mynovelweb Chapter 393: The Collaboration of a Broken Wing
Chapter 393: The Collaboration of a Broken Wing
The atmosphere in the underground hall grew heavy as lead.
Gareth stood behind that air barrier, the grotesquely shaped flail in his hand slowly swinging in rhythm with his breathing.
Every time the flail cut through the air, it emitted a dull, rumbling sound.
"Now!"
Lin Jie didn't hesitate. His body transformed into a fully drawn bow, launching forward.
At the same time, he had already raised his [Serene Heart], the muzzle spitting silent tongues of flame.
Three bullets flew in a triangular formation towards Gareth's face.
Simultaneously, William also pulled the trigger of the [Church Holy Cannon].
The sanctified bullet, trailing a dazzling golden light, shot straight towards the ghost-like assassin, Corvo.
This was a textbook example of suppressive fire.Facing two high-ranking hunters, their only chance of survival was to disrupt the enemy's rhythm from the very first moment.
However, Gareth didn't dodge. He didn't even blink.
He gave a contemptuous smirk, then swung the flail in his hand with immense force.
"Whoosh—BOOM!"
The flail carved a massive semicircle through the air.
The airflow was forcibly drawn in, gathered, and then compressed by that black iron ball.
In front of Gareth, right in the path of the bullets, a layer of distorted ripples appeared out of thin air.
It was a wall.
A transparent barrier constructed from air compressed hundreds of times over.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
The three bullets struck that layer of ripples, sliding powerlessly to the ground.
Even William's holy-attribute bullet erupted into a burst of golden sparks upon impact, yet it still couldn't budge that transparent defense in the slightest.
Julian stood at the rear, his eyes filled with shock.
"That's the [Gorgon's Flail]."
"The legendary snake-haired gorgon who could petrify all things, but in his hands, that petrification ability has been transformed into an extreme solidification of gaseous matter."
"As long as he keeps swinging that hammer, the air around him is his shield."
"Shield?"
Gareth heard Julian's analysis and gave a ferocious grin.
"No, bookworm. This isn't a shield."
"This is... a cage."
As his words fell, the flail in his hand swung once more.
This time, it was an offensive smash.
The flail, howling through the air, slammed viciously towards the ground.
But before the hammerhead hit the floor, a new air wall had already materialized out of thin air on Lin Jie's group's flank.
Then a second, and a third.
Gareth was like a mad architect, rapidly constructing a suffocating labyrinth within this underground hall using invisible bricks.
Lin Jie felt his space for movement being compressed at an alarming rate.
He tried to dodge to the left, but the moment his body moved, he collided with a solid air wall.
"Thud!"
A dull thump.
A sharp pain shot through Lin Jie's shoulder, and his whole body was flung back by the rebound.
The impact felt incredibly real, even more painful than hitting solid rock, because the surface of the air wall wasn't smooth but filled with sharp, compressed air currents.
"Don't move recklessly."
Lin Jie barked a low command, stopping William who was about to force a breakout.
"These walls have a duration."
"Air can't maintain a compressed state forever; they'll dissipate slowly."
"But before that..."
Lin Jie's gaze pierced through those distorted air ripples, landing on the assassin who hadn't made a move yet.
Corvo.
The man wearing a half-metal mask was crouched atop a stone pillar, like a vulture waiting for its prey to show a weakness.
"What's he waiting for?" William whispered, his gun muzzle still locked on Corvo's position.
Just then, Gareth's offensive changed.
He was no longer content with creating obstacles.
His burly figure, encased in heavy armor, transformed into a runaway steam train charging forward.
The flail in his hand swung in a full arc, carrying a momentum to crush all before it, smashing viciously towards Lin Jie who stood at the front.
If this blow landed squarely, forget a person, even a car would be flattened into a pancake.
The [Gravity Dancer] boots on Lin Jie's feet activated instantly.
The soles stamped a deep crater into the ground. Using the tremendous recoil, his entire body shot backward.
But just as he launched himself, a new air wall materialized without warning right behind him.
Gareth had predicted his retreat.
"Die!"
Gareth roared, the flail descending with terrifying air pressure.
A heavy hammer in front, an air wall behind.
But Lin Jie didn't panic. He forcibly twisted his torso mid-air, his [Silencer] stabbing backward towards the air wall behind him.
"Screech—"
A sound like tearing cloth rang out.
The blade fused with [Withered Cicada] fragments forcibly sliced through the compressed air maintained by spiritual nature.
Although it only cut a gap, it was enough.
Lin Jie's figure slipped through that gap, narrowly avoiding the lethal hammer blow.
"BOOM!"
The flail smashed into empty ground.
The marble floor shattered, sending stone fragments flying.
The shockwave shook the nearby bookshelves dangerously, causing countless files to spill out.
"Slippery brat."
Gareth yanked his flail free from where it was embedded in the ground, a flash of annoyance in his eyes.
"Let's see how many times you can dodge."
He swung the flail again, this time faster, creating even denser air walls.
