Chapter 488: Fu Tailan: An Invitation to Go to Hell Together

Chapter 488 -429: Fu Tailan: An Invitation to Go to Hell Together

Fu Tailan failed to reach Carter.

Before entering, he had already used the power strip Illusion to turn off all six .45 caliber handguns. The Vulture Particles were also protecting the back of his head and half of his back. So when the figures opened fire on him, the only sound in the hallway was the futile clicking of triggers, which didn’t slow Fu Tailan’s advance in the slightest.

“The handguns aren’t working! Switch weapons!” someone shouted. “Drain his blood!”

‘Drain my blood?’

‘Is the Illusion’s effect starting now?’

The thought had barely formed when Fu Tailan sensed a new shadow on the floor in his peripheral vision. He followed the indistinct shadow with his gaze, looked down, and drew in a sharp, quiet breath.

A blood-red sea anemone was blooming beneath his feet, growing rapidly.

The hallway was densely covered in silvery-white threads, leaving no empty space to stand. Fu Tailan had no choice but to run across them—just as Carter had done moments before.

Yet now, with every step Fu Tailan took, the silvery-white threads beneath his feet instantly bloomed crimson.

Even though his shoes were in the way and his feet were uninjured, blood was still seeping into the threads continuously, flowing away from his feet in all directions. At a glance, it looked like blood backflowing into IV tubes after a drip bag has run empty.

‘…So when they said drain blood, they literally meant drain my blood?’

‘Right, the Vulture Particles—if I move them to my feet, they should be able to block the blood drain, right?’

‘No, that’s not right. I can’t.’

‘Before shouting “Drain his blood,” that person also shouted “Switch weapons.” If they realize the silvery-white threads are somehow unable to draw blood from me, they’ll definitely open fire…’

‘I can’t move the Vulture Particles. All I can do is watch my blood drain away.’

‘Maybe before I run out of blood, I can…’

Fu Tailan stared at Carter, who wasn’t far away, and took another step. This time, his legs gave way beneath him, and he began to stumble.

He was less than five or six meters away… If only he had a little more time…

Carter slipped from his vision; Fu Tailan’s world went black.

His consciousness felt as if it had been thrown into a vacuum, devoid of light and air. A moment later, a sharp knock to his head jolted him awake, and he realized he had fallen to the ground. He’d lost his grip on his gun, which had clattered to his side.

‘Is it because of the blood loss?’ His whole body felt cold and limp, unable to muster any strength.

The situation worsened after he collapsed.

Before, only the soles of his feet were touching the silvery-white threads, a limited surface area. But now, his entire body was losing blood.

He could even hear the sound of his blood surging away, joyfully abandoning this empty shell of a body.

Fu Tailan struggled to roll over, reaching behind him for the power strip Illusion at his waist.

He was losing strength so quickly that as soon as he pulled the Illusion out, his entire arm seemed to give out. It went limp, dropping to the floor along with the power strip.

At the other end of the hall, the figures were leveling their guns, cautiously closing in on him.

‘I can’t lose any more blood. I have to turn off the threads…’ Fu Tailan thought through gritted teeth as waves of black fog clouded his vision.

‘After the silvery-white threads made physical contact with me, they should have appeared on the power strip Illusion as the object closest to me. Even though I’ve only had this Illusion for a few hours, I’ve already gained some understanding of its properties.’

But as he strained to open his eyes and stare at the power strip Illusion on the floor, it seemed to be submerged in black water—blurry, distorted, and shifting between near and far.

He couldn’t see anything clearly, let alone the small print on the switches.

“What is that thing?” Carter didn’t dare get closer, directing them from a distance. “You guys go take a look. He reached for his lower back a few times before, he must have been doing something with that!”

His entire body was feeding blood into the silvery-white threads. Even with his vision dimming to black, Fu Tailan knew that calling the Illusion beneath him “silvery-white” threads was no longer accurate.

He was lying in the center of a giant, blood-red flower. The first of his blood had already traveled far from him, transported all the way to the ceiling.

“…It’s an Illusion,” a strange voice replied.

In the time it took for that short exchange, Fu Tailan could no longer even move a finger.

Even if he could see the small print on the Illusion’s switches, he had lost the last bit of strength needed to flip one.

The Morgan Family’s men seemed to be aware of this.

His consciousness felt like it could dissipate at any moment. His eyelids fluttered as a foot stepped into his field of view.

A hand reached down and pulled the power strip Illusion from under his arm.

“Watch out for the black pieces on him,” someone said.

‘They must all be Hunters who used to be under my command… That’s why they know my situation so well.’

“Huh?” said a Hunter bodyguard. “This switch… does this mean it can turn off Illusions?”

“It can turn off handguns too?” another man said. “Is that why our guns weren’t working earlier?”

“Let’s try it,” said the first Hunter. “In any case, once his blood is drained, it won’t flow back.”

Those words extinguished Fu Tailan’s last glimmer of hope.

‘In other words, once the blood has been drawn out, even if the Illusion is disabled and I’m moved somewhere else, the lost blood is gone for good?’

