In the parking lot, unlike the angry, red-faced confrontation he had imagined, the group was actually lining up obediently to make their purchases.
Marlow stood beside the cooler like an auctioneer. With a point of his hand, several underlings immediately packed the doses into silver briefcases.
The buyers stared, wide-eyed.
The fat man with the gold chain rubbed his hands, his grin stretching almost to his ears.
The Eastern European man kicked over his cash case, but his men kept their eyes on the cages, discussing how well the monsters could fight.
The headscarf group was even more direct, already discussing their next operation in hushed voices.
Chen Mo lay in the shadow of the second-floor escalator and tapped the railing with his fingers.
"I can't let things go this smoothly for them~~~"
Hunger surged through him in waves.
If he let them get away so easily, wouldn't he have come for nothing?
But Chen Mo still didn't move.
The guns weren't a major problem.
The problem was the two enhanced bodyguards beside Marlow.
He hadn't fought them yet. Who knew what they were capable of?
He had to play it safe.
Chen Mo narrowed his eyes and scanned the parking lot.
The warehouse should have a breaker he could use.
"Things are easier in the dark."
Chen Mo backed away from the escalator and followed the edge of the second floor toward the east side.
The bargaining below grew louder.
The fat man with the gold chain slapped the table and shouted.
"Five hundred thousand a dose? Marlow, I can't make money that fast even robbing banks!!!"
Marlow dusted off his cuff.
"You don't have to buy it."
The Eastern European man sneered.
"If he doesn't want it, I'll take it."
The fat man's face darkened, and his underlings immediately reached for their guns.
The headscarf group also spread out a half-step, fingers resting beside their triggers.
The air suddenly grew tense.
But Marlow smiled.
"Everyone, there's plenty to go around. No one needs to die here tonight over a few doses."
Chen Mo shook his head as he listened.
"That's really unprofessional. If nobody dies in a gangster deal, can you even call it a gangster deal?"
The maintenance passage door was rusted to pieces.
Chen Mo pressed a hand against the gap in the door and gave it a gentle tug.
The metal lock cylinder snapped with a click.
Inside, two guards sat on folding chairs playing cards.
One had a cigarette in his mouth, while the other had a shotgun at his feet.
The smoker heard the noise and had just looked up when Chen Mo slipped through the doorway.
Chen Mo pressed a palm against the back of the smoker's head and slammed it into the table.
Bang.
Playing cards flew everywhere.
The other guard reached for his gun.
Chen Mo kicked the shotgun into a corner and drove his knee into the man's stomach.
The guard's eyes bulged, and he doubled over like a cooked shrimp.
Chen Mo grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the wall.
Thud.
The world fell silent.
Chen Mo looked down at the two men.
"Playing cards on the job? Got caught during an inspection, didn't you?"
The breaker was right there on the wall.
The row of switches looked old enough to be museum pieces.
"It's a miracle this thing still works."
Chen Mo reached out, gripped the main switch, and pulled it down.
Click!
The entire parking lot went dark.
Only the vehicle dashboards and a few emergency lights flickered red.
The laughter stopped.
Curses erupted.
"Who turned off the lights?!"
"Stay alert!!!"
"Don't just start shooting!! The merchandise is still here!!!"
"Guard the cases!!!"
In the darkness, the sounds of gun bolts being racked rang out one after another.
Chen Mo stepped out of the maintenance room, slipped down the stairs, and kept close to the wall.
Blacklight Vision activated, and the dim surroundings instantly became crystal clear.
Heat, breathing, heartbeats.
A crowd of bright-red human silhouettes milled around the parking lot.
"A little cheating doesn't count. I'm a fair-play gamer."
The first unlucky fellow was creeping toward the maintenance room with his gun raised.
Chen Mo slipped up behind him and struck him in the neck with the edge of his hand, taking him down in one blow.
A second underling turned at the sound.
Chen Mo had already reached out and grabbed the side of his face, slamming him against a car door.
Clang!
The car door caved in.
The underling went offline on the spot.
Someone nearby cried out, "Fuck!"
"There's someone over there!!!"
Gun barrels swung toward him.
Chen Mo ducked under a car. Bullets struck the vehicle and the walls, sending sparks flying.
A row of men fired wildly into the shadows.
From behind a car, someone started cursing.
