Chapter 71 – Aftermath
TL: Milaryn
Edit: IlkonEbi
Heavy clouds hung in the dark night sky. Close to the coastal area, there was an abandoned machinery factory. During the years of rapid development in Jianghai City, there had been a lot of new companies that opened, and this was one that had not been able to withstand the competition. Some of these factories belonging to these companies had been either annexed or replaced, while some were just abandoned, as it was too late to demolish or remodel them. Under the low-hanging rain clouds, the roof covering the factory building was old and damaged. The building was empty — only some of the original rugged concrete blocks, built to support the machinery still lay there amidst the immense steel frames that were slowly rusting away as they were too big to be carried away.
Faraway sounds of the waves hitting against the coastal rocks resounded, muffled and monotonous. In this gloomy atmosphere, the abandoned factory looked somewhat scary.
On a far away road, a cross country Jeep sped towards the abandoned factory. When it arrived, the entrance gate opened with a long creak and the car stopped. A sturdy and strong looking, two meters tall man with military cargo pants exited from the car. His muscles looked as if they were about to rip the tight tank top he was wearing to shreds. It seemed that his left shoulder was injured, as a white cloth was tied around it. Fresh blood was slowly seeping through, and left behind a large red stain. He closed the car door with an ugly expression, hoisting a large duffel bag in his right hand and carrying a submachine gun in his left. He then started walking towards the abandoned factory.
In no time at all, he saw Bai Nana’s black getaway car. He frowned when he saw that no one was in it. He also smelt gas and realized that the small car’s gas tank had been damaged, and that oil was slowly spreading across the floor. Suddenly, he let go of the duffel bag and advanced deftly like a raccoon on a mission.
He retrieved another submachine gun, pistols, bullets and hand grenades of the sort from the duffel bag and then placed the large bag in a hidden corner, before quietly disappearing inside the factory.
Silently passing through two empty buildings, he finally found Bai Nana hiding in a corner not that far away. After determining that there were no enemies in the surrounding area, the burly man headed towards her. However, after just one step, his instincts suddenly screamed, and he quickly sidestepped.
Bang—
A gunshot resounded, and a bullet flew past where he had been standing previously. The one who had shot at him was Bai Nana.
“So you’re the traitor?”
“O-oh, it’s you, Tank…”
Hearing the other person’s voice, Bai Nana let out a small sigh of relief, “I… I am too nervous, sorry about that. There’s someone else here…”
She nervously scanned her surroundings and stiffened when she felt the sturdy man’s gun against her back, “Nervous? Who made you nervous? Unless it’s Cui Guohua or the Empress, are you joking?”
“I don’t know, he’s very strong. My leg and right arm both got shot. It’s like he… was deliberately waiting for us… We’ve all been tricked by him…” Peroka’s method of dealing with traitors was swift and decisive. Because he was behind her, she did not hold anything back with no signs of resistance at all. Tank examined her, and seeing that she did have gunshot wounds in the areas indicated, finally withdrew his gun, “Fine. So what happened here?”
“I… I’m not too sure. But the enemy is a fifteen or sixteen year old boy…” Bai Nana mentioned the car thief incident and naturally omitted what she wanted to do to the boy. She described that the boy had managed to break into the car and discovered the stash of weapons. Left without a choice, she knocked him out and then received the call from him. She drove all the way here without further incident. She then parked the car and left to respond to the boat’s signal; when she returned, the boy had mysteriously disappeared and then shortly after, she started being attacked.
“It’s a child? How is that possible, unless they’re an ability user?”
“I’m not sure, but… when he took his shots at me, I couldn’t locate his position at all. It was like… he could vanish at any point in time. Speaking of which… how did you get injured, and what about the police…”
“I encountered Cui Guohua. It looks like Ancestral Awakening has been alerted of our affairs ahead of time. Since I was the one taking care of Cui Guohua, the other three should have arrived before me. But since they haven’t, something might have happened…”
Cui Guohua, affiliated with Ancestral Awakening, was currently the Chief of the Secret Service of China’s Security Department. Every time he participated in something, it meant that Ancestral Awakening would be taking part as well. When Bai Nana heard Tank say this, she felt gripped by a sudden anxiety. It was a good thing Tank had managed to detect their movements first. If Cui Guohua had finished making arrangements, their team would have been finished even though the current situation was not that much better.
“It looks like the three of them won’t make it here. We should prepare…” He took a cellphone out to make another call, and after confirming that no one answered, he gestured at Bai Nana to prepare to leave. Before he finished speaking, they suddenly heard a muffled sound coming from the other side of the wall behind them.
“Have they really not arrived? Could they really all be dead…” The next moment, a burst of gunshots rolled like thunder.
The two of them leaped in two different directions at the same time, turned in mid-air, and fired at full force. The entire surface of the cement wall blossomed with flakes and holes in an instant, and hidden in the darkness of the factory building, a silhouette flashed by. After the two of them landed, they tumbled and quickly got up to their feet, fleeing to another corner not that far away. Once hidden in a safe corner, Tank hoisted his gun and aimed at the surrounding area, while one of his hands clutched the side of his head. The opponent’s bullet had destroyed his left ear and blood continuously gushed out.
Bai Nana was also very shocked at this moment. She clearly knew that when the two of them had desperately returned fire, yet they had only hit the walls and the surrounding area. Their opponent on the other hand, had only briefly shown up, taken a few shots and then disappeared. For their attacker to be able to suppress them, two first class assassins, to such an extent caused her to feel extremely oppressed. She could think of only one person capable of doing that: Minamoto Hajime, Peroka’s number one assassin.
“Hmm…” a voice came from somewhere amidst the darkness of the factory. Tank picked up a grenade in response. “A pure little Tank with a small turret will become one-eared… Let me guess, that nickname is something you definitely would not like…”
Twitching at hearing ‘pure little Tank with a small turret’, the sturdy man pulled out the safety pin and threw the grenade in the direction of the voice.
“Who are you?!”
With a loud boom, a pillar was blown up, and a small cloud of dust rose as that section of the ceiling collapsed. However, Tank and Bai Nana both knew that their opponent had not died. After a few moments, Tank shouted again, “Apart from people in Peroka, no one else knows that nickname. You are a traitor of Peroka!”
There was no response to that shout and outside of the factory, another sound could be heard as it got closer. Suddenly, a car hurtled into the factory and another car that was following closely behind, crashed into the car in the front. The two cars careened wildly towards them.
“It’s Naga!” Bai Nana shouted as the driver in the first car was in fact, Venomous Serpent’ Naga. The car behind was quite deformed from slamming into Naga’s car, but the driver could still be seen. It was a woman with an extremely cold expression, her brilliantly glittering eyes catching the attention of the two.
They were filled with a purely stubborn and extremely intense fervor, her expression clearly broadcasted her aim. Looking at her eyes, a single phrase rang through their heads: ‘I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you…’