There were still people on the street. Most of the buildings in the area had only recently been rebuilt, constructed largely of wood.
At the tavern entrance, two old men with pipes were frozen in place, their pipes held mid-air and their mouths half-open.
The door of the neighboring shop was slightly ajar, and a woman in an apron was leaning halfway out to see what was happening.
Further down at the end of the street, a vendor pushing a cart was still looking down, busy tidying up. With his back turned to the scene, he hadn't noticed a thing.
Bolen was already shouting.
“Nightwatchers on duty! Everyone back inside!”
His voice was loud, echoing through the quiet night street.
The two old men with pipes flinched, but they didn't move.
The woman peeking out stood there dazed.
The vendor finally turned around, but he clearly didn't understand what was happening and simply stood there in a stupor.
Frank and the other two Nightwatchers fanned out to both sides.
Their movements were far faster than the residents.
As they evacuated the area, they were also preparing to encircle the targets.
Their positions already blocked both ends of this street section and the entrance to a side alley.
The Nightwatchers present were all rank 2 eerie transcendents; none of them were pushovers.
But it was too late.
The man with the mechanical arm stopped. He was no longer giving chase.
He stood right under a streetlamp, less than thirty meters from Lu Yuan.
The tubular structure on his right arm slowly rose, aiming toward the direction where the “tree” people were retreating.
Steam began to rise from the nozzle.
It started as a faint wisp, almost invisible to the naked eye, discernible only by the slight distortion of the air above the nozzle as it heated up.
Then, the smell of scorched metal surged out.
The pungent scent of copper mixed with some kind of burning alchemical fuel quickly diffused through the night wind.
One by one, the alchemical runes along the edge of the nozzle lit up.
First were the few near the opening, glowing dark red and flickering slightly like freshly lit coals, then those deeper inside shifted from dark red to orange-yellow.
The temperature was climbing rapidly.
Something inside the nozzle was being heated to its critical point.
Lu Yuan narrowed his eyes.
Given the caliber of that nozzle, whatever it fired wouldn't be a single line.
It would be a fan-shaped spread.
From the muzzle to thirty meters ahead, the coverage would be wide enough to engulf this entire section of the street along with the shops on both sides.
One of the Ascension Society members shouted.
“We must stop them!”
At that same moment, Lu Yuan’s hand moved.
The instant the alchemical runes shifted from dark red to orange-yellow, his left hand had already reached his waist.
The new “Flame” was drawn from its holster.
The pitch-black body of the gun didn't reflect any light from the streetlamps, as if it were swallowing every ray that fell upon it.
The cylinder was loaded with copper-cased incendiary rounds.
His thumb cocked the hammer.
Bang.
The muzzle spat out a burst of scorching orange-red flame, and the gunsmoke was torn to shreds by the night wind.
The bullet slammed into the tubular structure of the mechanical arm—more precisely, it hit right in the center of the nozzle.
The casing shattered, the alchemical fire powder ignited, and a blast of burning copper erupted across the metal surface of the nozzle, sending a ring of dark red sparks flying.
The impact wasn't massive, but it was enough.
The rising temperature inside the nozzle missed a beat.
Before the alchemical fuel could reach its ignition point, it was disrupted by the external force.
The rhythm of the runes was forcibly broken. Several runes that had already brightened to orange-yellow flickered violently twice before going dark.
It was like a kettle of water about to boil being suddenly pulled off the stove.
The charge was interrupted.
The members of the Ascension Society all turned their heads.
Lu Yuan stood under the streetlamp, gun in his left hand, the muzzle still trailing gunsmoke and remnants of orange-red flame.
The Nightwatchers badge on his chest caught the light.
The eyes of the four Ascension Society members first landed on the badge.
Then they looked at his face.
“Put the area-of-effect weapons away,” Lu Yuan said.
His tone wasn't loud, but in the now-silent street, every word was crystal clear.
“This is the Bronze City.”
Their gazes swept past Lu Yuan to his back.
Hank had fully unbuttoned his coat, his right hand resting on the weapon at his waist.
His frame seemed a size larger than when he had been standing and joking earlier.
His back was straight, his chin slightly tucked, and his center of gravity lowered.
The drunken state he’d been in, slumped over the table before leaving the tavern, had vanished completely.
Frank and the other Nightwatchers fanned out from the sides. Together with the Ascension Society, they formed a semi-circle, completely locking the pursued targets in the middle.
Bolen stood at the very back.
His cane was planted on the ground. He didn't move, but he made no effort to hide his rank 3 aura. Runes continuously surfaced across his body.
The members of the Ascension Society felt it. Their steps retreated slightly. They clearly hadn't expected to encounter so many Nightwatchers here, let alone a rank 3 Inscriptionist.
However, the leader of the Ascension Society turned to look at Lu Yuan.
His semi-deployed right arm was still venting steam. A wisp of white smoke rose from the scorch mark left by the copper-cased incendiary round on the nozzle.
He was calculating.
With at least five Nightwatchers, including a rank 3, a direct confrontation in the streets of the Bronze City would leave neither side unscathed.
Moreover, their primary target wasn't the Nightwatchers.
After a few seconds, the runes on the nozzle dimmed, and the metal plates of the mechanical arm retracted section by section, resetting into the sleeve.
But he spoke.