"Who the fuck is messing with us?! Marlow! You're responsible for this!!!"
Marlow's voice came from the center of the parking lot, cold as ice.
"Shut up, idiot. Protect the merchandise first."
Chen Mo crawled out from the other side of the car. The muscles in his arm swelled, and black-and-red lines raced across his skin as if alive.
The blade didn't fully emerge, forming only short black edges at his fingertips.
He didn't want to draw too much attention.
At least, not yet.
Several cannon fodder approached with their guns raised.
Chen Mo raised his hand and slashed.
With several wet tearing sounds, the men were sliced clean in half.
The Eastern European man nearby stared in shock.
He had thought it was an ordinary attack.
Now that he had seen it, something was off.
Very off.
The figure in the darkness moved like a ghost, behind a car one moment and beside a pillar the next. By the time the gun barrels turned, he was already gone.
Every time he appeared, some unlucky bastard got killed off.
"It's a superhuman!!!"
The Eastern European man bellowed.
The word "superhuman" was like water thrown into a pot of hot oil.
The whole place erupted.
The headscarf group thought Vought had sent someone to wipe them out, so they grabbed their cases and tried to run.
The fat man with the gold chain thought Marlow was double-crossing him and led his men to seize the doses.
Marlow thought the buyers had turned on him, and he finally lost his composure.
"Kill anyone who touches the merchandise!!!"
The two bodyguards, one burly and one thin, charged out.
The thin one moved so fast he left afterimages. In a few steps, he reached a man in a headscarf and kicked him over.
The other slammed straight into the fat man's group. His fists landed with dull thuds as he sent men rolling across the floor like he was tearing apart furniture.
Chen Mo crouched in the shadow of a beam above the cars, watching with amusement.
(ಡωಡ)
"Well, damn. I haven't even pulled any tricks yet, and they're already fighting among themselves."
Looking back toward the cages, he saw the guards trying to release the test subjects.
The gray-skinned man was ramming the iron bars, making them clang.
The acid woman lay inside her cage, yellow-green liquid dripping from the corner of her mouth onto the chains and sizzling.
The girl in the cage covered with black cloth raised her head, blue lines flickering along the side of her face.
Chen Mo approached in an instant.
"How much do they pay you a month? Why work so hard?"
His figure dropped from the beam.
The guard had just heard the rush of air overhead when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.
There was a crack.
The guard crumpled to the ground.
Chen Mo kicked the fallen guard aside and looked down at the girl in the cage.
The girl looked at him through the bars.
At last, a trace of emotion flickered in her vacant eyes.
Chen Mo raised a hand and gestured for her to be quiet.
"Don't be scared. I'm not a bad guy."
The moment he said it, he himself fell silent for half a second.
"Forget it. That's not very believable in this world. Just pretend I'm passing by."
The chains on the cage were thick.
Chen Mo grabbed the lock and twisted.
Crack.
The lock split apart.
The girl didn't come out immediately. She only curled up tighter.
Chen Mo didn't force her.
Behind him, gunfire drew close again.
Marlow finally noticed what was happening over here.
"Fuck, my merchandise! Stop him, now!!!"
Both bodyguards turned at once.
The thin one arrived first.
A long, lean black shadow rushed along the side of a car, a dagger held in a reverse grip, its point aimed straight at the back of Chen Mo's neck.
Chen Mo didn't turn around.
His ears caught the rush of air, and he shifted to one side.
The dagger grazed past his neck.
Chen Mo reached back, seized his opponent's wrist, and flung him using his own momentum.
The skinny monkey shot like a cannonball straight into the gray-skinned man's cage.
The iron bars bent.
The gray-skinned man inside roared and opened his mouth to bite.
The thin man's face turned green.
"Let go of me!!!"
The gray-skinned man wasn't listening.
For a moment, it was an intense scene of man-on-man grappling.
Another burly man charged up to Chen Mo and brought a fist the size of a cooking pot crashing down.
Chen Mo raised his arm and took the blow head-on.
Boom!
The concrete beneath his feet cracked.
A numbing ache shot through his arm.
Chen Mo raised an eyebrow.
"Not bad."
The burly man grinned viciously.
"You're dead, kid."
Chen Mo looked at him, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up.
"Villains usually say that when they're writing their own epitaphs."
Black-and-red patterns crept out from his cuffs.
