129: Chapter 129 The Cicada is Hidden Behind

The roar of propellers tearing through the air suddenly exploded over the sea level like a bolt of thunder rolling out of nowhere.

Gin turned his head sharply, the pupils beneath his fedora constricting suddenly—it wasn't a helicopter from any known faction. The dark green fuselage bore no markings, and the rocket pods hanging beneath the wings glinted with a cold, hard metallic luster as it broke through the clouds with an almost overbearing posture.

“It's a trap!”

Gin's voice was hoarse, sounding as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper. He abruptly pulled out his concealed pistol and pointed it at Kudo Yusaku. “You dare plot against me?”

“Put away your little tricks.”

Kudo Yusaku shielded Yukiko behind him, his gaze as sharp as a blade. “Do you really think I'm capable of mobilizing this level of firepower?”

Before he could finish, the leader of the Cross Society suddenly pointed at the sky and roared, “It's an apache! At least four of them! They're carrying Hellfire!”

Just as the words left his mouth, four apache attack helicopters dived to an altitude of a hundred meters, the rocket pods under their wings spitting out blinding fire.

“Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh—” Twelve rockets trailed white wakes, like a swarm of bloodthirsty poisonous bees, accurately pouncing on the group of speedboats surrounding the sea serpent.

“Quick, evade!”

On the Black Organization's speedboats, someone roared while turning the helm, but it was far too late.

The first rocket hit the engine of the speedboat Gin was on. With a thunderous boom, an orange-red fireball shot into the sky. A scorching airwave, carrying debris, swept across the sea. Two members of the Black Organization standing on the deck were instantly blown away, falling into the sea like puppets with their strings cut.

A chain of explosions followed immediately.

Three speedboats of the Cross Society were linked together by a chain of rockets. The shockwave from the ammunition boxes' secondary explosions kicked up waves several meters high, directly smashing the smaller boats nearby.

The Black Bear Flag of Black Night burned in the flames. A speedboat's fuel tank was hit, and the entire vessel turned into a massive torch, spinning wildly on the sea as the screams of the crew were swallowed by the sound of explosions.

On the deck of the sea serpent, Kudo Yusaku dragged Yukiko and dove behind the cover of the observation tower. He heard heavy thuds behind him as the ship's hull shook violently from the shockwaves, and glass shards flew like a rainstorm.

The members of the Nightingale squad had just set up their machine guns to counterattack when they were caught by the fire of the apache's autocannons—12.7mm rounds tore through the steel deck plates, leaving a row of hideous holes. Two guards were instantly riddled with bullets, their bodies slamming heavily against the containers.

“Counterattack! Counterattack, quickly!”

Gin struggled out of the wreckage of the exploding speedboat, soaked to the bone and his fedora long gone. He roared as he raised a submachine gun he'd picked up from the floor and fired at the helicopters, but the bullets only sparked off the fuselage armor, unable to penetrate it at all.

The apache pilots seemed to be toying with their prey.

The helicopters circled nimbly above the sea, the fire from their cannons acting like the Grim Reaper's scythe, sweeping across the surface. Those armed personnel who had jumped into the sea to escape were turned into floating corpses by dense gunfire as soon as they surfaced. Blood dyed the entire area red, and even sharks were drawn by the scent, beginning to circle the perimeter of the fire.

“Their target is the sea serpent!”

Kudo Yusaku watched the sky through a gap in the observation tower, his heart pounding—two chinook transport helicopters hovered over the freighter. Their bay doors opened, dropping several ropes, and figures in black combat gear slid down them, moving as fast as apes.

These people all wore carbon fiber masks, revealing only cold eyes behind night-vision goggles. Their tactical vests were loaded with grenades and magazines, and the submachine guns at their waists spat out ghostly blue muzzle flashes.

The moment they landed, they formed tactical teams, moving in groups of three to provide alternating cover as they pushed toward the control room and cabins. Their footsteps were heavy and rhythmic, like drumbeats pounding on everyone's hearts.

“Get into the captain's cabin, quickly!”

Kudo Yusaku dragged Yukiko toward the ship's cabin. Behind them, the Nightingale squad was still resisting, but they were simply no match—

The enemy's marksmanship was terrifyingly precise; every shot hit a guard's joints or their gun-hand, and screams of pain rose one after another.

