Chapter 23: Blood Drenched Crimson Across Clothes
A gunshot cracked through the air, leaving Wang Jiafu’s mind a total blank.
Shen Chengyin returning from the dead, the ability users turning their coats, Zhao Guang flying into a violent frenzy—he could stomach all of it. Tang Qiao’s betrayal, however, was something he never saw coming.
Tang Qiao had followed him ever since Hope Base was first established. He was his closest confidant and his ultimate trump card in overthrowing Shen Chengyin.
The shot had gone wide, merely grazing Wang Jiafu’s forehead before striking the wall behind him, carving open a ragged furrow of split flesh.
Blood welled and poured down his face.
Tang Qiao whipped around instantly, aiming his sidearm toward a storage shelf on his right.
Someone had just knocked his gun off target.
A metal hex nut lay on the floorboards, likely the object the person had hurled.
“Come out.”
Tang Qiao barked in a chilled, commanding rasp.
Whoever hid behind the shelf didn’t twitch. Tang Qiao held only a handgun; without knowing the enemy’s exact position, he was at a distinct tactical disadvantage.
Yet this person had overheard his entire exchange with Wang Jiafu. Leaving this room alive was not an option.
Raising the pistol with his right hand, Tang Qiao gathered his power slowly in his left palm. The faint, crackling sizzle of dancing current echoed through the chamber.
Step by deliberate step, he closed in on the shelf. His lightning ability guaranteed he could neutralize the target’s motor functions the instant line of sight was established.
Just as Tang Qiao was about to round the corner, a deafening crash exploded. A brutal kick slammed into the steel shelving unit, sending the nearly two-meter-tall monolith toppling straight toward him.
Frowning slightly, Tang Qiao shifted his weight and dodged aside with practiced ease.
The metal unit slammed hard against the floor, scattering medical supplies and diagnostic gear in every direction.
His eyes locked instantly onto the silhouette darting out from behind the wreckage. “Halt!”
A ferocious roar of electrical energy surged forward. Su Han threw himself into a desperate roll, narrowly evading the arc as he tumbled toward the exit.
Before his fingers could wrench the heavy iron door open, a second bolt of lightning was already upon him. Su Han released the door handle without hesitation. The current struck the metal panel, producing a hair-raising, high-voltage shriek.
Iron conducted electricity; getting through this door today was out of the question.
With no time to waver, Su Han drew twin combat blades into his grip and lunged straight back at Tang Qiao in a reverse-grip charge.
Tang Qiao raised his gun on instinct, firing several rounds in rapid succession. Two slugs tore into Su Han’s calf and forearm, but the boy didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow. The twin daggers were already bearing down on Tang Qiao’s vitals.
A jolt of alarm hit Tang Qiao. He twisted his torso violently—the blade that would have skewered his heart missed its mark, plunging deep into his shoulder instead.
Blood drenched crimson across his clothes.
Blinding agony flared through him. Wearing a savage snarl, Tang Qiao clamped an iron grip around Su Han’s arm, letting loose a torrential surge of raw current.
Every muscle and nerve in Su Han’s body instantly fell out of his control. Without a single cry, he stiffened into a rigid board and crashed to the floor, paralyzed from head to toe, his lungs locked and gasping for oxygen.
Tang Qiao’s current wasn’t strong enough to execute an adult human on the spot. Using his uninjured hand, he raised the handgun and leveled the muzzle right between Su Han’s eyes.
Staring up at Tang Qiao, Su Han willed his limbs to bring a blade up to deflect the incoming bullet, but his stiffened fingers refused to move even a millimeter.
Right at that split second, the iron door was kicked clean off its frame.
“Seize him!”
Before Tang Qiao could muster a defense, a heavy braided metal whip lashed across his back with brutal force. A crushing counter-current surged down the length of the metal cord straight into his flesh. Tang Qiao’s vision blacked out; convulsing violently, he collapsed hard onto the tiles.
Panting heavily, Li Tiangan finally stepped into Su Han’s line of sight.
Behind him stood several ability users, their expressions sinking like lead at the carnage inside the ward.
“Are you completely out of your fucking mind?! Taking on Tang Qiao solo?!” Li Tiangan hauled Su Han upright into a seated position.
Su Han couldn’t speak; he had literally just brushed shoulders with the reaper.
A few ability users rushed over to pin down the terrified, trembling Wang Jiafu, while others hoisted the unconscious Tang Qiao from the floor.
Staring at Tang Qiao, Su Han strained his throat, scraping together a few dry, fragmented syllables: “…P-Pouch…”
Catching his meaning immediately, Li Tiangan ordered someone to strip the tactical waist pouch from Tang Qiao’s belt.
Clutching the pouch tightly in his hand, Su Han rested against Li Tiangan’s shoulder for a short recovery period before his vocal cords finally cooperated. “How did you know to come here?”
