mynovelweb Chapter 394: Lady Gray Appears Again
Chapter 394: Lady Gray Appears Again
Three minutes later...
Lin Jie leaned against a broken stone pillar, breathing heavily as he adjusted his posture.
A dull pain throbbed from his left shoulder—the contusion from forcefully withstanding the Air Wall again during the recent fight. Though the bone wasn't broken, the swelling of soft tissue was affecting the flexibility of his left hand.
Across from him, Gareth was inspecting the chain flail in his hand.
The bearings, which had jammed due to interference from the Curse Storm, had resumed operation, but subtle mechanical damage had introduced a slight flaw in the balance of this heavy armament.
In the shadows, Corvo's gaze remained icy.
The dagger in his hand spun around his fingertips, as if searching for the next opportunity to strike.
"Potion."
Lin Jie spoke in an extremely low voice to Julian behind him.
"None left."Julian gave a bitter smile, spreading his hands open. The potion pouch at his waist was mostly empty.
He had used the last bottle of Phantom Barrier to save William earlier, and that crucial bottle of Armor-Breaking Acid had also been exhausted during the previous clash.
"Only one bottle left."
Julian retrieved a small glass vial from an inner concealed pocket.
The liquid inside appeared a murky dark gold. It was an experimental strong acid he had attempted to concoct at Roscoff Harbor, its corrosiveness several times stronger than ordinary Armor-Breaking Acid, but it was extremely unstable; even a slightly violent shake could set it off.
"Give it to me."
Lin Jie's eyes flickered.
"No, don't give it to me."
He suddenly changed his words, his gaze still fixed on Gareth, but his speech became extremely rapid.
"Listen, in a moment, I'll lure that big guy into a full-force attack, then I'll try to cut an opening."
"You need to throw this bottle into that opening."
Julian was stunned for a moment before understanding Lin Jie's intent.
This tactic required three perfect acts of coordination to be completed in the blink of an eye: lure, breach, throw.
"Understood."
Julian tightened his grip on the potion, his palm slick with cold sweat, but his eyes were exceptionally firm.
"Ready."
Lin Jie took a deep breath, his body leaning slightly forward, the soles of his shoes scraping lightly against the floor.
That sound was like a starting pistol.
"Come on!"
Lin Jie suddenly roared, his entire body lunging forward like a leopard.
He charged towards Corvo on the other side—an extremely obvious feint.
He was betting on Gareth's pride and his arrogant desire to crush his opponent head-on.
Sure enough, Gareth was provoked.
"Trying to run?"
The giant roared, taking a large stride forward. The chain flail in his hand, whistling through the air, directly blocked Lin Jie's path forward.
"Stay here!"
The chain flail traced a massive arc through the air. The air was compressed at extreme speed, forming an Air Wall that stood between Lin Jie and Corvo.
One second before he was about to crash into the Air Wall, Lin Jie abruptly leaned his body backward, dropped to his knees, and used the smoothness of the floor to slide forward.
It was an extremely dangerous maneuver.
Because Gareth's chain flail had already changed direction, carrying the momentum of a collapsing mountain as it smashed viciously towards Lin Jie on the ground.
"Die!"
The red light in Gareth's eyes flared. He intended to end this farce with this single blow.
While sliding, Lin Jie raised Silencer in a backhanded slash.
"Ssss—"
The blade edge slid across the newly formed Air Wall.
The supposedly indestructible airflow barrier was forcibly sliced open, creating a long, narrow fissure.
Lin Jie didn't need to shout.
Julian, who had been watching the battle situation closely, had already acted the moment he saw that fissure appear.
Using all his strength, he hurled the dark gold potion fiercely into mid-air.
The bottle traced a parabolic arc through the air, passing precisely through that rapidly healing fissure.
"Crash!"
The glass vial shattered at Gareth's feet.
The high-concentration strong acid liquid, upon contact with the air, was swept into the surrounding high-pressure airflow, forming a deadly acid mist.
"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—"
The acid mist enveloped Gareth. His sturdy armor emitted corrosive sounds.
The thick steel plates rapidly softened and discolored under the strong acid, revealing the gear structures within.
Even worse, the acid mist seeped in through the gaps in his faceplate.
"Ah—!"
Gareth let out a pained roar. The burning sensation caused his attack motion to distort.
