346: Chapter 346 Death Game

Nightingale stared into Chen Mo's eyes.

Not a hint of youthfulness could be found on that twenty-two-year-old face.

It was the absolute control of one who looked down upon the rules of violence.

“Tartarus uses neurotoxins to control you.” Chen Mo's gaze swept over a coin-sized cyan patch on Nightingale's carotid artery.

“The toxin's onset cycle is fifteen days.”

“Your heart rate is less than thirty beats per minute. It's not for stealth; it's because your heart valves have calcified and can't withstand normal blood pressure.”

Chen Mo exposed her hidden cards.

“The guy who sent you tonight never expected you to return alive.”

For the first time, Nightingale's breathing rhythm faltered.

Her right leg released its grip on Chen Mo's lower back.

Chen Mo retracted his tactical dagger and pushed himself up from the floor with his left arm.

He turned around, leaving his back exposed to this top-tier assassin who had just been trying to take his life.

This was a suppression of aura even more intense than pointing a gun directly at someone's head.

Only those who held absolute power over life and death would dare to turn their back on an enemy before a lethal blade.

Nightingale flipped up from the ground and sheathed her dual blades.

She stood in place, her gaze lingering on Chen Mo's blood-dripping silver mechanical left arm.

“You know the formula for the antidote.” She threw out her core demand.

Chen Mo walked toward the old solid wood bookcase against the living room wall.

“The complete pharmacological data of sequence zero is several levels more advanced than your crude neurotoxins.”

“Once you have it, the control crystal chip on your neck will be nothing but trash.”

Nightingale's fingers completely released their grip on her sword hilts.

She stepped forward and stood beside Chen Mo.

“I've searched this place twice. The walls, the floors, every furniture lining.”

“There are no storage devices or paper documents.”

Chen Mo looked at the thick dust on the bookcase.

In ten years, this place had been ploughed through by countless groups of people.

Zhou Jianguo's people, Tartarus's people.

Any place where things could be hidden on the surface had long since been hollowed out.

If Chen Changhe had discovered the truth, he would never have placed the evidence in a physical space.

Chen Mo's gaze fell on a cardboard box on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

The box contained old clothes and broken children's toys.

On the very top lay a yellowed photo album.

Chen Mo squatted down and reached out with his left hand to pinch the edge of the album.

The system panel on his retina was silent.

There was no [Sin Resonance].

This was an ordinary relic that had never been tainted by a blood crime.

Chen Mo picked up the album, patted off the surface dust, and flipped to the first page.

A group photo of a family of three.

Chen Changhe was wearing an old-style police uniform, holding a five-year-old boy.

The boy was holding up a Transformers toy.

Residual memories of the original body's owner's childhood surfaced in his brain.

The cardboard backing of the photo was somewhat swollen due to dampness.

Chen Mo pulled out his tactical dagger and cut along the gap at the edge of the photo with the tip.

A small military memory card fell onto the wooden floor.

Nightingale's gaze locked onto the black card.

“The most dangerous place,” she remarked.

Chen Mo picked up the memory card.

Things weren't that simple.

Such an obvious hidden compartment wouldn't escape a professional detector.

Chen Mo picked up his communicator.

“404, come up.”

A minute later, 404 climbed up to the fifth floor, panting while holding the fish tank.

Su Qingxue stepped into the room holding a submachine gun.

The first thing she saw was Nightingale standing in the center of the living room. Her muzzle immediately rose, aiming at Nightingale's forehead.

Nightingale glanced sideways at the blood-seeping gauze on Su Qingxue's shoulder.

“Your firing speed is 0.2 seconds slower than my blade,” Nightingale calculated precisely.

“Put down the gun.” Chen Mo gave the command to Su Qingxue.

Su Qingxue looked at Chen Mo and lowered her muzzle.

Chen Mo tossed the memory card to 404.

“Read the card.”

