Chapter 758 - Conspiracy 2
The one week without rest was filled with explosions that could come from anywhere at any time as well as various means of attack that ranged from concealed poison needles to long-range sniper attacks, and carpet bombing to napalm bombs.
The slightest slip of attention would lead to attacks from various high-tech weapons until he was confirmed dead.
Any intention of getting close and killing off the pursuers would be detected by the Dark Colors Witches and experts from Holy Fist Palace. They would quickly retreat and activate debuffs with various slowing effects to deny him any chance of closing in on them. They would only attack him from afar.
Under these conditions, he’d struggled and yet managed to kill off two mixed groups of witches and Holy Fist Palace experts. However, even more of them appeared. Squads of death soldiers had emerged; a lot of them were criminals on death row that were released just to get close to him and detonate themselves.
He felt as if enemies were everywhere. During this period of time, the thing that made Hochman most alarmed were not those experts from Holy Fist Palace or the witches from Dark Colors, it was those ordinary people.
They used various tricks and deceptions to design traps, landmines, animals injected with toxic poison, hallucinogenic gas and all kinds of powerful army weapons on him.
In this kind of situation, nevermind him, even all those veteran death apostle leveled Blood Breeds would feel a headache with all these troubles.
Previously, Hochman had almost eaten a rat that was injected with toxic poison. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with the rat but it was a poison was slow in showing effects.
“Die! Hochman!” Xander fought wildly. All the veins on his face were bulging and he was even laughing loudly. He tapped at a few points on his chest.
“Polaris Fierce Arts!!”
Boom!!
A surge of air burst out as Xander activated his secret techniques.
Xander grew and expanded by a fold and smashed his thick arms towards Hochman. The momentum was similar to a large hammer trying to smash him to a pulp.
Hochman hurriedly raised both his arms and slashed towards his surroundings.
“Profound. Dual Blade!!”
Two snapping sounds occurred. His knife hands sliced and melded two invisible air blades to form a perfect ring. The upper part of the ring went for Xander’s face whereas the lower part flew towards Xander’s legs.
This was the original Waterbird Fist Profound’s Dual Blade.
Even if it was the currently exhausted Hochman who activated the secret techniques, the slashes still had the sharpness of a real blade.
Clang!!!
Too late to change their techniques, their attacks clashed against each other.
Xander’s arms destroyed the upper half of the air blade and hammered down on Hochman’s shoulders. The huge impact crashed down and the sound of breaking bones was heard.
At the same time, both of Xander’s legs were unable to dodge the air slash and were hit directly, tearing through his pants and left two bloody wounds.
Ah!!!!
Xander howled and quickly retreated while staggering. One of the subordinates quickly grabbed hold of him. His body reverted to normal, but his thigh had been cut deeply into by a finger’s length, almost cutting off his legs completely.
On the other hand, Hochman simply shifted his shoulders and set back his bones. Temporarily, it would not affect his actions.
He half-kneeled on the ground and coldly stared at Quentin.
“Just the two of you won’t be able to kill me,” he said.
“What if I join in?”
A lazy female voice sounded behind Hochman.
He jerked his head back and his pupils immediately shrank.
*****************
Armored vehicles sped down the highway. The streetlights flashed past one by one, almost connecting to form a neon yellow rope.
Garen sat in the first armored vehicle, looking at a laptop displaying a map with the latest information from the Intelligence Department.
The map still used red dots and red patches to indicate the extent of threats in different regions.
There were two drivers and the one dispatched to give an analysis of the map was a black male officer.
“Hochman has been surrounded in this area. Lady Tu Lan together with Generals Quentin and Xander have been dispatched there. They should have reached there by now. Of course, in order to catch our target alive and successfully retrieve the mask, our tactics are based on the objective of making our target fatigued and incapacitating him. Looks like the effects are quite good and we have successfully reduced Hochman’s combat capability significantly.”
“How significant?”
“His current combat power should barely be Upper Level, but in a situation where he still has to watch out for attacks from the surroundings, he should be at his weakest,” the officer answered.
“One week without rest and he still has so much strength. This is truly a surprise...” Garen held his chin and muttered.
He had a hunch that the hunt for Hochman this time to retrieve back his Soul Primer would lead him to the mysterious man that got Hochman to tear off the Soul Primer. What kind of person was able to do all these? He was feeling quite anxious.
‘Be careful. I got a bad feeling about this,’ Black Sethe’s voice sounded weakly.
“This is a conspiracy. From the moment my Soul Primer was torn off, I have no choice but to take action myself,” Garen said.
Black Sethe went silent. He knew what Garen said was not wrong.
If he did not reclaim the Soul Primer, he would have a fatal flaw. If he wanted to reclaim his Soul Primer, he had to kill Hochman himself. He only had these two choices, and there was no way around it.
