117: Chapter 117 Predators and Corpse Collectors

"Please let me know first, so I can make room for the new gentlemen."

The Knight had no need to look back.

The five bright spots nine hundred meters ahead had stopped on the system panel for six minutes before starting to move again, heading deeper into the tunnel.

Yan Zheng crouched beside the thirteenth corpse, his scalpel slicing through the mutated keratin on the surface of the deceased's chest cavity, a system panel prompt flashing in the corner of his vision.

[Material Collected: Acidic Mucus Gland Gene, quality: Low. Applicable direction: Grunt-level long-range harassment module.]

"Another low-quality one."

He stood up, tucked the scalpel between the fingers of his white glove, and wiped the mucus off The Blade.

On the system panel, only one of the three dying signals was still flashing; the other two had already gone out.

Yan Zheng quickened his pace.

From seventy centimeters per step to eighty-five centimeters, his breathing rhythm remained unchanged, but his stride frequency increased by twenty percent.

"Mr. Brute, once the storage chamber is full, stay where you are and wait for me to return for redistribution."

A dark red pulse flickered.

Three hundred meters ahead, the tunnel branched off; to the left was a narrower maintenance passage, and to the right was the continuation of the main tunnel.

Yan Zheng glanced at the system panel.

That last dying signal was at the end of the left maintenance passage, no longer moving.

And deep in the main tunnel ahead, the distance between the five Predators' bright spots nine hundred meters away and the cluster of over twenty Morlocks survivor signals was closing.

Eight hundred meters.

Seven hundred and fifty meters.

"They've started chasing again."

Yan Zheng stood at the fork, the beam of his flashlight swinging between the two paths.

On the left was a dying material. On the right were thirty living materials being chased by five blades.

"Mr. Knight."

A golden pulse lit up.

"Go to the left and bring that dying one back. Bring it back alive."

The phosphorescent fire on the Knight's alloy bone armor flashed, and its tall figure slipped into the left passage, the dark red muscle texture tracing a flowing dim light in the darkness.

Yan Zheng turned toward the right main tunnel, walking alone into the deeper darkness.

He turned off his flashlight. He didn't need light.

The system panel in his Mental Link pinpointed the location of every biological signal ahead down to the meter, and the tracks beneath his feet served as a ready-made navigation line.

Six hundred meters ahead.

The tunnel began to widen. The ceiling rose by at least two meters, and remnants of tiled surfaces appeared on the walls on both sides; most had cracked and fallen off, but on the remaining few, blurred letters of the station name could still be seen.

Another abandoned station. Much larger than the 190th Street Station.

Yan Zheng's footsteps stopped at the edge of the platform; he didn't jump up, but instead stood in the track trench, his back pressed against the concrete wall of the platform face.

Sounds came from four hundred meters ahead. Not just one type of sound. It was three sounds layered together.

The first was the crackling of fire, continuous and dense, with the occasional boom of rapidly expanding gas.

The second was the crisp sound of metal colliding, rhythmic and fast, like someone scraping glass with an iron tool.

The third was human crying and screaming. A lot of people.

Yan Zheng continued to advance along the track trench, the signals on the system panel becoming clearer.

Three hundred meters. Two hundred meters. One hundred and fifty meters. He saw light.

Not the light of a flashlight. It was fire.

In an oval space at the end of the platform, a large irregular hole had opened in the ceiling, with pipes and cables torn and hanging down like a cluster of withered vines.

Firelight surged out of that space, illuminating the concrete around the hole in an orange-red hue.

Yan Zheng vaulted onto the platform, the sound of his soles hitting the ground completely masked by the distant clamor.

He pressed against the wall, approaching the entrance to the oval space, his Mental Power scan confirming the layout inside.

An abandoned marshalling yard. The area was about three times that of a regular station, with a ceiling over six meters high; four tracks converged and then diverged into six sidings, with a wide concrete platform in the middle.

Over thirty Morlocks were huddled in the northernmost corner of the platform, with a dead-end wall behind them and nowhere to retreat.

Five figures stood in the south-central part of the platform, spread out in a semi-circle, blocking the Morlocks in the dead end.

