Why is his holy light red?

Chapter 97 The Demise of the Ice Cone Gang

What started as a light drizzle suddenly turned into a torrential downpour.

"Clang—Boom!"

The rusty iron gate surrounding the slaughterhouse emitted an extremely piercing metallic clang in the night before crashing heavily into the muddy water.

Behind the surveillance window on the second floor, Hans, the leader of the Ice Cone Gang, felt as if his heart had been punched hard by the loud noise.

He wiped the condensation off the glass and stared intently at the rain outside the window.

A shadow wearing a hoodie was wading through puddles, crossing the open space of the outer courtyard. A dark red halo, almost tangible, moved wildly along the person's body, drawing countless scarlet trails in the dark, rainy night.

Hans's facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.

This guy was just here two days ago. Now he's back, and he's even skipped the proper knocking. He's acting like he's going to tear the whole slaughterhouse apart.

Hans's mind went blank. He knew without a doubt that the secret beneath the slaughterhouse could no longer be kept hidden. The red demon already knew that he was working for Immortal Technology.

"Everyone back to the inner warehouse! Hold the second door!" Hans turned around abruptly and roared at the top of his lungs into the communicator.

Between the iron fence and the inner warehouse of the slaughterhouse is an open concrete area of ​​several tens of meters, while the actual entrance to the inner warehouse is a solid riot-proof steel door that is at least ten centimeters thick.

Inside the cold storage, a deathly silence filled the room. Dozens of Ice Spike Gang thugs stood ready for battle, all their weapons, large and small, loaded. Countless bloodshot eyes were fixed on the heavy, tightly closed steel door.

All that could be heard outside the door was the incessant sound of torrential rain and the buzzing sound of the red holy light vibrating violently.

That sense of oppression was like waiting for death to knock on the door.

"boom-!!!"

Without any warning, the riot-proof steel door, strong enough to withstand a C4 directional explosion, suddenly bulged inward with an exaggerated footprint-shaped gash in the center! Immediately afterwards, the four massive load-bearing hinges snapped simultaneously, and the steel door, weighing several tons, crashed into the factory with a sonic boom that tore through the air!

"Bang! Crack!" 39

The most muscular and formidable second-in-command, "Rhino," didn't even have time to pull the trigger before the flying steel plate slammed him into the supporting pillar behind him. With a muffled thud of shattering bones, thick blood was forced out along the twisted steel edges, dripping onto the pristine white floor.

The door disappeared, and a gust of wind, mixed with icy rain, rushed into the cold storage.

Mercury stepped slowly into the slaughterhouse, his feet crunching over the broken bricks and blood.

Dark red holy light surrounded him like burning, materialized blood flames, casting an extremely oppressive crimson shadow in the dimly lit cold storage.

As Hans watched the red monster walk in stepping over the rhinoceros carcass, the muscles around his eyes twitched wildly, and his carefully constructed mental defenses crumbled completely at that moment.

"Oh shit----"

Hans gritted his teeth, despair and rage mingling within him, causing him to roar in a hoarse voice, "Open the valve! Full freeze system!"

"laugh--!"

Dozens of industrial exhaust valves on the top of the cold storage burst open instantly, and ultra-low temperature liquid nitrogen poured down like a waterfall.

Bran had just rushed through the door when the orange-red flame in her palm was instantly extinguished by the extreme cold storm amplified by her supernatural power. She was so cold that her bones ached, and she could barely breathe.

"You wait outside first."

Mercury shoved Bran into the pouring rain outside and walked into the frigid slaughterhouse himself.

Looking at the heavily armed gangsters dressed in bizarre antifreeze suits, and then at the exposed mechanical creations around them.

"Looks like I wasn't mistaken, these high-tech gadgets aren't something you street thugs can get your hands on."

Vance let out a beast-like growl, and the skin on his arms quickly lost its color, his muscles and bones transforming into translucent ice crystals emitting a chilling white aura within half a second.

As an ice-type superpower user, this ultra-low temperature cold storage is his absolute home turf.

