Chapter 30: Massacre

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

The Jack-O’-Lantern V8 raced the whole way, as swift as the wind.

At 11 p.m., the number of cars on the main street had already started to lessen and become scarce.

As engine sounds traveled through the streets, Lin Ke became the exact person he himself hated the most-a noise generator blasting sound waves through the whole street while driving a sports car.

The Jack Gang’s base was located near Sand City’s river channel intersection and boat quay.

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Sand City’s river channel was separated into two. The bigger one led straight into the uptown area. In other words, where the wealthy congregated. The smaller one flowed through the slums-where factory waste, coupled with discharged wastewater, turned it into a sewage channel that reeked to the high heavens and got on everyone’s nerves.

The Jack Gang’s base just so happened to be close to the fork that split the river channel into two. Of course, the tiny Jack Gang wouldn’t have been able to seize a critical site like this by themselves. However, behind every small gang was a big gang’s shadow. Every big gang held considerable influence in Sand City.

The powerful backers behind the Jack Gang were in charge of shipping goods via water transport. This was why the Jack Gang, a small gang under the big gang’s command, could use a place near the water channel as a base.

The Jack-O’-Lantern V8 roared the whole way as Lin Ke drove. The further north he drove, the more beautiful and prosperous the slums became. A few high-rise buildings even appeared.

Even though the slums were known as such, the degree of affluence in the area gradually increased according to the tiers nevertheless.

With a glorious drift, Lin Ke parked the Jack-O’-Lantern V8 at the roadside. It was just that the ‘glorious drift’ had concluded with the entire car hitting the curb instead because he hadn’t unlocked Basic Driving yet.

“As expected, skills are to be respected…” Lin Ke then said to Forbes, “Wait for me in the car. Keep a lookout with the rear-view and side-view mirrors. If you discover anything amiss, come and look for me in the alley.”

Following that, Lin Ke also added, “Keep your wits about you!”

Forbes nodded incessantly and kept Lin Ke’s words in mind. His eyes bore into the rear-view and side-view mirrors as he kept his hands on the door so that he could open the door immediately and rush to the alley by the road when he discovered unusual activity.

Lin Ke held Sand Condor by its neck and lifted it out of the car. “Hey, wake up! It’s time to get to work.”

Sand Condor woke up dazedly and flapped its wings, swiftly soaring into the sky. Maybe it was because it hadn’t completely woken up yet, but it crashed headfirst into the wall of the high-rise building beside them after it took flight. It ended up in a fairly pathetic state. 1

Lin Ke’s gaze swept across the street, left and right. Fortunately, he found that no one had witnessed that embarrassing scene.

Treasure Hunter Rat held its paws over its face, clearly acting as if it didn’t know Sand Condor.

Sand Condor stood at the building’s edges and clung onto it, only coming back to its senses after recuperating for a while. It then flew into the night sky and started its reconnaissance.

The Jack Gang’s base wasn’t underground. Instead, it was a single-story building connected to other residential buildings. The single-story building spanned over 300 square meters. One end was even beside the riverbed, so one could admire the uptown area’s wonderful scenery across the river at night.

The uptown area’s towering high-rise buildings and neon lights were just like addictive drugs, constantly stimulating the desires in one’s heart.

Two minutes later, Sand Condor reappeared in the night sky and swooped downward. It landed on Lin Ke’s forearm and reported the single-story building’s situation.

Lin Ke knew that Sand Condor didn’t have that great of a memory, so he had only made it survey the situation at the entrance.

The hardest place to infiltrate in the Jack Gang’s base was the entrance. If there were a large number of thugs stationed at the entrance, Lin Ke would’ve had to do the surprise visit from the building next to the Jack Gang’s base. However, Sand Condor reported that it had seen only two sentries at the entrance. This meant that infiltrating Jack Gang’s couldn’t get any easier.

Forbes sat in the car, his whole body tense and tightly-wound. His eyes flickered back and forth between the rear-view and side-view mirrors, ready to make a run for it any moment.

He soon saw Lin Ke enter the alley, and the dark shadows swallowed his entire form.

Sand Condor flew to the top of the high-rise building and closed its eyes in repose as it awaited further orders.

