With blood loss mounting, Lu Yan’s health bar dropped to one-third. The car barreled through gunfire, glass shattering around them.
Lanbo climbed from the passenger seat to the back, wrapping Lu Yan in his translucent fishtail, forming a protective sphere against flying glass shards and stray bullets. His own health bar also decreased.
Lu Yan, enveloped at the center, could barely make out the outside world through the red-streaked veins of Lanbo’s tail and the blood-soaked organs. He patted the tail weakly. “Let me go. Rifle rounds are deadly—you’ll get taken out if you keep this up.”
Bai Chunian focused on the wheel, executing a perfect S-turn to dodge a hail of bullets. He opened the sunroof and tossed the M25 sniper rifle lodged in the passenger seat to Lanbo. “They’re reloading.”
Taking advantage of the brief reload, Lanbo leaned out the sunroof, chest pressed against the car roof, adjusting to the car’s movement. His golden hair whipped by the wind, sapphire eyes through the scope locked onto the target. A sharp gunshot rang out, followed by a deafening tire blowout echoing through the mountains.
He retracted and reloaded silently. The Ghost-Hunting Team’s black G-class SUV had its right rear tire shredded. The vehicle skidded toward the guardrail uncontrollably.
Normally, such a blowout would be impossible to control, yet the car spun wildly while the wheels compensated expertly. Bai Chunian watched through the rearview mirror. The driver was a North American gray wolf Alpha, eyes a stormy blue-gray, half a lit cigar clenched between his teeth, fangs biting a small hole in the stub.
His kill count—36—was the highest among the four. This was clearly He Suowei, the Ghost-Hunting Team leader.
“Why not snipe the driver?” Lu Yan asked, applying a healing injector.
“Can’t.” Bai Chunian calculated their sliding trajectory, then tapped the comm to Bì Lanxing’s car. “Try to push them.”
Bì Lanxing understood, releasing five thick poisonous vines through the windows. They rooted and spread across the highway, weaving into a massive net aimed at the spinning SUV.
Just as the corrosive vines were about to hit the car, a one-meter diameter circular force barrier appeared, refracting pale yellow light. Its surface pocked with varying depressions, it floated between the vines and the vehicle, halting their advance. The corrosive toxins couldn’t breach it.
The gray wolf Alpha’s glandular J1 ability, Total Lunar Eclipse, created a protective shield. The “moon disk” blocked damage within its area, shrinking gradually as it absorbed harm, from full moon to crescent, until gone.
This explained why Bai Chunian had Lanbo snipe the rear tire instead of the driver. Judging by the kill counts and elapsed time, the Ghost-Hunting Team’s tactics focused on killing while driving. No sniper had tried to take out the driver—impossible under normal circumstances.
The driver was the team’s core, controlling vision, tactics, and orders. If he were eliminated, even a well-coordinated team would need time to adjust.
When the Ghost-Hunting Team had charged in previously, the three gunners fired blindly, leaving the driver unprotected. Not due to poor teamwork, but indicating the driver had a protective ability. Their simultaneous reload was a tactical mistake—rare in a coordinated team. Therefore, taking out the rear tire was the most effective way to punish them with a single sniper shot.
Miraculously, the SUV, which almost flew off the guardrail, regained traction.
Bai Chunian saw the gray wolf Alpha flash him a mocking wink through the rearview, cigar still clenched. “Traveling together, huh, brother?”
“Not with you,” Bai Chunian spat back.
He climbed out the sunroof, left hand on the SA80 rifle, firing at the floating moon disk. The shield quickly consumed energy; a portion disappeared like a lunar eclipse. Right hand flipped a Desert Eagle twice in his palm and fired, bullets grazing the gap, shattering the SUV’s windshield. He switched to the Python revolver, firing into the newly created hole—blood erupted from the Alpha’s left shoulder.
He Suowei’s health bar dropped one-fifth. Clutching the wound, he glanced through the rearview at Bai Chunian with a mix of mockery and scrutiny.
His gaze suddenly shifted back to Lampe, arrogantly tracing the line from the collarbone peeking through Lampe’s bandages down to the slim waist cinched by the belt, then lingering curiously over the fish fin covering his lower abdomen. He turned back to meet Bai Chunian’s warning glare in the rearview mirror, whistled through his teeth with a cigar in his mouth, and mouthed mockingly: “The omega in your car is hot. Lend him to me for a bit, I’ll trade him with my teammate.”
“Trade yourself, let me mark you and make you scream,” Bai Chunian said coldly, lifting the corner of his mouth. Suddenly, he slammed the brakes and yanked the wheel sharply. Using the tail-swing momentum, he sent the hovering large G skidding off the guardrail, half of his own car dangling in midair, front tires scraping sparks against the asphalt. Lampe leapt from the sunroof, gripping the guardrail with both hands, his tail hooking the side mirror to hold onto the car. Bilansheng quickly turned back, and under the tug of vines, the BMW slowly returned to the road.
Below the highway lay a lake. The Ghost-Hunting team’s car sank without a trace of its roof, but no kill notification sounded.
Bai Chunian tapped the steering wheel, waiting on the shore. The crow omega murmured, “They’re diving away from us.”
“Pathetic,” Lampe said flatly, tail coiled on the guardrail as he stared down at the glimmering water. He lifted a finger, pointing at the lake. Calm water churned into waves under his control, and he easily manipulated them to chase the North American gray wolf alpha, water and floating debris battering him, steadily draining his health.
Bai Chunian laughed suddenly. “Picking up bad words quickly, huh? Chu-ge teach you well?”
Lampe pursed his lips, repeating carefully, “chu…chu…g…”
“Selective learning?” Bai Chunian retrieved an empty shell from under the seat and flicked it at Lampe’s head. “Get in the car, stinky little brother.”
Bilansheng asked, “Chase them?”
Bai Chunian stared at the smoking hood, thinking for a moment. “Not chasing. Let them go.”
“I’m thinking about something,” Bai Chunian said idly, honking the horn. “The missions in the taskbook are pretty simple, concentrated in one place, basically forcing us to fight together. So why doesn’t the Ghost-Hunting team just complete some missions along the way? Ten heads for one star, one mission for one star, and they get to kill people too. Clearly, doing missions is more efficient.”
“Do you think their missions might all be in the Research Institute, connected to Subject 1513?”
“If the A team’s missions are all about understanding Subject 1513, our team’s job is to lure it out and photograph it. Following that logic, maybe the Ghost-Hunting team’s mission is to kill Subject 1513? They can’t do it, so they only get head counts.”
Bai Chunian slapped his thigh, grabbed the megaphone, and leaned out of the sunroof, resting his chin in his hands as he called toward the lake beneath the highway: “The light of justice shines upon the earth. Research Institute, see you there, brothers. We’ll blast the shit out of you.”