Chapter 240 - 237: Silent Knight Otto

Chapter 240: Chapter 237: Silent Knight Otto

The surrounding area was filled with street-side shops. Thanks to temporary notices issued by the commerce, fire, and other relevant departments over the past two days, most shops that would normally be open at night were dark.

Aside from the streetlights, the view from the speeding vehicle’s window revealed only the occasional lit convenience store after long stretches of darkness.

Furthermore, thanks to traffic control and the rapid response of both police and military under a unified command, most vehicles on the road within the quarantine zone were combat units. Civilian cars had either been redirected or were in the process of being led away.

Once the power of various government departments and agencies was mobilized, they exerted a terrifying level of control, even in a confidential operation within a society that had not yet collapsed.

The two modified vans of Otto’s patrol, Macrophage Group 2, tore through the streets at high speed.

They closed in on the target’s location—400 meters, 300 meters—before screeching to a halt about 50 meters out.

The doors opened simultaneously. Otto’s ox-like body was the first to emerge from the lead vehicle.

Like Baru, as a true Silent Knight who had undergone the ritual, Otto stood there like a humanoid beast.

The Soldiers in the two vehicles also disembarked, fanning out to the left and right in a defensive formation.

The man was powerfully built, carrying the weight of at least two full-grown men without a hint of fat. If an unknowing observer saw him and a Spirit Mother standing side-by-side, Otto would undoubtedly draw the first volley of fire.

Since the operation began, Otto had personally dispatched nine Spirit Mothers—some killed at their "nest coordinates," others encountered while "foraging" on the loose, and still others hunted down after escaping a failed assault.

However, Otto’s excellent training and his understanding of Dawn’s will meant he had no intention of hogging the spotlight. He preferred to let the Soldiers around him take the lead, with him finishing off the Spirit Mother at the end. Only when the Soldiers were in danger or the situation spiraled out of control would he force his way in to annihilate the target.

Otto understood this was a world crisis, a prelude to the Dark Tide, the eve of terror. It was necessary to let these excellent Soldiers accumulate as much combat experience against Demons as possible.

For every such Soldier, perhaps there would be one more powerful Iron-blooded Warrior in the future.

’This time, though, it’s time to stretch my legs.’

He rolled his shoulders and tilted his neck from side to side. The sound of his bones and muscles popping was as crisp as crackling soybeans.

He reported in on his comms.

"Command, we’ve reached the designated tracking point. There aren’t four Spirit Mothers ahead, there are twelve. It’s a trap."

In his Perception, at the distant street corner, the auras of twelve Demons were arranged like the petals of a flower. Four were nearby, while the other eight were much farther away. Clearly, this was no simple ambush; it was designed to lure them in deeper.

How these Spirit Mothers had gathered, how they had decided to set an ambush, whether they had a commander—those were questions for the people in the tactical command center to consider.

Otto’s job was to wipe every last one of them out.

"Keep a close watch on our six. Don’t move in without my signal."

With those words, Otto strode forward with a relaxed gait, his eyes narrowing.

If another team had encountered this, even one with a member of Dawn, they likely would have fallen for it. After all, some of these Spirit Mothers had consumed who knows how many people, and their strength and speed were not to be underestimated. In a full-scale swarm attack, even some association members could suffer casualties. Protecting the accompanying Soldiers would be even more difficult.

’A sinister and well-planned tactic. Too bad...’

...

Just like that, Otto walked alone to the street corner, right into the center of the Spirit Mothers’ encirclement.

Standing at the intersection, he glanced toward several hidden positions: a greenbelt, a section of wall, and a storefront’s billboard.

"What’s wrong? Not going to attack me?"

After a minute passed with no movement, Otto’s expression, a mix of sternness and nonchalance, twisted into a mirthless grin. He let out a low growl, using a special vocalization technique to project his voice.

"If you don’t even have this much courage, heh heh heh... then why did you dare provoke humanity?"

"Since you’re too scared to make a move, I guess I’ll go first..."

Before his words had even faded, under the dim streetlights, a gray shadow seemed to stretch between where Otto had been standing and a certain billboard.

BOOM—

He shattered the billboard with one kick, hooked the Spirit Mother behind it with the top of his foot, and flung it directly to the spot where he had just been standing.

When he landed and turned back, a gaping abdominal organ lunged for his head. It was three times wider than the host Spirit Mother’s waist, like the mouth of a man-eating flower growing from her stomach.

With a tilt of his head and a twist of his body, Otto dodged the attack—an attack that made the watching Soldiers break out in a cold sweat.

The other three Spirit Mothers moved like apes, surrounding him from three directions. They ran, jumped, and even sprinted on all fours. Vertical walls were like flat ground to them as they attacked Otto from above and below simultaneously.

He kicked one away and body-slammed another but was forced to leap away from the attacks of the other two. He appeared to be struggling to keep up.

"How many individuals like you could there possibly be among humans? Soon, we will replace you in this world!"

A shrill female voice seemed to mock Otto’s earlier words.

