It was still drizzling at night in Changdao.
The drizzles fell on the ground along with the wind. In the air at midnight, everything felt cool and refreshing.
The mountain forest was waving in the wind and rain, and leaves fell along with the wind occasionally. The sky was dark and gloomy. Walking in the forest at night made people feel an indescribably strange sense of gloom and belonging, and the feeling was getting stronger and stronger.
In the thick grass that was covered with raindrops, a firm figure was attentively holding a sniper rifle; the black muzzle stuck out of the grass. He was fully focused, observing everything through the sniper scope.
“Position No. sixteen, clear.”
In the dark, he wiped the rain on his face gently and said softly in Japanese.
“Position No. seventeen, clear.”
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
A series of silent reports were all from familiar voices. In the thick grass, the sniper’s eyes lit up, and he continued. “Keep low.”
He reached his hand and gently stroked the sniper rifle in his hand, so softly and gently like he was touching his lover, not wanting to let go for a second.
This was a sniper rifle that very rarely served the East Island Army. It was more of a cannon than a rifle. Its nearly 50 mm caliber showed how scary it could be. This kind of rifle, or cannon, was called Holy Thunder in East Island. It was the weapon with the maximum power the Special Warfare System of East Island prepared for its elite forces.
The cannon was three meters long and very heavy. It wasn’t a very convenient weapon for the snipers on the battlefield who needed to move quickly. But its heavy weight and explosive power won its place in the hearts of some sharpshooters in East Island, who were confident in their skills. The cannon could shoot three bullets in a row in five minutes, but its super power could break through the ice layer condensed by superiors of the Ice-condensing Realm with one bullet.
This was a real deadly weapon.
But its weakness was as obvious as its advantage. Because of its great power, it had a slow speed that most people hated. All the data showed that the Holy Thunder could only reach half the speed of a normal sniper rifle. It was still fast, but when in front of superiors, it would give the enemy at least half a second to think about the next move. So using this weapon required the reaction speed and judgement accuracy of the shooters.
But the reason why Holy Thunder was called a cannon was not because of its ridiculously large gun barrel, but because of its super killing power.
At the moment when the bullet exploded, the explosion could at least reach within the distance of fifteen meters. Even the basic superiors of the Fire-flaming Realm could get hurt with one shot.
Anyway, this kind of gun with obvious advantage and weakness was the real treasure in the whole East Island. Apart from the elite forces, ordinary people would never be able to use it.
He stroked the gun barrel gently, thinking about the image of pulling the trigger and blowing up a woman’s head four hundred meters away from him a few hours ago.
The ice wall was shot into pieces, and the bullet went through her skull. Her blood and brain got burst out and mixed with the rain. The whole image was extremely cruel and sad.
He heard that they were the elites from the Special Warfare System in Zhongzhou State.
A few women…
Those stupid Shina pigs actually tried to rush over and take revenge. What a joke.
“Yes, they seem to be very young women. I wonder how skilled they are on the bed…”
He was thinking about random things. In the sniper scope, he seemed to catch a flashing shadow.
He focused his attention immediately, watching the front carefully through the sniper scope.
In his sight, the darkness started to drift away gently.
But there was only the drifting rain and falling leaves in front of him, nothing else.
Did his eyes get dazzled?
He rotated the muzzle subconsciously, looking around and hesitating about whether to shout it out and warn the others.
“You’re here…”
A soft, creepy mumble rang out in his ears suddenly, without any sign.
The sniper’s body had an obvious shiver in the grass. He got shocked while he was highly concentrated, and his first reaction wasn’t warning the others but wanting to shout out of instinct.
A hand reached in and covered his mouth.
The hand pinched his mouth with force, and then a silver dagger got stabbed into his throat.
“Puff!”
The dagger had a long blade, and when the blade went straight past his neck, blood burst out. Then the dagger with coldness shining on it got retrieved back.
“Bam!”
In less than a second, a gunshot shook the whole mountain forest.
The silver dagger disappeared, along with the shadow.
The bullet flew over from another direction and exploded at the No. sixteen spot like a shell. Within the distance of dozens of meters, the whole grassland got ripped up immediately. Sniper No. sixteen, who was still alive, got swallowed by flames and turned into a pile of ashes instantly.
The whole mountain forest seemed to be shocked.