Now that Lin Ke had entered the shadows, it was showtime for Treasure Hunter Rat.

Squeak, squeak.

The closer they got to the Jack Gang’s base, the more detailed the information Treasure Hunter Rat gave to Lin Ke became.

Sand Condor didn’t mess up this time-there were indeed only two people at the entrance. In fact, there were only a small number of thugs in the hall.

Lin Ke felt a little confused about this. By right, there should be over 100 members in the Jack Gang. Even if I did kill more than 10 of them, the current number of people in the base doesn’t make sense either… However, since the information was provided by Treasure Hunter Rat, then there definitely is no mistake about it.

Currently, fewer than 30 people were in the base. Additionally, their defense was lax and vulnerable. It seemed like they truly didn’t expect anyone to come creating trouble all by themselves.

Lin Ke initially thought that this would be a lion’s den, where he would be ambushed on all sides. However, in the end…

Is this all there is? Isn’t this no different from waltzing in as if I own the place? Lin Ke didn’t know whether he should be laughing or crying at this.

The reason for his tears was because that bunch of people had really treated his words like water off a duck’s back. When he said ‘We’ll meet very soon,’ he hadn’t been giving empty threats; he really did intend to come!

As for the reason behind his laughter… Lin Ke wanted to laugh because their defenses were so lax that he felt that he could infiltrate even their internal structure without anyone realizing.

Even though he didn’t know the reason behind the base’s drastic reduction in manpower, this was a positive thing for Lin Ke in the end.

Lin Ke squatted at the corner of the wall, a mere dozen or so meters away from the Jack Gang’s main entrance.

“Alright, it’s your turn to perform now,” said Lin Ke as he caressed Treasure Hunter Rat’s head.

At times like this, it was necessary for the ‘king of actors’ to make its move and attract everyone’s attention.

“As for offensive strength, I’m counting on you guys!” Lin Ke had held nothing back and brought all 3,000 Silver Army Ants with him this time.

Treasure Hunter Rat rubbed its cheeks in resignation. By right, it should have been able to earn a living through its strengths, so why was it always being asked to sell its ‘sex appeal?’ 4

Lin Ke reached out and flicked his fingers against Treasure Hunter Rat’s waist, directly pushing it out from behind the wall.

Treasure Hunter Rat got down on the ground extremely unwillingly and moved toward the Jack Gang’s main entrance.

The process that came after was incredibly simple. Treasure Hunter Rat reported the situation to Lin Ke through its squeaks. At the same time, it also attracted the attention of the sentries at the entrance.

The intelligent-looking Treasure Hunter Rat instantly attracted the two men’s attention. They didn’t notice in the slightest that Silver Army Ants had already crawled all over their backs at some point.

Flying ants charged into the sentries’ mouths with pinpoint accuracy and devoured their vocal cords immediately. 1

Lin Ke appeared from the corner and took advantage of the interval when the two sentries fell to the ground and rolled about while clutching their throats to wrap his flax clothing around the silenced gun muzzle. A couple of whizzes later, he had ended their lives with two gunshots.

Lin Ke had suppressed the sounds during infiltration to the minimum.

The two men didn’t manage to make any other sound during the entire process, aside from the grunts the two sentries had made with their throats.

This was Lin Ke’s first time bringing all the Silver Army Ants out with him during an operation.

The results 3,000 army ants had when cooperating with each other was unbelievable.

The army ants left the two men like a receding tide and assembled next to them. They lined up into three teams-worker ants, soldier ants, and flying ants. Their formations squarish like large CPU processors, where the ants themselves were the pins on the CPU.

Lin Ke squatted down, seized the two men’s pistols, and stuffed them into his gun sling.

The firearms used by all the gangs came in a varied assortment. Apart from modern semi-automatic pistols, they even carried revolvers too!

Lin Ke wasn’t a picky eater. A hard battle awaited him later, so he had to reduce his reloading time as much as possible. 1

“Listen up now! All army ants, I order you to destroy the power system in Jack Gang’s base. Whether it’s electric cables or lightbulbs, I want to see all the lights in the hall extinguished within a minute!”

The Silver Army Ants got down to work right after Lin Ke gave the command.

