As soon as the spinning stopped, they fell straight down. Fortunately, all three reacted quickly. Seeing trouble, they used their core strength to flip and land steadily.
Looking again, the ground they’d just stood on had become the current ceiling. All the lights had disappeared, leaving the corridor pitch black.
“Baby, are you okay?” Zhan Pingchuan steadied himself and asked urgently.
Lance braced against the ground and stood up. “I’m fine. Where’s Lily?”
Lily: “I’m fine, of course.”
“Where are the lights? What’s happening?”
“Hey, who’s there?”
“Guards! There are outsiders here!”
“Fuck, scared the hell out of me.”
“Hey, are you Black Lantern Society? I’ll give you money—how about rescuing me?”
“How many of you died? Only three left?”
“Haha, still trying to break into AGW prison? Don’t be ridiculous—no one’s succeeded in over a hundred years!”
“You’ve fallen into a trap! Now you’ll be imprisoned with us!”
…
The prisoners in this corridor were excited by this sudden accident. They chattered noisily with foul language.
Zhan Pingchuan automatically filtered out the crude words, groping in the darkness to grab Lance’s wrist. “We should be on the fifth floor now.”
Lance exhaled lightly, gripping Zhan Pingchuan with one hand and grabbing Lily’s collar with the other. “Looks like finding an alternative route can’t escape the opponent’s control.”
“Right, what did you say was wrong just now?” Zhan Pingchuan asked.
Lance frowned slightly, recalling: “Just now, the person imprisoned in the cell next to us wasn’t wearing rare lead ore handcuffs.”
Prisoners not on the second level generally wouldn’t catch his attention, so he’d only glanced briefly. This meant the image his eyes captured hadn’t directly entered his thought process.
In the time it took to turn his head, he belatedly noticed something strange.
It was precisely this difference that triggered his sensitive nerves, but when he wanted to turn back for a closer look, the change occurred.
“Could it be that person isn’t an Awakened at all, so doesn’t need rare lead ore restraints?” Zhan Pingchuan speculated.
Lance shook his head. “Since entering the prison, he’s the first prisoner I’ve encountered without rare lead ore. They say everyone who enters the AGW Special Dangerous Death Row Prison is extremely vicious—what extremely vicious things could an ordinary person without abilities do in modern times?”
Zhan Pingchuan said, “Perhaps he’s not a serial killer, but someone who opposed the Federation government as Uriel mentioned, or a Utopian seeking revenge.”
Lance said, “That’s certainly possible, but the entire fourth floor has four or five people per cell, yet he’s alone in one. He must be special somehow.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?” Zhan Pingchuan asked.
Lance: “No, I barely saw him. He probably covered his face with his hair.”
Zhan Pingchuan looked up at the ceiling that had become the floor. “Should I drill another hole so we can go up and get a clear look?”
This time Lance stopped him, asking worriedly, “How much longer can your pheromones last?”
From when Zhan Pingchuan suddenly activated his fourth-tier ability until now, they hadn’t had a proper rest.
Though body cells continuously synthesized pheromones, current consumption far exceeded synthesis speed. More troublesome was that Fata wasn’t with them—they had no pills to stimulate rapid pheromone generation.
Zhan Pingchuan suddenly fell silent, then said with forced lightness, “Don’t worry, baby. Hubby’s pheromones are definitely enough.”
This silence gave Lance a rough idea.
“The prison is full of dangers. We can’t waste more pheromones. The fifth floor isn’t essentially different from the fourth—the opponent won’t let us reach the second level. As for that person in the cell, I guess they won’t let us easily contact him either.”
There was another thing Lance didn’t say—he guessed the opponent would act soon. They were about to face a fierce battle, and Zhan Pingchuan would need massive pheromone consumption.
Sure enough, after a while, chaotic footsteps came from the distance—
“Hurry! They’re inside!”
“They don’t have night vision goggles—now’s the best chance. Assault team, prepare!”
“I see them! Those three people!”
“Report, Black Lantern Society member White Pharaoh and member Son-in-law spotted.”
Zhan Pingchuan: “?” Who’s member Son-in-law?
Before Zhan Pingchuan could figure it out, rare lead ore bullets came whistling through the air.
Thanks to Zhan Pingchuan’s S-level perception and reaction ability, he sensed the air movement and pushed Lance away. “Watch out!”
The bullet grazed between them!
Immediately, more bullets shot over. In complete darkness, the limited corridor became a terrifying shooting range.
Zhan Pingchuan’s barriers couldn’t block rare lead ore bullets, and with pitch blackness ahead and chaotic sounds around them, they couldn’t determine the guards’ positions at all.
It was too passive!
Zhan Pingchuan had to summon enough silver threads as projectiles, shooting them toward the gunfire.
But the silver threads vanished before reaching the guards.
Zhan Pingchuan was incredulous. Even if he couldn’t see clearly, with the threads’ density, probability alone should have hit someone.
Lance immediately realized: “They’re wearing rare lead ore—they’re immune to any abilities!”
The guards weren’t all Awakened—there were ordinary people too. Ordinary people had no reaction to rare lead ore, so wearing it was like donning armor specifically designed against Awakened.
Hearing this, Zhan Pingchuan had a flash of inspiration. He quickly cut open nearby cell bars, pulling Lance and Lily inside as bullets whistled past them, clanging against bars and walls.
The prisoners who’d been spewing profanity were instantly terrified. Zhan Pingchuan moved like lightning, silencing their cries and cleanly snapping their necks.
Several corpses collapsed limply, becoming the handiest shields.
“Use them as cover!”
Lance instantly understood. He grabbed a prisoner as a shield, reached for a gun, and fired back at the guards.
Bang bang bang!
After several shots, Lance heard a cry of pain—a guard was hit and fell.
