Chapter Six: Baijin City

But the cold rationality that evolution had brewed in Adonsa up to this point still held its beastly instincts in check, leading it step by step away from the bustling streets filled with delectable fare, and plunging it into the abyss-like darkness of a back alley.

Adonsa raced through the shadowy, rugged alleyways; despite its bulky frame, it moved with feline agility, its limbs lightly touching obstacles as it leapt three feet high with each bound—so deftly that even the best parkour experts would have watched in awe.

Yet the more Adonsa ran, the more it sensed something amiss—a tingling, prickling warning surfaced on the outer layer of its core essence.

Abruptly, Adonsa stopped, rummaging through the disjointed, unsystematic fragments of memory and images in its mind, especially those impressions related to advanced technology.

Out of the corner of its eye, it suddenly noticed a strange little black box in the corner of a wall.

Adonsa walked over and grabbed at it; at first, it didn't come loose. With a bit more force, its bear-like, thick, powerful fingers pulled the small box free, screws and all.

A pyroelectric infrared sensor—commonly known as an infrared alarm.

Its purpose was to emit invisible infrared light and collect the reflected beams to determine whether something had passed by.

Adonsa glanced back and noticed that every corner along its route seemed to have one of these devices.

Looking up, it caught a faint glint of a lens—undoubtedly a surveillance camera!

The tingling sensation Adonsa felt was, in fact, caused by the strong electromagnetic waves emitted from these wireless surveillance devices.

Adonsa had not yet managed to modify this body to be sensitive to electromagnetic waves, but its gelatinous core was exceptionally keen—far more useful than the dulled senses of a human.

——————

"The suspect has noticed the surveillance devices!"

In the mobile monitoring unit stationed outside the perimeter, a surveillance officer shouted the report.

Yuan Liming made an immediate decision and commanded, "Tighten the perimeter, load your weapons, intensify surveillance, and deploy the aerial drones—under no circumstances can the suspect be allowed to escape!"

As soon as the capture operation was confirmed, squads of security officers had begun installing these expensive yet convenient wireless monitoring devices. This single operation had already run up a deployment cost of at least several hundred thousand, not to mention the potential damages that might occur during the capture.

But the results were indisputable.

When the violent machinery of a nation is set in motion, even if it is just within a single small city, it becomes a terrifying force that no individual can withstand.

With the aid of these infrared surveillance alarms, no mosquito could be caught, but even a rat would have nowhere to hide.

Police vehicles flanked the area, and the fully armed special tactical team took up their positions in silence, ready to ambush or assault at a moment's notice.

On the monitors, the shadow flickered across various screens like a ghost—until suddenly, between two adjacent cameras, the figure seemed to be sucked into a black hole and vanished without a trace.

Yuan Liming stared at the fifty blank surveillance screens, his eyes nearly bloodshot.

"How can his learning ability be this strong? It's already so dark, yet he can still evade every single camera with such precision?"

"Rotate the cameras, give me a full three-sixty sweep!"

Just a moment ago, the killer had still been in the alley, but now he had vanished from every hastily installed surveillance feed, as if he had evaporated into thin air.

Every member of the special security force watched the alley exits with utmost focus. These highly trained officers could lie in ambush for three hours in thirty-degree heat—they were the city's most formidable security force.

They had all received orders to shoot on sight, just waiting for the enemy to show himself so they could spill his blood on the spot.

But no matter how long they waited, the killer never appeared.

Sensing that tonight's mission might end in failure, Yuan Liming was frustrated, though he betrayed nothing on his face.

At that moment, a refined man in a suit suddenly snatched the microphone and barked, "All units, initiate assault—execute Plan B."

Yuan Liming spun around and snapped, "You!"

But his words stuck in his throat, for this bureaucratic-looking man was none other than Tang Haoming, the secretary to Mayor Lu. Tang met Yuan Liming's gaze calmly and said, "Officer Yuan, the murderer has been off the surveillance grid for so long—if we delay any further, we risk letting such a ruthless criminal slip away. So I took the liberty to act; I hope you don't mind."

Plan A was ambush; Plan B meant launching a direct assault.

Under Mayor Lu, the bureaucratic apparatus of Nanhai City wielded enormous power—far beyond what a minor security officer like Yuan Liming could oppose.

Due to certain historical and political factors, the central authority of the Tianjing nation rarely issued direct commands, resulting in extremely strong local bureaucratic powers. Except for the military, all other local affairs were completely dominated by bureaucrats.

Though the unified control of the military prevented local warlords from rising, the imperial court was distant, and oddities were not uncommon.

Just like now—though, on paper, Yuan Liming was fully in charge of this operation, he had no means to counter Tang Haoming’s unilateral decisions.

Yuan Liming forced out a word through clenched teeth: "Attack!"

More than ten stun grenades and smoke bombs arced through the air, bouncing as they stormed into the alleyways.

The complicated layout of the alleys reduced their effectiveness somewhat, but it was still enough to subdue an entire armed riot squad.

Clad in high-fiber, cut-resistant, liquid-proof bulletproof suits, equipped with night vision goggles and compact submachine guns, the burly men advanced like a pack of wolves in the night. Their footsteps rustled as they hunched low, filing into the narrow alleys. Though their formation was somewhat disordered, their movements never faltered—they rolled through the darkness like a surging tide.

Each member of the assault team also wore sensors, and the shaky images were stabilized by the smart defibrillator, presenting a direct view of the battlefield.

Yet as the team advanced, they found nothing.

Yuan Liming’s bloodshot eyes swept over more than a hundred flickering screens. Amid the chaotic images, his mind pieced together a complete three-dimensional reconstruction of the battlefield.

He closed his eyes, reviewing each image as if he stood on the front lines himself—but there was not a single clue.

Wait, perhaps I’ve fallen into a mental trap… My judgment can’t be wrong—the killer isn’t on these screens, but he couldn’t have escaped my inescapable net. The answer must be something I’ve overlooked all along…

Yuan Liming’s eyes flew open, wide as a bull’s, and he roared, “Above—he’s above us!”

The booming voice in the earpieces was instantly converted into nerve impulses, triggering conditioned reflexes in the cerebral cortex, which in turn contracted the muscles—everyone raised their heads, weapons aimed high, ready to turn the unseen enemy into a sieve.

These well-trained men believed their guns could kill anyone.

But what they faced was not a man.

Just as they looked up, a short, ball-shaped figure sprang from behind a trash bin, seizing two security officers by the groin; with a sickening smack, the two men howled in agony, collapsing to the ground like pill bugs curling up.

Adonsa had been squatting in an unremarkable corner, more inconspicuous than the trash bin itself.

And before the others could react, the long-hidden Adonsa launched into an inconceivably efficient slaughter, like a tiger cutting through a flock of sheep.