Chapter 196: Dark Boundless Realm 51
“So, what’s going on here?” Silverface frowned, staring blankly at the two unconscious individuals on the floor.
The Thorn Rose’s finger scanner completed its reading. “This person is Valeri, and the other is Yefim’s assistant. Oddly, the mission file states that Yefim is the head of this casino. Why is Valeri here?”
The task execution squad of Mechanized Dawn had familiarized themselves with the general layout of the Midnight District and several important strongholds the night before. They had taken a brief rest during the day and resumed their work at night.
According to their mission plan, they were to scout the main base of the Narwhal, a major gang that controlled the Midnight District. The Narwhal was a force supported by the Mechanized Dawn branch in White Whale City, and the person executing the support plan was a member of Chuangtu Technology Company’s branch—specifically, the secretary of the apparent owner of Chuangtu Technology.
However, when they arrived here as planned, they found a minor disturbance nearby. They heard gunshots in the distance, followed closely by a significant explosion.
This was not particularly unusual; the nights in the Midnight District were never peaceful, and gunfire was a common occurrence. However, the casino was Narwhal territory, and no one dared to cause trouble here, which made the gunfire quite unusual.
As Silverface and the others approached the casino, they noticed something was off at the entrance. Bodyguards were orderly evacuating guests, while several private doctors in white coats rushed through a side entrance with medical kits.
The entire task force became alert and entered the casino. Thorn Rose subdued a visibly anxious bodyguard and learned from him that the waitstaff discovered their boss, Yefim, unconscious on the floor when they delivered dinner to the office. His assistant was also down, and they suspected an attack, prompting the evacuation and the call for doctors.
Upon hearing this concerning news, Silverface and his team burst into the office, knocked out the doctor, and searched the entire room.
They found several listening devices and mini cameras scattered haphazardly across the floor and desk, and Silverface also discovered several cleverly concealed cameras and listening devices on doorknobs and chandeliers.
Moreover, Thorn Rose stated that the person lying on the floor who looked exactly like Yefim was not Yefim but his brother, Valeri.
The situation turned chaotic.
“The casino was attacked?” Silverface asked.
“Doesn’t seem like it.” Thorn Rose quickly reported the situation to Night Cicada and then replied, “The intruders didn’t come here with the intent to kill them. Both individuals on the floor are still alive, and the presence of listening devices suggests this was more of a planned invasion, albeit interrupted.”
Silverface, a combat machine trained by Mechanized Dawn, was not lacking in tactical thinking; in fact, he was quite adept at it, as he was born to kill.
He said, “Someone broke in here and knocked out the people in the office, aiming to install listening devices and cameras, but their operation failed, someone stopped them, and a gunfight ensued outside. That’s the explanation for the gunfire we heard and the chaos in the office?”
“Maybe… but there’s a key issue.” Thorn Rose lowered her head, “How can the person on the floor be Valeri and not his twin brother Yefim? It doesn’t make sense. Also, who stopped the intruder? Yefim’s subordinate?”
Reset looked towards the direction of the casino’s exterior, “We should investigate the location where the gunfight and explosion occurred.”
Silverface pointed to the individuals on the floor and then to the private doctor they had knocked out by the door: “What about them?”
“Of course, we’ll take them as witnesses.” Suddenly, a blue vortex opened beside them, and Night Cicada’s playful voice came from within, “Indeed, Thorn Rose, good report. Silverface, Reset, move Valeri and the assistant into the vortex. Leave the two private doctors; just handle them.”
Silverface and Reset dutifully dragged the two unconscious individuals into the vortex, which led directly to the branch of Mechanized Dawn at Chuangtu Technology Company.
Night Cicada watched thoughtfully as Silverface and Reset brought over the two, saying, “Hopefully, they have some useful information in their minds. Alright, you two return to execute your mission and investigate what happened tonight.”
“Understood.” Silverface turned to enter the vortex.
Reset followed Silverface back through the vortex.
“How interesting.” Night Cicada smiled and tilted his head to look at the well-mannered man beside him, “I remember the work of developing underlings is your responsibility?”
“Yes,” the man nodded, “Sorry, I didn’t expect something like this to happen…”
Ji Xuan held the title of assistant to the president at Chuangtu Technology Company, but his real position was the logistics manager for Mechanized Dawn’s branch in White Whale City.
“How can we blame you? This isn’t your fault; it was an accident.” Night Cicada clapped his hands.
A mechanical vehicle slid in from the opened metal door. Mechanical arms extended from both sides of the vehicle, lifting Valeri and the assistant off the ground and placing them inside, preparing to take them for brain machine memory retrieval.
“Okay, you continue your work.” Night Cicada said, “Recently, our organization has seen several traitors. Dealing with them one by one can be quite exhausting… Don’t make any mistakes.”
Ji Xuan respectfully replied, “Yes.”
He too exited this room with the mechanical vehicle, unnoticed as a layer of cold sweat soaked through his dress shirt.
……
“Bloodstains, body tissue fragments.” Thorn Rose collected some tissue samples, staring at the chaos on the ground, “The scene is truly gruesome.”
“Yeah…” Silverface fanned his nose, activating the purification filter on his mask.
The air was filled with the nauseating odor of charred protein.
Reset gently tapped Silverface’s elbow: “Over there, bullet holes.”
An iron trash bin lay tipped over in an inconspicuous position, revealing a surface peppered with round bullet holes.
Blue light flickered as they scanned the entire area with their devices, and the 3D model of the area was fully displayed before their eyes, including the trajectory of the bullet holes and the angle at which the trash bin fell.
AI Eden’s voice appeared in Thorn Rose’s ear: “One bullet made an effective hit. The bullet’s trajectory has been marked.”