Chen Mo grabbed the bodyguard's fist and slowly tightened his grip.
The bones gave a creaking wail.
The burly man's vicious grin froze on his face.
His expression shifted from contempt to shock, and finally to sheer "what the fuck" terror.
"Impossible!!! How are you stronger than me?!!"
Chen Mo raised his hand, summoned a blade, and drove it into the man's abdomen.
The Blacklight Virus immediately began devouring him.
The burly man let out a piercing wail.
Chen Mo, however, burst into excited laughter.
"That's more like it!!! This is Blacklight!!!"
The devouring was over in just a few breaths. The burly man hadn't given Blacklight a new form, but Chen Mo's strength and physical toughness had increased greatly once again.
Everyone in the parking lot was stunned by the horrifying sight.
The fatty with the gold chain hid behind a car, his lips pale.
"Marlow, what the hell did you get yourself involved with?"
Marlow's face was frighteningly dark.
That was no ordinary superpowered individual.
He had never heard of such a bizarre ability, one that could actually devour other people.
And this guy had a clear objective.
First, he had cut the power and created chaos.
Then he had hunted down those on the perimeter, which suggested he was probably still afraid of guns. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gone to all that trouble.
Then his objective was...
Marlow whipped around.
"The refrigerated case!!! Guard the refrigerated case!!!"
Unfortunately, it was too late.
Under cover of the chaos, Chen Mo had already reached the refrigerated case.
Several guards lay beside the vehicle.
The refrigerated case was right in front of him.
Blue vials of serum were neatly arranged amid the icy mist.
Chen Mo crouched down and reached out to pick one up.
The Blacklight Virus inside him went wild on the spot.
The hunger was like a tsunami, nearly smashing his sanity into the wall.
"Don't rush me, don't rush me. Didn't you just eat?"
Just as Chen Mo stuffed a second vial into his pocket, a bright light suddenly fell on him.
The emergency searchlight had come on.
Marlow stood beside the SUV, a remote in his hand. He had taken off his sunglasses, and his gaze was as venomous as a snake's.
"Found you."
Guns rose all around him in unison.
The gold-chain fatty's men, the Eastern European man's men, and Marlow's men-every gangster still standing fixed their eyes on Chen Mo.
Their brief infighting had been forcibly brought to a halt.
Because they had finally gotten a clear look at the monster in the darkness.
He was actually a young Asian guy in a gray hoodie.
And he was holding their source of income in his hand.
Chen Mo slowly stood up and glanced down at the little blue vial in his hand.
Marlow spoke coldly.
"Put it down, and I can make your death easy."
Chen Mo looked at the dark gun barrels surrounding him, then at the refrigerated case behind Marlow.
A brilliant smile suddenly appeared on his face.
"Have you guys misunderstood something?"
He flicked the cap off with his thumb.
He downed the blue serum in one gulp.
Everyone's eyes widened in shock.
Marlow's face instantly turned green.
"Open fire!!!"
A second before the gunfire erupted, it was as if a reactor had ignited inside Chen Mo.
His bones cracked explosively.
His blood vessels burned.
Black-and-red patterns rushed up his neck and across the side of his face, then spread all the way down his arm.
A hail of bullets tore through the air.
Chen Mo raised his head.
Deep in his pupils, a glimmer of scarlet lit up.
The skin on his arm churned, and a black blade shot out with a swish, longer, thicker, and sharper than before.
A layer of black carapace began growing over the surface of his skin, looking hard as a rock.
A dense volley of bullets struck it with a series of metallic clinks, then fell to the ground.
"Woohoo, Armor Mode is here!!!"
Everyone was dumbstruck.
The gold-chain fatty's mouth hung open wide enough to fit a grenade.
"How is that possible?! He was clearly afraid of bullets just now!!!"
The Eastern European man took half a step back.
"Fuck, stop him!!!"
Marlow began retreating. Whatever the reason, since Chen Mo wasn't afraid of bullets, everyone here was nothing but a lamb waiting for slaughter.
The best move was to leave.
Chen Mo raised his black blade, cracking the concrete beneath his feet.
Dust shook into the air.
He leaned forward.
This time, no more sneaking. It was time to go on a rampage.
Chen Mo grinned.
"If I told you that you can't outrun me, would you believe me?"
The next second, the black blade tore through the hail of bullets and plunged into the crowd.