He lay on the ground, his vision a web of crimson strands.

On the floor woven from the network of blood-red threads, his gun lay where it had fallen.

Sure enough, a few seconds after they turned off the Illusion, the crimson color didn’t fade from the threads. Fu Tailan had stopped losing blood, but he was only just clinging to consciousness on the verge of passing out.

He had no strength, and even his thoughts had become sluggish and scattered.

“…It’s that powerful?”

Perhaps because his consciousness was on the brink of collapse, every sound seemed distant. Carter spoke from afar, “It can turn off handguns and Illusions? No wonder… no wonder. Bring it here, let me see.”

“What about the director?” someone asked.

“What director? He’s nothing but a stray dog now,” Carter cursed, then hissed in pain. “Go, get me the healing Illusion… Take a look at the wound on my foot!”

The floor vibrated slightly. From the sounds and vibrations, it seemed two or three people had walked over to Carter. Besides showing him the Illusion, they were probably helping him up and getting him a chair.

Two others turned and entered a room off the hallway, likely to find the healing Illusion.

Fu Tailan closed his eyes.

The moment he did, his mind was plunged into darkness.

It was like the Black Abyss Belt he had walked into back then—layers upon layers of black fog that no light could penetrate. His consciousness was about to shatter, to dissolve into scattered particles.

‘…Can I?’

He asked the Vulture that no longer existed in this world.

He heard the Vulture say, ‘Of course, you can.’

The Vulture was triumphant. ‘Every part of our bodies is made of them… They’ve been your skin, they’ve been your skull…’

‘Then, they can be my blood, too, right?’

Fu Tailan opened his eyes.

He was still lying alone on the hallway floor. Not far away, Carter was being helped into a seat, marveling at the power strip Illusion.

“…I’m going to turn it on and try it right now,” Carter was saying with a laugh, turning the power strip Illusion over in his hands. “This kid has given me no end of trouble. Letting him lie there and slowly bleed to death is too merciful, if you ask me. I hear bleeding to death is a very peace—”

The “-ful” was drowned out by a gunshot.

Carter’s pained scream and the spray of blood from his hand erupted at almost the same instant. The bullet had torn straight through one of his hands, and the kinetic energy and momentum nearly ripped his forearm off. The power strip Illusion fell to the floor with a CLANG.

Lying prone, Fu Tailan cleanly planted a bullet in the chest of another Hunter as the man turned toward him.

The remaining two Hunters reacted quickly, immediately opening fire on him. But Fu Tailan’s prone position on the floor had become a slight advantage—from a standing angle, it was difficult for them to hit him for a brief moment.

That single breath was all he needed.

Fu Tailan fired two shots—BANG! BANG!—into their legs, watching them collapse into a heap of screaming, writhing bodies on the floor.

He struggled to his feet and staggered over to Carter, one leg heavy and the other light, then picked up the power strip Illusion.

‘So… there were several other Illusions hidden up ahead in the hallway.’

Dazed, Fu Tailan turned off every switch. When he turned back, he saw Remy standing not far down the hall, staring at him.

Remy hadn’t raised the gun in her hand.

“…Hey,” Fu Tailan managed a smile. “Carter really values you, doesn’t he.”

Remy glanced at her unconscious boss on the floor. “He knows I can keep a secret. He always gives me the dirty work.”

Fu Tailan collapsed into Carter’s chair, the power strip in one hand and his gun in the other.

He gasped for a few moments, struggling to even out his breathing.

The Vulture Particles weren’t real blood, after all. He had to consciously push them through his veins, tricking his heart to grant him a faint bit of strength.

“You’re facing… me. The one known in Hunter circles as the ‘boy genius.'”

Fu Tailan looked at the Hunter who had just rushed out from behind Remy, and at the two wounded men on the floor struggling to aim their guns at him. He felt surprisingly calm. Perhaps Carter had been right.

“I’m the type of person who… loves a compliment. So I know that quite a few people even say I’m the top Hunter in Blackmoor City right now.”

His voice was faint and weak, but no one in the hallway interrupted him. They all just listened, stunned.

“You’re getting paid in the end, just money. For the sake of us having been colleagues, let me give you some advice: it’s not worth throwing your lives away for money, for Carter Morgan.”

Fu Tailan subconsciously reached a blood-soaked hand into his pocket, only to remember he’d been out of cigarettes for a long time.

“…Even in this state, I’m confident I can take all of you down to hell with me.”

He gave a slight smile. “Remy, what do you say?”

Remy glanced at Carter again.

She paused, first pointing to a security camera in the corner of the ceiling, then made a “go ahead” gesture toward the far end of the hallway.

“Their injuries can’t wait, especially the boss’s. He’s badly hurt. Any delay could cause irreversible damage,” she said, articulating each word clearly. “I need to treat them immediately, so I have to let you go in for now.”

Fu Tailan lowered his gaze, listening in silence.

“But I have my duties. I can’t guarantee I’ll let you leave peacefully with Fu Han when you come back out.”

“Oh,” Fu Tailan suddenly laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

He had no intention of taking Fu Han with him at all.