The entire hall became a shrinking animal trap.
And the true killing intent descended at this very moment.
Corvo, who had been crouching on the stone pillar the whole time, moved.
He slipped silently through the gaps in the air walls Gareth had created.
His target wasn't Lin Jie.
Because Lin Jie reacted too fast, and that [Silencer] was a threat to him.
His target was... Julian.
This physically frail scholar, relying entirely on alchemical tools and a pistol, was undoubtedly the weakest link in this team.
"Watch out!"
William had been tracking Corvo and reacted the moment the other disappeared.
But Corvo was too fast, and his movement trajectory was extremely bizarre.
He used the air walls Gareth created as springboards, performing dizzying ricochet jumps in mid-air.
In the blink of an eye, he had already appeared behind Julian.
His dagger silently sliced towards the back of Julian's neck.
The dagger seemed almost unsharpened, its edge appearing blunt, but that didn't stop it from being a vicious weapon.
Julian felt a chill on his back.
Instinctively, he raised the blackthorn wood cane in his hand, attempting to activate the decay field of [Withered Thorns] to slow his opponent.
"Hum—"
The gray field had just begun to expand when Corvo easily avoided it.
The assassin's body performed a physics-defying twist in mid-air, evading the field's core area. The dagger continued its unwavering thrust towards Julian.
"Get away!"
With a furious roar, William charged over.
The veteran directly used the [Church Holy Cannon] as a club, smashing it hard towards Corvo's wrist.
It was an extremely risky rescue move. A mocking glint flashed in Corvo's eyes.
His wrist twisted slightly, the semi-transparent dagger deftly circling around the rifle's stock, grazing William's left forearm.
It felt like being brushed by a feather, but William's face quickly turned deathly pale.
"Ugh..."
A muffled groan was forcibly swallowed back.
But his left hand, which had been tightly gripping the gun stock, suddenly went slack.
He felt as if his left index finger had suddenly vanished; he couldn't issue any commands to it.
Then the middle finger, ring finger, pinky—that numbness rapidly spread from his fingertips towards his palm.
Julian, who had retreated to a safe distance, shouted in horror.
"Don't let his weapon touch you!"
William gritted his teeth. He tried to hold the gun with just his right hand, but the heavy rifle made him somewhat unsteady.
He looked at his left hand.
It was still intact, but he knew that hand was already useless.
At least for the next few minutes, it was just a dead piece of meat hanging from his body.
"Some knowledge." Corvo landed, retreating back into the shadows.
"Just five minutes. Five minutes later, the nerve signals will reconnect."
Corvo's voice carried a bone-chilling delight.
"But..."
"Do you think you can last those five minutes?"
As his words fell, Gareth's attack descended once more.
This time, it was an even more ferocious area-of-effect strike.
The flail danced through the air, countless air walls rising like a maze within the hall.
Lin Jie was completely separated.
He faced Gareth's frontal assault alone, while the injured William and Julian were trapped in another dead end formed by air walls, facing the imminent threat of Corvo's second assassination attempt at any moment.
"Thud!"
Lin Jie collided with an air wall again.
This time, he wasn't so lucky.
He lost his balance during a high-speed directional change, his shoulder slamming heavily against the wall's surface.
Although the [Black Mercury] deflected part of the impact, he still felt sharp pain from his shoulder joint.
It was a soft tissue contusion. If not treated promptly, it would severely affect his sword-swinging speed.
"Stop struggling."
Gareth strode forward, each step making the ground tremble.
"Your blade can cut through my walls, but you're too slow."
"You cut one, I can make ten. This is the crushing superiority of heavy armament over light armament."
He was right. This was an unequal war of attrition.
Gareth handled battlefield control and frontal suppression. He was like a mobile fortress, constantly compressing Lin Jie's group's living space.
And Corvo was the dagger hidden in the shadows, specifically seeking openings to deliver cuts that, while not fatal, could cripple a person's fighting ability.
This coordination was too perfect.
One hard, one soft.
One in the light, one in the dark.
If they couldn't break this rhythm, they would eventually be worn down to death by these two.
Lin Jie leaned against a stone pillar, breathing heavily.
His gaze swept back and forth between Gareth and Corvo. To break the situation, they had to take out one of them first.
Gareth's defense was too strong, and the air walls were a nightmare for ordinary hunters.
To get close enough to kill him, they first had to pass through those layered barriers.
And Corvo... This assassin, while his movements were bizarre, had a fatal weakness.
He had to get close to attack; those two daggers had no ranged killing power.
Moreover, he seemed to enjoy the process of slowly tormenting his prey.
This gave Lin Jie an opportunity.
"William."
Through the overclocked thinking of [Mental Staircase], Lin Jie rapidly constructed a tactical model in his mind.
Using squad hand signals only they could understand, he gestured a few motions behind his back.
[Bait.]
[Left side.]
[Three seconds.]
William was momentarily stunned.
He looked at his left arm, which had completely lost sensation and hung limply at his side.