In the virtual model, amidst the dazzling green bullet trajectories, one showed a clear red; it passed straight through the tilted trash bin, grazed a person, and then struck the wall behind the individual.
Thorn Rose pressed a button on her ocular device and indeed found several drops of blood mixed with dust on the ground. She crouched down to collect the blood, while Silverface moved to the wall, donned gloves, and pried out the deformed bullet from the wall.
The blood on the bullet was covered in dust, leaving only a small brown mark.
He carefully placed the bullet in a storage bag.
“Who was the bullet aimed at? The intruder or the one who stopped them?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“We’ll only know after the blood is tested…” Thorn Rose activated her metal arm, which had a display screen embedded in it. She tapped on the screen a couple of times, “Damn it, I’m only familiar with the combat functions of this new model mechanical arm; I haven’t had the time to use the auxiliary functions!”
Eden coldly reminded, “The mechanical arm can respond to voice commands; place the sample at the scanner and issue a voice command.”
Following the instructions, Thorn Rose placed the first sample she had collected, saying, “Analyze, upload.”
“Analysis complete; uploaded to database for comparison…” Eden responded, “Comparison complete; the sample belongs to Andrew West.”
A dossier popped up, showing that Andrew West was a gang member wanted for robbery and murder, but he had not been apprehended by the Investigation Bureau…
“An unremarkable ordinary person…” Thorn Rose proceeded to analyze and upload the second sample collected near the trash bin.
“Comparison complete.” Eden’s mechanical voice echoed in the earpieces of the task force. “The second sample belongs to Ambereye, a traitor from Mechanized Dawn.”
Thorn Rose’s eyes widened in surprise, and Silverface’s mouth dropped open in shock. Among the three present, only Reset remained expressionless and unresponsive.
“He was the intruder?!” Thorn Rose exclaimed. “He tried to control the Narwhal but failed? Who stopped him… who was the other party?”
“Currently retrieving memories from Valeri and the others; the answer is unknown.” Eden replied, “There are two shooting locations. Please investigate the other shooting location ASAP to avoid compromising the scene.”
The trio hastily set off for another shooting location half a street away.
The bodies on the ground had yet to be moved, but a sanitation worker drove over in a garbage truck, preparing to exit the vehicle to collect the body of a homeless man.
In such large casinos, a murder happened a couple of times every month. With too many bodies around, it would affect the business, so the Narwhal’s casino had contracted sanitation services. Whether it was day or night, they would promptly remove any corpses found nearby.
“Wait, this body belongs to us.” Thorn Rose stepped forward.
Before the sanitation worker could object, Thorn Rose tossed a magazine at him, saying, “Here’s your fee, standard 09 caliber bullets.”
In the Midnight District, transactions could also be made through bartering; bullets were considered hard currency. Living here, no one would complain about having too few weapons.
The sanitation worker, seeing the offer, accepted the bullets, hopped back in the truck, and with a press of the accelerator, they prepared to leave. He cheekily whistled and chuckled, “Nice lady in the way!”
Thorn Rose’s expression darkened instantly as she pulled out her gun and swiftly fired twice.
Bang, bang—the garbage truck halted as the driver slumped forward, blood splattering across the windshield.
“I can’t stand people who can’t keep their mouths shut,” Thorn Rose muttered as she extracted samples for scanning.
Silverface shrank back, feeling like he had seen this scene before.
Previously, there was an incident when Thorn Rose suddenly erupted in violence at a noodle shop because someone from the next table had insulted her… they later encountered Lady Fortune, who was patrolling the coast for the Investigation Bureau, and they ended up fighting…
Compared to Thorn Rose, Red, and Night Cicada, Lady Fortune had a relatively better temper—at least she didn’t randomly assault anyone; as long as others didn’t provoke her, she wouldn’t kill.
Before long, Thorn Rose’s comparison results came out, confirming that the homeless man was indeed an ordinary homeless person.
“Can’t make sense of it.” Thorn Rose said, “The sniper killed with a single shot, meaning the sniper targeted this homeless man as a primary kill target. But why would a homeless person hold such value that they were so eager to eliminate him? If it were me, my primary target would be Ambereye.”
Silverface examined the bullet hole in the corpse’s chest: “The aim is precise; the sniper is technically skilled, so it’s unlikely that such a mistake—targeting one person but hitting another—could happen.”
They felt perplexed, as there were too many fragmented bits of information, difficult to grasp the truth.
“Beep, beep.” Silverface’s earpiece emitted two sounds.
Night Cicada’s voice rang out in the team’s communication channel, “Ah, I’ve made an interesting discovery.”
Valeri had been mentally controlled, and Mechanized Dawn had managed to retrieve some memories, although it came at the cost of Valeri becoming a vegetable.
Night Cicada continued, “Two old acquaintances are involved tonight. One is Ambereye… the other is…”
“Is it Lady Fortune?” Silverface blurted out before Night Cicada could finish.
Night Cicada paused, “That’s her.”
The night breeze felt strong tonight, chilling the body.
Reset’s dark eyes fixed on Silverface, seemingly studying the complex expression flickering across his face.
And it was at that moment that disaster struck.
A long bullet suddenly soared in, piercing through Reset’s chest in an instant!
As blood flowered at the moment of impact, Silverface reflexively raised a water barrier, blocking the second bullet that came at him! The water ripple shimmered as the brass bullet clattered to the ground.
From a distant high-rise building, Kui Xin swiftly retracted his sniper rifle and opened a spatial vortex to evacuate.
“Did you succeed?” Augus asked.
“No, no kill notification.” Kui Xin replied with a serious face. “The sniper rifle wasn’t a K80 but a lower-power model. It penetrated the armor but didn’t fully puncture his body. The bullet aimed at his head was also deflected. Two failed hits mean they will calculate my position based on the trajectory. I must withdraw immediately.”
