Fierce Battle (1)

In the next second, the high-speed train suddenly braked hard, and the lights went out.

“Kill him!” Liu Wangao roared, countless transparent threads spreading from his hands to fill the carriage.

A dense flurry of gunfire erupted, muzzle flashes the only source of light in the darkness.

Yu Renjia's muscles swelled across his body as he charged at Liu Qi.

Liu Qi took a step forward, and over a dozen afterimages materialized simultaneously.

Some were on the ceiling, others near the edges of the windows.

Just as the afterimages appeared, the space behind him suddenly rippled, and a monstrous, gaping maw—nearly as large as the carriage itself—snapped down toward his back.

A cruel smirk appeared on Liu Qi's face. “A bunch of trash!”

His body vanished instantly. Although the cramped carriage restricted his movements, dealing with a few rookie supernatural beings was still child's play.

He materialized in front of Yu Renjia in the blink of an eye. Before Yu Renjia could even react, Liu Qi threw a punch, slamming it heavily into his chest.

The sound of fracturing bones echoed. Yu Renjia felt as though his lunging body had been rammed by a heavy truck, and he was sent flying backward instantly.

His body crashed into four or five Ghoul soldiers, only coming to a halt after smashing through the door of the eighth carriage.

As Liu Qi struck Yu Renjia, one of his afterimages had already appeared behind Liu Wangao.

The moment Liu Wangao turned his head, Liu Qi, still facing forward, casually reached back with his left hand without even looking.

A rapid barrage of punches pelted Liu Wangao's face like a heavy punching bag. The sound of shattering bones and splattering blood instantly filled the air.

At the same time, Zhang Liu was kicked straight through a window.

The Ghoul soldiers were beaten to the floor, unable to even stand back up.

A few kilometers ahead, a large truck sat parked on the tracks with its high beams on.

Despite the emergency braking, the high-speed train still skidded for two kilometers, finally screeching to a halt a mere fifty meters away from the truck.

The young train driver's face was deathly pale. “So close... we almost crashed and died...”

The high-speed train was traveling at four hundred kilometers per hour. A head-on collision would have undoubtedly caused a derailment, spelling certain death for the civilians inside.

The moment the train stopped, humans in business suits with crimson eyes charged from both sides, wielding melee weapons. There were easily over a thousand of them.

Before the Night Slaves could even get close, the windows on both sides shattered, and dark gun barrels poked out.

Behind the barrels, the black-eyed Ghoul soldiers pulled their triggers.

Tongues of fire spat out from both sides. Not even the dark night could obstruct their vision. Combined with reaction speeds far exceeding those of normal soldiers, they easily struck the incredibly fast Night Slaves.

One after another, the Night Slaves collapsed as bullets pierced their heads and chests.

Inside the carriage, the Ghoul soldiers watched their enemies fall so easily. But just as they were about to let out a sigh of relief, a heavy, rhythmic thud of footsteps echoed.

From behind, a dozen or so Night Slaves—each over two meters tall and possessing enhanced strength—appeared. They were clad in full-body special alloy armor and carried bulletproof shields that stood 1.5 meters tall.

They were completely encased in the special alloy, leaving only a narrow slit for their eyes, from which a sinister crimson light gleamed.

Bullets struck their shields and armor, throwing off showers of sparks but leaving not even a single scratch.

Other Night Slaves used them as cover, advancing steadily toward the train.

“Damn it! These bastards went from cleavers and axes straight to full-body armor! Are we still in the modern era?” Inside the second carriage, a Ghoul soldier stared at his rifle, then at the armored Night Slaves rapidly advancing through the hail of gunfire. For the first time, he felt completely bewildered.

Just then, an angry roar came from behind. “Out of the way, out of the way! Fuck their ancestors! We're already Ghouls, are we seriously going to be scared of these guys?!”

The Ghoul soldier turned around and saw the captain of the second carriage, his face flushed red as he hoisted a 1.5-meter-long portable cannon barrel onto his shoulder.

He aimed the barrel at the armored Night Slaves, who had already closed in to within ten meters, and bellowed, “Someone load a shell! Fire!”

A soldier behind him immediately grabbed a shell, shoved it into the breach, and yelled, “Captain, firing!”

“Fire!” the captain roared.

The soldier pulled the trigger. A deafening blast echoed inside the carriage. The massive recoil sent a shockwave through the captain, causing a trickle of black blood to seep from his lips.

The shell struck one of the shield-bearing Night Slaves. The explosion tore the shield to shreds, but the remaining shrapnel and blast only left a black scorch mark on the alloy armor.

The Night Slave stumbled back a few steps, but his expression remained unchanged as he resumed his steady march toward the train.

Although his special alloy armor was crudely put together on short notice, it weighed a whopping five hundred pounds. Combined with a hundred-pound shield, taking a direct hit from a small-caliber cannon at close range was practically nothing to him.

Inside the carriage, the Ghoul soldiers watched with grim expressions.

This was utterly ridiculous. Normally, even average supernatural beings or Specters would be killed or severely wounded by such a blast.

A ball of fire shot from the distance, landing squarely inside the second carriage.

The carriage exploded, and flames engulfed half of it.

In the direction the fire had come from, a woman watched with interest. Eleven other supernatural beings stood beside her.

At the front of the group, Cao Liang glared fiercely at the high-speed train. “Aside from Wu Jingyi and the Ghouls, I don't want to see a single living soul left alive!”

“Understood!” the group roared in unison, charging down toward the train.

One of the young men rushed into the seventh carriage with a savage expression, only to be thrown back out less than a second later, a chunk of his head completely missing.

“With strength as pathetic as that, you actually dared to come and steal the Ghouls?!” A cold snort echoed from inside the carriage, followed by a red, demon-like figure bursting through the roof to stand on top.

The rattling of chains echoed. Xu Mo casually slapped away a chain flying toward him.

Cao Liang landed on top of the sixth carriage, surrounded by black chains. He stared coldly at Xu Mo. “Xu Mo, I've heard of you. The strongest dog of the Special Bureau!”

At those words, the roof beneath Xu Mo's feet shattered as he lunged toward Cao Liang. He didn't waste any breath on words; with so many enemies around, he needed to end this quickly to support the others.

The moment he moved, chains shot out from all directions.

Xu Mo swung his fists in a flurry, deflecting every single chain that drew near.

Cao Liang's expression remained calm as the number of chains multiplied.

Some chains broke through Xu Mo's defenses, leaving bloody welts wherever they lashed his body.

Whenever Xu Mo drew close, Cao Liang would retreat.

Meanwhile, inside the rear carriages.

Liu Qi, who was busy thrashing Liu Wangao with one hand, suddenly flashed away from his spot.

The very next second, the left and right walls of the carriage caved inward as two massive black hands—each three to four meters wide—slammed together with immense force, sending a powerful shockwave blasting outward.

“How dangerous. I didn't expect the Special Bureau to have someone like you.” Liu Qi stood at the back of the carriage, tilting his head as he spoke in a casual tone.

The carriage walls were torn open by the black hands, revealing Chu Jizhen, his eyes hollow and his face pale with exhaustion. “The Liu family... Liu Qi... It seems you're ready to throw all pretense out the window.”

The moment Liu Qi appeared, Chu Jizhen knew that the attack on the plane was also this group's doing.

“Throwing away pretense? That's only something the weak care about. We have never spared a single thought for the Special Bureau,” Liu Qi sneered.

His body was surrounded by faint, rippling afterimages.

Initially, the only person he cared about on this mission was Xu Mo; the rest were nothing but trash in his eyes. He hadn't expected Chu Jizhen's strength to actually catch him by surprise.