Lying in wait for Tang Qiao had been an impromptu gamble; he hadn’t briefed a single soul. Before leaving, he had specifically tasked Li Tiangan with keeping eyes on Shen Chengyin.
“Shen Chengyin told me to come,” Li Tiangan paused, looking at the weapon in his hand. “He gave me this whip, too.”
Why hadn’t he thought of it before? A metal-braided whip handled like a dream. In a duel between two lightning-element users, it trumped virtually every standard weapon on the field.
“Where did Shen Chengyin go?”
“No clue. Probably headed to the main gates to direct the defense.”
After dispatching Li Tiangan to pull Su Han out of the fire, Shen Chengyin had vanished into the shadows alone. Not a single person had seen where he went.
Su Han’s breath hitched in his throat, nearly choking on sheer panic.
Tightening his grip on the tactical pouch, he scrambled to his feet. “I’m going after Shen Chengyin! You stay here—there’s an alternate plan to carry out. Move fast!”
Night had fully claimed the sky. Every operational light source across Hope Base was concentrated on the open kill zone beyond the perimeter wall.
The shrieks and snarls of the infected echoed in relentless waves. The clearing outside the main gate was already carpeted with sprawling corpses.
The vast majority belonged to the undead, interspersed with the mangled remains of a few unfortunate survivors who had failed to fall back in time.
Up on the ramparts, defenders poured fire down into the swarm, utilizing rifles, shotguns, and crossbows to slaughter anything that crawled within range.
Before long, the infected would pile into a gruesome, towering ramp of flesh; they had to keep the bodies from stacking high enough for the horde to scale the battlements.
Illumination was scarce. The inner side of the gates remained shrouded in near-total gloom, forcing logistics teams to haul ammunition and supplies to the frontlines entirely by feel.
The colossal, reinforced alloy gates of the base had been latched and bolted into place. Through brute biological force alone, it was virtually impossible for the infected to breach them.
Guarding the inner side of the threshold were unpowered commoners—all drawn from the ranks of the old, the weak, the sick, and the crippled. It was a ceremonial, redundant post, yet the sentries stood at their stations with twelve parts vigilance.
“Who goes there?!”
Catching sight of a dark silhouette steadily approaching through the gloom, the gatekeepers snapped to high alert.
“It’s me,” Shen Chengyin replied, offering no name.
The guards froze. That cadence struck them as hauntingly familiar.
Isolated from the flow of information, they had no idea Shen Chengyin was still breathing.
“You’re…?”
“That voice… Is—is that Leader Shen?”
Someone recognized him in the dark.
Shen Chengyin’s eyelids lifted a fraction, his figure remaining largely concealed by the shadows.
“It’s me. I’ve come to inspect the gate locks.”
The second the words left his mouth, the cluster of sentries swarmed around him in an eruption of frantic chatter.
“It really is Leader Shen?! You’re alive?!”
Someone boldly flicked a disposable lighter. In the faint, flickering amber glow, every face turned toward Shen Chengyin, seeing his features with absolute clarity.
“Leader Shen!! You’re really alive!!”
“What in the world happened—”
Shen Chengyin had arrived entirely alone, clad in the black tactical uniform of the guard corps.
He cut through their noisy clamor with an icy tone:
“An incident occurred with Wang Jiafu. I am taking overall command of this siege. Step aside.”
Shen Chengyin was well aware that his authority had supposedly been revoked within the settlement; he was fully prepared for these people to bar his way.
A handful of defenseless commoners—slaughtering them would take zero effort.
Yet the moment his command dropped, the crowd parted into two neat, orderly lines of their own accord, clearing an unhindered path directly toward the gates.
The way they looked upon Shen Chengyin was identical to how one would behold a divine messiah.
Ever since Shen Chengyin vanished, they had suffered endless torment under Wang Jiafu’s brutal thumb. In Wang Jiafu’s eyes, commoners devoid of combat prowess were worth less than stray dogs.
Coupled with Su Han fanning the flames throughout the lower quarters over the past weeks, their resentment toward Wang Jiafu had long since boiled past its limit.
With Shen Chengyin returning, their joy was beyond words.
Their Leader Shen was the sole, peerless protector who had truly valued the lives of the ordinary people.
Under the reverent gazes of the crowd, Shen Chengyin walked forward, step by steady step, toward the threshold.
The reinforced alloy barrier was a full half-meter thick, completely immune to brute mechanical force.
Shen Chengyin, however, was a spatial ability user.
Halting before the towering slab of metal, the man slowly laid his palm flush against the surface.
Now, all he needed to do was store the entire fortress gate into his spatial void. The base would transform into a living, breathing slaughterhouse.
Every single soul here would die.
