Chapter 58 A Tooth for a Tooth, Blood for Blood

The moment the alarm sounded, several accidents occurred within the base.

First was the location of the parking lot.

Simultaneously with the alarm bell, the flash of an explosion instantly appeared.

Xiang Shan had already hacked the control units of the two motorcycles, rewriting their safety protocols. After Xiang Shan departed, the engines continued to atomize ethanol, then sent the evenly mixed atomized ethanol and combustion improver back into the fuel tanks. Meanwhile, the metal batteries were constantly rising in temperature.

The guards, who were busy fighting each other in a game of Tetris, did not notice.

And so, the explosion.

One martial artist had bad luck; a flying piece of metal severed his cervical spine, temporarily incapacitating him. Though the others were covered in soot and failed to save their makeshift game consoles, they were still cyborgs after all, which generally did not hinder combat.

Yet they had no time to mind such details. Shrapnel had punctured the fuel tanks and batteries of the other motorcycles, and half the garage had begun to burn fiercely.

Even some of the bullets were ignited.

There were no fire-extinguishing equipment in the base, and metal batteries would react violently and release heat upon contact with water. The few men could only use the sand piled in the corners beforehand to fight the fire, but in such a rushed moment, how could it possibly be extinguished?

Meanwhile, the guards who first discovered Ali and the three other corpses also awaited reinforcements. Over a dozen skilled fighters crowded in the corridor. They intended to exchange information briefly and then patrol in groups of seven.

The outlaw who first discovered the corpses wanted to use the walkie-talkie to report to the monitoring room. But right at that moment, he suddenly heard a "puff" sound.

Simultaneously, a silver light covered his field of vision.

The radio signal also suddenly deteriorated.

"Tie Hua!" a heavily modified outlaw said in terror.

Naturally, this was what Xiang Shan had scavenged from Griad's corpse.

Not every martial artist possessed a hermetic casing as fine as the Welfare Officer's, nor could every martial artist maintain a relatively high pressure within their body using evaporated coolant, as Xiang Shan had done that day.

The innermost fighter instinctively retreated, only to collide with the comrade behind him. Caught in the congestion, the men failed to dodge in time and were enveloped by the Tie Hua.

A series of crackling electric sparks sounded.

Yet at this moment, Xiang Shan had just lowered his gun.

After a few gunshots, there were no other sounds left in the entire monitoring room.

These monitor operators were humans with low modification rates who had been specifically retained. Their limbs, hands, and vocal organs were entirely biological, and the chips in their brains could not interfere with their motor centers.

Conversely, however, such people were bound to be weak—extremely weak.

If they were naturals, even if they achieved the status of a Grandmaster of Martial Arts, they would still be as fragile as paper. After all, a flesh-and-blood body was ruined with a mere touch. Even Griad's tentacle, which was entirely metal-based and packed almost exclusively with muscle, only had the advantage of "not being instantly pulverized by high-frequency vibration." In reality, upon contact with high-frequency oscillating waves, the metal-based cells would still inevitably shatter and necrose, with the soft tissue and abundant fluid merely acting as a cushion to absorb energy, preventing it from collapsing entirely like solid metal.

Even if metal-based nerves could allow their consciousness to keep pace with bullets, muscles formed of protein and bones condensed from calcium carbonate could not support dodging movements at equivalent speeds.

And right now, Xiang Shan had essentially won.

Martial artists with low modification rates were of almost no use in actual combat, while those with high modification rates would all be restricted by his swarm.

As long as he restricted the vast majority of high-yield modified martial artists in this area, Xiang Shan could move through the place as if no one were there.

And that loudspeaker was still roaring: "Hey! What's happening? Answer! Answer! Hey! Hey! What's going on!"

"The stronghold is doomed," Xiang Shan sighed. "A century of foundation ruined in a single day!"

"What? Who on earth has infiltrated... No, who exactly are you beneath that mask?"

"Who am I? That truly is a profound question. Three philosophical questions right off the bat?" While replying, Xiang Shan stared at the monitors, constructed a personnel distribution map, and responded leisurely: "A passing... avenger?"

"Stop playing goddamn ghost!" Little Poison Insect raged. "You are... Wait, big brother hasn't returned for days, could it be..."

The second-in-command's tone abruptly shifted, turning grim: "That 'Shan'? Just what kind of person are you?"

Xiang Shan casually waved a hand, cutting off the dialogue.

"To be honest, I'm quite curious to know who I am myself." Xiang Shan shrugged, then produced two walkie-talkies he had just scavenged, slightly adjusting the frequencies.

He had basically won.

Or rather... if the enemy failed to form dense formations or firepower positions to encircle and kill him before the swarm took full effect, then the enemy had lost all chance of victory.

The stronghold's primary server was in his hands. And the broadcasting system capable of issuing orders had also been mostly knocked out.

What needed to be done next was called "uprooting the evil completely."

Before coming, he had actually been willing to believe that among the outlaws, there might still be novices who had not yet committed murder. He didn't have the time to distinguish them one by one, but he still harbored the intention to "show mercy."

However, after downloading the data from Griad's server, that notion was entirely gone.

The only regret was that the "Cyan-Steel Vulture" did not seem to be in the nest. But he truly lacked the patience to wait, so he might as well kill while waiting.

"Next, to manufacture panic..." After adjusting the frequency, Xiang Shan casually tore a section of wire from the monitoring room, binding a walkie-talkie and a microphone together.