“Nightwatchers, don't meddle in things that don't concern you.”
Lu Yuan didn't respond.
He didn't need to. His gun was still raised, and the gunsmoke from the muzzle hadn't yet fully dispersed.
In truth, the battle ahead had already begun before Lu Yuan fired his first shot.
The two Ascension Society members with short blades had never stopped. While the mechanical arm was charging, those two had already caught up to the “tree” people. Short blades and vines had clashed for at least two or three rounds under the streetlamps.
Now that the Nightwatchers had appeared and surrounded the three of them from both sides, the situation had changed.
In front were the Nightwatchers. The five-man formation combined with Bolen's rank 3 aura was a literal wall.
Behind was the Ascension Society. Though the mechanical arm's charge had been interrupted, the man still blocked the path of retreat.
In the middle were the three “tree” people.
There was no way out.
The leader—the one who had been carrying the wooden man and glancing back frequently—swept his gaze across the street.
The orange-yellow light of the streetlamps fell on his face.
Lu Yuan saw a flash of unwillingness in his eyes.
It was only a flash.
Then he made a tiny movement.
He shot a look toward his two companions who were still entangled with the Ascension Society.
At the same time, his right hand made a very subtle gesture. Lu Yuan saw it, but he didn't know what it meant.
He found out in the next moment.
The two “tree” people still in close combat with the Ascension Society...
Mutated instantly.
Their skin split open simultaneously.
Deep green veins surged from every pore of their bodies. Wooden textures, as if they had been primed beneath the skin for a long time, exploded from their limbs, torsos, and faces in a single heartbeat.
“Crunch.”
A loud sound echoed, like wood being forcibly snapped apart.
Both of them expanded at the same time.
Deep green branches erupted from them at a visible speed, spreading in all directions.
Thick vines surged from their waists, shoulders, and necks, flailing wildly and without pattern.
The two rank 2 Ascension Society members closest to them were forced back several steps by the outburst.
A branch slammed directly into the chest of one, throwing him three meters away. He crashed into a streetlamp post, which bent to one side. The flame inside the lamp shade flickered violently, nearly going out.
The other reacted slightly faster, parrying with a gear short-blade, but he was still knocked off balance by the force of the vines and retreated out of the engagement range.
The battlefield instantly fell into chaos.
The two newborn mutants flailed blindly, attacking friend and foe alike. The range of the branches expanded rapidly.
The ground was smashed and cracked, and dark green liquid splattered everywhere.
And in the center of this chaos...
The leader moved.
Clutching the wooden man, he slipped through a gap between the flailing branches of his two companions.
He didn't head toward the Nightwatchers; he headed toward the Ascension Society.
Lu Yuan understood.
Facing the five Nightwatchers and Bolen's rank 3 pressure, a frontal assault was suicide. On the Ascension Society's side, only the man with the mechanical arm was still standing firm; the other two rank 2s had been pushed back by the mutation, and the fourth member was positioned further away.
That was the only opening.
He was gambling.
The fourth member of the Ascension Society realized what was happening. He had been standing slightly behind the man with the mechanical arm, and seeing the leader rush toward them, he immediately took a step forward, half-raising his arm to intercept.
“Don't—”
He had just opened his mouth.
The mechanical arm next to him moved.
The hand of the mechanical arm rested gently on the fourth man's shoulder.
It was very light.
The fourth man froze.
In that instant, the second step he was about to take stopped in mid-air.
The leader, carrying the wooden man, darted past him.
There was no obstruction.
Lu Yuan saw this play out from over ten meters away.
The man hadn't just failed to “stop” him; he had actively prevented his companion from intercepting.
Lu Yuan’s eyes met those of the man with the mechanical arm.
The contact lasted only a second.
The man didn't look away. His gaze was calm, as if to say, “So what if I did?”
Lu Yuan didn't say anything either.
He knew the man had intentionally let him go.
The leader carrying the wooden man disappeared into another dark alley behind the Ascension Society.
Within seconds, even the sound of his footsteps vanished.
But Lu Yuan didn't care. Because at the moment the tree people went berserk, Lu Yuan felt the Knowledge Worm deep within his left eye awaken.
The aura of those two newborn mutants had washed over him almost simultaneously.
It carried the sweet, sickly scent of wilting flowers. The Knowledge Worm showed clear interest in the leading man, wriggling a few times in Lu Yuan's left eye socket.
It was as if it had memorized something.
In Lu Yuan's vision...
An extremely thin, ethereal thread extended from his eye.
It cut through the chaotic street, passed the two flailing mutants, bypassed the Ascension Society members, and stretched all the way into the dark alley where the leader had disappeared.
Clearly, the Knowledge Worm had tagged something.
Lu Yuan retracted his gaze and ignored the leader of the Ascension Society.
The fight on the street continued.
But there were no more civilians around.
The moment the mutation had erupted, the few remaining people on the street hadn't hesitated for even a second before fleeing.
The vendor abandoned his cart and ran.
The two old men with pipes ducked back inside simultaneously, the door slamming shut with a bang.
The woman in the apron disappeared from the crack in the door so fast she didn't seem like an ordinary person. Within half a second, the door was bolted from the inside.
In the distance, a window slammed shut, followed by a second, then a third.
No one screamed. No one hesitated.
The street was empty in an instant.
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