Chapter 277: Spear And Shield, Which Is Stronger?
Lin Jin and the others retreated from the hall.
Handing White Deer and the other to the armed soldiers layered in defense outside.
“So what do we do, just wait here?”
Lin Jin asked unwillingly.
Goat rolled his eyes. “I can tell you didn’t finish He Jie’s theory class. Even ordinary soldiers know not to go through doors in battle. You, an evolver, gonna let yourself die from holding in piss?”
Yu Jing circled outside, activating the mechanical puppet to drag the Silver Kite who had killed He Jie outside to the corner.
Soon, terrifying sounds of muscles snapping and bones reshaping transmitted out.
Like some wild beast gnawing on a corpse.
Before long, Yu Jing walked out with the completely undamaged mechanical puppet.
The woman’s complexion was unchanged, just a faint red in her eyes from having just activated her ability.
“Then let’s hurry. No need to split up either. Enter directly from the top.”
A hidden flash of wariness passed through Goat’s eyes.
No need for skill to judge; Yu Jing was giving him an increasingly dangerous feeling.
“Good.”
The five climbed to the center of the theater, standing at the edge of the pit. They first looked toward Yu Yue, who simply shook her head, indicating she heard nothing.
Goat gritted his teeth, activating “Probability Judgment.” The danger level fed back by the ability stunned him instantly.
Not too dangerous, but too safe—no death risk at all.
Looking at that deathly still large pit, Goat held his breath and focused, carefully peering inside.
“What are you sneaky dogs doing up there?”
A teasing voice came from below.
“Train Conductor?”
Several people leaned forward to look down.
Borrowing the outside searchlight and the reflection of rain threads falling into the inner hall, they saw the scene in the inner hall clearly.
Drizzling rainwater fell from the broken ceiling, soaking the expensive carpet into a puddle of mud.
Only the two leather sofas right in the center were undamaged. Su Huan sat on the back of the sofa, stepping on the leather surface, looking down condescendingly at Mister Shu opposite him, fiddling with a slender fencing sword.
The coffee table position had turned into a large pit. A monster with four arms was pierced through the chest by a short spear and nailed to the ground, its six limbs twisted grotesquely.
The rainwater in the pit had already submerged most of the body, a patch of crimson.
A butler-like person floated in the corner of the room, eyes tightly closed, occasionally coughing up a mouthful of blood, floating toward the sky as if without gravity, then seeming to exit some area where the scalding rainwater sizzled, filling the hall with a bloody smell.
There was also a terrifying chasm on the ground, extending all the way to the feet of the young man slumped in the corner.
The young man tilted his head up, blood seeping from his mouth and nose, a dent the size of a sole of foot on the formal dress at his chest, his entire chest cavity nearly pierced through. If not for his faint breathing, anyone would think he was dead.
Zhong You stared blankly with lost eyes at the train conductor in the field fiddling with the tip of the fencing sword, the blade humming, streaks of cold light flashing across that handsome face.
Reflecting the brutal crimson streak at his brow ridge.
One against three, total annihilation.
And the price Su Huan paid was just that deep, bone-visible sword mark between his brows.
Only that one spot.
The confidence he had accumulated through battles, the beliefs he had built up, all shattered by the train conductor in one fight, not a shred left.
Whether the process or the result, it was filled with dreamlike absurdity.
Still not come back to his senses even now.
The whole person trapped in a massive confusion.
‘Can you still promote during battle?’
In contrast, Shu Wei’s eyes were full of madness.
Witnessing the train conductor’s instant promotion scene again with her own eyes, instantly killing three Tier 2 Evolvers with an unmatched stance—every cell, every inch of skin of hers was imprinted with that tyrant-like figure.
If before it was fear from the bottom of her heart, now it was submission from the depths of her soul!
Submission to that most violent strength, submission to the most tyrannical origin!
“Snap—boom——”
The fencing sword emitted rhythmic crisp sounds under Su Huan’s fiddling with his fingertips, forming a clever rhythm with the roar of battle from the hall outside.
“Old Shu, how about we gamble once more?”
Su Huan held the fencing sword vertically before his eyes; that pair of narrow, long eyes was even sharper than the sword light.
Cool water overflowed his leather shoes. Mister Shu felt like he was back many years ago, when his father punished him to stand in the courtyard getting drenched in rain—his feet were just as cold back then, but a fire always burned in his heart, so he made it to today.
Fifty years of wind and rain; he had seen many young people, many, many outstanding people. He considered himself one of the top among them.
