378: Chapter 378 Seven Steps Slower

Nightingale grabbed the man by the back of his collar with one hand and lifted him from the ground, dragging him Li Ke a damaged mannequin.

The man's knees slammed into the concrete stairs, sending gravel flying.

Two dark red bloodstains meandered down the dusty steps.

Su Qingxue followed closely behind, her gun raised in a defensive stance.

The firelight from the containers downstairs pierced through the window frame, flickering across Chen Mo's black trench coat.

Nightingale's gaze swept over the five corpses on the ground.

The machine gunner's neck had been pierced through, and the flesh around the bullet holes in the center of the four snipers' foreheads was turned outward.

She withdrew her gaze, the veins on the back of her hand bulging, touched the broken blade at her waist, and quickened her pace.

In the abandoned steel yard, the sea breeze blew, and empty shell casings clinked.

Li Ke held up his tactical terminal, the white light from the screen illuminating his tense face.

Chen Mo pulled open the car door and sat in the driver's seat.

Nightingale threw the man into the back seat, her right military boot pinning his charred wrist down.

The man let out a muffled grunt.

Su Qingxue sat in the passenger seat.

The engine roared.

The off-road vehicle fishtailed as it turned, its headlights tearing through the thick fog ahead, and it surged onto the muddy main road of the factory area.

Su Qingxue noticed Chen Mo's left arm.

The surface of his sleeve was smooth, but there was a stiff patch that looked as if it had been ironed at an ultra-high temperature.

"Municipal Bureau reinforcements will arrive in three minutes; they will take over the scene," Su Qingxue said, picking up the walkie-talkie.

"They can't take over," Chen Mo said, steering with one hand as the speedometer needle swung past eighty.

"Four SWAT Officer are severely injured, and this place is rigged with explosives! The Bomb Squad must intervene!"

"The Fourth Water Treatment Plant in the East City."

Chen Mo shifted gears, the engine's roar rising. "If the Bomb Squad enters, the perimeter sensors will discharge the toxins from the water plant into the city's water supply network."

The knuckles of Su Qingxue's hand gripping the walkie-talkie turned white.

She stared at the disfigured man in the rearview mirror and finally slammed the walkie-talkie back onto the center console.

The brand under the skin of Chen Mo's left forearm was burning hot.

Blood-colored text exploded across his retina.

【Current sin value balance: 470,000】

【High-frequency sin residue detected... Memory Recall function ready】

【Available uses: 1】

The text faded, replaced by a dynamic image.

Jiang City South District Welfare Institute.

Tongues of fire spewed from the windows.

The False Emperor carried a red gasoline canister.

Behind him, a figure in a white hazmat suit stood still.

On the back of the hazmat suit, the red liquid inside a dark golden hourglass pattern seemed to be flowing.

The person wore white gloves and held a miniature camera, the lens aimed at the burning hell.

The image vanished.

A conclusion formed in Chen Mo's mind: The real Emperor was not at the dismantling plant, but at the scene of the fire twenty years ago.

This captive was an abandoned pawn, and the water plant was also a lure.

He floored the accelerator.

The off-road vehicle surged onto the cross-sea bridge.

"Li Ke, East City Fourth Water Treatment Plant, floor plan and perimeter surveillance."

"The water plant underwent automation three years ago; there are only three staff members on duty at night. The sedimentation tank is on the north side, a fully enclosed structure."

Li Ke's fingertips tapped a blur across the keyboard. "The main control system is locked by the underlying code of 'Tartarus'; forced decryption will trigger the physical isolation doors."

"Surrounding municipal road cameras, vehicles entering and exiting within the last two hours."

Sixteen surveillance windows popped up.

Li Ke locked onto one of them: "At 2:10 AM, a black box truck entered; the license plate was obscured by mud, and there is no record of it exiting."

The off-road vehicle drove off the bridge.

The shadows of trees on both sides of the road flashed across the windshield.

The massive cylindrical water storage towers of the water treatment plant stood Li Ke two silent tombstones at the end of the horizon.

The entire plant area was deathly silent, without a single light.

Chen Mo parked in the grass five hundred meters away and killed the engine.

He pushed the door open and got out.

The air was stagnant.

Chen Mo opened the trunk.

Inside were two tactical rifles, six spare magazines, and three high-intensity blinding flashbangs.