Just as they rushed into the captain's cabin, Kudo Yusaku locked the door behind them, only to hear a hissing sound—several football-sized grenades were thrown into the ventilation ducts. The fuses on the canisters glowed red before releasing a pale green smoke.

“It's sleeping gas!”

Yukiko covered her nose and mouth, but it was already too late. A pungent, sickly sweet smell entered her nostrils, and her head instantly felt as heavy as lead.

She saw Kudo Yusaku turn to look for gas masks, but he swayed and collapsed to the floor. Her own vision went black, and she lost consciousness.

The control room door was kicked open, and the lead man in black walked in, scanning the fallen crowd with an infrared scope—Gin and his subordinates, the representatives of the Cross Society and Black Night, and the unconscious Kudo couple found in the captain's cabin. They were all slumped on the floor, breathing evenly, clearly knocked out by the potent sleeping gas.

“Target confirmed. Kudo Yusaku and Kudo Yukiko are in stable condition.”

The leader reported into his throat mic, his voice processed through a voice changer to sound as cold as a machine. “Clear out the remaining targets and prepare for extraction.”

He waved his hand, and two team members stepped forward, using specialized restraints to secure the Kudo couple to stretchers, their movements as efficient as packing cargo.

The other members began "cleaning the scene"—they didn't kill Gin and the others, but merely stripped everyone of their weapons and left several emblems from different organizations on the console, deliberately creating the illusion of a multi-faction free-for-all.

The gunfire on the deck had stopped. The sea serpent's funnel had been shredded by autocannon fire and was belching black smoke. The deck was covered in bullet holes and bloodstains, and several corpses from the Nightingale squad were discarded haphazardly, making it look more like the aftermath of a brutal internal struggle.

The two chinook transport helicopters swept low, dropping cables.

The men in black hoisted the stretchers and quickly climbed up the cables into the transport helicopters. Their movements were fluid and seamless; from boarding to extraction, the entire process took less than ten minutes.

As the last member disappeared into the cabin, the transport helicopters and the apache formation immediately gained altitude and flew toward the depths of the Pacific. The roar of the engines gradually faded, leaving behind only the burning wreckage of speedboats and a bloody sea surface dotted with floating corpses.

After an unknown amount of time, Gin snapped his eyes open. The effects of the sleeping gas hadn't fully worn off, and he sat up with a splitting headache. Seeing his unconscious companions scattered about and the strange emblems on the console, he realized what had happened in an instant.

“We've been played...”

He growled through gritted teeth, looking at the dying flames on the sea, his eyes so dark they seemed to drip with malice. “There's a third faction... They took Kudo Yusaku!”

At the same time, the people from the Cross Society and Black Night also woke up one by one. Seeing the scene before them, they immediately fell into a chaotic argument—

“It was your Black Organization! You wanted to keep the samples for yourselves!”

“Bullshit! It was clearly you people from the Cross Society pulling something!”

“Stop arguing! Look at the emblems on the console! It was the Snake Eye!”

In the chaos, no one noticed that a miniature bug had been quietly planted in the sea serpent's communication system. Hundreds of nautical miles away, on a chinook transport helicopter, the captain of Lin Long's special squad listened to the arguing through his headset, a cold smirk playing on his lips.

“Boss, the water has been muddied as planned.”

He reported into the communicator, “The Kudo couple are in good condition. Estimated arrival at the island in three hours.”

Outside the transport helicopter's window, clouds rolled by, and sunlight pierced through them, illuminating the boundless ocean below.

On the stretcher, Kudo Yusaku's brow furrowed slightly, as if he were uneasy even in his unconscious state. He didn't know that the isolated island he was about to reach would be the only sanctuary in this storm, yet it also hid even deeper secrets.

On the sea, the rings of fire gradually went out, leaving only black smoke rising from the wreckage and the ever-spreading crimson of blood.

Gin stood on the wreckage of a speedboat, watching the direction where the third faction had disappeared. He slammed a fist hard against the metal plating—he knew that this chase centered around Kudo Shinichi had spiraled completely out of control.