But the fire in his heart had long gone out.
So facing Su Huan’s arrogance, he felt a stung anger.
Somehow thinking, if he were thirty years younger, would he have chosen the evolution path at the start of the apocalypse to compete with him?
Taking a deep breath, with the seriousness he used for peers, “Bet on what?”
Su Huan smiled. “Bet on spear versus shield, which is stronger.”
“What do I stake?”
“An answer.”
“Then what’s your stake?”
Mister Shu rolled up his sleeves, his gaze unprecedentedly solemn. “A bet without stakes loses its meaning.”
“Me?”
Su Huan was quite surprised. He thought for a moment, then pointed to the more than ten people curled up in the distant corner.
“I saw a movie that impressed me deeply. Perfectly, there are fourteen people here. My stake is also divided into fourteen nodes. If you win, they live; if you lose, they die.”
Hearing this, everyone’s complexions paled.
Bo Qingqing still hadn’t recovered from that terrifying eerie blue, discovering things had developed to this point in a way she hadn’t imagined—like a cooked duck flying away was one thing, but now they were going to eat people!
Thinking that she might be the one eaten, a surge of anger rose in her heart.
Even if she was just an adopted daughter, she was still Black Kite high-level. Even the apocalypse hadn’t affected her quality of life or social circle.
A train conductor who crawled out from a pile of corpses—what right did he have to decide her life and death with a word?!
Bo Qingqing said angrily, “I hope to remind you that every person here might weigh more than you imagine!”
Though their energy wasn’t as heavy as Mister Shu’s, together it was a terrifying weight. Even Mister Shu wouldn’t dare let them all die here.
Several young people who were fearful inside suddenly gained a bit of confidence thinking of their backgrounds.
“My dad is a Golden Kite level researcher in the laboratory…”
“My great uncle is Director Number Four…”
One by one, the young people reported their family backgrounds, adding footnotes to her words.
As one solid backend after another was reported, this group’s confidence also hardened.
It wasn’t that they wanted to stand up for Bo Qingqing—someone here might even dislike her—but they had to stand up for their own little lives!
And identity background was their only chip to preserve their lives.
The Goat group who jumped down looked toward the train conductor.
But no matter how they chattered, Su Huan only looked at Mister Shu from start to finish.
Mister Shu sighed slightly in his heart.
There were no lack of elites among this group of young people, but when their lives were threatened, their brains also became muddled.
The reason these young people were here was that he needed more people to support him, so he had to share benefits with their “parents” behind them. More simply, his original plan was to bring the juniors to eat at the table.
But now realizing the opponent was a giant crocodile, he himself couldn’t get to the table—how could this group of juniors?
When the strength gap reaches a certain level, what they say doesn’t matter.
From a humanity perspective, it’s hard to see things that can be blown away with a puff as fellow kind.
Strength grasped in hand is always more powerful than distant, unattainable backgrounds.
“I bet with you.”
Mister Shu said straightforwardly.
“Straightforward.”
A flash of appreciation passed through Su Huan’s eyes.
Though the old guy was a bit foolish at first, his mind cleared instantly after seeing the situation.
Ordinary people don’t have this boldness.
Goat, already harboring fire in his heart because of the two deer appearances, upon hearing this, went straight to tie people up.
Facing Su Huan who gave them no chance at all, Bo Qingqing was very distraught, but glancing at Wang Yi beside her, her heart suddenly eased a lot.
These fourteen people included Shu Wei’s mom.
“Right, no need for the oldest one.”
Su Huan suddenly instructed.
Goat’s cold gaze swept across everyone’s faces, landing on the face similar to Shu Wei’s, thoughtfully agreeing.
Wang Yi, hearing this, had her already ashen complexion turn black as the bottom of a pot.
But at her age, she hadn’t lived to be a dog. Facing the dominant Su Huan, she still kept silent.
Bo Qingqing saw this, and her heart instantly cooled by half.
No more scapegoats?
Tan Yunxi looked left and right, suddenly hugging her head and squatting down, smiling ingratiatingly toward Su Huan. “Train Conductor, I’m not as important as them. Can you let me go…”
“Tch, count this one out too. Hang up the rest.”
Su Huan chuckled lightly.
Bo Qingqing’s heart fully cooled this time.
“Boom!”
Before the people here were grabbed, the wall separating the inner hall and hall exploded with a boom. Gravel and dust scattered and splashed everywhere; a burly body dragged a turbid trajectory through the air.
A cold blue long spear followed closely, shooting over at an even more terrifying speed.