"Those Soldiers just stand there watching you in peril, too scared to help... But don’t worry, we won’t drive humanity to extinction... Heh heh heh..."

The Soldiers in the rear were breathing heavily, their hearts pounding. They fought back the urge to charge forward, keeping their sights trained on the rapidly moving, half-naked women with their grotesque abdominal organs.

But they hesitated to pull the trigger, as the targets were far away and tangled in high-speed combat with their ally.

This standoff lasted for more than thirty seconds. In Otto’s Perception, the other eight Spirit Mothers had already drawn near and hidden themselves in positions from which they thought they could launch a swift attack.

’Heh. Good. At this distance, I don’t have to worry about you scattering.’

The Knight’s body temperature was rising rapidly. His skin flushed red, and his expression was an unreadable mix of excitement and derision.

"Ladies! The ball is over!"

KLANG— He stomped hard on the ground, and his gray figure blurred in an instant.

The four Spirit Mothers only felt the ground ripple like a wave, losing their balance for a split second.

After looking down at the ground and then immediately back up, the last thing they saw was a fist whistling through the air.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The Spirit Mothers’ heads exploded like four watermelons. The Parasite Spirits within were incinerated at the same instant, unable to even let out a scream.

BOOM—

Before the four corpses had even hit the ground, the pavement where Otto stood caved in and cracked with the sound. The gray figure vanished in an instant.

"One." BOOM— The wall exploded. The Parasite Spirit behind it was obliterated from the waist up, its flesh and organs fanning out to cover a large swath of the greenbelt behind the wall, staining a patch of shrubbery red.

Almost in the same instant, before the bloody rain had even landed, the soil of the greenbelt on the other side of the wall exploded outward, leaving a large crater.

The gray figure, having just reappeared from a blur, vanished once more.

"Two." SHREEEIP—

His hand, a blade, tore through the air with the sound of a sharp edge. He split the Spirit Mother hidden in a distant camphor tree in two, along with the tree itself.

THUD—

He kicked off the splintered tree, shattering it completely. The recoil sent the gray figure blurring away again.

"Three." KRA-BOOM—

The cold, indifferent count was a death knell.

A small car parked at the three-way intersection was stomped flat, the scorching power from Otto’s leg blasting downward through it.

"Ah..."

The third one finally let out a scream, but it was cut short in less than half a second. A torrent of blood spilled out from under the crushed car, like water from an overflowing fish tank.

The moment he began to annihilate the targets was the signal for the Soldiers in the distance, but he had exploded into action with such speed that they only reacted after he had suddenly killed the first four Spirit Mothers and hunted down three more of the ambushers.

"Move, move, move! Advance and support!"

A dozen or so Soldiers charged forward. ’But can we really even get there in time to help?’

Only then did the remaining five Spirit Mothers snap out of their terror-stricken stupor, turning to flee for their lives in all directions.

One of them had just leaped onto a car, intending to jump to a shop’s sign and then climb to higher ground.

"Running now?" BOOM—

The moment the death-knell voice rang in its ear was the moment its body was smashed against the storefront sign.

The entire sign for the "XXX Noodle House" caved in violently from Otto’s strike and was stained mostly red by the splatter of blood. Gore dripped and plopped onto the street below.

"A little late for that."

The second half of Otto’s sentence was delivered as his speeding body, carried on the whistling wind, closed in on the next target.

...

"No, you can’t be human! NO!!!"

The last target had fled to the bank of a small river, just a dozen seconds away from escaping Otto’s Perception range. Unfortunately, it was now pinned under his foot, struggling.

The Soldiers who had "supported" him had been running to keep up with Otto ever since he started. They finally caught up just before the last target died.

Though they were out of breath and profoundly shaken, their rifle-holding arms didn’t tremble in the slightest.

Although he knew they were all elite troops on this mission, Otto, a former soldier himself, couldn’t help but praise them in his heart.

’These Soldiers have excellent training.’

Then he looked down at the Spirit Mother beneath his foot.

"This just goes to show, you truly don’t understand humans, or our world."

"Eight." SNAP.

The Spirit Mother under his foot was crushed, its spine snapping. It and the Parasite Spirit within were annihilated. He then nodded to an Officer.

"Command, this is Macrophage 2. Ambush neutralized. Requesting a cleanup crew for the scene."

Otto extended his leg and used his foot to press down on a piece of the corpse’s clothing. A cell phone slid out. A certain question in his mind was suddenly answered.

"I’ve found their method of communication!"

...

「Special Security Group Headquarters, Tactical Command Center.」

Hearing the report, Tao Xingzhi frowned. He squinted at the corpses that had been brought into the back room, where a Witch from Dawn was continuously performing divinations, marking each missed target she found on a touchscreen.

Using cell phones—using technology to communicate—it was convenient and fast. It was just that they had previously viewed the Spirit Mothers as mere mutated creatures. They had overlooked the obvious.

’It seems we’ll have to raise the incident security level for parasitic mutations.’

PS: Friday’s second Chapter. Looked at the time, the third Chapter isn’t coming out. Time for bed...