Chapter 17: Collapse

Ratatatatat!

Blood sprayed in all directions.

The guards shielding the burly man had nowhere to hide from the sweeping gunfire of the assault rifle and were reduced to living targets.

While controlling the guard's rifle with one hand and raking the crowd with bullets, Yaoguang lifted his other hand, drew a pistol, and aimed at the guard who had gone downstairs to investigate.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three shots rang out in quick succession, each one landing precisely.

Compared to ordinary people, a grandmaster who had pushed his body to human limits reacted faster, had sharper vision, and moved with steadier hands and feet. Training such a person into a firearms expert was effortless.

Over the past year, while hunting daemons, Yaoguang had inevitably run into martial masters who used guns. After that, he had naturally spent some time getting professional training.

The magazine was quickly emptied.

Yaoguang shoved the guard's corpse aside, reloaded the pistol, and strode forward.

In a flash, he reached the burly man, who was over two meters tall and had been previously dressed in an immaculate suit.

Now, the man no longer resembled a successful businessman. He had been shot countless times, and his entire body was soaked in blood.

Relying on a daemon's tenacious vitality, he had not died yet. He forced his eyes open to look at Yaoguang, his voice trembling. "What do you want? I can give you anything... Money... Women..."

But Yaoguang never allowed him the chance to say more. He advanced while squeezing the pistol's trigger.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Fresh blood erupted across the burly man's body once again.

He struggled. His frame swelled and twisted, attempting to stand and manifest his fiendish body, but the bloody holes riddling him had already completely drained him of any strength.

Seeing Yaoguang so close, his expression slowly twisted. "The leader... will not..."

He never finished the sentence. Yaoguang pressed the muzzle against the daemon's skull.

Bang!

The final bullet was fired.

The man, who had barely managed to manifest less than a tenth of his fiendish body, fell silent.

After finishing off the last daemon, Yaoguang swiftly reloaded a second time.

He swept his gaze across the guards in the stairwell. Whether they were breathing or not, he simply aimed at their heads and delivered a finishing shot.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Another magazine emptied. Hearing the commotion coming from afar, he slung two of their newest rifles across his back, gathered every spare magazine from their bodies, and prepared to retreat up the stairs.

Before leaving, something caught his eye. He rifled through the daemon's hand and retrieved a wristwatch and a gemstone-studded ring.

As for the others, he had no time to search further.

Yaoguang sped upstairs while constantly glancing downward, quickly reaching the fourth floor.

Dozens of people were already closing in and flooding into the building.

His expression remained calm. He swept his gaze over the layout and kept updating the map in his mind.

𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Several guards who had been stationed on the fourth floor had rushed out after hearing the gunfire, but most died the instant they appeared before Yaoguang.

Yaoguang silently counted the guards. Once the number of enemies he had run into matched his estimate, he picked a window, leaped out, and fell to the ground.

To a grandmaster, falling from that height was nothing, and survival was guaranteed. Knowing the right techniques for landing only made things easier.

Once on the ground, he slipped through another window and headed straight for the stairwell.

Most of the guards there were focusing on the upper floors, and with Yaoguang wearing clothing similar to theirs, their reactions lagged by half a beat the moment he appeared.

That half-beat of delay was enough for modern high-efficiency weapons to decide the fate of a few or even a dozen people.

Ratatatatat!

Gunfire burst forth.

Blood spurted violently from the guards' bodies. They fell like wheat, one after another, cut down by over a dozen bullets per second.

Soon after, guards in the connecting room reacted and fired back. Bullets spun against the walls, scattering cement dust.

However, Yaoguang had already left. He aimed the rifle at several guards outside the building. With another discharge of bullets, those guards collapsed into pools of blood.

After killing the guards, Yaoguang shot forward like lightning. Not even a second after he left, gunfire tore through the spot he had occupied moments earlier, stone chippings flying everywhere.

But he was already gone. He had already left the building and was charging toward the one across the street.

Gunfire soon erupted inside the building, forcing the guards in the main building, who had already climbed to the fifth and sixth floors, to rush back down and surround that building again.

But before they managed to complete the encirclement, gunshots rang out from yet another direction.

A grandmaster's greatest advantages were extraordinary physical strength, terrifying explosive power, and razor-sharp reflexes.

As long as he avoided ramming head-on into over a dozen gunmen, he could face three to five gunmen even at point-blank range and still kill them first. With his reaction speed and lightning-fast movements, he could fire before they even finished raising their weapons. He had both speed and accuracy.

As a grandmaster, Yaoguang's senses were extremely sharp. If the distance was not too far, he could even hear the enemy's breathing with perfect clarity.

It was like having a mini-map in games in this kind of street-style battle.

With this ability, if the number of guards was too high or their alertness too sharp, and charging in meant risking injury, he could simply slip away without a sound.

Those people would not even know that death had brushed right past them moments earlier.

However, no one could be fully alert at all times, and complex indoor terrain could not possibly allow dozens of armed guards to maintain a perfect formation while searching.

The moment their attention dropped for even a second, what awaited them were Yaoguang's attacks.

This was the terror of a grandmaster with no restraints and fully armed! Against ordinary armed personnel, it was nothing short of a full-crushing strike with no room to even fight back!

***

After this one-sided slaughter continued for more than half an hour, with an enemy they could not see and who killed the instant he appeared, the guards of Qingyu Industrial Park finally collapsed.

Shouts in the Feiyu national language rose one after another from the panicked crowd. Even without understanding the words, one could hear the terror in their voices.

A man who seemed to be a captain or some kind of officer barked orders, trying to rally the guards to fight again. But the moment Yaoguang took advantage of that moment to slip close and shoot him, the remaining guards completely broke.

They had only received basic training. They were armed personnel, not real soldiers; hence, their will to fight was nothing like that of a professional military unit.

Meanwhile, many of the people previously detained or guarded inside the industrial park were now seeing hope and attempted to escape, fleeing toward the perimeter.

Once the first group ran, a second group followed.

When they noticed no guards were chasing them, the remaining detainees lost all restraint and rushed out as well.

Some who had been abused severely even picked up fallen rifles, turned around, and stormed back inside, venting their fury by shooting certain higher-ups of the industrial park.

Others grabbed their phones, either filming or calling someone, perhaps to tell their families they were safe, perhaps to report the situation.

In barely ten minutes, the industrial park had descended into chaos. Only then did Yaoguang realize that the entire park had housed several thousand people.

He did not try to stop the chaos, nor did he step forward openly to take charge. He continued moving like a ghost, drifting through the shadows of the industrial park.

Soon, he returned to the two-story infirmary, where the guards had either fled or escaped; Yaoguang had no intention of pursuing them.

He went straight to the basement and pushed open the door.

Inside, the women remained numb, some even carrying traces of fear in their eyes.

But some, upon hearing the uproar outside, seemed to awaken a desire to live, and a faint glimmer of spirit returned to them.

Yaoguang spoke no words. He drew his short sword and hacked through the locks of each iron cage.

Clang!

Sparks flew as the crisp sound echoed through the basement.

Many flinched and trembled at the noise, terrified. Yaoguang ignored their reactions and continued cutting one lock after another.

The short sword became dull quickly under such use, but he did not care. He said nothing from beginning to end, repeating the motion of severing each cage's chain.

After finishing that room, he moved to the next. When he finally cut through the last lock, the short sword that had cost him tens of thousands simply reached the end of its life and snapped on the spot.

He glanced at the twisted, ruined blade and tossed it aside. Only then did he lift his head and speak, addressing the trembling women who still dared not step out of their cages. "You are free."