Unmatched Infiltration

"The place where Senior Jon disappeared is 18th Street Gang territory. I heard those rioters recently reached a deal with the Mexican Mafia, and their influence has grown large enough to affect the local police department and news companies."

As they took the elevator down, the operations team leader shared intelligence with the young people.

"How about a frontal assault?" Caesar suggested.

Considering that the First Operations Group had twelve members, and their student squad included two A-Ranks and one S-Rank, they could completely crush the entire 18th Street Gang with the support of their Word Spirits.

"For a street shootout on this scale... we might need to erase the memories of half the citizens in the United States to eliminate its impact."

"Then it seems we can only use infiltration and decapitation. First remove the defensive core within the target area, then gradually take control of the entire neighborhood."

Caesar laid out his analysis in an orderly fashion.

The agent named Declan looked at Caesar with approval in his eyes.

"That was indeed our plan. Although I understand that you deliberately said it because you want to go in yourself... unfortunately, Caesar, you can only stay outside with us. Your appearance simply isn't suited for an infiltration mission."

At that, the other three students in the elevator all looked at Caesar's magnificent chest muscles and his Italian face, which revealed a mouthful of gleaming white teeth whenever he smiled.

Caesar shrugged. "All right, that's rather disappointing. So how do you plan to infiltrate?"

"We'll arrange for at least one member to disguise themselves and make close contact under the pretense of wanting to join the gang."

Declan turned to Li Lin, his burning gaze full of expectation.

He had watched Li Lin and Xia Mi's combat footage, especially the fight between the two preparatory students in the final round of Day of Freedom. If Li Lin were not only sixteen years old, Declan would have begged Schneider on his knees to assign him to his operations group as an intern.

As for Xia Mi... she had likewise been excluded from the infiltration mission. That excessively beautiful face of hers would be hard to make less noticeable even with makeup.

Fortunately, Aki Shigede's Word Spirit was Ghost Illumination, which could achieve an "invisibility" effect. She would not even need to put herself in danger; she could simply swagger straight inside using her Word Spirit.

But since Ghost Illumination could only last for a rather limited time, Declan only intended for her to help breach entrances to facilities that Li Lin could not forcibly enter without exposing his identity.

At that moment, the elevator reached the garage. Under Declan's lead, the group got into an unremarkable white van.

Caesar had merely been frowning at first, but after getting inside, his brows nearly twisted into a cross.

"Modified by the Equipment Department?"

"Yeah. It can hit two hundred kilometers per hour. Pretty great, right?"

"Uh, I meant... it can't be used as a mobile firebomb, can it?"

"It does have that function."

Declan opened the steering wheel panel and pointed to the button hidden deepest inside. "After pressing the switch, the vehicle will travel in a straight line at full speed. If it suffers a severe impact during that time, or after five minutes, the Alchemical Charge installed beneath the chassis will automatically detonate."

Caesar turned to look at Aki Shigede in the passenger seat, whose face had instantly gone pale, then at Li Lin beside him, who was heatedly discussing with Xia Mi how to jump out of the vehicle and escape. He raised an eyebrow, feeling as though he were sitting inside a barrel of explosives capable of reaching two hundred kilometers per hour.

Jon's Word Spirit was Snake, which could easily detect every living unit within its range. There was no way an ordinary person could have ambushed him.

Considering that the 18th Street Gang contained hostile units suspected to be high-risk Mixed-Bloods or even Dead Servants, capable of silently killing an outstanding agent.

Norma had therefore estimated their bloodline to be above A-Rank.

With the enemy's specific information unknown, Schneider could only temporarily divide all agents gathered in Los Angeles into groups.

The First Operations Group was responsible for leading the student squad in undercover infiltration, investigation, and extraction. The Second Operations Group needed to monitor gang territory across a broader area, while the Third Operations Group was searching for the boxer who had injected the Molotov Cocktail.

Of these, the First Operations Group's assignment was the most dangerous.

Only half an hour had passed since Jon lost contact, and they were facing a vicious enemy capable of ignoring the detection of Word Spirit: Snake and killing a Mixed-Blood in an extremely short time.

But fortunately, they had an S-Rank.

To the young people at the school, S-Rank represented absolute talent and bloodline superiority, an existence they had to look up to.

But in the eyes of these Executive Department agents, the prestige and confidence brought by an S-Rank-bloodline comrade became something tangible—a battlefield banner whose mere presence on the roster could inspire reassurance.

What was more, Li Lin's combat videos had spread wildly throughout the Executive Department. In their minds, he was a younger version of Angers.

The van stopped one kilometer from their destination.

Declan got out and pulled a suitcase embossed with a Half-Rotted World Tree from the trunk.

"Who got first place in shooting class?"

Caesar raised a hand from the back seat.

"Good at sniping?"

"Of course. My Word Spirit is Kamaitachi, and you can think of my hearing as another type of Word Spirit: Snake."

"I know," Declan said, handing the suitcase to Caesar. "There's an anti-materiel sniper rifle inside. Although it uses Frigga Warheads, it still has a chance of inflicting fatal injuries on the target. I'll leave the retreat cover to you. Please use it carefully."

"Understood."

Caesar watched as two female agents flanked Li Lin from either side and took him into a sedan stolen from the gang's parking lot. They planned to disguise him at the traffic light ahead.

About half an hour later, on the rooftop of an old apartment building within Alameda Street.

Xia Mi had borrowed Caesar's sniper rifle. Through the scope, she saw "Li Lin," disguised as an Asian high school student with an injured knee, limping deeper into Alameda Street toward the dental clinic in front of him to buy some painkillers.

This dental clinic was connected to the core of the 18th Street Gang. Too many secrets that could not see the light of day were stored in the underground clinic.

So the moment Li Lin approached, the men and women sitting around pretending to be idle surrounded him. Xia Mi watched as the boy, looking utterly harmless, gestured animatedly while explaining that "someone had told him he could buy very effective painkillers here."

In underworld slang, painkillers were usually associated with drugs that poisoned the mind. A burly man with tattoos covering both arms stepped out from the crowd and cheerfully draped an arm around Li Lin's shoulders as he led him into the dental clinic.

"What's the situation now?"

Caesar also wanted to observe Li Lin's negotiations with the gang members.

"He infiltrated successfully. Nothing interesting."

Xia Mi handed the sniper rifle back to Caesar.

Then, from far away, they suddenly heard a muffled bang. The two immediately lowered the sniper rifle, and even the agents at the other sniping position gathered over to observe the situation.

They saw the burly man who had just led Li Lin into the clinic fly backward through the entire glass door, landing outside the clinic in a bloody heap, unconscious.

"Li Lin! What's going on? Why did you expose your identity?"

As team leader, Caesar hurriedly opened the radio channel and questioned Li Lin, who was carrying out the undercover mission inside the dental clinic, through his miniature earpiece.

"That guy was gay. The moment we got inside, he tried to touch my ass." Li Lin's voice came through the earpiece, full of frustration and helplessness.

"Boss, the plan has changed. We may need to complete the mission by eliminating all witnesses."