103: Chapter 103 Three Action Points

"It's the three red circles on that map."

Yan Zheng magnified the mental projection of the map above the workbench, the three red circles glowing with a faint fluorescence in the gray-green image.

It was already past 1:00 AM, with only two and a half hours remaining until the last action time marked on the map.

Point A, The Bronx, 10:00 PM.

Already passed.

If the people from Project Purity initiated at that time, they have either already withdrawn or are still finishing up.

Point B, Harlem, 11:00 PM.

Point C, Queens, Flushing, 11:30 PM.

There is still a chance.

Yan Zheng poured the cold tea from his enamel mug into the sink and boiled a new pot of water, turning off the heat before it boiled; he poured the water in at just over eighty degrees, tossed the tea bag in, and fished it out after twenty seconds.

"When you're in a hurry, you can't steep tea for too long; the bitterness is too strong and affects judgment."

He walked back to the workbench with his cup and stood before the map image for ten seconds.

"With three points acting simultaneously, Project Purity has at least three independent field teams in New York."

"I don't have enough personnel to take on all three at once."

"But I don't need to take them on."

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ ˘ ͈ ꒳ ˘ ͈)

"What I need is to watch."

"Watch how they capture people, what equipment they use, the size of their force, and which direction their retreat route is."

"And, where they are taken after being captured."

He pulled up the legion organization panel and arranged them in his mental space.

Knight, four control slots.

Brute, three control slots.

Frost Archer, two.

Thunder Guard, three.

Acid Walker, two.

No. 8, one.

No. 9, one.

Sixteen fully loaded, Mental Power fifteen, dual-line control had just passed three practical simulations.

"Two lines, two monitoring groups."

"Group A monitors Harlem, Group B monitors Queens."

"Point A in The Bronx has passed its time window, so forget it."

He drew two boxes on the graph paper.

"Group A."

He wrote three names in the first box.

"Knight, No. 8, No. 9."

"Knight's long-range detection range is large enough to scan the entire battlefield from three hundred meters away."

"No. 8 and No. 9 are responsible for flanking security for Knight."

"Group A is only to watch, not to fight."

The second box.

"Group B."

"Brute, Frost Archer, Acid Walker."

"Brute acts as a front-line shield wall, Archer as rear-line firepower, and Walker as backup for infiltration."

"Group B is mainly to watch, but retains the ability to intervene."

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ ✧ ⌓ ✧)

"Mr. Thunder Guard."

The silver-white pulse in the Mental Link flashed.

"You stay at the entrance of the Underground Room and guard the base."

"In case any uninvited guests find their way to Ninth Avenue tonight, you are responsible for turning their bones into charcoal."

He took a sip of tea; the temperature was just right, and the astringency was very light.

"Group A, depart. Target: North of 125th Street, Harlem."

"Group B, depart. Target: Main Street, Flushing, Queens."

"Both groups will move along the main sewer lines. Estimated arrival time: forty-five minutes."

Two mental command lines were activated simultaneously.

Yan Zheng felt a slight swelling in his temples; the load of parallel dual-line control had dropped to a controllable range after training in the quarry, but maintaining it for a long time would still wear down his Mental Power recovery rate.

He sat on the swivel chair in front of the workbench, leaned his back firmly against the chair, crossed his hands over his abdomen, and closed his eyes.

Only the real-time images of the two command lines remained in his field of vision.

On the left, Group A. Knight's golden light sphere cast warm light spots on the sewer pipe walls, No. 8 and No. 9's green phosphorous fire followed behind, their skeletons moving against the pipe walls; the speed was not fast but very stable.

On the right, Group B. Brute's large skeleton needed to slightly arch its back to pass through the sewer, Frost Archer walked against the top of the pipe, and Acid Walker flattened into a mucous membrane and slid along the surface of the water, the fastest of them all.

Forty minutes later, Group A arrived in Harlem.

Knight's detection range spread out on the north side of 125th Street, marking heat source signals within a three-hundred-meter radius one by one.

Yan Zheng saw the first image in his mental space.