The gunshot disappeared in a second.
No report, no curse, and just silence. It seemed as if the Holy Thunder got out of control and discharged accidentally.
He dashed, switched direction, rushed forward, and changed the spot.
The raindrops all over the sky got blown away by his movement. There seemed to be a gust of strong wind blowing in the mountain forest, and a shadow had got near the second sniper like a ghost.
“No. seven, what the hell are you doing…”
“Swish!”
Before the second sniper could finish his sentence, a silver light flashed through, and the shining dagger had been stabbed into his head.
The dagger got pulled out quickly.
The blood that burst out hadn’t even fallen on the ground yet, and that never-resting shadow had reached the third sniper.
The killing in the dark was like cutting grass.
“You’re too slow.”
Li Tianlan said in the calmest tone, “Senior Brother Jiang, is turtle your zodiac animal?”
“The race between the turtle and the rabbit? I like this story. I wouldn’t mind being the turtle.”
“Puff!”
In his sight, the third sniper had realized that something had gone wrong. He suddenly jumped out of the grass, wanting to switch spots, but Li Tianlan’ shadow had gotten in front of him.
The two men rushed pass each other in the dark.
In the howling wind, the blood of the third sniper burst out two to three meters away.
“Bam!”
In another direction, a gunshot rang out, but it missed.
“You want to be the turtle, but I’m not interested in being the rabbit.”
In his plain voice, he switched the dagger to double swords.
The sword light shone, and the crossing sword intent rushed into the forest. Another sniper just turned around, then immediately got torn into halves by the Sword Energy.
“The fourth one.”
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
While Li Tianlan said calmly, at least three sniper rifles around started shooting him.
Flames, explosion.
The Holy Thunder Cannons kept howling, and they blew up a deep pit within the distance of dozens of meters.
“The gunfire was great, but too bad these nice guns were in the hands of a bunch of losers, you’re gonna lose.”
The blade flashed for a brief second in the air.
Another head flew up in the air.
“The fifth…”
At the moment the gunshot rang out, the retrieved blade shivered suddenly. The air around twisted, and the head in the air got crushed into blood mist by the twisted air. The sword intent gathered together and turned into a bright stripe, rushing forward for a hundred meters in a second.
The whole mountain forest was quiet for a moment.
“Fine. The sixth one.”
Li Tianlan said in a cold tone, “Senior Brother Jiang, you’re too slow. Remember our bet; if I win this game, then you’ll have to tell me what Phoenix Pavilion is and things about my father.”
“I just told you that I would consider telling you that.”
Jiang Shangyu said calmly.
Li Tianlan laughed, but his eyes were filled with cold killing intent.
As for Phoenix Pavilion, he was just curious about it. He wasn’t trying to find out anything on purpose, but now Jiang Shangyu’s rhetorical question had completely messed up his mind.
Phoenix Pavilion?
The death of his father?
Were the two things connected?
Jiang Shangyu didn’t give him an exact answer but seemed to be leading him to do something. Li Tianlan had no choice, whether what Jiang Shangyu said was true or not, at least right now he had to take the whole thing as a clue.
The bet was brought up by Li Tianlan; they compared the killing number and speed. The winner could make a request from the loser. And the request Li Tianlan made for Jiang Shangyu was to tell him all about his father and Phoenix Pavilion.
He wasn’t counting on Jiang Shangyu to say yes. But somehow, Jiang Shangyu actually said yes after hesitation. Although he just promised him that he would consider telling him, although Li Tianlan noticed something wrong at that moment, since the bet was made, he had to win it.
Killed people.
He killed people at the fastest speed.
The seventh one.
The eighth one.
On the other side of the forest, Jiang Shangyu was killing too. He was a lot slower than Li Tianlan. When the eighth sniper fell under Li Tianlan’s sword, he just killed the fifth one.
But he still looked calm, looking around and observing the surroundings in silence.
“What are you waiting for? Why are you so discreet? Now he is at his fastest speed. When will you finish observing?”
While he was talking, his fists shook heavily and crushed the sixth sniper’s head.
The mountain forest in front of them was a main national highway to Changdao, and there were hills and forests on both sides. At the foot of the mountain, East Island had set up a temporary and secretive headquarter, where about six hundred East Island elites were gathering. There were less than fifty people in the headquarter, because the rest were all scattered in the forest, drawing a twenty kilometers long defense line in the forest. If there really were Zhongzhou State elites trying to break the defense and get into Changdao here, the hundreds of snipers in the forest would definitely be the toughest to handle.
