In front of a small village on the outskirts of Shanghu City, Sing let out a long breath, the weight finally lifting from his heart.
"Come on, the gang leader is in the courtyard up ahead!"
Sing tugged at The Beast, only to find that he did not budge an inch.
"Hm?"
Sing pulled again, but The Beast stood rooted to the earth like a mountain. No matter how much strength Sing put into it, he could not move him in the slightest.
The Beast paid Sing no attention. He looked ahead, a faint, contemptuous smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
"You went to all that trouble to get me out, and this is all you've got?"
The instant The Beast finished speaking, a chorus of roars erupted.
Kill!
Kill!
Kill!
Their voices shook the land in every direction, and killing intent soared into the sky.
A mob of gangsters dressed in black and carrying axes poured out of the houses, charging at The Beast like madmen.
As the largest criminal force in Shanghu City, the Axe Gang had far more than a few thousand or even tens of thousands of members.
While Xu Long had been sweeping through the psychiatric hospital, a full hundred thousand gang members had been summoned here.
They were all scum, and none of them would be missed if they died.
But even trash had value to be recycled, especially when there were a hundred thousand of them.
A vast crowd of Axe Gang members surged out, a dark mass like a flood or a collapsing mountain, terrifying to behold.
If there were only a few hundred, The Beast could kill them all with ease.
If there were a few thousand, The Beast would have to put in some effort.
If there were tens of thousands, even the number one assassin would die of exhaustion.
But there were a full hundred thousand here. Even if they stood still and let him kill them, he would die of exhaustion before he could finish.
He had thought a few thousand would be plenty, but he had not expected this many.
The Beast's face darkened, and he was already planning to flee.
He was arrogant, but he was no fool.
Why fight to the bitter end when he knew death was certain?
With that thought, The Beast immediately put his plan into action.
Surging Internal Force rolled through him as The Beast crouched on the ground like a toad, ready to launch himself away.
But just then, the piercing whir of propellers rang out.
Two helicopters flew swiftly toward him, and the robots aboard aimed their machine guns at The Beast and opened fire.
The Beast was powerful, powerful enough to catch a handgun bullet barehanded.
His body, however, was not tough enough to withstand bullets head-on, much less machine-gun rounds, which were considerably more powerful than handgun bullets.
Sensing the threat overhead, The Beast let out an angry roar and began dodging to the side.
But as soon as he withdrew his Internal Force, the machine guns stopped firing.
"Damn it!"
The Beast cursed furiously. He understood what the enemy intended.
If he tried to run, he would have to endure the machine-gun fire. If he did not, the hundred thousand Axe Gang members would wear him out until he died.
The Beast looked deranged, but it was all an act. He was a shrewd one!
In the original plot, he had nearly been shaken to death by the Landlady's loudspeaker-enhanced Lion's Roar. Rather than fight to the bitter end, he had dropped to his knees and begged for mercy, then launched a sneak attack when the Landlord and Landlady let down their guard.
At this moment, The Beast immediately planned a strategic retreat, intending to come back and settle the score later.
His surging Internal Force circulated wildly as The Beast ignored the Axe Gang members' attacks and crouched on the ground like a toad.
The Beast was ready to flee, but Red Queen was no pushover either.
Seeing this, she immediately ordered the robots to open fire.
Rat-tat-tat!
The machine guns spat tongues of flame, spraying countless bullets and forcing The Beast to dodge.
The facts proved that no carbon-based life-form could withstand the power of technological weapons. If one could, it meant the firepower was not strong enough!
The terrifying kinetic energy gave the bullets tremendous speed and penetrating power. Though The Beast kept dodging, he was still hit.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
The bullets bounced off the moment they struck him. It was a defense The Beast had constructed at the cost of a vast amount of Internal Force.
It feared neither blades nor axes and resisted erosion by water and fire.
As long as he had enough Internal Force, he could even withstand a tank head-on.
But that raised a question: what happened if he did not have enough Internal Force?
He could only end up like The Beast now, shot through!
"Aaaaah!"
A cry of pain rang out, followed immediately by a warm greeting to eighteen generations of his enemy's ancestors.
Machine guns were mainly used for suppressive fire, and their accuracy was worse than that of handguns. As a result, many Axe Gang members around The Beast were caught in the crossfire.
But Xu Long did not care in the least. They were just a bunch of scum; if they died, they died.
"Master, the ammunition has run out!"
Red Queen's voice came through his earpiece. On hearing it, Xu Long immediately gave a new order. "Detonate the explosives!"
"Understood!"
As soon as Xu Long finished speaking, a violent explosion erupted.
It came from the ten tons of explosives buried underground, which had cost the Axe Gang its entire savings.
Boom!
A terrifying blast, carrying unimaginably fearsome flames, blew the entire village sky-high.
More than twenty thousand Axe Gang members near the center were blown straight into mincemeat, while those on the outskirts suffered injuries of varying severity.
Though the injuries would not kill them, they probably would not have another chance to do evil.
[Hidden mission: 16, destroy the Axe Gang! Complete! 500 points awarded!] [Hidden mission: 17, destroy all underworld forces in Shanghu City! Complete! 1,000 points awarded!]
"Heh, these gangsters were good for something after all! All told, subduing them and then destroying them got me three thousand points!"
Xu Long chuckled, feeling that this was a good way to farm points.
He subdued local forces and put them to work for him, then kicked them aside once he had wrung them dry, just like a scumbag!
"Master! The Beast hasn't..."
Bang!
An explosive report rang out, and Red Queen went silent.
Xu Long looked up and saw The Beast's figure falling from the sky.
After being sprayed with machine-gun fire and then caught in the blast of ten tons of explosives, The Beast was still alive.
But though he was not dead, he was not far from it.
His skin was burned all over, his left arm was broken, and his ribs were exposed on his right side.
Such injuries would have left an ordinary person on the brink of death, yet The Beast was still full of life and vigor, even able to bring down a helicopter in the sky.
"It's finally time for me to take the stage!"
Xu Long took out the Heavenly Sound Guqin and walked toward The Beast.
"Who are you?"
"The one here to kill you!"
When words failed to meet, even half a sentence was too much, all the more so when they were destined to stand against each other from the start.
One song breaks the heart and rends the bowels; where beneath the heavens can a kindred spirit be found?
In ancient times there were Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi, who smashed the guqin in farewell to a kindred spirit. Today there were Xu Long and The Beast, playing the guqin to a cow.
Ding, ding, ding, ding!
Xu Long was no artist. The way he played a perfectly good guqin, even a cow could not bear to listen.
But unpleasant as it sounded, its power was not to be underestimated.
Though the great sweep of Sonic Blades was nowhere near as dense as the machine-gun fire, their damage was more than a little greater.