Chapter 74: Implant
When Wei Changan and his team decided to break in, Chen Chuan walked out of the grocery store and looked over to the market. Two groups of people were fighting there.
It seemed like a conflict between a stall owner and a customer. Quite a number of stall owners wanted to help their companion, but onlookers were gathering to watch. Chen Chuan could not quite tell what was going on.
Cai Si gave a few instructions to the grocery store owner, who nodded and asked an employee to go to the back to check out the situation.
Chen Chuan looked over to the apartment. Just then, he saw a person jumping out of a window from the fourth floor. The man grabbed the windowsill while airborne, then let go. When he landed, he rolled on the ground to negate the force of the impact before standing up and running at lightning speed down the road to them.
“It’s Swift Leg Tian Yaozu!” Cai Si also saw him. “I’m going to stop him. Keep an eye out at the back. Don’t let him run away.”
He removed a modified belt from his waist and charged away.
Chen Chuan did as he was told and stood at the back to block the way.
The moment Tian Yaozu saw Cai Si and Chen Chuan in his way, he drew a knife from his belt.
Cai Si swung the belt at Tian Yaozu’s hand, which forced him to quickly draw his hand back and instinctively duck his head. A strong breeze blew past his head, but he quickly sensed that something was off. He moved back again, only to have the belt buckle graze his knee. He had nearly been hit.
Tian Yaozu was shocked and took a few steps back as he glared at the young man before him. Cai Si just tugged at the belt, making it snap as he stared at him coolly.
Chen Chuan had seen everything from the back. The whip strike had been executed beautifully. If Tian Yaozu had not retreated so quickly, he would have been hit and fallen. He certainly lived up to his moniker of the Swift Leg. A pity that Cai Si was only using a belt. If he had a real whip, Tian Yaozu would have had nowhere to run.
Once Cai Si forced Tian Yaozu to retreat, he did not move forward. He maintained a certain distance. His belt had a longer range than Tian Yaozu’s dagger, so Tian Yaozu would not be able to touch him as long as he kept himself at the maximum range of his weapon.
Tian Yaozu seemed to be really worked up, because he did not know just how many people were involved in the operation to capture his group. The longer he stayed in the fight, the more danger he would be in. He observed Cai Si a little longer before a ruthless look appeared on his face. He ducked his head and rushed forward. At the same time, he brought his hand to block the attack coming at him. The belt struck his hand, and his sleeve was instantly torn to shreds. His flesh was sliced open, and blood spilled out.
There and then, the belt’s weakness of not being able to deliver fatal blows came to light. By taking that hit, Tian Yaozu managed to close in. Cai Si frowned, but did not fight head-on with him. Instead, he shifted to the side to avoid him. Tian Yaozu ignored him and ran past him like the wind. In the blink of an eye, he was eight meters past Cai Si.
“Careful, Chen Chuan!” Cai Si called out.
Wei Changan had said that his underclassman was more capable than he appeared and that he could trust him during crucial moments, so Cai Si decided to let Tian Yaozu run past him.
When Chen Chuan saw Tian Yaozu charging over, he stood still.
Tian Yaozu’s courage grew when he saw Chen Chuan standing in the middle of the road with his hands bare, and with a shout, he thrust his knife multiple times.
Chen Chuan avoided each of the attacks. Whenever Tian Yaozu took a step forward, Chen Chuan took a step back and continued standing in his way. The distance between them never changed. Then, Tian Yaozu’s breathing hitched.
Chen Chuan was waiting for this very moment. He reached out and grabbed Tian Yaozu’s wrist.
In any other situation, even if he managed to grab an enemy’s knife-wielding hand, it would be really dangerous. He could get his wrist cut. But the moment he touched Tian Yaozu’s wrist, his mutated tissue pushed a wave of refined force into Tian Yaozu, and a wave of numbness spread through the man.
Chen Chuan flicked his wrist slightly, and faint snapping sounds came from Tian Yaozu’s arm. In an instant, his wrist, elbow, and shoulder were all dislocated.
“The Python Form Force?!” Cai Si blurted out.
Chen Chuan slid his hand up Tian Yaozu’s arm and dragged him over to ram his elbow into his solar plexus. Tian Yaozu grunted and dropped to his knees in pain. His body fell forward, and his forehead crashed into the ground. He lay prone while spasming.
Cai Si came forward and stepped on Tian Yaozu’s head while twisting his hands behind him. He bound his hands together with the belt before looking up and saying in delight, “You’re amazing, Chen Chuan! Tian Yaozu is really fast. I wouldn’t have been able to stop him so easily alone.”
