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Chapter 294: The Mercy of Death

Lin Qing zigzagged through the underground passage, and after nearly three turns, she suddenly stopped, her gaze shifting to the front right.

At the moment of stopping, the enemy, who had blended in with the background, also made a move simultaneously, darting out from the corner, a cold flash sweeping across in front of her!

If she had taken one more step, this strike would have cut her throat.

But she was precisely standing outside the attack range, the two of them moving with the precision of well-coordinated actors, their positioning flawless.

Missing this strike, the opponent once again melded into the darkness, but this time he did not continue to flee, instead angrily shouting, "How did you see me!? My optical camouflage is supposed to be seamless!"

"...Infrared." Lin Qing spat out two words.

"What?" The man was taken aback.

Switching to natural light view, the individual was indeed quite concealed—his height barely reaching one and a half meters, with slender limbs, presenting a stark contrast to the previously robust woman. In a crouching position with limbs drawn in, his skin and the texture of his tight-fitting suit would merge with the underground environment, appearing almost like a roadside stone if one didn’t look carefully.

In a certain sense, this could be considered optical invisibility.

Unfortunately, her prosthetic eye had an infrared observation mode.

In the lifeless underground passage, a moving red figure was as conspicuous as could be. From the moment he appeared, Lin Qing had noticed him.

Moreover, even if the opponent shielded the heat source, it wouldn’t matter; she also had low-light imaging, radar scanning, and other observation modes, one of which would surely apply.

"Infrared... what is that?" The man hesitated to ask.

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

"Shut up!" He flew into a rage, as if this question had struck a sore spot, "Even if Li Monkey hasn’t studied much, I can still make a name for myself! Since you can see me, then I won’t pretend anymore—"

His body once again began to change: the muscles on his thighs started to swell, almost tripling the size of his calves; his arms folded inward, resembling the pincers of a mantis. Not only his palms but even the edges of his forearms grew bone-like shells, sharp as a guillotine.

This time he no longer "camouflaged," his entire body turning green and shiny, resembling a large insect.

So that’s it... Lin Qing thought to herself, this mimicry ability not only allows him to turn into a chameleon but also become a predator from the insect world... If a carnivorous insect could grow to the size of a human, its lethality would be quite considerable.

"I will slice you into pieces while you’re still alive, let you see exactly how your body is being consumed by me!"

Li Monkey kicked the ground fiercely with his legs, his body almost turning into a blur!

This speed had already surpassed human limits, even the top sprint athletes could not start this quickly!

However, Lin Qing was not an athlete.

She did not belong to ordinary humans either.

The hatch on her arm flipped open, the mantis blade folded inside sprung out, the blade exuding a faint blue light!

Then she charged head-on at the enemy, her dual blades crossed—this was a direct face-off between two similar-shaped weapons. After the two of them passed, Li Monkey’s arm was noticeably shorter.

The severed end of bone and flesh was neat.

Seeing his severed hands, he stood dazed for a moment before erupting in a shocked, anguished scream, "My hands! No!"

Lin Qing turned around, steadily walking towards Li Monkey.

The latter’s eyes were filled with fear; he couldn’t understand why his arm scythes, as hard as refined steel, were so fragile like dry twigs in the face of this woman.

"What is that thing? It’s not even an ability!" He desperately screamed at those eerie blue blades.

Yet, more than the strange blades, what scared Li Monkey was Lin Qing’s gaze.

From the moment the battle started, Lin Qing’s expression hadn’t changed, there was no mouth opening slightly from accelerated heartbeat, no joy from victory, nor hatred or disgust towards the enemy. No emotion could be seen in her eyes, her exquisite features seemed like just a mask hanging on her face.

Li Monkey couldn’t describe what kind of gaze that was.

He only felt like he wasn’t fighting against a real person... in her eyes, the enemy and herself seemed like objects... things that could be discarded without a thought.

This feeling completely overwhelmed his will to resist.

A massive terror engulfed Li Monkey.

"Stop, don’t come over! Don’t kill me... Yes, you can’t kill me!"

"Why?" Lin Qing asked.

"Your ally said I need to be judged!" Li Monkey said in a panic, "Aren’t you enforcers? You can’t kill people easily!"

However, Lin Qing remained unmoved, "I don’t belong to the mechanism, so the rules she upholds don’t apply to me."

Li Monkey felt his blood freezing.

Just at this moment, Chen Xuan’s voice echoed in Lin Qing’s mind, "What’s happening? I heard someone screaming."

Lin Qing paused her steps, "Nothing, we just encountered a hostile Ability User."

It changed!

Li Monkey was shocked to discover that the woman who was expressionless just now suddenly had a glimmer in her eyes. Her slightly raised eyebrows and small movement at the corner of her mouth made her turn back into a human.

What made her like that?

Was she communicating with someone?

And more incredibly, she seemed to prevent the dialogue from being disturbed, she quickly walked past him, moving five or six meters away before stopping.

Now, not only had she completely diverted her attention but she also exposed her back to him!

Li Monkey didn’t know how important this conversation was, but he knew it was an opportunity not to be missed! The distance of five meters only required a blink for him, even without hands... he could bite into her neck with his sharpened teeth.

He didn’t want to be caught by the mechanism, obediently awaiting judgment.

Mechanism or police, let them go to hell!

Li Monkey with a fierce grimace silently crawled up, aiming at the woman facing away from him, leaping forward with all his might!

His body in mid-air seemed to brush against something—

Li Monkey found the world suddenly spinning.

He saw his torso and thighs splitting apart in mid-air, a spray of blood fusing with the darkness. And in the dim passage, a few faint strands of light traversed the center, looking like...

Filaments?

As consciousness rapidly faded away, when his head hit the ground, he completely lost awareness.

Lin Qing raised her right hand, swiftly retracting the nano-filament into her palm.

"I just sensed a light dot disappear, are you okay?" Chen Xuan asked.

"No worries, that was the enemy." Lin Qing glanced at the scattered limbs on the ground, "Have you already reached the factory?"

"Yes. Several fire trucks are parked along the road, and even news interview vehicles have arrived."

The news station arrived? Is the fire outside that severe?

Then, they need to hurry.

"I’m going to support Honglian shortly, we’ll discuss the specifics later."

"Alright, just remember to prioritize safety."

Lin Qing didn’t need to speak, she could use Lv to encode telecommunication signals to communicate with Chen Xuan. She opened her mouth earlier merely to set up a deliberate misstep.

With this misstep, she believed the enemy would certainly not remain inactive.

Because she had encountered too many people like him.

"Trust me, death now instead of imprisonment by the Dimensional Limit Mechanism is actually a mercy," Lin Qing said indifferently, then ran back in the direction she came from without looking back.

...

Meanwhile, Honglian and Wang Baihu had already engaged with the enemy for several rounds.

"Geez, her muscles are way too horrifying, they can’t even be penetrated by bullets!" Wang Baihu complained while reloading, "I feel like I’m spraying a tank with a water gun."

Indeed, the scene looked like it had been crushed by a tank—the containers originally placed on either side of the underground hall were now scattered everywhere, and had been broken into jagged shards. The "tank" that smashed the cage to bits was Yang Tieshan, if she touched it even steel plates would instantly cave in a large area, even concrete walls could have a big hole punched through.

They say force acts mutually, yet after crashing through heaps of containers, Yang Tieshan’s body didn’t even have a bruise, and the specially crafted bullets left only a fingernail-sized red spot on her body.

Being bitten by mosquitoes wouldn’t be any worse.