Looking at the road and streetlights outside the window, Garen began to calm down himself and adjust his state.
*******************
At the sixth hour after Garen left the Holy Fist Palace.
The Blood Union sent out a large number of Blood Breeds armed with guns and other kinds of weapons to attack the Holy Fist Palace and its allies.
In just two hours’ time, the scale had escalated to an all-out war. A large number of casualties had occurred among both humans and Blood Breeds. The army had been dispatched, but the number of casualties still soared. The Blood Breeds deployed by the Blood Union numbered at least in the three digits, and their objective was to attack all the branches of Holy Fist Palace.
This represented that the Blood Union and Holy Fist Palace was officially going to war. The battlefield was mainly concentrated in America and the news reported it as terrorists waging their holy war and the army taking action against them.
The Dark Colors Witches Association was currently fighting against the traditional witches, but the strange thing was that the Death Apostle level members did not come out.
*******************
Tu Lan stood quietly behind Hochman. She wore a crisp white blouse matched with a pair of slightly washed out black jeans. Her long red hair was tied behind her head in a ponytail style, giving off an ordinary calm feeling.
However, it was this kind of calm temperament that made Hochman’s heartbeat stop for a second.
Although he had mentally prepared for this, when he was really faced with this terrifying Death Apostle Blood Breed that also wielded Fantasy Fist, he still felt an uncertain peril.
“You guys really overestimate me... Even Lady Tu Lan herself has come out...” Hochman gave a dry laugh.
“After combining with General Dahm’s yin nature Waterbird Fist, your fist technique should have reached an unimaginable level right? Looks like it has broken through to the Upper level,” Tu Lan’s expression showed indifference as she beckoned with her index finger. “I too broke through not long ago. Let’s both have a fair fight. The others will not do anything. How about it?”
Fair fight?
Hochman almost blew his top. He looked at the injuries all over his body. Right after he broke through the Waterbird Fist and reached the Death Apostle level, he had been chased down all over the place without any time for him to stabilize. After a week without rest, he’d then fought against Xander who stimulated his potential, adding to his injuries. He would be considered lucky if he had even half of his combat strength left. Now, he had to fight with a Death Apostle at the peak of her strength? He felt like the world had completely gone mad.
Tu Lan gave a smile.
“You don’t agree? Let me tell you a piece of news. The Holy Fist Master is on his way here. If you don’t grab your chance now, it will be too late to have a fair fight later.”
“The mask is with me. You guys don’t want it?” Hochman suddenly asked, taking out the eerie mask from his tattered clothes.
At this moment, Hochman’s expression showed surprise and his gaze moved to the mask in his hand.
Not just him, even Quentin, Xander, Tu Lan and other subordinates and soldiers’ gazes had all gathered on the eerie Sleepless Faces Mask.
Weng....
The mask trembled and the mouth part of the mask slightly opened.
“What is this...what’s going on?!” Hochman felt that he’d almost lost his grip on the mask. His other hand also grabbed on to the mask, finally suppressing its trembling.
“That is the mask’s resonance.”
Screams suddenly came from the jungle. The screams belonged to the soldiers lying in ambush.
At the same time, a clear male voice sounded from the forest. A man’s figure suddenly appeared behind Quentin and Xander.
“The mask’s resonance... The twelve masks, they are finally coming together....” another female voice suddenly sounded.
Without Tu Lan realizing, the enchanting figure of a beautiful woman walked out from the bushes on the right side of the crowd.
With the guns’ mechanical sounds, Tu Lan, Quentin, and Xander, together with all the subordinates they’d brought, aimed their guns at the people that had abruptly appeared.
The captain had a bad feeling. He looked at Commander Quentin and waited for her instructions. The soldiers here were specially selected Special Forces. Even in the face of such a bizarre situation, they did not take any reckless actions and waited for the commander’s instructions while suppressing their unease.
Quentin instinctively felt something dangerous enveloping all the people here. She looked at the current strongest person at this place, Tu Lan.
“Blood Union...” Tu Lan instantly recognized the scarlet Blood Union symbol on both of them. She also recognized both of them.
This kind of strength and this kind of atmosphere only appeared on a few people in the Blood Union. The only possibility was.....
“Death Apostles.....How did they appear here of all places?!” Tu Lan’s heart sank.
“That person was right, it’s here,” the female Death Apostle piped up. “How do we resolve this now?”
“No hurry, let’s wait a bit longer...” the blond male Death Apostle smiled. It was as though they did not notice that the surrounding gun muzzles were all aimed at them. “Garen will arrive soon...”
Compared to the tattered Death Apostle level Hochman, their identity as Blood Breed Death Apostles with immortal characteristics made them invincible. On the other hand, though Hochman had survival and combat abilities on the level of a Death Apostle, he was still a human. He still lacked the Blood Breed Death Apostle’s most powerful ability—immortality.