Explosives X Infiltration X Dodge

The moment Jiang Ye pushed open his hotel room door, the gray-white light of early morning cast the twelve-year-old's small, skinny figure into a long, slanting shadow.

He headed straight for Middle City West Street without hesitation.

The news White Dog had gathered last night included more than information about the farm. He had also learned the location of an underground weapons shop.

Jiang Ye spent most of his remaining Jenny on a bundle of high explosives, complete with fuses, leads, and waterproof oilcloth.

The weapons dealer barely glanced at the skinny child, taking him for some gang's errand boy.

Jiang Ye stuffed the supplies into his shadow space, then turned and left.

Thirty minutes later.

In a dead forest outside the Rust Bone Gang's farm on the outskirts of the Middle City East District, Jiang Ye crouched on a fallen scrap-metal tree, squinting at the scene ahead.

The farm was much larger than he had imagined.

A wire fence enclosed over a hundred mu of land, where inferior sour fruit and vegetables grew, but what really stood out were the vehicles moving among them.

There were three dark vans, two military pickup trucks, and more than a dozen burly men patrolling back and forth with firearms.

Jiang Ye's gaze settled on a van driving through the farm gates.

Through a gap in its windows, he could make out several young faces.

They were all children.

It matched the information he had heard exactly.

The Rust Bone Gang rounded up displaced children all over Meteor City and forced them into the Nostrade Family's bodyguard training pipeline.

Jiang Ye's gaze darkened slightly.

He watched the van pass two guard posts and stop in front of a huge sheet-metal warehouse.

The rear doors opened, and seven or eight ragged children were shoved out. The oldest were no more than thirteen or fourteen, while the youngest looked only seven or eight. Their faces were full of fear and exhaustion.

"Now."

Jiang Ye stepped into the shadow beneath his feet and sank into the ground like water. He sped along the line of shadow cast by the dead trees and slipped silently against the van's undercarriage.

The vibrations of the wheels rolling over the gravel road enveloped his body, but no one noticed him.

The warehouse doors were pulled open, and the driver and the burly escort urged the children inside.

During a burst of engine noise, Jiang Ye leaped out from under the van and melted into the shadow the industrial lights cast against the wall. He mingled with the back of the children's line and squeezed sideways into the warehouse.

The warehouse was dimly lit, and the air reeked of machine oil and rust.

The children were herded into a line in the open space at the center of the warehouse. Some secretly wiped away tears, while others stood motionless with their heads lowered.

The burly man who had been the last to leave the van stepped forward and bellowed irritably.

"Stand up straight, every last one of you!"

"The boss will send someone to pick you out later. Whoever pulls a long face will be the fucking first to go dig in the mines..."

Before he could finish, something cold pressed against the back of his neck.

Jiang Ye had appeared behind the man at some point, the tip of his dagger pressed precisely against his carotid artery.

The man stiffened all over, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. He did not even dare breathe.

"Where's the leader of the Rust Bone Gang?"

Jiang Ye kept his voice low, but it was perfectly audible.

"Lead the way, or die here."

The man opened his mouth, intending to make a threat, but the dagger tip pushed a fraction deeper. A trickle of warm liquid ran down his neck, and he immediately caved.

"A d... detached house... behind the wire fence to the north... the white one..."

"Thank you."

Jiang Ye withdrew the dagger.

The next second, pfft!

The dagger stabbed diagonally into the side of the man's neck, precisely severing the connection between his artery and windpipe.

He crumpled to the ground without so much as a grunt.

Jiang Ye pulled out the dagger, wiped the blood on the man's clothes, and turned to the children huddled in the corner.

Only after meeting their gazes for a few seconds did Jiang Ye slowly speak.

"When you hear an explosion, run out through the back door of this warehouse."

"Don't look back."

With that, he turned and vanished into the shadows without another word of explanation.

Three hundred meters north of the warehouse, a detached white house stood in the center of a yard enclosed by a wire fence.

Its exterior was coated in relatively fresh white paint, and there were even two malnourished potted plants in front of the entrance.

Compared with the rusty work sheds around it, the place was luxurious enough to belong to another world.

Jiang Ye slowly came to a stop in the shadows outside the house.

He did not rush inside. First, he activated Zetsu, making his aura vanish completely, then began silently placing explosives around the house.

At the corners, behind the eaves, beneath the windowsills. He stuffed high explosives into gaps in the drainpipes and buried them in the loose soil of the planted areas.

The five demolition points were arranged in a fan, their leads converging at the roots of a dead tree east of the house.

Once he had finished, Jiang Ye withdrew to a safe distance.

He pulled out the lead and lit it!

The fuse burned along its length, hissing.

Three seconds later.

Boom...!!

The entire house exploded from within. Flames and the shock wave tore away the whole outer wall of the second floor, sending shards of glass and burning splinters flying in every direction. Black smoke rose into the sky, and the deafening blast echoed across the entire farm.

At that moment, all the patrolling thugs froze.

Then screams, shouts, and footsteps came from every direction as they rushed toward the house.

At the very center of the explosion, a figure clad head to toe in earthy-yellow rock armor slowly rose from the burning wreckage.

The armor was covered in cracks, as though it had been struck repeatedly with a hammer, and fragments were still falling from its edges.

Beneath it, half the man's body was burned black and curled, and one arm hung limply at his side.

"Ha..."

Dodge Daichi brushed the bits of rubble from his shoulder with the hand he could still move. His murky eyes, set in his charred face, stared fixedly toward the distant dead tree.

"You blew me up?"

His voice was low and hoarse, with a muffled quality to it.

"Which leader in Meteor City didn't crawl out of a pile of corpses?"

He lifted his foot, and his Earth Armor formed another thin layer of earthy-yellow rock over his exposed wounds.

Then he turned his head and took two steps toward the dead tree.

"Come out."

Dodge's tone was mild.

"You managed to hurt me this badly. You're worth showing yourself."

There was no response from behind the dead tree.

The next second, Dodge's pupils contracted slightly.

Two invisible impacts came at him simultaneously from either side.

Dodge saw nothing, but his combat instincts drove him to twist sharply to the side.

Pfft!

Even so, a tremendous bite tore into his left shoulder, shattering his rock armor and sending fragments flying.

A second force slammed into his right leg immediately afterward, making him stagger back half a step.

An invisible enemy!

Dodge immediately concentrated his aura in his eyes.

As he activated Gyo, two blurred outlines appeared in his field of vision, one black and one white, shaped like giant dogs. They crouched on either side of the ruins, bits of rock and flesh torn from his body still dripping from their mouths.

"Dogs... Nen Beasts..."

"It's you!"