Chapter 222: Getting Others to Do Your Dirty Work
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
In all fairness, Lin Sanjiu had to admit that if she was in Silvan's position, she wouldn't dare to do such a brazen thing. Firstly, she wouldn't trust an enemy who was obviously trying to escape. However, Silvan seemed to trust her words instantly. He didn't show even a hint of hesitation. Courageous wasn't the right word to describe this man, instead, he exuded a sort of assertiveness. He didn't even have to explain himself. Lin Sanjiu could feel that his assertiveness came from a confidence that was near arrogance. Apparently, he did not even care about the possible risks involved.
He basically showed a 'I know you are up to something but I don't care' attitude.
"Can such a person be just a member of a small team?" Lin Sanjiu tried to recall what the other members looked like, but she only had a hazy impression. None of them left such a lasting impression as Silvan.
Silvan stood in the quiet, dim elevator lobby of the building. He smacked the upward button beside the elevator absent-mindedly. The elevator immediately hummed softly as it came down from the 26th floor. Just a day ago, Lin Sanjiu probably wouldn't believe that she would return to this building voluntarily.
But her mentality was totally different now. No matter what this building was planning, she hoped that it would just act quickly. "My teammates did enter this building to retrieve that 'Gangrene Chaser'... But, how did you know that they did find that duoluozhong first?" As he said that, Silvan had already pulled down his ballistic eyewear and fit them properly on his face once again. With his striking looks half concealed, he immediately looked more reserved, appearing to be just an average handsome man. Lin Sanjiu stopped for a moment and tried to listen for the sounds within her scanning range.
There was only a dead-like silence in the building. She couldn't hear a single noise.
"If they found that item, it wouldn't be this quiet," Lin Sanjiu wrote quickly. Of course, she hid the fact that the silence proved that his teammates had already fallen into the building's trap. Silvan didn't reply, instead, he stared at the numeral display in the elevator.
After some time, he asked, "Which floor?"
"26." Lin Sanjiu wrote.
Even though the black arrow was always trapped on the 26th floor, Lin Sanjiu was confident that when they went there, they would not find the black arrow. The elevator door open slowly.
"You mentioned that you are not a duoluozhong. What are you then?" Silvan asked curiously as he pressed the button marked 26. He sounded sincere, but Lin Sanjiu couldn't really tell if he believed her. "Someone who didn't corrode their own eyes with black matter probably can't see you, right?"
"So, this team used the same method..." Lin Sanjiu thought to herself. She gave him an ambiguous answer, "This is my ability. I can revert back to my human form." After that, Lin Sanjiu had a sudden thought. She remembered that the siblings had told her that they learn about the method of corroding their eyes from someone else's experience when they were back in Red Nautilus. If that was the case—
"Could you guys be from the Twelve Centrum?" she couldn't help asking.
Silvan lowered his head slightly. He was holding the cylindrical container that Lin Sanjiu was in. He eyed Lin Sanjiu and immediately laughed.
"You too? But if you are from the Twelve World Centrum, how could you not recognize this?" He patted the emblem on his shoulder lightly as he said this. His tone was a little weird when he said the word 'this'. As he pointed to it, he revealed his slight contempt and a subtle amusement before pulling his slender fingers away.
Lin Sanjiu had noticed that emblem ages ago, but she didn't know what it symbolized. The emblem had a silver black outline. In the middle, there was a beautiful warhammer. There was an eagle with extended wings in the background of the emblem. It looked imposing.
Just when she was feeling a little hesitant as to whether she should question the man further, Silvan spoke first.
"There's no harm in telling you," he said indifferently, but he seemed to be holding back some emotions, "I didn't come here from any of the worlds in the Twelve World Centrum... I come from 'The Munitions Factory'."
