Bursting at the Seams

Wang Mian stood on the road north of the warehouse, one hand resting on the hilt at his waist, and spoke calmly.

"Stop resisting. You're already surrounded!"

"That's right. The four of us have you surrounded!" Vortex strolled over from the south, his tone relaxed.

Rose guarded the west with a pink hammer three stories tall in her hands, while Tian Ping stood to the east, silently watching the recruits.

Surrounded?

Four people surrounding dozens?

It sounded absurd, but every recruit wore a grave expression. No one thought it was a joke. After all, the Mask Squad had eliminated a quarter of them within the first few minutes.

"What do we do?" Molly frowned and looked at Lin Qiye. "Do we have to go all out?"

"No. We can't beat them!" Lin Qiye shook his head.

Glancing at the half-collapsed warehouse to the south, he fixed his gaze on Vortex, then whispered, "In a moment, don't do what I say. Follow me!"

Baili Pangpang, Molly, and Shen Qingzhu looked utterly confused, but nodded anyway.

"There are only four of them. If we work together, we have a chance to win!" Lin Qiye's loud, spirited voice reached every recruit.

"When the guy in the scales mask makes his move, everyone focus your attacks on that girl!"

The recruits gripped their weapons tightly, ready to charge.

Just then, Tian Ping made his move. Alloy fragments and building debris suspended in midair rained down, and the recruits surged toward Rose under twice the normal gravity.

"Underestimating me?"

"Then you're in for a world of hurt!"

Rose raised her hammer high and brought it crashing down. The enormous hammer whipped up a gale, descending with the weight of a mountain.

The recruits were no pushovers either. Several lights flared, forcing Rose's hammer back, and the two sides locked in a stalemate.

Seeing this, the other four members of Mask picked up their pace, rapidly tightening the encirclement.

That was when Lin Qiye moved.

Instead of joining the others in surrounding Rose, he charged south.

Without a moment's hesitation, Baili Pangpang and the other two followed Lin Qiye as fast as they could.

"Captain, four of them aren't coming this way!" Tian Ping froze briefly at the sight and hurried to warn him.

"That's fine. Take out the main group first!" After a brief hesitation, Wang Mian quickly committed to their objective. "Vortex, hold them off for now!"

"Roger!"

Vortex swiftly changed direction and went after the four strongest recruits.

"Fatty, got any more badass items? Take them out and hit him!"

"Got it!"

Baili Pangpang grinned wickedly and immediately pulled a huge broom from his pocket-the kind used to sweep streets. It was enormous.

"Holy crap!"

"Are you freaking Doraemon?"

Vortex stared, dumbfounded, unable to resist the remark. No matter how big Baili Pangpang's pockets were, they couldn't possibly hold a broom. This was ridiculous.

"Here you go!"

A gale threaded with fine arcs of electricity roared toward Vortex like an enraged beast.

Vortex swept out a hand, and a dark purple vortex absorbed Pangpang's attack.

"Whatever you've got, throw it all at him!"

The moment Lin Qiye finished speaking, Baili Pangpang pulled out a massive sword, raised it high overhead, and said warmly, "[Three Thousand Transformations], charge for your master, big sword!"

In an instant, countless golden flying swords blotted out the sky, whistling into the dark purple vortex.

Shen Qingzhu stopped ten meters from the dark purple vortex. He raised a hand slightly and clenched it hard, compressing the invisible air to its limit.

At that moment, he casually tossed out a lighter, slipped both hands into his pockets, and turned away.

Boom!

Thunderous blasts rang out as flames shot skyward. The flickering blaze illuminated Shen Qingzhu's profile. Real men never looked back at explosions.

But then something strange happened. Like a moving mass of cotton candy, the explosion was swallowed whole by the dark purple vortex.

What no one noticed was that Vortex's hands were trembling.

He could absorb attacks, true, but with his cultivation restricted to the Lamp Realm, there was a limit to how much he could take.

Shit!

These monsters almost overwhelmed me!

Vortex breathed a quiet sigh of relief and prepared to send the attacks back.

Just as he was about to act, two crates of detonators sailed through the air. Molly clapped the dust from her hands and looked behind her.

Lin Qiye hurled a lit satchel charge with all his strength. It traced a graceful arc and collided squarely with the detonators.

The explosion shook the ground, and a mushroom cloud several meters high rose into the air.

While Baili Pangpang and Shen Qingzhu held Vortex up, Lin Qiye and Molly had brought the final straw that broke the camel's back.

Vortex's ability had exceeded its critical threshold.

"Run!"

Lin Qiye turned and ran toward the warehouse, with the other three right behind him.

The instant the four turned away, a dark purple mushroom cloud ten meters high rose into the air, sending a wave of heat sweeping outward.

This explosion even shook the instructors underground.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

"Motherfucker!"

A bedraggled Vortex staggered out of the thick smoke. His clothes were riddled with blackened holes, and he had even suffered minor burns.

Luckily, he had reacted fast enough to open another vortex in time. Otherwise, he would have been dead for sure.

In that time, the rest of Mask had rounded up the remaining dozens of recruits and knocked them all out of the match.

"Not so pleasant, huh?" Moonlight draped an arm around Vortex with an obnoxious grin and teased him. "You won't come out ahead with those four ganging up on you."

"You two are just useless!" Rose's eyes were full of contempt.

"Thanks for the hard work!" Wang Mian patted Vortex's shoulder. His pupils quivered slightly when he noticed the many new cracks in Vortex's mask. Mask had nearly lost.

Soon, he smiled again and said appreciatively, "As expected of a Proxy. Truly a cut above the rest!"

"Captain, I strongly suspect you're complimenting yourself!"

"Exactly!"

Wang Mian said nothing and strode toward the warehouse, unsure whether they could still catch those four.

Just as the five members of Mask passed beside the warehouse, a series of electronic beeps reached their ears.

All five faces darkened, and they simultaneously ran away from the warehouse.

Boom!

Blinding flames mingled with billowing black smoke as the warehouse was blown apart.

The time bomb was merely the trigger. Its explosion set off every explosive in the warehouse, and after an earth-shattering blast, the warehouse was leveled.

Far from the warehouse, Lin Qiye smiled and murmured to himself, "I wonder if they like their present."

"Qiye, I've got to say, that was way too devious!"

Baili Pangpang stared at the towering flames in the distance and swallowed hard.

"And if they got caught in that, wouldn't someone die?"

"No!" Lin Qiye said with absolute certainty. "If that killed them, they wouldn't be a Special Squad."

"Speaking of which, did we sell everyone else out?" Molly looked at Lin Qiye, feeling just a little guilty.

"No!"

"They couldn't have escaped even if we hadn't sold them out. Between four people and forty, Mask only had one choice. All we did was force them to make it."

"If we'd tried to break out with them, we'd all have been finished."

"Besides, we'll bring them victory, won't we?"

Lin Qiye glanced at the three of them, his eyes shining as though brimming with confidence.

Baili Pangpang stared in a daze. He seemed to see a faint trace of Wang Quan in Lin Qiye.