Yuan Changjiang’s hand found the weapon under his sharkskin. He kept walking forward, casual and unhurried. The other six spread out around him — apparently relaxed, but Shen Cong’s mind had already mapped their positions into a three-dimensional picture. They had taken a concealed encirclement formation, each placing themselves within attack range.

His left eyelid twitched slightly.

One of the rat-catchers had drifted into the precise sightline beneath the second pair of Flying Wing Knives on Great Vajra’s chassis.

He ran the calculation fast: seven death-eaters, all meaningfully stronger than baseline jin people. Two months more of C1 injections since the lymph-laggards’ account — Activity Values likely at 1H or higher. At 1H, roughly seven or eight-bull strength. Maybe less, given that Shen Cong’s own enhancement rate had always outpaced the norm, and these were low-level rat-catchers, not inner-circle death-eaters who’d be receiving priority doses.

Seven-bull against nineteen-bull. A crushing mismatch.

What gave him pause was their equipment. The Eastern Theater Command’s research capability wasn’t comparable to New Hefei’s amateur science. They’d swept Maanshan, Yangzhou, and other cities — encountered enormous numbers of evolved beasts — and had access to both powerful and venomous creatures for core materials. The rat-catchers were armed with core weapons and core armor. He had Pepper Water and Activity-Killer Venom; he couldn’t be certain they didn’t have equivalents.

Still. He had to kill them. Letting death-eaters survive an encounter meant schemes following him. Not an option.

He finalized his approach in the few seconds remaining.

Full focus. Yuan Changjiang’s voice slowed in his perception — not literally, but his processing had accelerated to the point where it felt that way. The seven positions locked into his mental model.

He was done waiting.

Now.

His thumb pressed the remote trigger. His body was already moving — the full explosive output of nineteen-bull strength, no hesitation, no telegraphing.

“Chen—” The smile hadn’t left Yuan Changjiang’s face when Shen Cong’s fist hit him in the abdomen. The impact was like a locomotive. Yuan Changjiang folded, hit the ground, and started retching uncontrollably.

The rat-catcher behind Yuan Changjiang reacted fast — but not fast enough. The second pair of Flying Wing Knives had already deployed from Great Vajra’s chassis on the remote signal, angled down precisely at his position. The blade caught him squarely in the back and drove through.

Two down. Eyeblink.

The remaining five had their weapons out and were moving. Their core weapons were noticeably more refined than anything Shen Cong had seen from New Hefei — blade, spear, and club forms, but the jin cores at the tips had been processed differently. Hollow-ground and spiral-threaded, designed to maximize bleeding and tissue tearing on penetration.

One of the five was holding something that stopped him: in the other hand, alongside a cleaver-shaped core weapon, the rat-catcher had what looked like a large water gun — wooden-bodied, with an oversized reservoir.

Shen Cong changed course immediately and went straight at that one.

The rat-catcher raised the water gun. Shen Cong was already too close — he ripped it out of the man’s hands, spun, and fired backward.

A stream of liquid hit the rat-catcher who’d been closing from behind, full in the face.

Sizzle.

Where the liquid touched exposed skin, blisters erupted immediately — like boiling oil hitting bare flesh.

The man screamed. Third one down.

Shen Cong didn’t slow. He drew the Tyrant Broadsword in the same motion and opened the water-gun rat-catcher’s throat. Fourth down.

Four eliminated. Four heartbeats of combat.

The remaining three read the situation and ran.

Throwing knives — four of them, two to each side, launched at nineteen-bull throwing force. Then Shen Cong himself went after the last one on foot.

Thud.

Left side: the knife punched through sharkskin and put the rat-catcher down hard. Right side: first knife passed wide; second knife failed to penetrate the sharkskin, only staggering the runner, who kept going.

Three long strides and Shen Cong had the last runner. The man saw escape was impossible, turned, and swung the cleaver — forcing a block — then grabbed for a whistle at his belt and jammed it toward his mouth.

Shen Cong’s fist connected with the side of his face.

The impact caved in half of it. The man was done.

He grabbed the whistle, turned without pausing, and sprinted after the right-side runner — the one the throwing knife hadn’t stopped. Fifty-plus meters per second. The gap closed fast.

Not quite fast enough. The man already had his own whistle at his lips.

The signal sounded — sharp, piercing, cutting across the empty ruins.

Halfway through the note, Shen Cong arrived. The Tyrant Broadsword came down with full intent.

The rat-catcher was divided into two pieces.

He picked up the body and ran back to Great Vajra.

Blackhead was already administering Super-2 Ant Acid to Yuan Changjiang, who had partially recovered — keeping him incapacitated.

Under two minutes, start to finish.

He worked through the aftermath quickly. Sharkskin stripped from the bodies, core weapons collected, Yuan Changjiang and the one heavily wounded survivor bound and loaded into the vehicle. Then Great Vajra was moving, heading for Taishan Town.

Taishan Town was his planned next stop — close observation of the nuclear detonation site, and from there the Changshen Expressway, which ran north all the way to Huai’an.

“Slightly underestimated their signaling capability. Whistles — simple and effective.” He drove and assessed simultaneously. “Don’t know how many rat-catchers are operating in this area. Leave now, drone survey from Taishan Town.”

He scored himself sixty out of a hundred for the engagement.

The forty-point deduction covered: throwing knife accuracy still not at the level he wanted, sharkskin defensive strength greater than his pre-engagement estimate, and most significantly — he’d moved too early. He should have let them settle into false security before acting. That would have eliminated the reaction time that allowed one whistle to go off.

“I should have kept performing longer. Kept them relaxed with social friction, drawn them in further…”

He paused.

“Though — one person has real limits. Blackhead can assist, but its Talent ceiling is too low for anything beyond supporting work. If the Vajra Ant colony develops to sufficient size — at that point…”

(End of Chapter 223)