Forge a path to success.

Chapter 49 Encounter on a narrow road

Maivia Club, 16th floor.

Ji Huaisu smashed the head of a bear-like beast with her light hammer and kicked the headless corpse away. The corpse twitched a few times, turning into a shriveled, withered human shape. A trail of such deformed corpses stretched behind her; all of them were blood-stained fugitives, whom even the most merciful judge would sentence to death without hesitation.

She could recall everyone's background and name, because she had searched high and low before but couldn't find these fugitives. Maivia had provided shelter for these thugs, placing them in high-ranking positions as henchmen at their beck and call. Now the punishment had finally come, albeit a little late, so Ji Huaisu dealt with it with the ruthlessness of the day.

"Girl, aren't you going to consider leaving anyone alive?!" Jie An on the other end of the communication crystal was getting a little frantic. "How are we going to find the child if you kill everyone?"

"We can just use the process of elimination," Ji Huaisu said.

She raised her light hammer and casually smashed it, shattering the side door and wall together. The thug who was preparing to attack from behind the door was knocked to the ground by this unexpected blow. He struggled to his feet but only saw a flash of golden light. Ji Huaisu maintained her stance and began to run. With the added force of her immense strength, her light hammer bulldozed walls and shattered doors like a bulldozer, demolishing the entire floor in the most violent way.

She genuinely didn't know how to find where the children were hiding, and she wasn't going to waste time trying to extract information. In an emergency, finding something required a process of elimination; she just had to break down all the doors!

Lustful patrons, lurking thugs, scattered relics. The myriad things hidden behind the walls flashed through Ji Huaisu's eyes. She focused intently, not letting any suspicious information slip by. Turning at the fork in the road, she continued in the direction that hadn't been disturbed. Armory, empty rooms, unknown wild beasts… piles of relics of indeterminate purpose, strange magic circles, children in cages…!
Ji Huaisu slammed on the brakes and turned sharply. It was a large room that resembled a storage room, with the floor piled high with iron cages for holding animals. Thinly dressed girls were locked in the cages, their hands and feet bound and their mouths taped shut, trembling like chicks.

Ji Huaisu dispelled her light hammer and revealed her shadow blade, severing the iron cage and cutting through the ropes in a few breaths. Her swordsmanship was actually quite good, but her usual fighting style was too brutal, leaving her with few opportunities to display it. She tore off the tape covering the girl's mouth and tried to put on a kind smile: "Don't be afraid, you're saved."

When the blood-soaked, murderous man approached with a knife, the girls were terrified and retreated hastily, crying out, "Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer!!"

Ji Huaisu sighed, his face fierce as he shouted, "Shut your mouths and come with me obediently!"

The room was deathly silent. The girls rushed to the door, moving with lightning speed, afraid of falling victim to this ruthless man's blade if they weren't coordinated enough. Ji Huaisu recalled the layout of the building and took out her communication crystal: "Set up the ladder, rescue people on the west side of the sixteenth floor."

"Coming right away!" Jie An replied from inside the police car.

Beneath the high-rise buildings, bullets clashed, and the sounds of sirens and gunfire mingled with the cries of men and women. As the two detectives stormed into the enemy lines, the clearing operation on the outer perimeter began simultaneously. Jie Anqin led a convoy in, launching a multi-pronged attack on the Maivia family. Team members in white combat uniforms braved a hail of bullets to rush into the building, using water bombs to precisely eliminate the gray-clad thugs.

On the first floor of the club, the lobby manager, who was directing the thugs, was sweating profusely. He found that these men were frighteningly well-equipped; their white combat uniforms were still the same as before, yet they couldn't even penetrate the brass bullets from the black workshop. What was even more worrying was that the enemy had clearly come prepared. All the important observation points on the outer defensive line had been eliminated within half a minute of the battle starting. He now had no idea how many men the city lord's mansion had sent, or even how many vehicles were outside the city.

The lobby manager, seeing the special police cars on the side of the building raising ladders, felt dizzy. He clutched his communicator frantically, pleading, "Young Master! Master! We're about to be breached!!"

But there was only static in the communicator. Chu Hengkong's decapitation strike, combined with Kaning's drastic measures, threw the club's management into chaos. The thugs, now without leadership, were no match for the resurrected forces. The lobby manager looked up to find even his bodyguards stunned by water bullets, and masked members pointing guns at his head.

"How could this be?" the lobby manager exclaimed incredulously.

"Guess how often we conduct exercises?" Lü Xing, who was commanding the raid, gritted his teeth and said, "Guess how many people want to blow your heads off?"

He grabbed the butt of his rifle and punched the thug unconscious, then directed his team to proceed with the next step. "Each squad, evacuate the civilians in an orderly manner, and be careful not to injure anyone."

Most of the catgirls obeyed the team members' instructions to evacuate, but a few women showed extreme resistance. They had become accustomed to life in the club and could not imagine how they would live after leaving. They were pitiful and sad.