The cascading liquid nitrogen did not dissipate into mist, but instead, under the forceful pull of Vans' superpower, it instantly condensed and reshaped.

Hundreds of ice spikes, half a meter long with sharp, knife-like edges, formed in mid-air, densely hovering above the heads of dozens of gang thugs, turning the entire cold storage into a frozen hell.

"On my turf, even a god would be frozen solid! Kill him—!!"

With Vance's roar, a barrage of ice spikes, like a heavy machine gun barrage, mixed with bullets fired by the thugs, rained down on Mercury.

Mercury stared at the frost storm, powerful enough to instantly tear an armored vehicle apart and freeze it, without pausing for a moment.

He strode into the eye of the storm.

A chilling scene unfolded.

Those azure ice spikes, formed from a mixture of superpowers and liquid nitrogen and as hard as steel, shattered completely the moment they touched the dark red aura on Mercury's body.

This seemingly thin layer of red holy light is indestructible.

The same goes for bullets. Whether it's a pistol, a rifle, or even a heavy sniper rifle, all bullets that hit Mercury will simply bounce off and won't even slow him down a fraction.

Mercury charged forward, plunging directly into the crowd.

"Pfft!"

He grabbed a thug by the throat with one hand, lifted him up like a tattered sack, and slammed him hard into the sharp steel hook in mid-air.

Immediately afterwards, Mercury grabbed a steel chain on the cold storage slide rail, one end of which was hanging half a 200-pound frozen pork belly as hard as iron. With a twist of his waist, he swung the 200-pound "heavy-duty meteor hammer" with a fierce whistling sound, and swept it out horizontally.

"Bang bang bang bang—!"

The thugs along the way had their bones broken inch by inch under this ruthless sweep. In just a dozen seconds, the cold storage was left with only limbs and half-dead people screaming in pain.

"Monster—you monster!!"

Watching his prized home-field advantage being torn apart like paper by his opponent, Vans completely lost his mind. He roared and drew out all the remaining extreme cold energy in the entire cold storage, concentrating it on his right arm.

His right arm instantly swelled into a heavy ice blade, two meters long, gleaming with a ghostly blue light of death. The surrounding air even liquefied due to the extreme cold.

"Die—!" Vance slammed his legs against the floor, transforming into an icy blue meteor, unleashing the most powerful superpower of his life, and slashed fiercely at Mercury's head.

Faced with this desperate, all-or-nothing attack, Mercury didn't even try to dodge.

He merely raised his right hand, which was wreathed in dark red holy light, his five fingers spread, and casually grabbed at the heavy ice blade.

"Click."

Time seemed to stand still in that second.

Vance's ice blade, powerful enough to cleave through bulletproof armor, was firmly gripped in Mercury's bare hand. A burst of red light erupted from Mercury's arm like lava bursting its banks.

Mercury suddenly exerted force with his five fingers. With a crisp crack, the huge ice blade shattered into countless ice shards from the point of contact.

Before Vans could recover from his shock, Mercury's hand had already pierced through the ice shards and firmly locked onto his throat.

"Bang!"

With a single arm thrust, Mercury slammed Vance onto the white, frosty floor like a sack of potatoes, creating a deep, spiderweb-like crater.

The cold storage room fell completely silent, save for Vans's heavy, desperate, and drafty breathing.

The ultra-low temperature white mist inside the cold storage gradually dissipated, leaving behind a pungent smell of blood and a mixture of foul odors in the air.

The ice blade shattered along with Vans' right hand, leaving a gruesome cut. However, the wound was sealed by frost, and only a pile of red ice crystals could be seen falling continuously.

He collapsed like a lump of mud onto the blood-stained white floor, his chest heaving violently, each breath bringing forth crimson icy foam from his mouth.

Mercury stood condescendingly before him, asking fiercely, "You knew perfectly well that Immortal Technology was experimenting on the people of the Root District, they didn't even spare children, and you still served them like a dog?! Tell me, where is the entrance to the underground laboratory?"