He had seen everything clearly. Chen Chuan had avoided the attacks abnormally quickly and practically shadowed Tian Yaozu’s every step. That was only possible if he was much faster than Tian Yaozu and had the courage to face the risk of getting stabbed. These two factors alone made Chen Chuan heads above most of the undergraduates. It was no wonder why Wei Changan regarded him so highly.
A loud bang rang out in the distance, and they looked over to see a huge hole in the wall of the apartment building’s fourth floor. Someone fell out of it.
The person curled into a ball before unfurling himself. He grabbed onto a windowsill with one hand and swayed a little before releasing it. When he landed on the ground, he rolled a few times before standing up without suffering any damage from the fall. It was Wei Changan.
He was covered head to toe in dust, and his clothes were torn everywhere.
Cai Si looked up and saw a huge figure standing at the hole. His voice turned grim. “Scar Face!”
Chen Chuan also saw the man wearing a blue-gray work jacket. His machete was broken, but the sledgehammer in his other hand was fine. The scar traveling from his forehead to a corner of his mouth looked like a savage scorpion. He appeared to be more than two meters tall. Chen Chuan felt that there was something off about him, but he could not tell what.
While Chen Chuan was observing him, Scar Face looked over at them. He took a step forward to smash through the remainder of the wall in his way and jumped down from the fourth floor. With a loud bang, the cement under his feet shattered, but he seemed completely fine. All he did was bend his knees a little before standing up again.
Wei Changan had already retreated to the entrance of the street, and he shouted orders to someone who peeked out from the fourth floor. “Tell the people from the martial arts school to stop anyone from getting close to this place!”
The person signalled an okay and disappeared from the hole.
“You’re not running away this time, Scar Face. Stop with this futile resistance,” Wei Changan said.
Scar Face ignored him. He tightened his grip over his weapons and walked forward.
Just then, they heard footsteps. The people Wei Changan had stationed in the south were coming over.
Cai Si also noticed many people rushing over from the market to see what was going on. Even though they had stationed people to stop them, it was not going to be enough. He told Chen Chuan that he was going to help and ran to their side.
Chen Chuan stayed still while he sized Scar Face up.
Once Cai Si reached the human blockade, he shouted at the approaching crowd, “Constabulary at work! Step back!”
The Constabulary’s name was like the boogeyman to most people, so almost the entire crowd moved back. Only one middle-aged woman remained in the front looking around as if she had heard nothing.
Cai Si scowled and walked over. “Didn’t you hear—”
The middle-aged woman raised her leg to kick Cai Si’s ankle, but Cai Si reacted on time and brought his knee up to avoid the kick. The middle-aged woman flung her arm and threw a handful of flour at Cai Si.
Caught off guard, Cai Si shut his eyes, but some of it still got in. Despite that, he remained calm and covered his throat with one hand while covering his groin with the other. Almost at the same time, he felt a fierce kick to the arm blocking his groin, while something stabbed into the hand blocking his throat.
Cai Si did not retreat. Instead, he lunged forward and crashed into the middle-aged woman.
Surprised by Cai Si’s fearless attack even though he was blinded, the woman swayed. But she pressed two of her fingers together and used the sharp, steel-like nails to stab Cai Si in the stomach. With the help from her refined force, the moment the nails sank into Cai Si’s flesh, she could thrust her entire arm inside and rip Cai Si’s stomach apart.
The moment she stabbed him, she felt something stopping her. She was stunned before she came to a realization. “A stab-proof vest?”
Since they did not have an armor permit, the people taking part in the operation could not wear bulletproof vests, but they could still get some stab-proof vests.
Cai Si used the chance to grab the woman and tightened his arms around her. A lock-related refined force crashed into her, and the sound of bones breaking came from her body. When he let go, the middle-aged woman fell limp on the ground, as if her bones could no longer support her.
The sight scared the people around them so much that they stayed far away.
Meanwhile, Scar Face started running, as if he did not care about the people surrounding him.
At that moment, crackling sounds rang out in the air. They were from the fireworks they had asked the martial arts school to release. The fireworks seemed pointless at that moment, but Wei Changan had been waiting for exactly this opportunity. He brought out a Dev-15 pistol and shot Scar Face’s legs four times.
The bullets tore holes through Scar Face’s cargo pants, and he stumbled a few steps back before regaining his balance. Wei Changan saw thick, black, chitin armor through the holes in the pants.
His expression turned grave as he recognized what it was. “A military-grade implant...”