Lü Xing sighed silently, feeling that this was also a consequence of the club's actions. Just then, his communicator flashed red; new instructions had arrived just after he had assigned tasks to each team, and he listened attentively.

"Xiao Lü, take a few more men to the 16th floor, just in case," Jie An instructed. "Roger that." Lü Xing gestured to his colleagues, "Teams 3 and 4, follow me! Up the stairs!"

At this moment, the ladder had just reached the gap that had been smashed open on the 16th floor. Jie An took out a specially made water jet and stuffed it into a specially made small opening in the vehicle. He turned on the water valve inside the vehicle, and the sound of water flowing back and forth came from inside the ladder. The gaps in the ladder were filled with blue water, and arched protective shields appeared on both sides, turning the ladder into a waterway like a slide.

This made the rescue much safer. He took the crystal and notified Ji Huaisu to take action, hoping that it was still in time.

"Alright, alright, line up and go down one by one! You won't die from the fall!" Ji Huaisu shouted loudly.

She chose a banquet hall on the west side as the rescue location. It was spacious enough to accommodate all the children, and more importantly, it was near a window for easy evacuation. She directed the girls down the stairs one by one, but most of the children were too scared to move. Ji Huaisu was extremely anxious but couldn't rush them. After all, it was a 16-story building. Not to mention children, even adults couldn't just close their eyes and jump down.

A girl with pigtails, naturally bold, mustered her courage and walked forward. She had only taken two steps when Ji Huaisu pulled her back. The ceiling of the banquet hall shattered with a deafening crash, and a massive, imposing figure fell from the top floor, blocking her escape route like a small mountain.

The little girls cried out in fright; they all recognized the burly man. Maivia clenched his rock-hard fist, his words echoing in the room like the tolling of a bell.

"Ji Qiufeng's adopted daughter, where do you intend to take my daughter?"

“Take them back to their real home,” Ji Huaisu said.

She deployed a light shield to protect the children behind her, then slashed diagonally at Maivia with her shadow blade. Maivia retaliated with a giant fist that expanded several times its original size, instantly shattering large panes of glass in the banquet hall with the shockwave. The scattered shards reflected the murderous intent in the eyes of the two women.

They began to fight, like knights battling demons.

·
Just one floor below, Chu Hengkong extended his tentacles and utterly killed the second daughter, Carmel. His gaze then turned to the heavily wounded Visaph in the distance. The hideous fallen one let out a miserable howl and rolled in utter disarray toward the doorless stairwell.

He knew that begging or resisting was useless; this man, who called himself "Detective," was essentially a killer through and through. Such a person wouldn't waste time extracting information; he would only kill, slaughtering everyone he considered a mortal enemy. Vesa didn't even dare look back to assess the situation; he only prayed that he could outrun the wounded Chu Hengkong. But the moment that thought crossed his mind, he heard the whoosh of wind. Chu Hengkong flashed behind him like a ghost, the white blade already piercing the decaying heart.

The blade pierced the cold steel, and another longsword suddenly appeared, blocking Chu Hengkong's blade!
“Master Yan!” Vesapu cried out like a little brat.

It was a knife as rough as rock, wielded by a man in a suit, his face expressionless behind sunglasses. He had narrowly saved the dying Vesap, for he himself had climbed up from that pitch-black ladder shaft.

Chu Hengkong twisted his wrist, causing the blade to slide down the enemy's blade, and changed his move to strike Vesapu on the ground. The man in sunglasses merely flicked his wrist, and an irresistible force emanated from his blade, deflecting Chu Hengkong's white sword. Chu Hengkong then launched another killing blow with a thrusting kick, but the man in sunglasses bent his knees and sheathed his sword, actually intercepting the thrusting kick with the hilt of his blade.

He flicked his finger and pushed the hilt of his sword, unleashing a dazzling slash with Iaijutsu, but his target was Vesaph, who stood between the two. This strike severed only a small portion of Vesaph's flesh; his corrupt heart, the core of the Fallen, was precisely within that piece of flesh.

The man in sunglasses blocked Chu Hengkong's slash with his knife in a reverse grip, and with a stomp of his heel, sent the corrupted heart falling into the ladder shaft. This blatant rescue came at a price; he had to take the blow of the tentacle on his side, yet the man in sunglasses remained perfectly still, as stable as an old tree rooted to the ground.

Chu Hengkong created distance and switched to wielding the sword with both hands. The lightning-fast exchange was enough to prove his strength. He didn't know who his enemy came from, but this was not an opponent he could easily defeat.

The man in sunglasses held the blade horizontally overhead, assuming an upper stance. His posture was precise, upright, and composed, like a master swordsman in a martial arts dojo.

“Steel Edge Flow, Du Muyan,” he said. “Please advise me.”

(End of this chapter)