Every flying ant carried one soldier ant and one worker ant on their back. In teams of three, they formed a silver screen in mid-air and swiftly closed in on the Jack Gang’s large single-story building.

In no time, the worker ants and soldier ants entered the Jack Gang’s base.

Some of the remaining thugs in the hall were smoking as they played card games. Some were drinking, some were watching TV, and some were playing with their cellphones, etc.

For them, midnight was their time to rest and party. After a day’s work of collecting all the rent, they returned to the base to eat and drink.

Although chaos still ran rampant in the slums every day, the situation there had basically already settled. Every gang also had their own turf and property. After innumerable battles and contests with each other, things had already reached a balance.

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

Lin Ke stood guard at the entrance. As sounds of electrical wire connections short-circuiting rang out, all the lights in the hall went out.

The hall fell into darkness as the army ants soundlessly severed all the lighting’s electrical wires with their teeth.

Various fierce curses and rants could be heard coming from the hall.

“What the f*ck! Why is there a blackout in the middle of the night?”

“Don’t any of you touch the cards! If anyone takes advantage of the darkness to cheat, I’ll chop off your damned paws!”

“The electric circuits have probably worn out again. It’s an old issue, so don’t worry. I’ll go and connect the generator.”

The only light source in the whole hall at the moment was the glow from everyone’s cellphone screens.

In particular, the group playing cards had the most cellphone light concentrated there.

Several people also went over and jokingly egged the people at the card table to hurry and switch the cards. If not, they would lose their chance after the generator was activated.

However, none of them knew that danger was currently descending upon them quietly.

“Attack, Silver Army Ants!”

The army ants swiftly congregated from various spots. They then fell onto the thugs from the ceiling like falling leaves.

“Eh? Did something just fall?”

Several thugs felt something landing on their heads and bodies. One of them flashed the light from his cellphone over, only to see army ants with a metallic luster all over their bodies in the end.

“What the hell?!”

“Why are there army ants in the base?”

Without waiting for them to react, Lin Ke charged into the Jack Gang’s base like a ghost.

With the tactical machine pistol in one hand and the Glock 17 in the other, the flood of bullets spilling forth was like a soul-summoning song played by the Grim Reaper.

Lin Ke pointed his guns at those holding their cellphones and killed them right away. As for those hidden in the dark, their positions were even clearer to Lin Ke.

With Treasure Hunter Rat directing him, and the Silver Army Ants outlining their silhouettes, Lin Ke was crystal-clear on their positions despite being unable to see them.

A round of gunfire later, the tactical machine pistol’s ammo clip was emptied, and the Glock 17 jammed.

In Lin Ke’s vision, a series of pale-blue damage indicators popped up in the hall. Lin Ke was also spammed by message prompts.

[You’ve used the Bezos T1 Tactical Machine Pistol and struck the Ruffian, causing 28 damage points.]

[You’ve used the Bezos T1 Tactical Machine Pistol and struck the Ruffian’s vitals, causing a critical hit. You have dealt 47 damage points and inflicted the Bleeding effect.]

[You’ve used the Bezos T1 Tactical Machine Pistol and struck the Ruffian’s calf, causing 24 damage points and the Slow effect]

[You’ve used the Glock 17 Pistol and struck the Ruffian’s head, causing 115 lethal damage points.]

…

Lin Ke somersaulted and took cover behind something as he reloaded. The thugs in the hall fled about in panic and took cover one by one, unable to understand what was happening at all.

“What the bloody f*ck! What exactly is going on?”

“Are we under attack from other gangs?”

“My a*shole has split apart!” 3

…

The hall was in utter chaos.

In just an instant, Lin Ke had finished reloading. He then went about in the hall.

The army ants launched their attacks at the same time, causing the thugs taking cover to scream in extreme pain. They didn’t even care about the risk of getting shot and got up to smack the ants off their bodies. Some even rolled about on the floor as they screamed.

In an instant, these hooligans-which usually exploited the common people and bullied the townsfolk-had all turned into lambs awaiting slaughter.

Lin Ke charged out from his cover. Sparks suddenly appeared from his gun muzzle, lighting up his slightly young but icy-cold visage.

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