to open, and the enforcers gathering in an emergency pulled their triggers. Dense bullets came blasting over like a storm. Ji Huaishu deployed her light shield and charged through the hail of bullets, crashing into the elevator like a golden cannonball. Chu Hengkong followed close behind, finishing them off with Water Bullets. Their cooperation was seamless, and in just three seconds, they cleared out every enforcer.

The club had eighteen floors, but this elevator could only reach the fourteenth. They rose amid the mechanical notification tones. Chu Hengkong noticed that his partner kept rubbing her fingers together.

"Can't wait any longer?" he asked.

"Don't make me sound like some homicidal maniac." Ji Huaishu sighed. "I'm a little nervous."

This time, Chu Hengkong was genuinely surprised. "You can get nervous?"

"I've dealt with things like Glowing Corpses and demons before, but the Fallen... honestly, I have no experience with them at all." Ji Huaishu scratched her cheek. "How did that fight just now feel to you?"

"They die about the same as people. They just ruin knives."

"Thanks, I feel much more relaxed now... Fuck, the power's out!"

The lights abruptly went dark, and harsh grinding noises rang out through the pitch-blackness. Ji Huaishu made a snap decision and hurled her shield upward, smashing through the top of the elevator in one strike. Chu Hengkong darted out through the hole and drove his knife into the iron door of the floor above with a backhand thrust. At that moment, the powerless elevator began sliding downward. Chu Hengkong supported his body with one hand gripping the knife and flung his tentacles downward. Ji Huaishu hurriedly grabbed them. The two hung precariously in midair, and moments later, the powerless elevator crashed to the bottom. The deep-black shaft was lit by the fiery flash of the explosion.

"Could you move faster, brother? Your tentacles are so slippery!" Ji Huaishu yelped.

Chu Hengkong glared at her. "Can I move right now? You do it!"

Grasping the tentacles, Ji Huaishu swung to the side and kicked off the edge of the elevator shaft, leaping diagonally upward. Dark shadows emerged in her hand, but instead of forming the greatsword from before, they became a short knife with a curved blade. Ji Huaishu threw the shadow blade at the elevator door. The short knife pierced the heavy steel, sending it flying backward as though struck by a car.

Chu Hengkong swiftly caught the edge of the threshold. He still held his knife in his right hand, and only two fingers were free to move. Yet he forced himself up and sprang through the doorway using the strength of those two fingers alone, then swept out with his tentacles and hauled Ji Huaishu up.

Startled cries sounded ahead. Well-dressed guests recoiled in terror. This was the VIP floor on the thirteenth level. There was an elevator on each side of the hall, only a handful of gambling tables within, and most people were busy watching matches or making love to catgirls.

The dealer was also a catgirl. She stared blankly at the blasted-away elevator door, still reciting her professional line. "...How much would the guests like to bet?"

The enforcers guarding the VIP area came to their senses and immediately drew their guns on the pair. "Stop!" "Who are you?!" "I'll blow your head off, you bastard!" Chu Hengkong's tentacles swept over the gambling tables like snakes, his knife wrapped around their tip. An instant later, five shouting heads flew into the air, hot blood from their necks dyeing the ceiling a true crimson.

The guests scattered at once. Their screams and wails nearly drowned out even the gunfire. They surged desperately toward the other elevator, but at that moment, the doors of the elevator opposite also flew out! The foremost VIP guests were smashed into the wall!

Visaf and Carmel crawled out of the elevator shaft. The sudden power outage made the already impatient pair even more frantic. Visaf let out a beastlike growl, then their movements suddenly stopped. The eyes of the four met through the fleeing crowd. The Fallen and the two inspectors had encountered each other by chance.

Time seemed to freeze in that moment. Neither side had expected to meet here. Visaf conjured a playing card as if by magic, only to suddenly fall backward as a sharp knife pierced his shoulder. The tentacles wrapped around the knife's hilt lashed out with force, smashing him onto a gambling table.

"Go save them!" Chu Hengkong growled. He leaped forward as he attacked, firing two Water Bullets at Carmel's eyes. Carmel reflexively raised her hands to shield them, briefly losing her vision as a result.

Ji Huaishu jumped onto a gambling table and transformed her light shield into a hammer. Gripping it in both hands, she viciously smashed the ceiling. Before her immense strength, the reinforced concrete structure was scarcely sturdier than a wooden board. The ceiling and the supporting layer in between were pierced through together. Ji Huaishu exerted herself and leaped high, taking the shortest route upstairs in the most brutally direct way possible.

Ceiling debris rained down. Towering stacks of chips were smashed and sent bouncing everywhere, while the gambling table cheerfully announced in a synthesized voice, "What grand spirit! A million-chip wager!"