WebNovels

Chapter 25 - Chapter 25: The Cleaner's Greeting

"...What?!"

​The ecstatic joy on Shi Lei's face froze as if doused with a bucket of ice water. The color drained from his face.

​"Cleaners? The legendary assassin organization from the black market that... handles 'dirty work' for the big shots? How could they..."

​"Buck bought our lives for a hundred thousand credit points."

​Ling Feng's voice was exceptionally calm. This composure, far beyond his years, barely kept the panicking Shi Lei from breaking down.

​Ling Feng had no time to explain. His highly concentrated spiritual energy, like the most precise radar, was locked onto the five cold signal sources that were slowly approaching on the surface.

​He could "see" how the five of them, in a perfect, textbook tactical formation, were silently sealing off all their escape routes from all directions.

​They moved almost without a sound. Their breathing, their heartbeats, were all maintained at an extremely low frequency, as if they had merged with the environment.

​Their spiritual fields were not chaotic and full of emotional fluctuations like those of the Iron Fist Gang. They were like five poisoned scalpels, polished to perfection—cold, sharp, and deadly.

​This wasn't a gang fight.

​This was a professional, unilaterally declared... execution.

​"They're using high-frequency sonar to pinpoint our exact location," Ling Feng said rapidly. He could "hear" the detection waves, inaudible to the human ear, repeatedly scanning the underground area. "We have one minute at most before we're completely locked on."

​Shi Lei shuddered, the instinct for survival overwhelming his fear.

​"Go! We'll take Track Zero!"

​The two no longer hesitated.

​Shi Lei shouldered the most crucial crate of energy lattices, while Ling Feng stuffed the thick notebook and the remaining tools into his backpack. This was all the capital they had to make a comeback.

​They ducked into the dark tunnel they had just opened.

​And as they entered, Ling Feng looked back and reached out his hand towards the huge, long-defunct underground pumping station behind them.

​"...Collapse."

​He focused the last of his spiritual energy into a single beam and, with pinpoint accuracy, struck the pumping station's core, long-rusted load-bearing structure!

​RUMBLE—!!!

​Behind them, the entire pumping station, along with hundreds of tons of rock and soil from above, collapsed with a deafening roar! It completely and permanently sealed off the entrance to the surface.

​This was not only to block their pursuers but also Ling Feng's way of cutting off his own final retreat.

​From now on, they would be true underground ghosts, living in the shadows.

​...

​Meanwhile, on the surface.

​Outside the shelter, a "Cleaner" in grey camouflage and a full-face tactical mask looked at the tactical terminal on his wrist. The signal source had completely disappeared, and a muffled vibration was coming from deep underground. He let out a soft "hmm."

​"Target... has self-destructed the entrance," he reported through the internal channel, his voice devoid of any emotion.

​"Copy that," another equally cold voice replied from the other end of the channel. "Sniper Three, switch to Plan B. The target will likely escape from the other end of Track Zero. Now, send them a... welcoming gift."

​Several kilometers away, in Industrial Wasteland Zone 7, at the top of a long-abandoned signal tower.

​A similarly dressed "Cleaner" lay prone, as still as a statue. In front of him was a strangely shaped, futuristic-looking sniper weapon with no barrel.

​His tactical mask displayed a virtual image composed of complex ballistic data and terrain scans.

​"Target locked on the tunnel exit. Estimated time of emergence, seventeen minutes. Beginning to charge."

​...

​In the pitch-black, couldn't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face Track Zero, Ling Feng and Shi Lei were stumbling and running towards an unknown distance.

​Suddenly, Ling Feng stopped.

​"What's wrong?" Shi Lei asked, panting.

​Ling Feng didn't answer.

​He looked up at the "ceiling" of the tunnel, which was made of dozens of meters of rock and metal.

​An unprecedented, extremely deadly sense of crisis, like a cold needle, stabbed into his mental sea!

​It was the feeling... of being targeted!

​A cold killing intent that was crystal clear, even from kilometers away and through thick layers of earth!

​"Get down!!!"

​Ling Feng let out a heart-wrenching roar. He violently tackled the still-dazed Shi Lei to the ground!

​The moment they hit the ground—

​ZZZZZ—!!!

​A thin, almost invisible beam of incandescent white energy, condensed into a solid form, ignored all physical obstacles and shot through the roof of the tunnel!

​It didn't make a loud noise, only a faint, unnerving hiss of air being ionized by high heat.

​The beam passed almost right over Ling Feng's back and shot into the ground in front of him.

​The hard bedrock of the track, before that beam, was like tofu, silently melted into a bottomless, small hole with edges as smooth as a mirror.

​Shi Lei stared at the hole, which was still smoking, and at the large patch of his tattered clothes that had been singed away by the high heat, completely stunned.

​He couldn't understand.

​They were clearly fifty meters underground. Where... did that attack come from?

​"...High-energy particle sniper rifle."

​Ling Feng's voice trembled slightly with fear.

​He had "seen" this terrifying weapon, which existed only in theory and in the highest military secrets, in "The Echo's" database.

​He looked up into the darkness ahead.

​He knew the "Cleaner's" greeting had been delivered.

​And this was just the beginning.

​Their escape route, from the very start, had its end point predicted by the enemy.

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