The front door of a five-story apartment building had been kicked open, the iron door frame was crooked in the doorway, and one hinge had broken.

Two dark gray tactical vans were parked in front of the building, engines running, exhaust fumes drifting into white mist in the night wind.

Six Agents in black tactical gear moved through the apartment hallway, their movements quiet and swift.

A middle-aged woman wearing a red knit hat was carried out of a second-floor room by two Agents, her mouth taped shut, her hands handcuffed behind her back with plastic cuffs, and her legs kicking in the air; the red knit hat was crooked over her eyebrows.

Behind her was a young man with fluorescent green vine tattoos wrapped around his arms, being pushed downstairs by a third Agent using a pneumatic injection gun pressed against the back of his neck.

No resistance.

No superpower eruption.

Yan Zheng saw the reason through Knight's detection data.

The young man's X-Gene signal was in a state of complete suppression.

He had already been injected with inhibitors.

"Harlem point, containment in progress, no resistance."

He added a note to Group A in his mental space, then shifted his main attention to the Group B image on the right.

Queens, Flushing, the east section of Main Street.

Group B arrived at 1:47 AM.

Acid Walker extended a layer of mucous membrane from the crack of a manhole cover and stuck it to the road surface for outpost scanning.

This section of Main Street was on the edge of Flushing's old Chinatown; the shop signs were in Chinese, Korean, and Spanish, the rolling shutters were pulled tight, and most of the windows above the second floor were dark, with only one room at the corner of the third floor still glowing with a dim yellow light.

Two armored transport vehicles were parked in the open space at the intersection of Main Street and Prince Street, their headlights off, and only the infrared searchlights on the roofs of the vehicles were slowly rotating.

Eight Agents had completed their assembly, divided into two groups of four; one group pushed along the front of Main Street, and the other group detoured from the side alley to the rear of the target building.

Yan Zheng: (˵ ꐦ ≖ ⌓ ≖ ˵)

"Eight-person formation, two-way encirclement."

"Thirty percent larger than the scale in Harlem."

"The target they are trying to capture in Flushing is high-level."

1:52 AM.

The leader of the front group waved, and all four entered the target building from the stairwell.

The rear group broke in through the window three seconds later.

Yan Zheng's closed eyelids twitched.

Because within Brute's detection range, inside that lit room on the third floor, an X-Gene signal was fluctuating violently.

It wasn't the fluctuation of being suppressed.

It was the kind that was being activated.

Yan Zheng moved his hands from his abdomen to the armrests, his fingertips gripping the metal tubes.

"Group B, all members stand by, do not move."

"Let me see what happens next."

In the image, the window on the third floor of the target building exploded.

It wasn't that the glass shattered.

The entire window, frame and wall included, was pushed outward; bricks and wooden strips scattered in the air, the window frame rotated as it flew across the Main Street surface, slamming into the rolling shutter of the Korean barbecue restaurant opposite, leaving a window-frame-shaped dent in the iron sheet.

A colorless shockwave spread out from the window on the third floor; the air wave swept across the street, the bodies of the armored transport vehicles shook, the infrared searchlight brackets on the roofs were broken by the shock, and the lamp heads hung in mid-air, swaying.

Yan Zheng's fingertips tightened on the armrests.

"Kinetic energy release."

The fluctuation amplitude of that X-Gene signal on the third floor was still climbing.

"Mr. Brute, retreat fifty meters."

"Mr. Archer, retreat eighty meters."

"Mr. Walker, stay in the sewer, don't come out."

"Let them fight."

Yan Zheng: (ꐦ ≖ ‸ ≖)

The dark red and ice-blue pulses in the Mental Link retreated simultaneously.

Group B repositioned on the top floor of a parking garage two hundred meters away from Main Street; Brute crouched behind a concrete retaining wall, and Frost Archer climbed onto the iron shell of the elevator machine room.

A second muffled sound came from Main Street in the distance.

It was twice as heavy as the first.

Yan Zheng's teacup jumped on the workbench.

"A tough opponent has arrived."

"Perfect."

"Let's see how Project Purity handles high-level targets."