The leader was shrouded in flickering flames, hands extended, with two fist-sized fireballs hovering in his palms; the orange-red light made his face flicker in and out of shadow.

"Twelve hours."

The Flame User's voice cut through the crackling of the fire, carrying a hoarseness that was a mixture of irritability and satisfaction after a long hunt.

"Running for a whole night and a whole day, and you ran into this dead end?"

Standing to his right was a lean man, his arms completely transformed from the elbows down into silver-white metal blades, the edges gleaming coldly in the firelight.

The Blade.

On the left was an exceptionally burly Mutant, with bones protruding into irregular angles on his bare arms, his joints making a creaking friction sound when he clenched his fists.

Bone Breaker.

Two steps further back, a man and a woman.

The man wore a black turtleneck, with several nearly invisible silver-white threads hanging from his fingertips, the ends of the threads stuck to the pipes on the ceiling, leaving his body in a slightly suspended posture.

Web.

The woman stood in the darkest corner, her silhouette blurred, her edges blending with the surrounding shadows, only a pair of eyes reflecting the remnants of the firelight in the darkness.

Shadow.

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ✧ ⌓ ✧ ˵ )

Five high-quality materials lined up one hundred meters away.

His fingers spun the scalpel handle once, the temperature of the metal just right from his body heat.

The Flame User threw the fireball in his right hand at the ground two meters in front of the Morlocks; the fireball exploded, fragments splattering, and the few Morlocks in the front row screamed and shrank back, the terror on their faces fully exposed by the firelight.

"My Lord Magneto gave you a chance to choose." The Flame User's voice suppressed a laugh. "Join The Brotherhood and fight for the future of the Mutant race. And what did you choose? To hide in the sewers like rats."

"We don't want to fight."

A voice came from the crowd, trembling but still persistent.

It was a woman's voice.

"We just want to live."

"Live?" The Blade's metal arm tapped against his side, emitting a crisp metallic sound. "Mutant dignity is being trampled underfoot by humans, and you say you just want to live?"

"That's because you don't deserve to live." Bone Breaker took a step forward, the bone spikes on his burly arms protruding another two centimeters.

Yan Zheng had seen enough.

In the Mental Link, Brute's dark red pulse flickered two hundred meters away.

The order had been delivered.

It would take the Knight four minutes to return from the left maintenance passage.

But four minutes was too long.

The Flame User's left hand was already raised, a second fireball condensing in his palm.

"Last chance. Kneel and swear allegiance to The Brotherhood, or stand and burn to ashes."

Yan Zheng used his Mental Power to make one final check of the spatial structure.

Northern dead end, Morlocks. Southern entrance, himself. Middle platform, the five Predators.

Brute could arrive from the eastern side passage in ninety seconds.

"Mr. Brute."

The dark red pulse flashed.

"Enter from the eastern passage, target The Blade, front suppression."

His body detached from the shadows of the wall, and his soles stepped onto the broken tiles at the edge of the platform, emitting a faint creak.

Web's head turned. Those few silver-white threads trembled slightly in the air.

"Someone's here."

The five Predators simultaneously turned toward the southern entrance.

The fireball in The Flame User's palm illuminated the last five meters of the entrance passage, the orange-red light dancing on the damp walls.

Then they saw it.

A young man in a gray coat walked out of the darkness, his pace calm, his speed not fast, the rhythm of his heels hitting the ground as steady as a metronome.

His gold-rimmed glasses reflected two arcs in the firelight.

Between the fingers of his white gloves, he held a small knife of unrecognizable material.

"Who?" The Flame User's fireball accelerated its rotation by half a turn in his palm. "What are you?"

Yan Zheng stopped at the southern edge of the platform, about thirty meters away from the five Predators.

He pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, his gaze passing over The Flame User's shoulder to glance at the Morlocks in the corner, then withdrew his line of sight, landing it on The Flame User's arm.

The system panel popped up in the corner of his vision.

[X-Gene signal detected. Target: Fire generation type. Gene activation level: High. Material value assessment: High.]

