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Chapter 294 The Mercy of Death

Lin Qing wandered around in the underground passage, turning about three corners before suddenly stopping and looking to her right.

The moment she paused, her enemy, who had blended into the background, also made his move. He darted out from the corner, a flash of cold light sweeping across her face!
If she had taken one more step, this blow would have severed her throat.

But she happened to be standing outside the attack range, and the two of them moved in perfect unison, like actors with perfect coordination.

Having missed his first attack, the opponent disappeared into the darkness again. However, this time he did not continue to flee. Instead, he shouted angrily, "How did you see me?! My color-changing disguise was flawless!"

“…Infrared,” Lin Qing uttered.

"What?" The man was taken aback.

Switching to natural light, this person was indeed quite well concealed—he was less than 1.5 meters tall, with slender arms and legs, the complete opposite of the robust woman from before. In a prone position with his arms and legs tucked in, the texture of his skin and bodysuit blended in with the underground environment; without close inspection, he looked just like a roadside stone.

In a sense, this can also be considered a form of optical invisibility.

Unfortunately, her prosthetic eye also has an infrared observation mode.

In the lifeless underground passage, a moving red object stood out conspicuously. From the moment it appeared, Lin Qing noticed it.

Besides, even if the other party blocks the heat source, it doesn't matter. She also has observation modes such as low-light imaging and radar wave scanning, so there's bound to be one that works.

"Infrared... what is that?" the man asked hesitantly.

Lin Qing sighed, "Didn't you ever go to school?"

"Shut up!" he roared, as if the question had struck a nerve. "Even if I, Li Houzi, haven't read many books, I can still make a name for myself! Since you can see me, I won't pretend anymore—"

His body underwent another transformation: his thigh muscles began to swell, becoming almost three times the size of his calves; his arms folded inward, like the pincers of a praying mantis. Not only his palms, but even the edges of his forearms grew ossified carapaces, sharp as guillotines.

This time, he was no longer "invisible"; his entire body turned green, looking just like a big worm.

So that's how it is... Lin Qing thought to himself. This mimicry ability not only allows him to transform into a chameleon, but also into a predator in the insect world... If a carnivorous insect could grow to the size of a human, its destructive power would be quite considerable.

"I will chop you up piece by piece while you are still alive, so you can see with your own eyes how your own body is eaten by me!"

Li Houzi stomped his legs on the ground, his body almost turning into a series of afterimages!
This speed has exceeded the limits of human capability; even the top 100-meter sprinters cannot achieve such a start!

However, Lin Qing is not an athlete.

She is not an ordinary human being either.

The sliding door on his arm opened, and the mantis knife, which had been folded inside, popped out, its blade gleaming with a faint blue light!
Then she charged head-on at the enemy, her twin blades clashing—a direct confrontation between two pairs of identical weapons. As they stopped, Li Houzi's arm was noticeably shorter.

The bone and flesh at the break point were neatly arranged.

Seeing his severed hands, he stood frozen for a moment before letting out a horrified scream, "My...my hands! No!"

Lin Qing turned around and walked steadily toward Li Houzi.

The latter's eyes were filled with fear. He couldn't understand why his sickle, which was harder than steel, was as fragile as a withered tree branch in front of this woman.

"What is this thing? This isn't even a power!" he roared in despair, staring at the pair of dark blue blades.

However, more unsettling than the eerie blade was Lin Qing's gaze.

From the moment the battle began, Lin Qing's expression remained unchanged. There was no slight flaring of her mouth and nose from her racing heart, no joy at victory, and no hatred or loathing for the enemy. Her eyes were devoid of any emotion; her delicate features seemed merely a mask.

Li Houzi couldn't describe what kind of look that was.

He felt as if he wasn't fighting a real person... In her eyes, both the enemy and herself were like objects... things that could be discarded at will.

This feeling completely overwhelmed his will to resist.

A tremendous fear engulfed Li Houzi.

"Stop! Don't come any closer! Don't kill me... Yes, you can't kill me!"

"Why?" Lin Qing asked.

"Your accomplice said I need to stand trial!" Li Houzi blurted out in a panic. "Aren't you law enforcement officers? You can't kill people so easily!" However, Lin Qing remained unmoved. "I don't belong to any organization, so the rules she follows don't apply to me."

Li Houzi felt as if all the blood in his body had frozen.

Just then, Chen Xuan's voice echoed in Lin Qing's mind, "What happened? I heard someone screaming."

Lin Qing paused, "It's nothing, we just encountered hostile ability users."

changed!

To Li Houzi's astonishment, the woman who had been expressionless moments before suddenly had a sparkle in her eyes. The slight upturn of her eyebrows and the minute opening and closing of her lips made her appear human again.

What caused her to act this way?
Who is she talking to on the phone?
What's even more incredible is that, seemingly to avoid interrupting the conversation, she quickly walked past him, stopping only after walking about five or six meters.

Now she has not only completely shifted her attention away, but has also exposed her back to herself!

Li Houzi didn't know how important this conversation was, but he knew that this was a golden opportunity! It was a rare chance; five meters was just a blink of an eye for him, and even without his hands... he could use his sharpened teeth to bite through the other person's neck.

He didn't want to be caught by the authorities and obediently accept trial.

Let the government agencies and the police all go to hell!
Li Houzi, his face contorted with rage, quietly got up, aimed at the woman facing him, and leaped forward with all his might!
While in the air, it felt like it brushed against something—

Li Houzi discovered that the world was spinning in an instant.

He saw his torso and thighs sever in mid-air, blood gushing out and merging with the darkness. And within the dim passage, a few extremely faint rays of light stretched across the center, like…

silk?

His consciousness faded rapidly, and the moment his head hit the ground, he completely lost consciousness.

Lin Qing raised her right hand, and the nanowires quickly retracted into her palm.

"I just sensed a point of light disappear. Are you all alright?" Chen Xuan asked.

"It's alright, those are the enemy." Lin Qing glanced back at the scattered limbs on the ground. "You've arrived at the factory?"

"Yes. There were several fire trucks parked on the road, and a TV crew's interview vehicle also arrived."

The TV stations are here? Is the fire outside that big?

They need to hurry.

"I'll go support Honglian now, we'll discuss the details later."

"Okay, remember safety first."

Lin Qing didn't need to speak to communicate with Chen Xuan through Xiao Lü's coded signal. Her opening her mouth just now was merely a deliberate attempt to create an opening.

With this flaw exposed, she was confident that the enemy would not remain indifferent.

Because she has dealt with far too many people like that.

"Believe me, dying now is a mercy than being imprisoned by the Security Agency." Lin Qing said calmly, then ran back the way she came without looking back.

……

On the other side, Honglian and Wang Baihu had already exchanged blows with the enemy for several rounds.

"Holy crap, her muscles are terrifying! They can't even be penetrated by bullets!" Wang Baihu complained as he reloaded. "I feel like I'm spraying a tank with a water gun."

The scene truly looked like it had been run over by a tank—the containers that had originally been placed on both sides of the underground hall were now scattered everywhere, and had been dismantled into uneven pieces. The "tank" that smashed the cage to pieces was none other than Yang Tieshan. Once she touched it, the steel plates would immediately dent in large sections, and even the concrete walls could be smashed open by her.

It is said that forces are reciprocal, but after Yang Tieshan smashed a bunch of containers, he didn't even have a bruise on his body. The specially made bullet that hit him only left a red spot the size of a fingernail.

A few mosquito bites are nothing compared to this.

(End of this chapter)