He picked one up, removed the magazine, confirmed it was fully loaded, and chambered a round.

He tossed the other one to Su Qingxue.

Nightingale drew her spare military knife from her leg holster.

"The electric gate is open," Nightingale said, lowering her binoculars, her voice kept very low.

The three of them formed an inverted triangle formation, providing cover for each other as they approached the main entrance.

The glass window of the security booth was shattered into a spiderweb pattern, with shards scattered all over the ground.

On the window frame, arterial spray had congealed into a dark brown color.

Inside the booth, a security guard's corpse lay on its back.

Chen Mo crouched down and placed his fingers on the side of the corpse's neck.

Cold, stiff.

A smooth incision in the carotid artery was deep enough to see bone, and the severed trachea was a black hole.

The system panel showed no reaction.

Within five hundred meters, there were no living sin targets.

"Li Ke, air composition," Chen Mo said, pressing his earpiece.

"...Normal, no chemical toxins."

He raised his gun and moved forward, stepping into the shattered glass revolving door of the office building.

The soles of his boots crushed the glass shards, emitting a harsh sound.

On the lobby floor, footprints mixed with mud and dried blood all pointed toward the stairs on the right leading to the basement.

"The lock on the server room to the left has been cut, and the servers have been shut down," Su Qingxue said, sticking to the wall in a defensive stance.

"The garage on the right—that black truck is inside."

Nightingale vaulted in through the broken floor-to-ceiling window, her movements cat-Li Ke. "The cargo hold is empty; there's a lingering scent of liquid nitrogen."

Chen Mo walked toward the stairwell.

The passage leading underground was filled with the smell of rust.

The emergency lights flickered at a frequency of once every three seconds, cutting the underground pipe level into a world of alternating light and shadow.

Silver water pipes coiled overhead Li Ke giant pythons.

Eight corpses lay on the corridor floor.

Dressed in all-black tactical gear with night-vision goggles, their rifles had the safeties off and magazines fully loaded.

Not a single bullet had been fired.

Nightingale crouched down and used the tip of her knife to lift the visor of one of the corpses.

The face was bloodless, the cervical spine snapped at a ninety-degree angle, and the mandible was completely shattered.

"Instantly snapped the neck—the strength exceeds human limits."

Nightingale stood up, her gaze sweeping toward Chen Mo. "They are Tartarus's cleanup squad, killed by someone else."

Chen Mo's gaze passed over the corpses and fixed onto the metal blast door at the end of the corridor.

White text was sprayed on the door: Sedimentation Tank Main Control Room.

In the center of the door panel, a fist-sized hole was shocking to behold.

The mechanical lock cylinder had been violently gouged out, and twisted metal parts were scattered all over the floor.

Chen Mo extended his left hand and pushed the door open.

Inside the door, there was a deathly, silent darkness.

The flickering light from the corridor barely illuminated a corner of the room.

On the circular console in the center, a silver briefcase lay open, its internal shock-absorbing foam completely empty.

On the inside of the case lid, someone had smeared a huge hourglass pattern in fresh blood.

A drop of blood, not yet dry, slid along the edge of the pattern and dripped onto the bottom of the metal case with a tick.

Chen Mo stopped one meter away from the briefcase.

The white three-ring brand on his left arm suddenly erupted with blinding white light, piercing through his sleeve and completely dispelling the darkness.

A sharp system alarm pierced through his mind.

【Extreme danger warning!】

【Sin causality chain exceeding threshold detected!】

【Current physical space has been locked!】

Chen Mo spun around suddenly, the motion of bringing his rifle to his shoulder as fast as lightning, his muzzle locked tightly onto the blind spot in the shadows behind the console.

A hand wearing a pure white silk glove reached out from the shadows.

Between slender fingers, it held a pure gold chess piece—a pawn.

The base of the chess piece rotated slowly in the air.

A synthetic electronic voice without any emotional fluctuation rang out, and the air seemed to have its temperature drained away in an instant.

"Consultant Chen. You are exactly seven steps slower than he was twenty years ago."

The silhouette in the shadows moved forward half an inch, the hazmat suit visor reflecting a glimmer of the corridor's light.

Chen Mo's index finger, resting on the trigger, pressed halfway down, the mechanism poised to fire.

His gaze passed over the sights, fixed tightly on that white glove rotating the chess piece.