But that wasn’t surprising... After all, they were facing "Shadow," who had ranked number one in the world several times.
Guan Tong finished off the three members of this squad. Chen Na was still hiding in her room.
Listening to the sounds from outside, he knew that the armed personnel from the middle level were all coming up.
’This is good too. Saves me a trip down there.’
’Dealing with these gunmen will be much simpler.’
Guan Tong continued to draw on his reserves of Psychic Power. A mass of shadows spread out from his body, constantly branching into one Shadow Line after another, which then slithered outwards at high speed.
The armed personnel who came up from the middle level had yet to find any trace of the intruder when they saw countless snake-like "black lines" slithering rapidly towards them along the floor and walls!
"What are those things?!"
"Open fire!"
RAT-TAT-TAT, RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
They fired at the black lines, but it was completely useless. They could only watch in horror as the lines closed in, crawled onto their bodies, and wrapped around their necks, coil by coil.
Then came the tightening and the suffocation.
"Ugh...!"
"H-help me!"
"Run!!!"
A huge swath of armed personnel fell in an instant. The rest were scared out of their wits and tried to flee.
But no matter how fast they were, they couldn’t outrun the shadows.
Before long, all of them were dead, caught in the shadows’ lethal embrace.
Many died with their eyes wide open. Some had struggled, leaving several scratch marks on the floor with their fingernails.
Guan Tong emerged from the gloom. His expression was unmoved as he surveyed the gruesome scene he had created.
’They brought this on themselves. From the moment they chose to serve this evil organization, capturing and killing people, they should have known this day would come.’
’My appearance merely hastened the inevitable.’
After eliminating the threats on the upper and middle levels, he went down to the lowest level.
The door here was already locked tight, but Guan Tong had Han Ling’s highest-level access card and swiped the door open.
The guards inside quickly fell to the shadows, just like the armed personnel on the middle level.
Guan Tong saw the imprisoned Ascenders with his own eyes, and a flood of emotions washed over him.
From the surveillance control room, he opened all the cell doors. But the people who had been imprisoned for months didn’t dare to step out, even seeing the doors open, fearing it was some kind of test.
Guan Tong didn’t say anything to them. He knew that once one person came out, the others would follow.
He returned to the upper level, knocked on Chen Na’s door, and told her to come with him.
Chen Na followed Guan Tong out. First, she saw the bodies of Gu Fei and Chu Xiaoyuan in the hallway. Then, as soon as they left the dormitory area, she saw the floor littered with the corpses of the armed personnel.
"Chief, did you do all this...?"
Guan Tong didn’t reply, simply walking back to the manager’s office.
Han Ling, who had been knocked unconscious earlier, had now come to. Although her hands and feet were bound by Shadow Lines, preventing her from moving, she could still see and speak.
The moment she saw Chen Na behind Guan Tong, her face turned ice-cold. "Chen Na, you betrayed the organization?!"
"I... Han Ling, why did you lie to me? You said..."
"Shut up! You little bitch, you little mongrel! I should have just gutted you from the start, gutted you right along with that bitch of a mother!"
Han Ling, who had always been so gentle and pleasant, had suddenly ripped off her mask. Her vicious, vile words left Chen Na in a state of shock.
"You treacherous little bitch! If the organization hadn’t paid for the medicine, your mother would have died from her illness long ago! And this is how you repay us? With betrayal and treachery!"
Chen Na had snapped out of her shock by now. Looking at Han Ling’s crazed expression, she said, "Han Ling, I was very grateful for the medicine and items. In return, I joined the organization to serve... But all of that was on the condition that this organization was just as you described it, Sister Han Ling—one of mutual aid and self-preservation. You were the one who lied to me first! If I had known the organization harmed people like this, I never would have agreed to join!"
"She’s right," Guan Tong said. "Han Ling, you know full well that without the guise of ’mutual aid,’ you’d never be able to trick good-hearted people into working for you. At this point, what right do you have to accuse others of betrayal?"
"...So it seems you’ve destroyed this base."
Han Ling ignored Chen Na, her eyes, like a viper’s, fixed on Guan Tong.
"Shadow, you really are something else. To be able to infiltrate this heavily-defended base so silently and eliminate its armed forces... you truly live up to the title of ’World’s First Ascender.’ But I’m telling you, the Commander-in-Chief will have his revenge. Just you wait. No one will be able to save you then..."
"I’d actually like to have a long chat with you about this Commander-in-Chief," Guan Tong said. He was about to take out the shelter he had stored in the Wordless Book, intending to use its properties to take Han Ling away for a slow interrogation.
But Han Ling just laughed maniacally. "Hahaha, you want me to sell out the Commander-in-Chief? In your dreams! Shadow, we’ll meet again. I’ll be waiting for you in the Underworld, hahahaha—"
Her laughter stopped abruptly. A dark, bluish tint appeared on Han Ling’s face.
Sensing something was wrong, Guan Tong rushed forward to check on her. Han Ling’s head hung limply. She was no longer breathing.
He lifted her chin and saw a purplish liquid trickling from the corner of her mouth.
’Poison? Hidden in her mouth... no, in a tooth?’
Guan Tong frowned.
He had heard that some special agents hide poison in specially made false teeth. When needed, they could open it with their tongue or crush it with their teeth to commit suicide quickly, preventing them from leaking vital information under brutal interrogation.
’...To think Han Ling had something like that in her mouth. This organization, that Commander-in-Chief... did they really require this level of devotion from her?’
"Sister Han Ling..."
Chen Na stared at Han Ling, who had died from poison, her own face deathly pale.
Even though Han Ling had just hurled so many vicious words at her, seeing her die with her own eyes still made Chen Na feel deeply uneasy.
There was nothing Guan Tong could do about it. As powerful as his shadow abilities were, he couldn’t bring the dead back to life.
It was a pity that he couldn’t get more information about the true mastermind, "Big Sis," but in Guan Tong’s view, this operation, which had consumed a great deal of his Psychic Power, had not been in vain.
"...Let’s go, Chen Na. At least this base is finished. You’re safe now, and all the imprisoned Ascenders have been rescued."