The momentum looked like it could pierce both straight through.
“Su Huan.”
Yu Yue anxiously lifted her foot, just seeing Su Huan reach out to place his hand on that muscle-knotted back.
His other hand directly grabbed toward the whistling long spear.
In an instant, lightning flashed.
The burly figure defied physics, fixed in midair, only landing on the sofa with a thud a second later.
The gust hit the wall behind, leaving only rolling smoke dragons dispersing to both sides.
Golden Kite strode in aggressively, seeing the eerie scene in the inner hall, his whole person like he’d seen a ghost.
His heartbeat instantly spiked to two hundred, eyes bulging like copper bells.
Catching his thrown long spear barehanded—that was the Tier 2 “Energizer” recorded in the data?
Was that administrative group using their asses to compile it?
Even more terrifying, those three half-dead Tier 2s beaten so miserably—he hadn’t even heard a big commotion.
Truly like seeing a ghost alive!
Liang Kuan’s chest heaved like a bellows, making one suspect an engine was installed in that broad chest.
Barely opening his blurry eyes, seeing the person above his head, he asked in a muffled voice, “The promise from back then, still count?”
“Only if you stay alive.”
Liang Kuan slowly sat up, face fierce. “Kill him and we’re through this level, right?”
Su Huan said calmly, “Guaranteed pass.”
As the words fell, under Su Huan’s stunned gaze, the man shot out like a cannonball from the barrel.
Men with families are like this—no matter what they face, they can charge ahead, but sometimes when they can’t hold, they really can’t hold.
Even though Liang Kuan’s two skills had evolved in battle, he was still comprehensively crushed by the Tier 2 “Roaming God.”
The most dominant strength plummeted wildly after stamina was exhausted.
Even a casual punch required Liang Kuan to exhaust his whole body strength to block; after just two moves, the whole person flew back again.
Su Huan stepped forward two steps, reaching out to hold Liang Kuan’s wet back, mildly saying, “Your task can end now. Triggering ‘Combat Factor’ too frequently isn’t a good thing.”
“In that case, should that count as our win?”
Mister Shu suddenly said.
Waiting for Liang Kuan to steady himself, Su Huan let go and looked—his palm was already dyed red.
Su Huan turned his back to Mister Shu and chuckled lightly, calmly saying, “Of course, you win. But… dare you not pay the stake?”
Though Golden Kite didn’t know what they bet, he could hear this was naked threat!
Threatening their Black Kite’s Director Number Three no less!
Damn ghosts, but today there were too many ghostly things; this wasn’t rare. He was more curious how Mister Shu would answer.
“Young people nowadays really don’t follow rules. But in this situation, even if I tell you, do you believe me?”
“Then say something I believe.”
Su Huan said calmly.
Mister Shu stood up, staring straight into Su Huan’s pitch-black eyes. “You’ve got me pinned, huh?”
“Not just.” Su Huan pointed to the room’s corner with the fencing sword in hand. “That one inside too.”
Shock reappeared in Mister Shu’s eyes, slowly turning to gravity.
“Number Two, he’s already seen you. Hiding longer and Black Kite gets eaten alive by him.”
“Not like you’re any use.”
The hidden door slowly opened, a soft glutinous female voice drilling out from inside.
An extremely charming woman slowly walked out, her toes stepping on the water surface on the ground without sinking at all.
A pair of smoky eyes looked at Su Huan curiously. “How did you discover me?”
Golden Kite Man warily faced Su Huan, slowly retreating to the woman’s side.
Su Huan, “Old man smell too strong.”
The woman’s gentle smile and exquisite makeup stiffened on her face at the same time.
Shu Wei’s mouth corners curved up slightly.
She not only didn’t like Bo Qingqing; she equally didn’t like this mysterious stepmother of hers.
“Talk so harsh, but I like it!”
Wild laughter came from above.
Three blond, blue-eyed big men with beards jumped down from above, dressed like armed mercenaries.
Su Huan tilted his head. “And who are they?”
Shu Wei glanced at the logo on the other’s shoulder, calmly saying, “Gunfire, the force that distributed large amounts of gene potions. Their headquarters is further north.”
Su Huan’s eyes brightened slightly, giving these three an extra look.
From their looks, they were indeed Furry Bear ethnicity.
In his previous life, Gunfire’s gene potions were widespread in the wasteland, also a major force that grasped the apocalypse truth.
Today’s surprises were one after another.
Su Huan hooked the corner of his mouth. “More and more people. Any others?”