The numbness had spread to his elbow, but he still nodded.
A flash of determination appeared in the veteran's eyes.
Using one hand, he propped the heavy [Church Holy Cannon] on his shoulder as if mounting an artillery piece.
"Come on, scum."
William suddenly roared.
He ignored Corvo hiding in the shadows, aiming the muzzle at Gareth, who was advancing on Lin Jie.
"Bang!"
The gunshot rang out.
This shot wasn't particularly accurate, but at this distance, it still forced Gareth to raise his flail to block.
"Seeking death!"
Gareth was provoked.
He turned, intending to deal with this annoying veteran first.
Just then, Corvo moved. He saw the huge opening William had exposed.
This veteran now had only one usable hand, and he had just fired, in a recoil-stiffened state.
It was the perfect assassination opportunity.
Corvo charged out from the shadows on the side. His target was William's right leg.
If he crippled that leg, this veteran would be completely reduced to useless meat.
"William!"
Lin Jie had been waiting for this moment. He was betting on Corvo's greed.
The moment Corvo charged out, Lin Jie instead turned and charged towards Gareth.
It looked like a suicidal move.
Abandoning defense of his back, exposing himself within the attack range of the heavy-armored warrior.
Gareth gave a ferocious grin, raising the flail high.
"Fool!" He was going to smash this Easterner into paste with one blow.
But one second before the flail fell, Lin Jie did something no one expected.
He pulled a potion bottle from his chest—it was Julian's—"[Armor-Breaking Acid]".
He slammed it hard onto the ground between them.
"Crash!" The bottle shattered.
The golden strong acid liquid rapidly vaporized into a dense cloud of acid mist upon contact with the ground.
This acid mist had little killing power, but it had one property: corrosiveness.
Gareth's air walls began to dissolve and disintegrate not long after encountering this acid mist.
A gap appeared in the perfect defense system, and this gap was precisely located between Lin Jie and Gareth.
"What?"
Gareth was stunned. He hadn't expected his opponent to use this method to crack his armament.
But it still wasn't enough, because his flail was already descending.
Even without the air walls, the physical damage of this blow was lethal.
But Lin Jie didn't dodge.
The [Gravity Dancer] boots on his feet stamped heavily on the ground.
Kinetic energy conversion.
Weight surge.
He didn't flee. He didn't evade.
Instead, he stood his ground like a nail driven deep.
Then, he raised his left arm, the arm wearing the [Cursebreaker Vambrace].
"Curse Storm!"
Lin Jie growled. The runes on the vambrace lit up, and an interference wave targeting mechanical structures erupted forth.
But this wasn't used to attack Gareth's armor.
Because that armor was too thick; this level of interference couldn't cause substantial damage.
Lin Jie's target was—that flail. To be precise, the precise rotating bearing at the flail's connection point.
"Crunch—Screech!"
A piercing sound of metal grinding rang out.
The flail, which had been spinning at high speed to compress air through centrifugal force, jammed for an instant.
Although it was only a pause of a few tenths of a second.
But that terrifying inertial force instantly backlashed.
Gareth felt the flail in his hand suddenly transform into a runaway wild bull. The tremendous torque nearly snapped his wrist.
His body lost balance, staggering sideways. The certain-kill blow grazed Lin Jie's shoulder and smashed into empty ground.
"BOOM!"
The ground shattered, but Lin Jie was unharmed.
He stood there, coldly watching the giant who had lost his balance.
On the other side, Corvo's dagger had already reached the side of William's leg.
But he couldn't thrust it down, because a black cane blocked its path.
The scholar, who had been overlooked the entire time, displayed astonishing courage. While he lacked powerful combat strength, he possessed extremely keen observational skills.
The moment William fired to bait the enemy, he had already predicted Corvo's attack route.
He placed the [Withered Thorns] cane horizontally in front of William's leg.
While this cane couldn't block that intangible dagger.
Julian didn't plan to block it head-on. The moment the cane made contact with the dagger, his other hand threw an alchemical vial.
"Poof!"
A cloud of extremely low-temperature white mist sprayed out.
The extreme cold instantly froze the surrounding air, also causing a slight hesitation in Corvo's lightning-fast movement.
It was just this slight hesitation.
Although William's left hand was useless, he still had his right hand, and a right leg like a steel whip.
"Get lost!"
The veteran roared.
Using his body weight, he kicked hard at Corvo's mask.
"Thud!"
A dull thump.
Corvo was sent flying backward by this kick, rolling several times on the ground before stopping.
While this kick didn't cause significant damage, it successfully disrupted his offensive rhythm and pulled William back from a certain-death situation.
Both battlefields fell into a brief stalemate simultaneously.
Lin Jie still stood before Gareth.
William and Julian stood back-to-back, vigilantly watching Corvo not far away.
Although the first round of clashes ended without a decisive victory.
Lin Jie had already seen through his opponents' cards.
"Again."
Lin Jie shook his somewhat numb arm, the tip of his blade pointing at the giant who was readjusting his stance.