The Two Shadow Spiders Slain
Lin Hao caught up with a sliding step and clamped onto Su Xiaoran's leg with the intercepting-hand stance.
With a twist and a yank, he forcibly dragged her down from the web.
Immediately afterward, he sank his waist and hips, bringing a heavy Sinking Abyss Form smash down on her head.
Another sharp crack rang out.
Su Xiaoran's compound eyes burst. Her body twitched twice, then went completely still.
The alley fell quiet.
The poisonous mist gradually dispersed, leaving only spider silk and green demon beast blood strewn across the ground.
And two mangled Shadow Mimic Spider corpses.
Lin Hao looked at the mutilated mimic spider corpses, particularly their humanlike heads and upper bodies, and felt somewhat queasy.
His throat bobbed involuntarily several times, his stomach churning.
This was his first time killing people-no, demon beasts that resembled people.
During the battle, perhaps because of the ten years of combat experience from the system, he had felt no discomfort at all.
But now that the battle was over, that discomfort had surfaced instead.
Of course, he knew full well that if he wanted to walk the path of a martial artist,
he would have to take this step sooner or later.
Thinking back on the fight, he felt he had still imagined these life-and-death battles to be a little too simple.
The desperate struggle had lasted only a few short minutes, yet it had consumed most of his strength.
At some point, the spider silk had still managed to slash a gash across his abdomen.
Blood soaked his school uniform and dripped from its hem.
Paralyzing venom still lingered in his meridians, leaving him somewhat dizzy and his body slightly numb.
Had he lacked the experience of fighting to the death on the border, or his perfected mastery of the Mountain-Subduing Basic Fist,
he might have been the one lying on the ground now.
He rested for a while. Once his head stopped spinning so badly, he straightened, walked over to the two demon beast corpses, and began searching them.
Soon, he found a wallet and a bank card in what remained of Xia Zhi's clothing.
He opened the wallet and saw four stacks of cash neatly arranged inside, totaling a full thirty thousand.
He looked at the bank card and saw Jiang Chao's name printed on it, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
No wonder Jiang Chao had been unable to pay for the meal earlier. He had even handed his bank card over to Xia Zhi to spend as she pleased.
He pocketed the cash and walked out of the alley.
Under the streetlights, he lowered his head to look at the long gash across his abdomen.
Fortunately, he could cover the wound with his clothes.
But his school uniform had already been slashed to tatters.
Moreover, it was covered in the demon beasts' green blood and his own fresh blood.
There was no way he could hide all this bloodstained filth from his parents if he went home.
He would make them worry.
He deliberately kept to quiet, deserted roads, planning to buy a change of clothes before heading home.
Late that night, two combat vehicles bearing the emblem of the Jiang City Martial Arts Branch Bureau stopped at the alley entrance.
The moment the vehicles came to a complete stop, their doors swung open in unison, and martial artists in combat uniforms leaped out with crisp, efficient movements.
Yellow-and-black police tape quickly went up, sealing off the alley.
The commotion immediately drew quite a few passersby, who stopped to watch, whispering among themselves and discussing it.
Leading the branch bureau martial artists dispatched this time was Lin Hao's older cousin, Lin Qing.
Lin Qing's epaulets bore the insignia of the Third Squad's captain and a Two-Star Martial Artist badge.
Her face betrayed no expression. After sweeping her gaze over the onlookers, she ordered in a low voice, "Move the outer cordon fifty meters out. Clear away uninvolved personnel. Don't let anyone disturb the traces at the scene."
With that, she entered the alley.
The scene inside was even more gruesome than she had expected.
Spider silk and demon beast blood were everywhere.
The two mangled Shadow Mimic Spider corpses lay sprawled on the ground.
Lin Qing crouched and examined the fatal wound where one demon spider's head joined its thorax.
The edges of the caved-in wound were clean and neat, the result of a punch that had shattered the carapace and driven straight into a vital spot.
"Captain."
A member of the evidence team hurried over, carrying a sealed evidence bag containing a phone with a shattered screen.
"We found this in the mimic spider's clothing. It has a contact list, as well as recent call and transfer records."
Lin Qing glanced up at the evidence bag, her tone even. "Seal it and send it back to the bureau for physical data analysis. Cross-reference it against the missing persons information from the three mimic demon beast attack cases in the main urban district over the past three months.
"Focus on accounts that have had frequent financial transactions with this number recently. Mimic demon beasts wouldn't use a human phone for no reason. It was their tool for screening prey.
"Follow this lead. We might be able to solve those previously unresolved cases as well."
"Yes!" the team member answered, immediately turning to make the arrangements.
Before long, the head of the technical team responsible for examining the scene also came over.
She held an instrument displaying the newly obtained test data on its screen. "Captain, the preliminary scene examination results are in. Both were adult Shadow Mimic Spiders, with qi and blood stable at around 1.2.
"Like the mimic demon beasts we've encountered before, they could unleash combat power twice their qi and blood, with each one's peak combat power at around 2.5."
Lin Qing nodded, unsurprised.
She had already handled more than a dozen mimic demon beast cases at the branch bureau and knew their combat capabilities well.
But what the technical team leader said next startled all the nearby squad members, stopping them in their tracks.
"We performed three source-tracing tests on the residual qi and blood fluctuations in the air.
"The martial artist who killed these two demon spiders had a peak qi and blood range consistently between 1.3 and 1.4, with combat power exceeding 5.0.
"The qi and blood age-tracing results indicate an age between seventeen and nineteen."
At those words, the alley instantly fell silent.
A young squad member who had graduated from martial arts school just six months earlier nearly lost his grip on his body camera. In disbelief, he said, "Seventeen to nineteen? Wouldn't that mean they're still in high school? How is that possible? Two mimic spiders with 2.4 combat power-how could a high school student possibly kill them?"
A veteran beside him also frowned. "1.4 qi and blood, but 5.0 combat power? Did I hear that right? Forget Jiang City's high schools-even among all the high schools in the Dragon Nation, you probably couldn't find a single martial technique genius whose combat power was three or four times their qi and blood!"
Lin Qing frowned. She, too, found such an outrageous ratio of combat power to qi and blood exaggerated to the point of unreality.
But the world was vast, full of every imaginable wonder.
It was not impossible for a heaven-defying martial technique genius to emerge.
Only, if such a genius had appeared in Jiang City, how could none of those present have known about them?
Something suddenly occurred to her, and she asked, "Could it be a young genius from another city, here to compete in or watch the Six-City Pharmacist Competition?"
At that, everyone nodded, feeling that it really was possible.
But the technical team leader shook her head. "We already checked with the Jiang City Entry and Exit Administration Office just now. Everyone entering from outside the city was fitted with a tracker as required.
"According to the Entry and Exit Administration Office's data, no tracker signals appeared in this area within an hour before or after the incident. All the trackers were functioning normally, with no records of removal or signal blocking."