Chapter Nine: Fusion

While fleeing, he constantly maneuvered so that he and the squad members remained aligned with the same line of fire, minimizing the risk of being caught in a concentrated barrage.

A string of bullets chased after Adonsa’s heels. Occasionally, his body would twitch as a bullet flattened against him, deflecting away. At that moment, the heavy door of an armored truck suddenly swung open, revealing a somber figure.

Every inch of him exuded the melancholy of dusk, yet his eyes burned with a murderous intent that pierced through the gloom.

Those lifeless, fish-like eyes, now blazing, locked onto Adonsa. With a nondescript pistol, he unleashed a rapid volley.

Unlike the buzzing submachine guns behind, these bullets seemed guided by uncanny precision, striking Adonsa directly, each shot anticipating his evasive maneuvers.

Adonsa staggered—two shots had struck vulnerable spots unprotected by armor: his ankle and neck.

The torn muscles broke the fluidity of his movements.

In such a desperate moment, even the slightest stumble proved fatal. The submachine gun barrage instantly caught up with him, riddling his body with a dozen bullets.

Cornered, Adonsa’s already strained muscles swelled anew, forcing torn tendons to function as he crouched low and burst forward like a leopard, vanishing into darkness and breaking free of the encirclement.

After all, this was a bustling city district; the perimeter stretched only a few hundred meters, which Adonsa cleared in seconds.

Several security vehicles lit up their warning lights and sped off in pursuit.

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A massive force of security officers and special tactical squads gave chase, riding in various vehicles and armed with riot gear, relentless in their hunt for Adonsa.

Even though they could not deploy weapons of mass destruction within the city, the officers remained the city’s most formidable force.

Their roaring motorcycles and armored cars far outstripped civilian models in power—no mere flesh and blood could outrun them. Adonsa’s only advantage lay in his agility.

Darting through shadows, he skillfully used buildings, traffic, and pedestrians to shield himself from the pursuers.

But as the city’s protectors, the officers would not be so easily shaken.

Five helicopters, their powerful searchlights trained on him, locked every possible escape. The cold, efficient tactics left Adonsa in utter disarray.

“Don’t worry about civilians! Ready—fire!”

The instant the incandescent beams converged on Adonsa, a hail of glue rounds rained down, dense as a torrential storm.

Adonsa’s legs bounced like a kangaroo, instinct carrying him past most of the glue rounds; even so, one or two struck home.

He shielded himself with his arms, which he then flung wide, shaking off most of the adhesive with sheer momentum, leaving only superficial layers that posed no immediate threat.

Diving beneath a balcony, Adonsa forced the helicopters to halt their assault and split up to maintain pursuit.

This relentless chase, so perfectly suited to containing him, left Adonsa in constant peril. Yet he showed no sign of tension or panic; his every move was as steady and efficient as clockwork.

Even as he directed his body, he extended his senses, feeding every scrap of visual and auditory information into his nervous system.

Human perception was woefully inadequate; even with enhancements, Adonsa could not rival an animal’s senses.

The thrum of helicopter blades, the glare of neon lights—such chaos yielded little useful data.

Still, he delved deeper into this sensory world, piecing together a model of the real world from scattered clues.

Then, suddenly, the model collapsed, leaving only ripples in the darkness—waves of human thought undulating in the void.

This was the sixth sense Adonsa had evolved beyond sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—brainwave detection.

It sounded impressive, but at this stage, it could only barely distinguish the intensity and direction of nearby brainwaves, with poor accuracy and range. Normally, Adonsa had little use for it, but now it was his only resort.

His pace slowed, hesitating for a moment, before swiftly picking a direction and darting off, dodging bullets, glue rounds, and net guns.

The brainwave ripples around him varied in strength and density; he chose the direction of an exceptionally powerful source.

He had sensed it before: in this city lurked several beings with extraordinary brainwaves, but he had never dared investigate. Now, he had no choice.

Yet just as Adonsa neared the source, a massive explosion erupted ahead.

The blaze amid the smoke startled not only him but also sowed panic among the pursuing officers.

The street ahead erupted in gunfire—no one could see clearly in the darkness, but Adonsa noticed a dense volley of bullets pouring from multiple windows, so precise that it covered every inch around the target.

A figure sprinted down the street, stumbling, but just as the hail of bullets closed in, he pushed himself up. The space around him shuddered as if some immense force had come alive in an instant.

A fierce wind swept through reality, but to Adonsa’s sixth sense, a colossal shadow emerged in the void, extending over a vast domain, swatting aside all the bullets like a living thing.

This shadow was the physical manifestation of an intense, unique frequency—soul resonance.

The deflected bullets clattered harmlessly against walls and pavement.

Then, the dark figure raised his hands and slammed them down. The surrounding buildings trembled violently; cracks spidered across the aging facades, spreading rapidly as if snapped by a child’s hand.

The five- or six-story tenements collapsed in a thunderous crash, rubble flying, dust billowing ten meters into the air, from which mangled bodies tumbled amid screams.

Adonsa pressed on rather than retreating, plunging into the fresh ruins without looking back, using the dust cloud to shield himself from the helicopters.

“Damn it!” Yuan Liming cursed through gritted teeth, his face contorted. “To hell with it! Forget evacuating the civilians—surround the area at once!”

His adjutant frowned. “Sir, I’m afraid it’s too late. With an ogre’s speed, if it disappears from our line of sight for even twenty seconds, it’s beyond tracking range. Surrounding the area now is pointless.”

Yuan Liming spat with anger. “Who’s in command here, you or me? Do as I say!”

He knew full well the ogre had likely escaped, but so long as there was the slightest chance, he would not give up.

Such a waste of police resources was incomprehensible to his adjutant, a civilian by training.

Yuan Liming squatted by the car door, exhaling a heavy breath as if expelling his very life force, aging ten years in an instant.

He issued no further orders to pursue. In just a few encounters, he had realized the enemy was a merciless and cunning adversary—there was no hope of catching up now.

It reminded him of an animal he’d once seen as a boy, following his uncle in the countryside.

A wolf.

Yet that fleeting gaze was far more savage, more cunning than any wolf—and carried some strange, indefinable quality.

It was not contempt, nor hatred, but…

Yuan Liming started in alarm.

…Emptiness.

He—no, it—had shown no trace of emotion even in the heat of such brutal combat, nothing but a pure killing machine.

Every act of violence was executed with precision and speed, yet utterly devoid of feeling.

The overwhelming sense of alienness made it feel as if he were battling a giant insect, one that might at any moment burst forth from the depths of his own fear.

In their contest, Yuan Liming felt he’d brushed against some profound mystery.

His adversary’s actions were clearly purposeful. But what was its aim? Did it kill merely for the sake of killing, or eating only to eat?

Was it some ritual, some task, or…?

“Damn it!”

His roiling thoughts drove Yuan Liming to slam his fist against the car door, startling the communications officers into stiff-backed silence.

Just then, someone shouted, “Sir, we’re under heavy fire!”

“What?!”

“It may be a munitions warehouse, sir…”

Throughout the night, Yuan Liming, already frustrated, jumped to his feet and roared, “Wipe them out for me!”