“Hide in the corner, we’ll handle it.” Gloria whispered to the rest of the team, then turned and followed Marcus’ lead to head to the both sides of the door.
“Be careful!” Kevin hesitated on whether he should join the two, but decided to go hiding in the lower staircase corner with the rest of the group. It could be those armed men, and if that was the case he would only be a burden.
“Approaching black black box on level B-0, we’re entering from the interior platforms.” A faint, muffled voice seeped through the wall and the cracks around the door frame.
Gloria raised three fingers at Marcus, while mouthing the word “three”. Marcus nodded back and lowered his body, ready to attack the moment whoever behind the door would come in.
“Bang!” The door was kicked open and two men in black rushed in with their guns pointing sideways to clear their flanks. But before they could swing full way and take aim at anything or anyone, Gloria and Marcus hand already grabbed their guns from the side.
“Crack!” “Crack!” Gloria’s elbow and Marcus’ palm broke the two men’s helmets and bashed them in the nose and chin. Both men grunted. Before they could fight back, they were pulled from their positions and slammed into the ground. The ground cracked beneath their bodies.
“Hostile - ” The final man in the middle tried to warn somebody on the radio, but his head endured two strikes from both left and right. His helmet crumbled, hardened fiber splinters burst in all directions. Blood shot from his nostrils and mouth. Even if he was to survive, it would take him forever to recover.
“Shit - they have comms!” Gloria whispered.
All three men were knocked out by the attacks. Gloria and Marcus checked their helmets - all of the communication modules embedded inside the helmets were damaged by their attacks.
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Each of the three men brought two guns with them - one rifle and one pistol, both seemed like some kind of standardized issue firearm but never seen by either Gloria or Marcus. There also appeared to be some kind of electronic component on the trigger as well as the handles. From the looks of the spare magazines, they were using non standard caliber bullets with dark red tips and cartridges with symbols engraved.
“Cinnabar tip, blessed cartridges, are these - are these anti-spirit bullets?” Gloria frowned: “That - that’s a first for me but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“These are sensors.” Marcus pointed at two strips of metal on one rifle’s handle and trigger: “I - I remember there was talk about some DNA-encoded weapons in development, but - maybe let’s ask Mick.”
In order to be safe, they dragged the rifles using straps the guns came with to the rest of the team. All three of these men brought the same kind of defensive artifact, like jade buddha amulets, small but comparatively more meticulous bagua mirrors, talismans and even leather armor with array or talisman-style writing engravings. None of them brought any identification with them, though.
“So - they probably are the armed men Liaowu warned us about?” Kevin nodded at Gloria and Marcus: “They will notice they’re missing sooner or later, we must hurry.”
“I’m positive that you are right, Marcus, unfortunately.” Mick shook his head and pushed the rifle and pistol back to Marcus: “They look almost exactly like some of the DNA-encoded firearms I’ve seen from demos. I wouldn’t suggest we use this - they may come with some kind of self-destruct mechanism, which can be dangerous.”
“And the bullets don’t fit, they’re specialized calibers.” Kevin shook his head while raising a bullet: “I don’t think our guns could fire them.”
“Well - there’s - there’s one way to test if there IS a self destruct mechanism without putting ourselves in danger.” Marcus shrugged after a few seconds of thought, his eye drifting towards the men in black they knocked down.
“Marcus, no!” Gloria and Kevin raised their voices at the same time.
On an upper platform near the giant hole, Master Liaoran picked up a few pieces of decayed and cracked wooden carvings on the ground. The integrity of these carvings was already heavily compromised, and they just simply crumbled and turned to ashes as they stayed in the master’s hand for only a few moments.
“Mother and Daughter Butchers.” Master Liaoran mumbled, his eyes gradually turning sharp.First it was the incubation room of malicious spirits, now it’s these carving spells. It was surely something he would need to handle himself, and not let Marcus and Gloria get too involved.
Before he was ready to leave, a somewhat familiar gong sound came from behind him.
“Fresh meat. ” “Fresh meat!” Two voices came along with the gong, one was hoarse and lower pitched, one was squeaky and higher pitched.
Master Liaoran looked back. It was a floating spirit with two gruesome, bloody heads that were mirror images of each other, but with only one obese, rotten and grotesque shared body wrapped in a dirty white gown.
“Fresh meat! ” “Good eats!” The two almost identical heads exclaimed at the same time, their crooked, bloodshot eyes fixed on Master Liaoran, their slender arms and fingers covered in pus oozing sores extended forward, aiming at the master’s neck: “FRESH MEAT!”