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ✧ ᗜ ✧ ˵ )

"Good evening, gentlemen."

His voice traveled across the thirty meters of space, gentle and clear, his tone so steady it didn't sound like he was in an underground ruin that had just experienced a slaughter.

"I'm very sorry to interrupt your work."

The Flame User narrowed his eyes.

"I'm asking you. Who are you? From The Brotherhood? From the X-Men?"

"Neither." Yan Zheng's smile was clearly visible in the firelight, a standard service-industry smile. "I'm just a passing... Collector."

The Blade's metal arm raised at his side, the edge aimed in Yan Zheng's direction.

"Collector? Collecting what?"

Yan Zheng flipped the scalpel in his fingers, blade pointing down.

"Bones."

The five Predators looked at each other.

Bone Breaker sneered. "A lunatic."

"Mm, people often say that." Yan Zheng nodded, his tone sincere. "But I really do have business here today."

He lifted his chin, his gaze sweeping over the five people.

"Gentlemen, I am very interested in your skeletal structures."

Heavy footsteps came from the deep darkness of the eastern passage, the dull thud of petrified arms hitting the ground echoing twice in the space.

Brute's figure squeezed out from the passage, its 2.4-meter frame blocking the entire entrance, dark red phosphorescent fire lighting up deep in its chest cavity, illuminating the rough rock texture on its petrified arms.

The five Predators turned their heads simultaneously.

Web's threads tightened. Shadow's figure shrank half a step into the darkness.

"If you don't mind."

Yan Zheng's voice came from behind them, his tone unchanged, as gentle as serving tea in an Antique Shop.

"Please allow me to add you to my collection."

Bone Breaker and Web moved at the same time.

Bone Breaker's reaction was to charge, bone spikes bursting five centimeters from his arms as he sprinted at full speed toward Yan Zheng.

Web's reaction was to throw, over a dozen silver-white threads shooting from his fingertips, covering Yan Zheng's position in a fan shape.

Yan Zheng took a step back. Only one step.

Because golden light lit up in the darkness behind him.

The Knight stepped out from the shadows of the southern main passage, the dark red muscle texture on its alloy bone armor pulsating under the golden phosphorescent fire, a pale blue glow gathering in the Photon Ray modules in the firing ports on both sides of its shoulder armor.

The beam of light swept out from the side. Silent. High-speed.

Bone Breaker's left arm, along with his shoulder, vanished.

Not severed, but vaporized.

Where the pale blue beam passed, the air was instantly heated to visible distortion, and Bone Breaker's entire left arm turned into a wisp of white steam and a few droplets of liquid metal residue splattering on the ground.

Bone Breaker's scream exploded under the dome of the marshalling yard, the high-decibel frequency making even Web's threads tremble.

Web's attack was blocked by the Knight's left arm before it could reach Yan Zheng.

The threads wrapped around the alloy bone armor, tightening, attempting to cut.

The threads snapped.

The hardness of the alloy bone armor exceeded the limits of the biological threads; the ends of the snapped threads whipped back like a slingshot, lashing across Web's cheek and leaving a thin, long bloodstain.

"What is this!"

The Flame User pushed out two fireballs with both hands simultaneously, not at Yan Zheng, but at the Knight.

The two orange-red flames hit the front of the Knight's chest, the exploding heat instantly raising the temperature of the surrounding three meters of air to the point of scorching skin.

Yan Zheng stepped back twice to avoid the heatwave, a thin mist of steam fogging the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses.

He took off his glasses and wiped them with his white glove.

Then he put them back on and looked at the Knight.

The front of the Knight's chest was scorched black.

Three seconds later, the black scorch marks began to fade.

Dark red muscle texture surged in from the edges of the scorch marks, and new tissue covered the surface of the wound at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Five seconds. Restored to its original state.

The Flame User's hand stopped in mid-air, the fire in his palm flickering twice, as if even the fire were hesitating.

"What kind of monster is this..."

Yan Zheng pushed his glasses to the most comfortable position on the bridge of his nose, the curve of his mouth unchanged.

"Sir, my Knight isn't very afraid of fire."