Chapter 242 - 239: The End

Chapter 242: Chapter 239: The End

Lu Li and another Spirit Mother were among the truly lucky ones.

They had been at the very back of the group when approaching the park. When the majority of the Spirit Mothers neared the park’s center, the close proximity forced the ambush to begin, but they were far enough away to only witness the start of the bloody slaughter from a distance.

Relying on a shred of lingering human intuition, Lu Li and the other Spirit Mother didn’t just turn and flee like the others. Instead, their sharp eyes spotted a car by the side of the road with the keys still in the ignition.

They immediately smashed the car’s window, got in, and started the engine to escape.

They hadn’t dared to use a car on the way there, fearing they would make too much noise. Now, they couldn’t afford to care. The dozen or so seconds they wasted were absolutely worth it.

They quickly sped past the other Spirit Mothers who were fleeing on foot. In the rearview mirror, they saw the one at the very back get sent flying in a bizarre fashion. Looking closer, they realized a powerful human was charging forward at incredible speed, picking off the Spirit Mothers who had fallen behind.

They didn’t know if the car could outrun that human monster, so they could only slam the gas pedal to the floor and not let up.

Only after driving for more than five minutes without being pursued did they finally breathe a sigh of relief.

But they had been scared witless. They didn’t dare stop anywhere in the city. Even when they occasionally saw ordinary humans wandering the streets late at night, they didn’t dare stop to "feed."

Who knew if they would be ambushed and killed the moment they stepped out of the car.

The humans were terrifying beyond imagination.

They originally thought that possessing human memories and intelligence would make it easy to blend into the crowds and feed. But in just a few hours, every surviving Spirit Mother had become as skittish as a bird startled by the twang of a bowstring.

And to think that such terrifying beings existed among humans. The monster-like warriors were one thing, but there were other, even more horrifying presences. Even unseen, a mere glance in their direction was enough to make the Spirit Mothers’ human flesh crawl.

They were probably Magic Controllers who had transcended ordinary levels—beings whose very essence of life was on a higher plane.

’Leave Kyoto City!’ They had only one thought.

...

「1:30 AM, Special Security Team Tactical Command Center.」

On the main screen, a map of the entire Kyoto City displayed a considerable number of green-backed areas. A few small, scattered sections were red or marked with red dots, while even more regions were gray.

The three background colors represented, respectively: absolutely safe or cleared zones, high-risk zones and target locations, and finally, gray for areas where no targets had yet been discovered.

Based on the current progress, it was highly likely that no Spirit Mothers were present in the gray areas. They could probably be reclassified as green by the end of the operation.

In contrast to the few scattered red dots were dense clusters of yellow and green dots spread across the entirety of Kyoto City. Yellow dots represented support units, green dots represented assault units, and they were present even within the gray zones.

These dots, varying in code and brightness, formed interconnected networks that partitioned and cordoned off the remaining red zones.

Along some of these routes, red dots were intentionally allowed to move without pursuit from the designated "immune teams."

There was never any intention of this being a protracted battle. By combining the power of Dawn with the full might of the state’s security apparatus, the entire operation was planned from the outset with a single premise: "Total annihilation in one night."

Only the stimulation and pressure that came with the most stringent demands could ensure the highest level of performance.

More and more bodies were being brought in, and the Crystal Ball Witch hadn’t divined any new locations within the city for a while. This meant that for the past ten-plus minutes, the number of remaining Spirit Mothers had not increased.

Of course, their numbers were still decreasing. Even if the main goal was to herd them, some unlucky ones would inevitably run into patrol squads or other tactical units while fleeing.

Every ten seconds or so, Su Su would perform another divination to sense the remaining Spirit Mothers. She would then use a stylus to mark their new positions, causing their icons to move across the command center’s main screen as if they were fitted with tracking devices.

Watching the remaining red dots advance toward the final, designated location, Tao Xingzhi had a sudden realization.

Even when Soul-possessing Spirits successfully inhabited human flesh, their thought processes and judgment weren’t necessarily the same as a human’s. This meant several of the contingency plans wouldn’t need to be activated.

’Perhaps the wives, mothers, and daughters who died are cursing these monstrous abominations, even at the moment their own consciousness was extinguished.’

With this thought, he approached the command console’s microphone again and pressed the transmit button.

"This is Command. The final phase of the plan is now in effect. Clot Team, prepare to engage. All Platelet units, activate!"

He took a deep breath, filled with the pent-up frustration and fury of the past few days.

"Everyone," he said. "Let’s end this!"

...

At all of Kyoto City’s major highway entrances, traffic police had stopped all inbound vehicles more than ten kilometers out. Outbound traffic, which was already sparse, was allowed to proceed without obstruction.

But gradually, the ordinary vehicles that were actually planning to leave the city began to be diverted off the main roads one by one.

Some drivers received calls from their neighborhood committees, others from the local police station, and some directly from the traffic police department at the DMV.

There weren’t many vehicles on the roads of Kyoto City tonight to begin with. By cross-referencing surveillance footage with the Witch’s positioning data, it was easy to identify which vehicles belonged to ordinary citizens. And for law enforcement, tracking down an owner’s phone number from a license plate was child’s play.

...

Lu Li and the other Spirit Mother sped toward the highway out of the city. As they neared the tollbooth, they could even see a few other cars in the distance.

The presence of other "human" vehicles gave them a slight sense of security.

What they didn’t know was that the drivers and passengers in those "ordinary human vehicles" in the distance were thinking the exact same thing.

As Spirit Mothers inhabiting flesh-and-blood hosts, they couldn’t sense others of their kind at close range the way Soul-possessing Spirits could in their incorporeal Yin Spirit form. They also didn’t dare use or even carry cell phones, which led to this misunderstanding.

Then, bright searchlights suddenly blazed to life at the tollbooth. From the darkness behind them, numerous vehicles suddenly swerved out from side roads. And from the distance, the thrum of helicopter rotors grew closer.

Lu Li and all the other surviving Spirit Mothers were reminded of that horrifying park.

This was another trap. The convergence of the ambush forces was like the clotting of an immune system, a funeral procession for all the surviving Spirit Mothers.

The long stretches of highway ahead and behind were clear of civilians. The Soldiers didn’t even bother trying to stop the cars.

From the blinding searchlights, from the military vehicles behind, from the sky above.

This time, what greeted the Spirit Mothers’ vehicles were missiles!

Even though using high-explosive incendiary munitions might damage the road, what burned in that moment was the fury of the Soldiers.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! ...

A fireworks display of explosions bloomed across the ground near every highway exit...

On the screen in the tactical command center, entire clusters of red dots vanished with each of the Witch’s divinations.

At 2:26 AM, including the last few stragglers who had slipped through the net within the city limits, every red dot on the main screen had disappeared.

By 3:00 AM sharp, small tissue samples—a leg, an ear, a finger—from every recoverable body had been sent to headquarters.

The Crystal Ball Witch performed another divination to confirm: no new targets were found.

Tao Xingzhi finally lit the cigarette he had been holding under his nose for most of the night.

With a sense of relief and profound feeling, he issued the final operational command of the night.

"All channels, this is Command..."

"Begin cleanup of the battlefields and clear the wreckage. The observation teams are going to have their work cut out for them these next few days. Good work, everyone..."

"We won!"

As Tao Xingzhi finally took a long, deep drag from his cigarette, cheers erupted in the tactical command center, among the tactical teams, and within every unit across the city that had participated in the operation.

P.S. Saturday’s second Chapter.