The fight between the two death-eater groups erupted without any elegance — no spectacle, no tactical coordination, just individual combat across a broad front, everyone trading ranged fire.
Zhao Zilong’s firearms were the biggest threat her group could bring to bear.
When people started getting hit and dying, Shen Cong’s remaining doubts cleared considerably. These two groups weren’t performing for him. He’d been wanting to dismount for a while — staying inside Great Vajra constrained him to whatever ranged options he could manage through the firing ports, which was far below what he could actually do.
Snap.
A crossbow bolt from the vehicle caught a death-eater in the arm. He’d aimed for the chest; the man had read it and moved his body just enough.
Shen Cong shook his head, set down the crossbow, and opened the roof hatch.
“Then — let’s begin.”
He bounced twice to build stored energy, then drove off the roof with full force. The blade tips of the bouncing stilts hit the ground — each one studded with a row of grip spikes along the contact plate — and the surface compressed several centimeters under the impact, hairline cracks radiating out. But the contact time was too brief to register as ground failure; instead the force reflected back clean, the blade geometry converting it into a forward diagonal launch.
CRACK.
He was at maximum speed inside three seconds, running through the outer edge of the formation, then angling in.
“That’s Colonel Chen!” Lu Hang, fighting shoulder to shoulder with Zhao Zilong, saw the full picture for the first time — silver armor blazing in the light. “That is an entrance.”
Zhao Zilong spared a glance at the silver streak cutting through the formation. “Fast. Very fast. No wonder he said he’d take apart the Black Blood Group and Lost Paradise.” She turned back to her own front. “Stop watching. Stay focused. Find the Fireworks carriers.”
“On it.”
The entrance was, objectively, dramatic.
190cm of person, 200-plus cm of silver armor, moving at speeds that made tracking difficult — the effect on the death-eater formation was immediate. And the combat capability matched the entrance: he was through the perimeter in the first second and had opened a death-eater’s throat with the Tyrant Broadsword by the second.
From a pickup truck parked at the edge of the formation, the driver stared with wide eyes. “That’s Quicksilver.” The Hollywood reference came out reflexively — the film character famous for moving faster than anyone could follow.
“Close the windows! Don’t let him get to us!”
He was already there. Not going for the people inside — he sliced across the nearest tire.
Bang. Blowout. The pickup wasn’t going anywhere.
“Die!” A death-eater inside jabbed a barbed spear through a firing port in the door.
Shen Cong had already bounced clear. He was operating on a simple principle: strike, launch, relocate before anyone could respond. No one had a reaction window. Within the first few minutes he’d moved through the formation like a ghost, and everywhere he stopped, someone didn’t get up.
“Close ranks! Pull together — don’t let him isolate people! Get the capture nets out!”
The scattered formation compressed inward. Death-eaters produced long-handled casting nets — the kind used for catching prey in enclosed spaces — and tried to limit his movement geometry.
It was theoretical. He didn’t need to get close to use the Tyrant Broadsword; at this speed, a thrown knife was already a killing weapon. The nets couldn’t catch what they couldn’t predict.
Five minutes. A dozen death-eaters down.
He’d taken several boiling-radiation gun hits in the process — unavoidable at these engagement ranges — but the Activity drain was manageable.
“That speed is untouchable. Use the Fireworks on the vehicle — Black Blood Group covers the cost!”
From the other side of the formation, another commander answered: “Lost Paradise brothers — stop holding back. Everyone’s got Fireworks tonight, and Lost Paradise has the budget!”
Fireworks were coming out. Zhao Zilong’s riflemen immediately targeted the carriers.
Thud.
A death-eater had barely touched his Fireworks tube before a rifle round dropped him. Shen Cong had already spotted the man — he covered the distance, scooped up the tube from the ground, and leveled it at the nearest pickup.
“Let me witness you.”
He twisted the base.
BOOM.
The pickup shed half its body. Two inside, dead immediately.
Across the formation, another death-eater had produced a Fireworks tube but hadn’t announced himself. The silence was almost enough to hide him — almost. Shen Cong caught the motion in his peripheral vision, closed the distance in four strides, and shouldered the man sideways just before he fired.
The tube discharged into the ruins nearby.
BOOM.
A crater in the rubble. No vehicle damage.
“Idiots! Useless!” A death-eater officer — someone with rank in the formation — shoved the tube to a subordinate. “You fire it. I’ll cover you.”
Then he produced a syringe and drove it into his own arm without hesitating.
He dropped the needle, gripped his core weapon — a heavy bar, dense and dark — and bellowed at Shen Cong across the distance:
“COME ON, SON OF A BITCH!”
Bang.
One of Zhao Zilong’s riflemen put a round at the Fireworks carrier standing beside the officer.
The officer’s weapon came up faster than should have been possible and batted the round aside. Like swatting a ball. Clean deflection.
The injection had done something immediate.
Shen Cong moved to close the gap. He met resistance — the heavy bar sweeping across his approach vector, forcing him to redirect.
The officer’s reaction speed was close to his own.
That was unexpected. He was forced to improvise, throwing a knife on the redirect rather than pressing close. The knife found a mark. But it had been a half-second too slow — the Fireworks tube had already fired by the time it hit.
The shot went wide. Five meters clear of Great Vajra, detonating in open ground.
“Stupid pig!” the officer screamed — apparently at his own carrier — and came back at Shen Cong with the bar.
Shen Cong’s expression had gone cold. He brought the Tyrant Broadsword in with full committed force against the bar.
CLANG.
The impact pushed the officer back two steps. But he held — fighting through it, pressing forward, riding whatever the injection had given him.
Around them, death-eaters at the periphery had scented blood. Sling pellets and crossbow bolts started coming from multiple directions, most of them hitting Half-Activated Armor and sharkskin in equal measure.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
“Come on, dog! I’ll bury you today!” The officer’s intensity was climbing — the injection pushing him past his previous ceiling in real time.
Shen Cong traded several more exchanges, reading the timing. Then, on a planted foot, he pivoted sharply — not continuing the engagement, but launching away in a long arc. Let the officer come. He had two different targets in mind.
The two he recognized.
The death-eaters who had put Fireworks rounds into Great Vajra’s sides, left and right.
He remembered their faces.
CRACK.
Bouncing stilts hit broken masonry — the contact plate shattered a chunk of rubble underfoot and converted it into launch energy. He was airborne in an instant, descending on the two men.
“COWARD! GET BACK HERE!” The officer was running after him, screaming.
Still too slow.
One sword stroke — one death-eater down. The second — the one who’d yelled “witness me” before firing — Shen Cong grabbed by the collar, launched straight up with the stored energy of the stilts, peaked at height, and came back down with the man inverted.
CRACK.
In front of the assembled death-eaters.
The man’s skull didn’t survive it.
Red and white spread across the rubble.
(End of Chapter 233)