But he didn't stop. As a veteran heavy-armor hunter, pain only drove him to greater frenzy.
The chain flail in his hand still carried terrifying kinetic energy as it smashed towards the ground.
Only the point of impact was slightly off, landing on the floor half a meter to Lin Jie's side.
"Boom!"
The marble floor shattered. Rubble flew like shrapnel. The massive shockwave sent Lin Jie slightly off-balance.
But this was the opportunity Lin Jie had been waiting for. Propelled by the shockwave, he adjusted his posture mid-air.
His legs kicked fiercely towards the thick iron chain connecting to the hammerhead.
Gravity Dancer.
"Thud!"
A dull, heavy thud echoed as Lin Jie's feet slammed heavily onto the iron chain.
In that instant, the soles absorbed the kinetic energy from his aerial tumble and the recoil force from the chain flail's impact with the ground.
Those forces were converted into pure mass.
Lin Jie's weight skyrocketed to several tons in that moment.
Gareth, who had been about to retract his chain flail, suddenly felt his wrist grow heavy, as if a mountain were pressing down on his weapon.
His prideful strength was rendered useless at this moment. The chain flail was firmly pinned to the ground, unmoving.
"William!"
Lin Jie roared. The veteran, who had been hiding on the flank seeking an opportunity, moved.
Though William's left arm was still paralyzed, he still had his right arm.
And he still had the Sinking Maul.
Like an enraged bull, he charged to Gareth's front, using the opening created by Lin Jie's maneuver.
Swinging the hammer with one hand.
It was an action that tested both strength and technique to the extreme.
But the veteran succeeded.
The trench club wrapped in fragments of the parasitic anchor cluster traced a black afterimage through the air.
"Clang—!"
An ear-splitting metallic crash reverberated as the heavy hammer smashed squarely into Gareth's helmet.
It was the strongest, yet also the most vulnerable point of the armor.
The helmet, already mottled and corroded by the strong acid, completely deformed under this blow.
The thick metal plate dented inward, emitting a piercing screech of twisting metal.
Gareth's massive frame shuddered violently.
His vision blurred. The massive concussion gave him a brain injury.
He released his grip on the chain flail, staggered backward, and finally collapsed onto his rear with a thunderous crash.
"Anvil" was down, but the battle wasn't over yet.
"Behind you!"
Julian's warning shout came. Corvo, who had been lurking in the shadows, finally made his move.
He had been waiting for this opportunity.
Waiting for the moment when Lin Jie and William attacked Gareth with full force, exposing their backs.
A black shadow darted out from behind a pillar in the hall.
Corvo held the two Phantom Limb Scalpels crossed before his chest, his target directly aimed at the back of Lin Jie's neck.
Just one cut there.
The connection between Lin Jie's brain and body would be completely severed.
A certain-kill situation.
Lin Jie was still standing on the chain flail, completely unable to turn around in time. William had just finished his swing, his old momentum spent.
It seemed no one could save him, except for the scholar who had always been considered support personnel.
Julian raised Discipline, his eyes frighteningly calm.
Through his lenses, he was watching Corvo's feet, watching the spot where Corvo's next step was about to land.
When Corvo charged out, Julian had already "read" the rhythm of his footwork.
Left foot pushes off, center of gravity leans forward.
Next step, he would land on a tile seam two meters behind Lin Jie.
"Bang!"
A gunshot rang out.
This shot was aimed at the predicted landing point.
If it were an ordinary bullet, Corvo could have easily dodged it with his superhuman reaction speed.
But this gun was Discipline. Its trait was guaranteed hit.
As long as it locked onto a logically inevitable outcome, the process would be forcibly corrected.
The bullet traced a bizarre arc through the air.
The moment Corvo's foot just touched that floor tile.
The bullet arrived.
"Thump!"
A dull sound of penetration. The bullet pierced through the shinbone of Corvo's calf.
Excruciating pain froze Corvo's assassination motion. His body lost balance, and he tumbled forward.
The dagger in his hand grazed the edge of Lin Jie's clothing, only cutting through a bit of fabric.
"Ugh..."
Corvo let out a muffled grunt. He rolled once on the ground, quickly creating distance.
He knelt on one knee, his icy eyes fixed intently on Julian.
He hadn't expected this seemingly weak bookworm to actually injure him.
The hall fell silent again.
