"Glug~"
"Glug~"
Icy river water flooded Ji Xun's throat, and he instantly woke from unconsciousness.
In the pitch-black, freezing river, he opened his eyes. They gleamed with excitement and cold ferocity.
Although he had roughly estimated that the Flashbang Grenade would not kill him, the blast at point-blank range had still knocked him out, just as expected.
If he had not devoured that Causal Medium earlier and greatly boosted his attributes, that blast might have taken half his life.
But there were no ifs.
Ji Xun never relied on such lucky assumptions.
He had dared to do this because he had already worked out the plan beforehand. His physical stats were strong enough, and when he pulled the Flashbang Grenade's pin, he had also injected himself with a Stimulant Potion to ensure he woke up the moment he hit the water.
There was still risk, but once he entered the water, it meant he had escaped.
That was far better than being captured.
Spell Card Masters were powerful on land, but their abilities were greatly diminished in water. Both their perception and mobility were severely restricted.
Especially close-combat Spell Card Masters with dense muscles—they might not even be more agile than Ji Xun in the water.
"Heh, not bad luck."
In the black river water, Ji Xun could not help spitting out a mouthful of blood, but even the darkness could not conceal the savage grin on his face.
His eyes were like those of a beast in the night—unyielding and mad.
His body was sinking and being swept away by the rushing current. Suppressing the turmoil in his blood, he began undoing the steel net around him.
The wires were sturdy, but the locks were still mechanical.
Underwater escape had been a skill Ji Xun knew inside and out in his previous life. A few mechanical locks were nothing to him.
Submerged in the icy river, he suddenly felt a flash of inspiration.
Perhaps it was not merely a matter of good or bad luck.
It was as though something in the unseen world was answering him.
The Demon Mark had granted him extraordinary power, so naturally, he also had to bear the favor of the Gambler of Misfortune.
Enemies splashed into the water one after another, but they had clearly lost their target.
Ji Xun unlocked the restraints and suddenly smiled. "Tsk, tsk."
In his eyes, this was not over yet!
Simply escaping had never been his entire plan.
Thinking of something, he swam nimbly into the ink-black river like a fish.
On the other side, the merchants of Dark Rain Street's Black Market had also been stunned by the sudden upheaval.
Several gunshots had alarmed the merchants and customers across the entire street.
Although Sinless City was a city without order, a capital of crime, some places generally still had unspoken rules.
Dark Rain Street was one such place. It was where the city's major factions gathered to trade materials, and many shady transactions were completed here.
Thus, almost everyone who came here tacitly agreed that fighting was forbidden.
It was not explicitly prohibited, but anyone who broke the rules might no longer be welcome in the Black Market.
The impact would be terrible.
And the consequences serious.
Yet today, someone had actually opened fire on the street?
On the second floor of Silver Star Mysterious Materials Shop, the middle-aged shopkeeper looked at the two corpses in the street with a complicated expression.
He had witnessed the sudden battle from beginning to end.
He had personally watched that man pawn several cards here in exchange for six Demon-Breaking Bullets before heading outside.
Then, he saw something he could not believe for a long time.
That young man, a Card Master Apprentice, had somehow escaped from the encirclement prepared in advance by a group of experts?
With his discernment, how could he fail to see that the fellow's response had been impeccable?
That extreme calm and judgment were simply unbelievable.
"No wonder those Blackwater Mercenary Group fellows have been so active in the Black Market lately. So they were looking for this person. The one from 407? Heh, someone capable of clearing that high-difficulty space would indeed need such meticulous thinking."
In the attic, the shopkeeper narrowed his eyes slightly and murmured to himself, "It's been a long time since I've seen such an outstanding young man."
Seeing the Blackwater Mercenaries in a panic, it was clear that the young man who had jumped off the cliff might truly have escaped.
Tsk, tsk. How interesting.
Under the same circumstances, he believed anyone else would certainly have been caught.
Yet that young man had succeeded in escaping.
The appreciative smile on the middle-aged man's face grew deeper.
Since he was someone Seventh Miss had introduced, he should lend a hand no matter what.
He said calmly, "Go take a look. If you can save him, do it. While you're at it, deal with the Cao Family's people too."
Someone answered from the darkness, "Yes."
After giving the order, the middle-aged shopkeeper stood by the window in a daze.