"The Munitions Factory!" Lin Sanjiu, who was in the container, was shocked when she heard this. She had heard the name of this place many times. She heard it first from Shen Lianqi 1 and recently from siblings. Almost everyone from the Twelve Centrum had mentioned this name. Between the lines, Lin Sanjiu could tell that The Munitions Factory was an unavoidable subject of discussion if you lived in the Twelve Worlds Centrum. It seemed to be some sort of large organization.
That explained why the men were so well-equipped. In her higher consciousness form, Lin Sanjiu had been sucked into this container without even a chance to resist.
"But why does The Munitions Factory need to catch duoluozhongs?" Lin Sanjiu pondered.
Noticing that the weird thing in the container had not responded for some time, Silvan seemed a little baffled. "Apparently, you are not from the Twelve World Centrum," he said with certainty. His following words immediately stunned Lin Sanjiu, "You probably met residents from the Twelve World Centrum. Speaking of which... The people who were lying at the entrance of the train station seem to be the same people in the pharmacy store... Are they from the Twelve World Centrum? They are badly injured but still alive. Their wounds were also tended. Are they your friends?
"If that is so, you really might not be a duoluozhong." After Silvan said this casually, the elevator door opened slowly and he walked out of the elevator. Lin Sanjiu didn't read his expression because she was still stunned. She simply asked a question from her own speculations, instead, the man managed to infer so much about her based on that. Furthermore, he got everything right. The man's quick wit was certainly worthy of praise. She suddenly felt unsure about her plan to use the building to get rid of the team of men.
"Let's hope that it works." Lin Sanjiu thought to herself. When she found herself in the familiar dim corridors, Lin Sanjiu felt that the events that happened to her in this place seemed to be a lifetime ago. When Lin Sanjiu recalled the scenes of her escape, she couldn't help looking at the man beside her. Silvan appeared as relaxed as before, as if he had just found another place to stroll around.
Thankfully, the building did not let her down.
They heard a sudden 'click' coming from the locked door of an apartment unit ahead. The door slowly swung open. From where they were standing, they could only see a few fingers at the edge of the door.
"Is Silvan's teammate behind that door, or—" Before Lin Sanjiu could finish her train of thoughts, Silvan threw the container which Lin Sanjiu was in aside. A black gun barrel appeared silently by his wrist. Next, Silvan aimed the line of blue flames from his gun at the door. The flames swallowed the door instantaneously.
"This is your chance!" Mrs. Manas shouted in Lin Sanjiu's mind. Lin Sanjiu who had already been prepared, did not waste a single second. She quickly activated and gathered all her higher consciousness together. She started compressing them as if her life depended on it.
While the torrent of flames continued engulfing the door, Lin Sanjiu was thrust into a pain she had never experienced in her life before. Usually, compressing two strands of higher consciousness was hard enough for her. Right now, she was trying to compress all her higher consciousness as much as possible. Even though she didn't have her physical body, she could not deny the bone-shattering pain she felt.
"Damn it. I'm giving up. I might not die even if I'm captured." Such thoughts surfaced in Lin Sanjiu's mind and it was very tempting to just give in to them. While enduring the vivid pain, Lin Sanjiu tried her best to curb her impulse to just give up. Though the vague encouragements from Mrs. Manas, a few words pierced through the haziness of her pain like the first light of dawn. "Do it now!" She heard those words very clearly.
If Silvan were to look at the cylindrical container at that point, he would have noticed that the weird creature in it was becoming smaller and smaller. It finally condensed itself to a size of an apple. In that condition, it glowed erratically as if in an unstable state. Suddenly, there was a loud explosion. The blue flames from his gun finally stopped as he turned around. At the same time, the container exploded into bits. The swelling black shadow from within shot out of the window like an arrow on a taut bow. It disappeared into the boundless sky.
"I didn't expect it to act so quickly," Silvan leaped up from the ground and stared at the broken fragments of the container. Her eyes revealed his slight amazement. "That is The Munition Factory's newest—oh, I forgot you are still here." He looked at the person who had just walked out from the door and threw his thoughts about that weird thing to the back of his mind.