Era of Mist

Admittedly, this suppression tactic of simply wasting bullets was brutally effective.

The hairs on Shi Tiexin’s entire body stood on end. He estimated the bullets’ trajectories, then took a sudden diving leap. CRASH! He smashed through the glass, grabbing the frame with a reverse grip to hang himself outside the window.

Tiny shards of glass dug into his left palm, but he couldn’t spare it a thought. He glanced down to see a searchlight about to swing toward him. Shi Tiexin aimed down and fired. CRACK! The searchlight immediately went dark.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT! Gunfire erupted from below. But Shi Tiexin had already launched himself forward in a powerful leap. Like a parkour athlete, he flew through the air and grabbed the ledge of another window. His arm muscles contracted, and with a swing and a flip, he rolled inside. THWACK, THWACK, THWACK! The bullets chasing him slammed into the outer wall by the window, sending stone fragments flying everywhere.

Shi Tiexin was drenched in a nervous sweat.

‘If I get hit, it’s all over!’

But this was no time to dwell on such thoughts.

At the doorway, the expendable squad was still advancing, still frantically firing through the wall. But their reaction was a little slow; they were still shooting up the room he had just left, their bullets all landing in the room next door.

Through the open doorway, he could see that half of the squad members were reloading.

The other half… ‘Holy shit, another one is looking this way!’

‘It’s that spotter! He saw me!’

With no time left to think, Shi Tiexin raised his hand and fired. BANG! The shot rang out. When he wasn’t trying any fancy moves, his aim was quite good. A bloody hole blossomed on the spotter’s forehead, and he fell backward, ramrod straight.

The others started to turn.

Shi Tiexin’s heart pounded like a drum and his mind went blank, but his legs were already pumping furiously.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! He fired wildly with his right hand, not caring if he hit anything or not. The point was to empty the clip; even a little interference would be good.

The men didn’t have time to raise their guns—or perhaps they were no longer able to—before Shi Tiexin crashed into them like a tank. A flurry of punches and kicks, striking left and right. The exchange was brief, the violence explosive, and the conclusion swift.

A minute later, Shi Tiexin was back inside the room, panting heavily.

He wiped the sweat from his brow, realizing that gunfights were indeed far more dangerous than brawling. Having never been in a real firefight, it was inevitable that he’d be nervous when his first experience was a scene of this magnitude.

But after taking a couple of ragged breaths, he turned to survey his handiwork.

One, two, three… Out of the six men, three had been shot in the head. No wonder they hadn’t been able to fire back. A look at the others revealed they’d also been hit in vital areas. Upon closer inspection, he realized he hadn’t missed a single one—he’d hit them all.

The shots had just been stopped by their body armor.

‘Right, the body armor.’ These gunmen were far better equipped than the thugs who’d been sent to their deaths before.

‘My… my marksmanship… it’s actually pretty good?’

A feeling of nervous excitement suddenly surged through Shi Tiexin. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, his stamina rapidly recovering, and his body filled with a strange new power.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. He heard footsteps. People from other floors were gathering, likely as reinforcements.

With no time to think, Shi Tiexin grabbed a corpse and dragged it over. He ignored the blood and gore, quickly stripping off the body armor and slipping it on. The gunmen were all tall and burly, so it was a decent fit.

He quickly felt around, pulling out the shattered ballistic plates from the vest and replacing them with new ones from the other bodies. Front, back, waist, sides—he stuffed them in everywhere he could. If a spot could hold two layers, he wouldn’t settle for one!

Then there were the bullets. These gunmen also carried .45 caliber rounds, but their magazine models were different from his USP, apparently custom-made. Shi Tiexin ignored the weight, simply grabbing everything he could. He would carry as much as possible.

Pushing off, Shi Tiexin shot out of the room. He moved at top speed, loading the .45 rounds into his own magazine as he ran. CLICK, CLACK. Shi Tiexin felt his loading speed reach a new level. Then, with a sharp *KA-CHUNK*, he chambered a round.

Someone burst out from the stairwell.

A step ahead of them, Shi Tiexin smashed open a nearby door and continued his ghostly rampage.

The heavy tread of boots… another squad of six gunmen ran past the doorway. They had only just passed, barely a step beyond the door, when Shi Tiexin charged out behind them. BANG! BANG! BANG! Hot lead tore into them from the rear, and blood spattered inside his sights.

The slide cycled, ejecting empty shell casings one by one as the recoil kicked against his wrist. The Mind Force in his head was rapidly draining. The world seemed to slow down, and he could even see the moment a bullet tore off the back of a man’s skull.

His Basic Marksmanship skill was in full effect. At such close range, his accuracy was better than ever. Perhaps it was his newfound confidence, or maybe it was the body armor, but this time he was more composed, more stable, and calmer. His performance was naturally better for it.

Gunman after gunman went down. The man in front hadn’t even hit the ground before the one behind him was already falling.

CRASH! He smashed open a door and ducked into the room across the hall.

THUD. THUD. The bodies hit the floor. RAT-A-TAT-TAT! Gunfire swept toward him, but judging by the sound, it came from only two guns—a far lesser threat than the barrage from the previous six.

Shi Tiexin pulled out a grenade he had just looted from a corpse but, after a moment’s thought, put it back. Even these well-equipped gunmen had very few grenades. He resorted to his previous trick, peeking out the window. More searchlights were now sweeping the area below.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! He picked off the searchlights one by one, plunging the area into darkness, then turned and ran back to the doorway.

One of the two gunmen had gone silent, likely reloading, and the other’s fire suddenly faltered.

Shi Tiexin burst out without hesitation. BANG! BANG! Two shots, and then silence.

He looted more bullets and another grenade. That’s why the other gunman’s fire had faltered—he had been trying to grab a grenade from a corpse. If Shi Tiexin had hesitated for even a moment and the man had managed to use the grenade, the outcome would have been disastrous.

‘Hesitation is defeat.’

‘So, I have to keep up this ghostly rampage!’

Shi Tiexin keenly sensed that due to their own indiscriminate suppressive fire, the enemy’s ammunition was likely running low.

This was a crucial piece of intelligence for planning his next move.

CLICK, CLACK. Shi Tiexin reloaded at lightning speed, his hands reaching a new peak of swiftness.

POP! POP! POP! More than a dozen golden stars flew toward him, indicating his marksmanship skill was improving. No amount of target practice could ever compare to a live-fire situation. These two short but intense gunfights were enough to cause a monumental shift in his gunmanship, taking it from theory to brutal practice.

There were still people in the hallway. By the sound of it, they were preparing to charge out. Instead of confronting them directly, Shi Tiexin changed direction and ran toward another passage. He burst through a fire exit door, leaped to grab the fire escape on the outer wall leading to the roof, and scrambled up the iron ladder. Soon, he vaulted over the edge and onto the rooftop.

Someone was patrolling the roof, their head swiveling with the steady but rigid motion of a security camera. Shi Tiexin waited three seconds, then rushed out and dropped the gunman with a single shot. He twisted open the lock on the roof access door and charged down into the top floor.

The ghostly rampage was unstoppable!

Meanwhile, on the third floor, Ah Fei was organizing his men to buy more time.