This was also the main goal tonight for Jiang Shangyu and Li Tianlan. And beside this goal, the two of them also wanted to try and see if they could kill the Commander of this area, Nanye Xiu.
Nanye Xiu, the Captain of the East Island Benzhou Special Operations Brigade, had the military rank of a Lieutenant General and was in charge of everything of the Special Warfare System in Benzhou. His position was similar to the Director of the Provincial Special Operations Bureau in Zhongzhou State. But since East Island only had three big islands, Nanye Xiu could be in charge of one of them. That meant he was more powerful than the dozens of Directors of the Provincial Special Operations Bureau in Zhongzhou State, and of course, his strength was stronger.
This was a peak superior of the Thunder-shocking Realm that was a half step to Invincible Realm. In the whole Special Warfare System of East Island, whether based on strength or rank, Nanye Xiu fully deserved to be one of the giants.
In the defense line East Island set in Changdao, there were already over ten superiors of the Thunder-shocking Realm, and Nanye Xiu was definitely one of the toughest to beat.
Nanye Xiu was at the headquarter. It would take him at least five minutes to get on top of the mountain and go down.
Li Tianlan and Jiang Shangyu planned to kill all of the nearly one hundred snipers in the mountain forest by harassing them two or three times. Then they worked together to kill Nanye Xiu. Even if they couldn’t kill him, causing him serious injury would be a nice outcome.
If this defense line loosened up, then it would be a lot easier to break into Changdao through here.
“The fifteenth one.”
Li Tianlan’s cold voice echoed again.
As the ninth sniper fell in front of him, Jiang Shangyu casually made a mark on a thick tree trunk around.
Bai Youming actually gave them two missions.
The first one was to kill.
Just like what they were doing now, they needed to mess up the defense line of Changdao as much as possible, so that the Zhongzhou State elites could break through it more easily.
The second one was to unite.
When everyone was about to rush into Changdao, countless people gathered into many small groups, so the communication among them was extremely difficult. How to unite all these people together again was a tough problem.
If they couldn’t unite in Changdao, so many small groups would be eliminated by East Island.
“The sixteenth one.”
Jiang Shangyu sighed gently, then looked around.
It was still dead silent around.
He sighed gently and mumbled to himself. “You missed the best chance.”
He took a deep breath, then said softly, “Let’s go. Look at the time, Nanye Xiu is about to come.”
Li Tianlan stayed silent for a second, then answered. “Gather at the predetermined spot, and wait for the next action.”
…
“Are they finished?”
Before Nanye Xiu appeared, in the thick grass less than a thousand meters away from Li Tianlan, a black figure was aiming at Li Tianlan through the sniper scope. He sighed slightly. “What a pity.”
The black figure lay on his stomach in the grass and blended in the grass and the darkness perfectly. He lay still, watching Li Tianlan disappear through the sniper scope and putting on a complicated smile on his face. “But I have generally figured out your pattern of action, little one… So you’re gonna die.”
In the wind and rain, he slightly pressed the formal hat on his head and loosened up the old red scarf on his neck.
Two guns lay still beside him, a long one and a short one, one looked ferocious while the other one looked simple.
In the Dark World, these two were the widely known guns.
Although they were not murderous weapons, their power was no less than the 12 Murderous Weapons.
No one really knew whether it was the guns which made the Gun King in the Dark World who he was or the Gun King who made the guns famous. In the eyes of everyone in the Dark World, the Gun King and the guns were an organic whole.
The famous gun, Whisper!
The famous gun, Grim Smile!
In the dark, the hand which just loosened the red scarf gently touched the long gun.
He looked away from the sniper scope. There was calm and clear light shining in his eyes like stars in the night sky.
Li Tianlan’s figure had disappeared.
He stood up in the grass, following him quietly and calmly.
In the Dark World, nobody knew his name. This Gun King who beat all the superiors of the Thunder-shocking Realm on the killer list with his extremely miraculous gun skills and his two famous guns, now ranked number five on the killer list.
His code name was Heavenly Calamity!
The calamity followed his enemies like a shadow, and death would come unexpectedly.