Upon hearing this, Vance's previously unfocused pupils suddenly contracted. He stared intently at Mercury, then suddenly parted his frostbitten, bluish lips and let out a maniacal laugh.

"Hahahaha—cough cough!" He coughed violently, spitting out pieces of his internal organs mixed with ice onto the floor. "Don't fucking play the savior in front of me! We all grew up drinking dirty water from the sewers of this Tree Root District, what kind of good guy are you pretending to be?!"

Vance gripped the floor tightly with his remaining left hand, his eyes bloodshot with utter despair and resentment. He roared like a wild beast cornered in a corner: "In this godforsaken place, what morality is there? It's all bullshit made up by rich people to fool the stupid underclass! There's only one rule here: the strong prey on the weak! Might makes right! Absolute violence can rule everything! So what if I'm a dog for the conglomerates?"

"If I don't eat people, someone else will eat me! Whoever is the most powerful is God!"

He stared intently at the red aura swirling around Mercury, a final vestige of arrogance and mockery in his eyes: "You think you're upholding justice? You're just showing off with your twisted superpowers! Strip away that skin, what's left? You're just like me, a worthless scoundrel who only cares about violence!"

Only Vans' heavy breathing could be heard in the cold storage.

Mercury didn't fly into a rage, nor did he crush his skull. He simply looked calmly at Vance and retorted, "Since you so believe in absolute violence, what are you barking about now?"

Vans' laughter suddenly caught in his throat, and his expression froze instantly.

"My fists are bigger than yours. You knew that the moment I kicked that iron gate open," Mercury questioned Vance in a chilling tone. "If the law of the jungle is truly your ingrained belief, then why didn't you kneel down and lick the soles of my shoes clean, begging for your life? Just like when you kowtowed to immortality technology."

Vance's lips trembled violently; he wanted to refute, but couldn't utter a single word.

"If you truly believe in the laws of the wild, then what's the point of your current anger? You've lost to absolute violence, which perfectly aligns with your own logic. What are you resentful about?"

Mercury grabbed Vance by the neck and lifted the leader of the Ice Cone Gang up: "According to your 'truth,' faced with absolute violence, you should always grovel at the feet of those stronger than you, obediently wagging your tail and begging for their charity. Resist? That's not an emotion you should have. Why do you resist? Isn't it because you don't believe in this system? You don't want to be bullied by the powerful, and you know it's wrong, that's why you're angry."

Vans' eyes widened little by little, as if his spirit was slowly crumbling.

"You don't believe in the law of the jungle at all." Mercury looked at him and delivered the final verdict. "You're just making excuses for being a scumbag, fabricating a reason for your weakness."

Mercury still remembered an anime he had watched in his past life, which contained a well-known line: "The hymn of humanity is the hymn of courage."

The protagonists in those anime get weaker with each generation, while the villains get stronger. But what people praise isn't their extraordinary abilities, but the courage they display in dire situations, and the brilliance of humanity they represent.

Strength is important, but pursuing strength alone is meaningless. Only those who refuse to yield even in dire straits are called heroes.

Mercury couldn't help but recall the story his father had told him: no matter how powerful the Time Dragons were, there would always be humans who thought of rebelling; death couldn't scare everyone away. But those petty people always mocked courage as foolishness, just like Vance, who willingly wallowed in depravity yet still tried to find excuses for himself.

Vance looked at Mercury in despair. He wanted to argue, but he couldn't utter a single word.

"On the second basement level, there's a hidden door under the exhaust fan—" Fan Si murmured the last few words as if his soul had been ripped from his body.

Mercury casually tossed the cripple out and then waved towards the door.

Bran then stepped back into the hellish slaughterhouse.

The first time she saw Mercury kill someone, his ruthless appearance shocked her. What shocked Bran even more was his power; his near-invincible demeanor easily crushed an entire gang.

Mercury said to Bran, "Don't be stunned. This is just an appetizer. There may be much more formidable opponents beneath this earth. If you're afraid, go back and wait for my news."

Bran clenched her fists, and intense flames erupted from her body.

Her sister is underground; she would never back down, even if it meant death.