Gareth sat on the ground, shaking his head, trying to recover from the dizziness.
Corvo clutched his bleeding calf, the dagger still held in a reverse grip.
Lin Jie jumped down from the chain flail, standing in front of William and Julian.
The three still maintained their combat stances.
But the killing intent in the eyes of the two men opposite them was already beginning to fade.
"Enough."
Gareth spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva. He reached up and removed his deformed helmet, revealing a face covered in blood and grime.
"This deal wasn't worth it."
He glanced at the chain flail in his hand, which now had cracks, then looked at Corvo not far away.
"Repair costs are higher than the bounty."
"And..."
He pointed at Silencer in Lin Jie's hand.
"Your blade is poisoned."
"Though it hasn't taken effect yet, I can feel it."
"If we keep fighting, even if we could kill you, we'd both be finished here too."
Corvo didn't speak. He silently sheathed his dagger and stood up.
As a top-tier assassin, he understood assessing the situation better.
One failed assassination meant the mission was over. Forcibly persisting would only trap oneself in a deadly situation.
"The door is open."
Corvo pointed at the massive bronze door whose control panel he had destroyed.
"Though the lock is broken, this door itself is physically gear-driven by the Signet Ring."
"You have the ring. Go in yourselves."
After saying this, the two men actually turned and walked towards the elevator.
They didn't look at Lin Jie again.
For mercenaries of this caliber, abandoning a mission wasn't a disgrace, but the wisdom of cutting losses.
Lin Jie watched the elevator doors slowly close and finally let out a sigh of relief.
He too was at the end of his rope. If the fight had continued, casualties on their side would have undoubtedly been more severe.
"Let's go."
Lin Jie took out the Signet Ring. He walked to the massive bronze door, found the mechanical keyhole hidden within the relief patterns, and inserted the ring.
Turn.
"Click, click, click..."
The long-sealed massive bronze door slowly slid open to both sides. Behind it lay a pitch-black, seemingly bottomless space.
Lin Jie raised his lantern and stepped inside.
By the faint light, they could make out the scene here: a vast, seemingly endless library.
Countless black bookshelves, dozens of meters high, stood towering in the darkness like silent tombstones.
The layout here was extremely similar to the library in the upper levels of the Underground City.
But here was colder, more oppressive.
"Something's wrong here."
William looked around warily.
"I clearly remember that bookshelf being on the left just now. How did it move to the right in the blink of an eye?"
"It's a maze."
Julian looked at the parchment scroll in his hand.
Here, the garbled codes on the parchment seemed to begin pulsing with some kind of regularity.
"Let's brute force it."
William raised his trench club. "Smash all these blocking bookshelves."
"No."
Lin Jie stopped him.
"That would only trigger higher-level defense mechanisms."
"And..."
Lin Jie's gaze shifted towards the deepest darkness ahead.
"The master of this place... seems to have been waiting for us already."
Just as his words fell, a light suddenly ignited within that darkness.
It was an old-fashioned oil lamp, its light dim and warm.
A figure clad in a gray long dress appeared among the three of them at some unknown moment.
As if she had been standing there all along, just unseen until now.
The figure had her back to them, holding a feather duster, gently wiping dust off a bookshelf.
Her movements were slow, gentle, like an old woman cleaning her own living room.
But the moment they saw that back, Lin Jie, William, and Julian all felt a chill crawl up their spines.
Because all the bookshelves that had been slowly moving around them stopped completely after this figure appeared.
They were like a pack of hounds revering their master, obediently forming a circle, trapping the three in the center.
The figure slowly turned around.
Revealing a face full of wrinkles, yet with eyes still clear as water.
The Gray Lady.
The librarian of the Underground City library.
Also the mysterious old woman who had once instructed Lin Jie on reading techniques when he first started, and who had given Julian hints when he was searching for information on the Oak Sage.
But now, her eyes held none of their former gentleness, only a suffocating coldness.
"You should not have come here."
The Gray Lady's voice was soft, yet clearly audible in the empty archives.
"This is the grave of memories. It is no place for the living to tread."
As she spoke, the surrounding bookshelves suddenly began to tremble violently.
Countless books flew out from the shelves automatically, hovering in mid-air.
Pages flipped, emitting a rustling sound.
Those pages were filled with drawings of various weapons, UMAs, and alchemical arrays.