Chapter 165
Chapter 165
Amid the thirty-odd Madmen writhing frantically through the snow like maggots, several rigid figures stood out starkly. They cocked their heads and slowly pulled guns from inside their clothes, revealing pitch-black muzzles.
The Madman called One-Eye even took out a walkie-talkie at a leisurely pace, then split its mouth into a grin. “Hee hee hee… What an unexpected surprise, hahahaha… There’s a really, really big piggy here! Hahahaha! Hurry over here!”
Before its shrill laughter could carry through the blizzard, Qingshui was already moving. Her hand shot to her waist and closed around a piece of icy metal.
“Get down!”
Her shout pierced the wind and snow. Without the slightest hesitation, she tensed her arm and hurled the grenade forward with all her strength. It traced an arc through the air and landed in the mass of Madmen.
Ye Que’s, An Xiaolin’s, and Wu Wujie’s pupils contracted. Their bodies reacted faster than their minds, each of them diving to the ground in a different direction.
Boom!
The deafening blast shattered the air. The violent shock wave sent snow flying, and chunks of flesh rained down on them along with snow and crimson droplets of blood.
Everyone pressed themselves deep into the hollows in the snow, their eardrums ringing. For a moment, the entire world seemed to go silent.
Qingshui jerked her head up and straightened her helmet. A massive hole had been blown through the horde before her. Charred, severed limbs lay scattered everywhere. Some of the remaining Madmen had been flung away by the blast, while others lay twitching in pools of blood, on the verge of death.
An opening!
Qingshui sprang up. Standing at the very front, she raised her gun. Ye Que lifted hers as well, and the crisp click of a round being chambered sounded in perfect sync with Qingshui’s movement.
Qingshui tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. Amid the chaos, she coldly squeezed the trigger.
Bang! Bang!
Two shots rang out in rapid succession. The head of One-Eye, who had just taken out the walkie-talkie, and that of another Madman raising a gun to aim exploded almost simultaneously. Both dropped on the spot.
The recoil sent a numbing jolt through Qingshui’s arm, but she paid it no mind. At that moment, the world seemed infinitely magnified in her eyes, and every sound became extraordinarily clear. She could hear the Madmen panting amid the wind and snow, the muffled thuds of shell casings landing in the snow, and even the pounding of her own heart.
Yet her pupils remained utterly still. Like a lone wolf that had locked onto its prey, she instantly found her next target.
At the same time, Ye Que ducked low and rolled behind a patch of withered grass to the left. She quickly dropped into a crouch, bracing herself with the dead branches and one knee as she trained her gun on the Madmen trying to raise their weapons and return fire.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
As Qingshui’s shots rang out, Ye Que’s heart began pounding violently, so fast it almost hurt. Her finger pressed firmly against the trigger, but she forced her breathing to slow to a minimum.
In the distance, a pitch-black muzzle swung toward her with chilling menace.
Stay calm. Take aim. She had to kill it with one shot.
Ye Que exhaled a puff of white mist, her gaze suddenly sharpening. The Madman’s twisted grin rapidly expanded in her vision until she could make out the torn lines at the corners of its mouth.
Then she squeezed the trigger!
Bang!
The gunshot was even more deafening than her heartbeat. The Madman’s grin froze as crimson liquid burst from its head, and it crumpled limply to the ground.
Up ahead, Qingshui had just taken down the third gun-wielding Madman when two more charged at her from barely six feet away, brandishing sickles.
But she never broke stride. She did not even spare them a sidelong glance.
A fierce gust swept past her ear–it was Wu Wujie.
The usually quiet, mild-mannered man displayed astonishing explosive power. Tall and long-limbed, he drove the pointed shovel in his left hand upward with a sharp whistle, punching it straight through one Madman’s jaw with a wet crunch. At the same time, he raised the pistol in his right hand and, without even looking, pulled the trigger at the center of the other Madman’s forehead.
Bang!
The Madmen’s encirclement shattered completely.
A gray figure darted into the right flank like a phantom. An Xiaolin held a Madman in her left hand as effortlessly as if she were carrying a chick. She yanked it in front of her, using it to block several blades slashing her way. The pistol in her right hand never stopped firing. Shot after shot rang out, until smoke nearly curled from the muzzle.
The Madman she was using as a shield was hacked to pieces by its own kind. Strips of crimson tissue spilled from its torn abdomen and dropped onto the snow.
The bloody sight seemed to excite the remaining Madmen. Two of them dropped to their knees and began licking it up greedily.
“Have some, have some! Hahahahahahaha…” One Madman picked up a strip of crimson tissue, its expression so sincerely inviting it was nauseating, as if asking An Xiaolin to join it for a meal.
Expressionless, An Xiaolin lowered her gaze. Extreme exhilaration and utter disgust dyed her pupils a spreading crimson. The muzzle of her pistol slowly shifted toward that ravenous face.
Warm blood splattered across the toes of her boots. She did not so much as twitch an eyebrow, merely looking down at the two convulsing bodies from above.
The next second, every hair on her body stood on end and her scalp prickled.
Her body reacted faster than her mind. She jerked her head aside, and a bullet grazed past her helmet.
Bang!
The head of the “corpse” in her hand exploded. Warm fragments splattered across her face shield.
She followed the shot to its source. Not far away, a Madman whose flesh had been torn away to expose the stark white teeth along one side of its face was grinning viciously at her.
But before that grin could fully form, a hole appeared between its brows.
It was Qingshui.
The moment she eliminated the threat in front of her, she had fired that follow-up shot.
Before An Xiaolin could find another shield, a faint buzzing drifted in and out through the wind and snow.
Qingshui heard it too. Her trigger finger paused as she looked toward the sound. A tiny black speck hovered in the overcast sky.
Her finger settled on the trigger, her breathing steady. Wind swept past her ears, and snow settled on her shoulders. She narrowed her eyes.
Then the gunshot rang out. The drone exploded, scattering debris across the snow and the corpses. The buzzing vanished, leaving only the wind and the Madmen’s shrill, grating laughter.
Qingshui lowered her weapon, but before she could catch her breath, the corner of her eye caught another cold flash. She twisted aside and rolled. A throwing knife skimmed the edge of her clothes and buried itself in the ground behind her.
Bang! Bang!
Ye Que took advantage of the opening Qingshui had created. Leaning halfway out from behind a patch of dead brush, she fired twice and blew apart the knife-throwing Madman’s head.
Qingshui emptied her magazine as she rolled. Before her body had even come to a complete stop, she had already slammed a fresh one into place.
From the corner of her eye, she saw that Wu Wujie had somehow picked up An Xiaolin’s trick as well. He held a Madman’s corpse in front of him as a shield, blocking with it while hacking away. His movements were somewhat clumsy, but the tactic looked effective.
The corner of Ye Que’s mouth twitched at the sight. It was impossible to tell whether she wanted to laugh or curse. But no one had the attention to spare, because the remaining Madmen were still surging forward.
When the last Madman fell, the snow seemed to stop.
Ye Que and Wu Wujie were panting, dragging in great gulps of air. An Xiaolin stood amid the field of corpses with her back to everyone, her head tilted up and her entire body trembling violently.
Qingshui looked at no one. Her gaze remained fixed on the distant, gray horizon.
Something was watching them from the shadows.
Her heart sank. Frowning, she said under her breath, “We need to get out of here. Now!”