“Shit! Watch out for Black Lantern Society’s weapons!”
“They’re using prisoners as cover. The cell space is narrow—they can’t hide long. Charge!”
The chaotic footsteps grew closer. Lance prepared for battle while Lily, using her light body, climbed along the wall to the ceiling. She braced herself on the roof, aiming down at the cell door.
Zhan Pingchuan, following the principle of discretion being the better part of valor, summoned silver threads again to drill into the floor.
This time he didn’t target the ceiling, fearing they’d return to the fourth floor only to be sent back to the fifth by the old madman—that would be wasted effort.
Soon, the cut stone slab crashed down, causing an uproar on the sixth floor. Simultaneously, guards rushed to the cell door.
Lily grinned and pulled the trigger overhead. The bullet pierced the guard’s forehead and exited through the back of his skull!
“Ah!”
“Above!”
Thud!
Three guards fell in succession.
“Now!” Zhan Pingchuan shouted.
The three quickly jumped down to the sixth floor under cover of the prisoners’ corpses, leaving only a crooked hole.
“They escaped!”
“Damn, still a step too late!”
The guards rushed over, leaning over the hole’s edge, about to step down.
They heard Zhan Pingchuan’s cold laugh from below: “Come down. I’ll kill whoever comes down.”
“…” The guards silently pulled back their legs.
Now they lacked visual advantage, and the hole wasn’t big enough for them all to squeeze through. Going down one by one was pure suicide.
“You can’t escape!” a guard snarled, then pulled out his radio to report. “Sixth floor attention, sixth floor attention! White Pharaoh, Son-in-law, and one other have reached your area. Deploy personnel for immediate elimination!”
With crackling sounds, the radio replied: “Sixth floor received, sixth floor received!”
Zhan Pingchuan: “?” Who exactly is Son-in-law?
“Let’s go!”
Just as Zhan Pingchuan wanted to politely inquire, Lance yanked him away.
The sixth floor—not far from where they’d separated from the main force. If they could regroup, they could get Fata’s pills in time.
Being pulled by his wife, Zhan Pingchuan split open the bars while telling the bewildered prisoners: “There’s a hole in the roof. Be careful of things falling when you sleep.”
The prisoners silently watched Black Lantern Society leave via the broken bars.
What the hell? Are they sick?
Walking in the brightly lit corridor again, Lance began paying attention to the imprisoned criminals.
Sure enough, each cell held at least three people, with some packed with six or seven. But he had a vague premonition he’d encounter single-occupancy situations again.
Lance walked along the corridor, the imprisoned criminals watching him curiously while he carefully examined them.
This corridor didn’t seem straight but curved, though the increasingly bright lights ahead suggested they were about to exit.
According to normal building structure, exiting should lead to the central well staircase, so…
Lance squinted slightly. He didn’t believe this corridor would lack what he was looking for. With about fifty meters left to the exit, perhaps it would be within these fifty meters.
He took another step forward—
“Watch out!”
Just then, an urgent female voice came from a cell door ahead and to the side. Lance immediately stopped and looked toward the sound.
“There’s a wall ahead, not a path.”
In the shadows, a pale, delicate face lifted. Her lips bore slight bruises, her eyes showed fatigue, and her black hair was tied back with the ends inevitably stained with dust.
Lance saw that face and a flash of disbelief crossed his eyes. “Deng Zhi?”
Deng Zhi was stunned, raising her black glass-like eyes to carefully examine the three people in black hoods. She couldn’t see their faces, but the voice was familiar.
“Is… is that White Pharaoh?” she asked with a trembling voice, then immediately broke into violent coughing.
She coughed up some blood, which stained her lips before being quickly wiped away with the back of her hand.
“She’s Deng Zhi?” Zhan Pingchuan raised an eyebrow, turning his head to observe carefully.
The girl was frail, her prison uniform rough—she looked quite disheveled, clearly having endured extremely harsh treatment.
Zhan Pingchuan couldn’t bear to look. For an Omega in this prison, every moment was torture.
Seeing Lance’s tacit confirmation of his identity, Deng Zhi gradually became excited. She gripped the bars tightly, tears welling in her eyes, teeth chattering slightly as she mumbled three words: “I’m sorry…”
Zhan Pingchuan felt uncomfortable listening and used his ability to cut through Deng Zhi’s bars. “Come out first.”
Deng Zhi lowered her eyes, her emotions dejected. “Don’t save me. It’s all my fault—I harmed Mad Clown. If I hadn’t meddled, helping a blind old man, I wouldn’t have been targeted by War God Guild, and I wouldn’t have led Mad Clown into a trap under Si Hongche’s ability control.”
Lance asked Deng Zhi, “Weren’t you killed by the Federation? How are you here?”
Deng Zhi’s eyelashes trembled as she shook her head gently. “After they learned my ability was [Limb Regeneration], they didn’t want to kill me anymore. They want me to continuously provide them with pheromones, to become a ‘pack mule.'”
Without guessing, Lance knew pack mules referred to these pheromone suppliers—the Federation didn’t even treat them as human.
Lance softened his tone. “Come out. It’s not your fault.”
Deng Zhi shook her head shamefully, glancing at the rare lead ore shackles on her wrists and ankles. “I have no fighting ability now—I’ll be a burden to you.”
Lance smiled inadvertently at this. “Have you forgotten? With me here, none of them matter.”
Deng Zhi looked up, her gaze pausing. Half a second later, her throat tightened with emotion, and she finally stood up.
She dragged her battered body slowly out of the cell, standing before Lance. “Thank—”
Her weak gratitude was cut short as Lance’s eyes suddenly turned sharp. He drew his M1911, chambered a round with a flick, aimed at Deng Zhi’s forehead, and pulled the trigger without hesitation!
—
**
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152