404 placed the fish tank on the coffee table, connected the external card reader, and pushed in the memory card.

A deep red password input box popped up on the portable screen.

“Brother Mo, it's encrypted with a self-destruct program.”

“One wrong entry will physically burn the internal circuits.”

404's hands hovered over the keyboard.

Chen Mo stared at the red warning box.

This was the last line of defense Chen Changhe had left for his son.

The password must be in the original owner's deep memories.

Police ID number, birthday, the date of the chemical plant explosion.

All were excluded by Chen Mo.

He recalled the Transformers toy in the little boy's hand in the photo album.

Deep in his memory, Chen Changhe was always holding that toy, repeatedly teaching the boy the factory serial number on it.

“890421.”

Chen Mo recited a string of numbers.

The anniversary of the original owner's mother's death.

404 typed in the six digits and hit the enter key hard.

The password box flashed three times and turned green, indicating passage.

The progress bar filled up, and an encrypted folder expanded.

Inside lay thousands of pages of data spreadsheets and a single, isolated high-definition video recording.

404 clicked on the video file.

The screen lit up.

The background was a fully enclosed underground biochemical laboratory.

A giant glass cylinder was filled with a blue solution.

A man wearing a breathing mask was immersed in the solution.

The camera zoomed in.

The skin of the man in the tank appeared translucent, with fluorescent substances flowing through the blood vessels under his skin.

Chen Mo stared at the face on the screen.

That was Chen Changhe from ten years ago.

He wasn't investigating sequence zero at all.

He himself was the first mature test subject of sequence zero.

All the files and investigations were just a smokescreen Chen Changhe had released to cover up this ultimate data.

Jiang Hong's extremely suppressed report cut into the earpiece.

“Brother Mo.”

“A large number of heat sources have appeared on the outskirts of the block.”

“They aren't the SWAT Officers' riot control armored vehicles.”

“Twelve all-terrain combat vehicles have blocked all escape routes.”

Chen Mo turned his head to look out the window.

No police lights, no megaphones.

A net of pure dark slaughter was closing in on Building No. 3.

Nightingale drew her dual blades from her waist, the edges gleaming with a bloodthirsty cold light under the moonlight.

“Tartarus's 'Purifier' squad.”

“They're carrying heavy thermal fusion weapons.”

Chen Mo pulled the memory card from the card reader and placed it in the inner pocket of his trench coat.

He held the tactical dagger in a reverse grip in his right hand, and the silver mechanical skeleton of his left arm once again emitted a high-frequency vibrating hum.

“Get ready to work.”

The night wind poured into the living room through the broken glass door on the fifth floor.

Dust on the floor was whipped up, only to slowly fall back down under the force of gravity.

Chen Mo pushed that thin black memory card into the waterproof lining inside his trench coat.

His thumb pressed against the waterproof zipper's pull tab and pulled it tight upward.

The subtle metallic friction sound of the zipper engaging was exceptionally clear in the silent room.

He turned and walked toward the edge of the balcony.

Around the abandoned Red Star Machinery Factory, the originally pitch-black streets were sliced open by twelve blinding high-pressure xenon light beams.

The light beams interlaced into a net, illuminating all four exits of Building No. 3 without any blind spots.

The low hum of engines idling drowned out the sound of the wind.

Tires crushed broken bricks and tiles, making a tooth-gritting squeezing noise.

“Twelve all-terrain combat vehicles, in a trident tactical formation.”

Chen Mo's gaze swept over the movement trajectories of the external light sources, building a model in his mind. “The first echelon of four vehicles has already locked down the front door and the back street. The two lead vehicles have modified vehicle-mounted thermal fusion cannons.”

Nightingale drew her dual blades.

The crossguards hit the leather sheaths with a crisp snap.

She walked into the shadow of the wall beside the windowsill and looked down to check the throwing knife clips on her tactical thigh rig.

“The Purifier' conventional point-breaching tactics.”

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