Taoist priest goes to America

The new room is on the seventeenth floor. The city skyline is visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The morning light is already spreading from the east, dyeing the entire building complex in distinct layers of golden-gray.

Several oil paintings hung on the walls of the room, and the air conditioner vents delivered a constant temperature of warm air that felt dry and comfortable on the skin. Compared to the battlefield downstairs, which had been turned into a water curtain cave by fire sprinklers, this place was simply another world.

Asakura Yuzu sat on the sofa by the window. She had just taken a shower, and her wet, jellyfish-like hair was hastily dried with a hotel towel and draped over her shoulders, with a few water droplets still clinging to the ends.

She changed into the white bathrobe provided by the hotel. The bathrobe was obviously a size too big for her, with the neckline hanging loosely on her collarbone, only her breasts were pressed tightly against it, protruding outwards.

The regeneration of the right hand is still progressing slowly. New granulation tissue is quietly growing on the new palm without skin, making the palm flesh gradually fuller.

She sat upright, her back ramrod straight, her left hand resting neatly on her knee, her round eyes fixed on Ang Lee across from her, her expression as serious as if she were in a job interview.

Ang Lee sat on the single sofa opposite her. He had also taken a shower and changed into the clean bathrobe provided by the hotel.

The bullet hole in his chest and the wound on his right shoulder had been simply bandaged. He leaned back on the sofa with his legs crossed, one hand on the armrest, staring at Yuzu with a serious expression.

The two stared at each other for a while, and two faint blushes rose on Yuzu's cheeks. She lowered her head, her left hand pinching the hem of her bathrobe, her fingertips rubbing against the fabric.

A pillow flew towards her from behind and hit her squarely in the face.

"Stop being shy, get to the point." Li An withdrew his hand and leaned back on the sofa. "Tell me in detail about the special abilities of the experts in your organization."

Yuzu took the pillow off her face, hugged it to her chest, pouted, and her face clearly showed her unhappiness. The baby fat on her little face bulged because of this expression.

But her tone became more honest, and she stopped playing those coy little tricks.

"Okay, okay, I'll explain it to you in detail now." She put the pillow on her knees and gestured with her left hand.

"Let's start with Fujiwara no Sakuin. This guy is a bit difficult to deal with. His abilities are somewhat similar to mine. My lightning imbues my katana with electricity, increasing its slashing range and power."

"His ability is even more extreme and thorough; he can fuse his own flesh and blood with complex machinery."

"For example, he can directly integrate the muscle fibers of his arm into the chainsaw's engine, wrap the switch and trigger with nerve bundles, and after the integration, the chainsaw becomes part of his body."

"Moreover, after the fusion, the power and size of that device will increase due to his flesh and blood."

Yuzuo drew a frame in the air with her hand, and it kept getting bigger and bigger.

"The chainsaw is just an example. What he's really good at is firearms, rifles, rocket launchers, even tanks and helicopters. As long as it's a machine with a complex mechanical structure, he can fuse it with a touch."

"By fusing it with a gun or rocket launcher, the resulting weapon will have a flesh-tracking ability, allowing it to hit you from a distance."

"I heard about tanks from other people, but I don't know what they look like."

"But I saw him with my own eyes merge an armed helicopter, covering the entire helicopter with his own flesh and blood. Every bullet fired from the machine gun was guided by his flesh and blood, and if it hit, it would continue to grow into a fleshy monster that could bite people."

"During that mission, he used a helicopter to suppress an entire rebel camp. When it landed, the helicopter was riddled with holes, but he walked out of the exploded cockpit without a scratch."

After listening, Ang Lee reviewed the ability in his mind: the fusion of flesh and equipment, the extension of flesh and tissue over objects and control over them, and the ability to make already lethal equipment even more deadly.

"What are the weaknesses?" Ang Lee asked.

"He didn't tell anyone." Yuzu spread her hands, then held up one finger, adding, "However, I know, because I observed it during our many missions together."

"If the device this guy fused with is a brand new, intact machine, then it will have 100% power."

"But if the machine being fused is faulty or badly damaged, such as an old car or a helicopter with a damaged bearing, then the fusion may occasionally cause a backlash."

"The probability of backlash is very small, and the degree of backlash is not fixed. Sometimes it's just a simple engine shutdown, and sometimes it's an explosion."

"The worst time I heard was when he fused a Hummer that had been sold off by a soldier with many parts, and the engine exploded inside him, blowing half of his body apart."

"But he survived. He spent three months in the hospital, and when he came out, he was as lively and energetic as ever."

"The probability is too small." Li An frowned. "Moreover, the consequences of the backlash are not necessarily fatal, so it can't be considered a weakness at all."

"There's nothing I can do," Yuzu said with a hint of helplessness. "Let me tell you, the most important rule for survival among assassins is to keep their abilities secret."

Even among colleagues in the same organization, unless they go on missions together, they wouldn't know anything about each other's abilities, let alone weaknesses.

"I was lucky to be able to guess Fujiwara Sakuin's weakness through observation."

"Wait... how could such a master be willing to stay in your assassin organization? That's too overpowered, isn't he just a versatile weapon of war?"

"Uh... the reason he's in our organization is a bit abstract..." Yuzuo turned her head awkwardly to look out the window, "Because he calls our organization's leader 'Mom'..."

"Your eldest sister is a woman? And he's her son?"

"Our leader is a man." Yuzu interrupted Li An with a solemn expression.

"6..." Li An's lips twitched violently. Should he go to sleep? He felt that the world he was in when he was awake had become more and more chaotic since he transmigrated here.

"However—" She scratched her head, her hair ruffled by her fingers, a few strands sticking up and framing her loli face and the loose collar of her bathrobe, "that other idiot actually told me about his weakness."

"Who?" Ang Lee raised an eyebrow.

"Ise Kibo," Yuzu said, her tone filled with helplessness and disdain, as if she were mentioning a troublesome person she couldn't shake off.

"His ability is to use black mist; he can release a black mist from the surface of his body."

"He can use the black mist to control anything covered by it—tables, chairs, doors, pavement, stones—once the black mist covers it, that thing becomes his weapon."

"This thing has a fairly large range, roughly the size of a basketball court. It hides in a corner releasing black mist, and before you even know where it is, you're already being attacked by things flying in from all directions."

"But my power of lightning is his nemesis." Yuzu poked her soft chest with her finger, her words full of smugness.

"His black mist is colloidal. When a colloid is charged, it will be attracted, just like the electrostatic dust removal device in a factory chimney. When a high voltage is applied, the smoke particles are attracted to the electrode plate."

"All I need to do is electrify the katana, and all the black mist particles will be ionized and absorbed onto the katana, rendering its ability useless."

Ang Lee looked curious: "Why would he tell you his weakness? You just said that even assassins' abilities are secrets, and he immediately tells you his weakness?"

Yuzu's expression instantly became complicated, her lips pursed down, hesitating whether to speak.

"This guy is my simp," she finally said, her words laced with undisguised disdain.

"From the first day I joined the organization, he was like a fly buzzing around me, sending me flowers, gifts, treating me to meals, and running errands for me."

"Can you imagine what it would be like to have a superhuman assassin who can control an entire black fog and turn a building into a meat grinder, fawning over you every day?"

"Last time he even sent me a homemade bento box with a drawing of a rabbit on it and a card that said, 'Thank you for your hard work, Yuzu-chan'—and there was a typo on the card. Can you believe a killer with typos on his cards?!"