However, he had not expected that his earlier shock was only the beginning. At that moment, something even more unexpected unfolded.
His gaze suddenly spotted a shadow appearing in an alleyway off the street.
For an instant, the middle-aged shopkeeper thought he had seen wrong.
But when he saw the fellow emerge from the darkness with a gun raised, his eyes immediately widened. "He still dares to come back?"
Almost all the Blackwater Mercenary Group members had gone down to the underground river a hundred meters below, searching the water for their target.
If the person had never shown up and they had failed to wait for him, they could at most blame their bad luck.
But now, the target had clearly appeared, only to slip through their fingers. Every Blackwater Mercenaries member knew what awaited them.
No one could bear the Cao Family's wrath.
If they failed to find him, they were as good as dead!
They assumed that after the target jumped into the river, he had either been trapped in the steel net and sunk to the riverbed, or been swept away by the current toward the unknown, pitch-black downstream.
Yet no one expected Ji Xun to think differently from them.
While the main force was standing in the river searching for him, he had already silently slipped out of the darkness.
He had not left. Instead, he had returned to Dark Rain Street.
There was still one thing he had not done.
He needed to eliminate future trouble.
Ji Xun had not known how he had been exposed, but considering the mysterious ritual, it was most likely some kind of diviner Spell Card Master.
When he jumped off the cliff earlier, he had seen a white-haired old woman among the enemies.
That old woman had been the first to confirm his identity.
Ji Xun's instincts told him that she was the caster.
So from the moment he had been discovered, a thought had already formed in his mind: given any chance, he had to kill that diviner.
To eliminate all future trouble!
Warrior-type Spell Card Masters could jump off the cliff after him, but he did not believe that old woman could do the same.
Although the fifty-two Professional Sequences each had their own strengths, they were relatively balanced. The Wisdom Sequence gave the old woman extraordinary divination abilities, but it also left her body frailer than that of an ordinary person.
Sure enough, just as expected.
When he returned to Dark Rain Street, Ji Xun spotted the old woman standing alone on the street.
The mercenaries had almost all gone down to the underground river to search for him. No one would expect the murderer to dare circle back to kill someone!
Ji Xun had kept the Clown Mask on ever since leaving the water, making him immune to the vast majority of mysterious rituals.
He was like a ghost moving through the darkness. By the time he stepped out of the alley, he was less than ten meters from the old woman.
At that distance, his shot was almost guaranteed to hit.
At the final moment of her life, the old woman seemed to sense something and turned toward the pitch-black alley. When she saw the figure raising a gun, surprise flashed in her eyes before she gave a miserable, relieved smile.
She had actually vaguely foreseen her own death.
She had thought she would die from the backlash of the relic.
Unexpectedly, she had guessed wrong.
She would die beneath a gun barrel.
But it no longer mattered. She had reached the end of her life anyway.
Was that not a kind of release?
The old woman before him looked even older than before, like a candle guttering in the wind, visibly frail.
Ji Xun showed no mercy. He pulled the trigger, and with a bang, an Annihilation Bullet pierced her forehead.
While everyone was still wondering why another gunshot had suddenly rung out in the street, Ji Xun had already rushed over at top speed. He tore the Storage Ring from the corpse's hand, then darted into the alley and vanished into the darkness once more.
A few minutes later, Silver Star Mysterious Materials Shop received another customer.
Ji Xun, now dressed differently, entered the shop.
The middle-aged shopkeeper looked at the fellow wearing a Gas Mask and recognized him at once as the earlier customer.
At that moment, the shopkeeper's gaze was incomparably complicated.
Ji Xun dumped a large pile of items from the Storage Ring and asked, "Boss, may I trade these for that Breathing Technique?"
He had lacked money before, but now he had some.
The spoils from killing the old woman were enough to trade for a few things.
In any case, he had already been exposed.
Behind the Gas Mask's lenses were eyes faintly overflowing with madness and blazing intensity. The confident curve of his lips carried a chilling murderous aura that seemed capable of freezing the air itself.
The commotion outside continued unabated. Probably no one would imagine that the madman who had committed two street murders would return so calmly to buy something.
Was he betting that the shopkeeper would not make things difficult for him?
Watching him, thoughts turning in his mind, the shopkeeper smiled in understanding. "Of course."
It had been a long time since he had encountered such a bold young man.
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