Chapter 175
Chapter 175
A bitter wind swept flurries of broken snow through the air. Across the endless white expanse, two off-road vehicles circled each other like beasts locked in combat.
Their tires churned up the snow, spraying clouds of white mist in their wake.
The cold roar of engines thundered into the sky. The vehicles skidded constantly across the slick ground, jolting even more violently than they would on a dirt road. At any moment, the drivers risked losing control.
Several off-road vehicles converged from every direction, trying to box in Qingshui and An Xiaolin.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
From a distance, Ye Que kept her sights trained on their position. Whenever a Madman tried to close in and cut them off, she opened fire, doing everything she could to blow out its tires and force it back.
But there were too many enemies.
An Xiaolin gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white, yet her eyes were as cold as the snow whipping through the air.
She sent the off-road vehicle through one hair-raising drift after another on the slick ice. The body tilted until it nearly scraped the ground, but each time, she precisely evaded the Madmen convoy’s attempts to ram them.
All the while, she stayed right on Cat’s lead vehicle.
The two vehicles were so close that they seemed destined to collide in the next second. No matter how frantically the surrounding vehicles tried to flank them, none could break through the bizarre stalemate between the two cars locked side by side.
In the drivers’ seats, An Xiaolin and the Bald Madman clutched their steering wheels, their gazes locked on each other. Both maneuvered with deadly precision across the slippery snow, maintaining the same close distance throughout the standoff.
The windows on both sides had long since been rolled down. The biting wind poured into the cabins, making it nearly impossible to keep their eyes open.
Yet Qingshui and Cat, seated in the passenger seats, seemed oblivious. Each gripped a gun, their eyes seething with bone-chilling bloodlust.
They desperately leaned half their bodies out of the windows and aimed at each other, each trying to end this game while their vehicles raced across the snow.
“Die!”
Qingshui and Cat roared at the same time and thrust out their arms–only for both vehicles to skid violently sideways!
The tremendous centrifugal force threw them off balance. Their bullets screamed through the freezing wind and struck the opposite car doors in showers of sparks, failing to so much as graze each other’s clothes.
Fury burned in their eyes, but the violent swaying of the vehicles ruined every shot they took.
Then, in the middle of this deadly stalemate, disaster struck!
Screech!
Cat’s lead vehicle, which had been locked in the fierce chase only moments ago, suddenly slammed on the brakes. Cat’s deathly pale face and mocking smile came sharply into focus before Qingshui’s eyes. Before she could pull the trigger, a tremendous force smashed into them from the right!
CRASH!!
The earsplitting shriek of twisting metal tore through the air as the vehicle jolted violently.
“Damn it!” An Xiaolin cursed under her breath.
The impact completely destroyed her driving rhythm. Their off-road vehicle instantly lost control and skidded sideways. The steering wheel went loose in her hands, while the tires carved two deep trenches through the snow without finding the slightest traction.
The Madman on their left, which had been waiting for precisely this opportunity, immediately charged in and slammed into their vehicle’s other side!
In a matter of seconds, the two off-road vehicles on either side pressed inward like a gigantic iron vise, trapping Qingshui and An Xiaolin’s vehicle between them.
The body crumpled under the tremendous pressure, producing a teeth-grating creak. The tires were completely wedged in the snow, leaving them unable to move an inch.
“Hee-hee-hee-crush them! Crush them! Crush them to death! Hahahaha!”
“Harder! Push harder!”
Maniacal laughter erupted from the Madmen convoy.
Veins bulged at An Xiaolin’s temples. She floored the accelerator, revving the engine wildly as she wrenched the steering wheel back and forth in a desperate attempt to break free.
But the vehicle didn’t budge. The surrounding Madmen closed in once more. In an instant, what had been a deadlocked battle became a hopeless trap where they had no way to fight back.
The next second, under Qingshui’s grim stare, a dense hail of bullets poured toward them like a torrential downpour!
Rat-a-tat-tat!
Bullets hammered into the car. The windows shattered instantly, spraying razor-sharp shards in every direction.
“Get down!”
Almost the instant the gunfire erupted, Qingshui threw herself over An Xiaolin, shielding her with her body. The two quickly ducked below the seats, narrowly avoiding the hail of bullets.
…………
Several kilometers away, atop a high slope.
A tall woman with an enormous backpack stood listening intently to the orders coming through her earpiece.
After a long moment, she raised a hand and tapped the earpiece twice. Her languid voice crackled over the comms.
“New orders from Command: the observation mission remains our highest priority. Engage Target 009 at your discretion, with capture alive as the primary objective. If capture proves impossible, or if the target interferes with the observation mission, you are authorized to kill it on sight.”
“Open fire!”
“Copy that!”
The woman on the slope slowly curled her lips into a smile and squeezed the trigger. “Let me show you… what a real sharpshooter looks like.”
The bullet tore from the barrel with a violent sonic crack. Her very first shot blew apart the head of the Madman blocking Qingshui’s car!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The woman’s body remained perfectly still. Only her finger moved, pulling the trigger again and again. Each gunshot thundered across the empty, snow-covered landscape, every round lethally precise as it ripped apart the approaching Madmen one by one.
…………
Inside the car.
An Xiaolin had barely curled herself into cover when an intense burning pain suddenly tore through her abdomen, as if a red-hot iron had punched straight through her flesh.
“Ugh…”
Her vision went black, and a wave of dizziness washed over her. She could feel warm blood rapidly soaking through her clothes.
She… had been shot.
Bang!
Just as the two of them found themselves trapped with no way out, another volley of gunfire suddenly erupted in the distance.
It sounded completely different from Ye Que’s shooting. Every shot was steady and ruthless, each bullet slicing through the air with a sharp, piercing whistle and terrifying penetrative force. The accuracy was enough to make anyone’s blood run cold.
The dense barrage of incoming bullets abruptly ceased.
The vehicles closing in from both sides also faltered, leaving an obvious gap in the encirclement.
Sitting inside its vehicle, Cat watched the impossibly precise shooting unfold. The corner of his eye twitched involuntarily as an intense sense of danger surged within him.
“Stinking Rats…”
You people again…
He cursed under his breath, every hair on his body standing on end. Despite the rows of vehicles and the raging snowstorm between them, he could clearly sense an icy gaze locked firmly onto him.
It was the deadly sensation of being targeted by an apex predator.
“Retreat!” Cat immediately roared, issuing the order.
He ducked below the seat, his heart pounding violently. He knew they had been marked.
But… he wasn’t afraid in the slightest. All he felt was a sick, twisted excitement.
He had finally found the woman Mother could never stop thinking about. At last, he understood why Mother had said, “You’ll know her when you see her.”
“Heh… Hahahahahaha… How interesting…”
The Bald Madman beside him did not dare hesitate. It immediately threw the vehicle into reverse.
Whoosh!
The next second, a bullet ripped through the air and blasted apart their windshield!
Glass exploded everywhere. The bullet grazed the Bald Madman’s cheek, carving a bloody line across it before punching deep into the seatback behind it.
The Bald Madman touched the blood on its face, then bared its teeth in a warped, crazed grin.
“What a rush.”