# 522
Chapter 522
The Art of Combat
“[Domain of No-Boundaries] ready.”
“Breach the building.”
Han Qing snapped the order; the seven cloaked members of Team 007 surrounding the construction site shot forward at once, racing toward the half-finished tower at the center.
Seven dark-red cloaks streaked across the gray-brown ground, every footstep whipping up clouds of sand.
Shing—!
Straight Blades flashed from their sheaths in perfect unison.
“Formation 3-3-1,” Han Qing commanded coolly.
She reached the base of the tower, dropped into a crouch, then exploded upward like a shell, spider-web cracks rippling across the ground.
Without any outside help she cleared nearly eight storeys in that single leap.
Her toes brushed the eighth-floor ledge, and she vaulted upward again light as a feather—twelfth floor, sixteenth floor…
After three rebounds she swung onto the unfinished twentieth level.
She knelt, fingers flicking through the air; veins of violet flame spread like a spider-web, blooming mid-air into a burning purple eye that hovered above the tower.
Meanwhile, on the ground floor, the remaining six split into two three-man fire-teams and stormed in from opposite sides.
Formation 3-3-1: one of Team 007’s standard tactics for vertical combat. Deputy captain Han Qing held the roof to stop the “Mystery” escaping; the other two groups swept upward from different directions, each able to fight the creature alone.
Once the target was located they would converge, and Han Qing would descend with thunderous force to finish it.
The formation was one of their most effective answers to “Mystery” incidents.
Qi Xiaoyu, Yang Letong and Zhao Kun formed one triangle. They raced upward, clearing six floors in moments and charging into the seventh.
The instant they stepped onto level seven, a figure stood waiting in the center.
Yang Letong’s pupils shrank.
“Target spotted!” he roared, sprinting forward without hesitation.
As he ran his body glowed slate-grey; the temperature around him soared, every footstep melting the concrete like lava.
Behind him Zhao Kun reacted just as fast. He swept a hand through the air and the water tank parked outside burst; a column of water arched up to the seventh-floor windows.
In 3-3-1 each trio was drilled to complement the others. Zhao Kun’s Forbidden Ruins could command water, but needed a long wind-up; the savage, short-range power of Yang Letong’s Ruins filled that deadly gap.
Qi Xiaoyu herself was the team radar—precious, but with almost no front-line strength.
Yet the moment Yang Letong reached the figure, his eyes widened.
Leaning against a pillar was the actor who had left the theatre—bound with tape and fixed to the column. The crimson-eyed black shadow that had clung to him was gone…
“Decoy!” Yang Letong realised.
A black silhouette dropped from the ceiling darkness behind Zhao Kun. A single blood-red eye glared from its forehead.
In the next instant it melted into Zhao Kun’s body, sheathing him in shadow.
Zhao Kun stiffened. Two mental forces collided inside his skull; he was only Sea realm and lost control in seconds.
His consciousness sank into sleep.
His eyes closed—then snapped open again, a scarlet-black iris in the centre of his forehead.
A thin smile curled his lips.
He spun his Straight Blade and cracked the pommel against Qi Xiaoyu’s skull, dropping her unconscious. Then he beckoned.
Boom—!!!
A lance of high-pressure water blasted through the window and slammed into Yang Letong. The slate-grey glow on his skin turned the water to live steam, but the terrifying pressure lifted him off his feet and hurled him through the glass, plummeting toward the ground.
Crimson-Eye Zhao Kun walked to a corner, shrugged on the dripping overcoat, set a black bowler on his head, and strolled to the centre of the floor, cane in hand.
He tapped the floor with the cane’s tip.
The ring of high-pressure water condensed into a hammer and smashed downward, punching straight through the slab.
The water-hammer did not stop; it drove on, floor after floor, carrying the leader of the second trio with it.
Boom-boom-boom—!
Detonations echoed below.
His control was exquisite: a vertical shaft seven storeys deep, yet the load-bearing columns untouched.
Dust billowed. From the other trio the two survivors burst through the haze, blades gleaming.
Crimson-Eye Zhao Kun lifted the unconscious Qi Xiaoyu, carried her to the edge of the hole and dropped her.
“Kill me or save her—your choice,” he said pleasantly.
Unlike the tough Yang Letong, Qi Xiaoyu was a fragile sensor. Even at Sea realm, an seven-storey fall while unconscious would maim or kill.
As expected, one of the two cursed and dived after her; the other vaulted up from the fifth floor, murder in his eyes.
Zhao Kun touched his bowler, sensed something, and stepped back five paces.
A violet-red thunderbolt tore through a dozen floors and speared the spot he had just left—
—only to catch the leaping agent full in the chest.
The man grunted, eyes rolling back, and dropped like a stone through the hole toward the ground floor.