—How could he be content if he did not make these scum repent in fear and humiliation!

Then, he kicked open the door, raised his gun, and fired, blasting apart two heads that had been aiming their weapons directly at the entrance.

Having received the alarm but lacking orders, not every outlaw yet knew what was happening. Most of them had merely taken up defensive postures and raised their weapons.

A small fraction rushed in a chaotic mob toward the corridors leading to the warehouse and parking lot.

For the moment, not many people paid attention to this side.

Xiang Shan leaped upward, once again reaching the top of the steel beams.

As he walked briskly, a large loudspeaker blared: "Brothers, that person is monitoring..."

With a "bang," Xiang Shan blasted that loudspeaker to pieces.

Simultaneously, all lighting routes that could be cut off via remote control were shut down at the exact same time.

Xiang Shan raised the walkie-talkie and said, "Heroes of the outlaws, you have been surrounded!"

In an instant, random gunfire erupted alongside curses. Several martial artists acting as minor chieftains began attempting to rally some of their subordinates to charge toward the monitoring room.

Xiang Shan turned off the walkie-talkie and sighed, "My, my, who on earth am I... I play this trick rather well, don't I?"

At that moment, another loudspeaker activated, shouting, "Brothers, hurry and give me..."

Xiang Shan once again raised his hand and fired, blowing up that loudspeaker as well.

Doing this undoubtedly exposed his position. Yet their perception and reality already possessed a delay of approximately 0.4 seconds. The moment he fired, Xiang Shan flipped his body and kicked violently against the ceiling.

0.4 seconds later, a series of bullets pierced through the exact spot Xiang Shan had occupied just moments before.

By this very second, Xiang Shan had already reached the side of a fully modified martial artist.

He spun this martial artist around by the shoulder. The 0.4-second delay caused the man's center of balance to already be disrupted by the time he began to resist.

Holding the walkie-talkie in his right hand while stabilizing the minor chieftain's shoulder, Xiang Shan pressed Mr. Andy's pistol against the back of the chieftain's head with his left hand, simultaneously activating the walkie-talkie.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang!"

Gunshots and cries of agony echoed through the broadcasting system across the entire base.

"How does it feel to be ravaged by violence, gentlemen!"

Xiang Shan dropped the minor chieftain's corpse, dropping his body downward in a fluid motion to dodge three sweeping staves.

His vision now permeated the entire base; he possessed absolute situational awareness.

Frenzied bandits swarmed in. Some among them might have realized their perception was flawed, but Xiang Shan's attitude thoroughly enraged them.

—Fools...

Xiang Shan evaluated them thus in his heart.

The optimal move right now would actually be for one or two close-combat experts to entangle him while firearm-path martial artists leisurely established a firepower array. These outlaw thugs only knew that "dense formations counter martial arts techniques," while completely forgetting that "dense formations" also required coordination. A crowd rushing forward clumsily would only interfere with one another.

—I need to add fuel to the fire... Speaking of which, why am I so good at this? Who on earth was I in the past?

While dodging with the leisurely grace of a stroll, Xiang Shan hummed into the walkie-talkie: "Who am I? Am I not unique? Maybe I'm not here at all."

He gripped the middle of a staff with his remaining right hand and gave it a casual yank, dragging the owner of that staff into stumbling three steps forward, using him to block three subsequent strikes. That fellow's neck was crushed directly by his companion's blow, and he let out a miserable shriek, temporarily losing his combat capability.

Xiang Shan hurriedly delivered a kick, shattering this fellow's skull.

Simultaneously, he used the monitoring room guard's rifle to fire three consecutive shots upward, taking out three firearm-path martial artists who were secretly setting up a firing position.

The field of vision left by Mr. Griad was exceptionally broad. Presumably, he truly never gave any enemies infiltrating the stronghold a chance to launch a sneak attack from the shadows.

"Look, the fakers, blinding us with lies, the breakers of us all."

Unprecedented humiliation clouded the minds of several martial artists. They simply could not endure such mockery—a single enemy... merely a single enemy dared to insult them thus! Dared to trample their dignity into the dirt while singing a song!

Furthermore, it appeared that the attention he poured into singing was even greater than the attention he gave to fighting!

Yet, they failed to notice that Xiang Shan fired frequently precisely to pick off the firearm-path martial artists. Anyone who attempted to use ranged weapons against him from a high vantage point was prioritized—either directly shot dead or knocked off balance by a bullet to make them fall.

In the blink of an eye, fourteen martial artists had fallen beneath Xiang Shan's feet.

Along with the five firearm-path martial artists he had shot, plus the two killed upon entry, the five dead at the monitoring room entrance, and the three dead inside the monitoring room.

There were only about a hundred people left.

"All of you, get out of the way!" a booming voice echoed.

It was a martial artist whose lower body had been replaced with a caterpillar-tread vehicle. He was as burly as Griad, but fitted with a row of high-frequency blades along his chassis.

He slammed forward with his entire body while multiple arms brandished giant axes, attempting to restrict Xiang Shan's evasion routes.

Yet what he attempted to restrict was actually "Xiang Shan 0.4 seconds ago."

Xiang Shan leaped directly onto his back, humming softly: "Oh, it's useless."

Without pausing his hands, just as he had treated Griad, he raised his hand and dealt with this imitation of Griad.