Chapter 140: Gunfire and Blood

Beneath the moonlight, the figure outside the door cast a very long shadow. That shadow stretched all the way inward from the threshold and stopped right in front of Jiang Wan.

She looked at the person outside, whose footsteps had halted there. He looked at the person inside the house, his stance retreating by a few inches.

The two gazed at each other. The extended, elongated shadow stopped right before them, though it was hard to tell whether the shadow had stopped on its own or if Jiang Wan had intercepted it.

She did not budge even half a step, so the shadow could not advance another half an inch, leaving it unknown whether the moonlight-stretched shadow would have been able to move any further.

They looked at each other across an ajar door, separated by mere dozens of meters, yet it felt as vast as the celestial river of stars in the sky.

Neither wished to cross over.

She raised her gun, her brow and eyes devoid of the slightest trace of mercy. Crouching slightly, she raised both arms diagonally up to her line of sight.

Her rear hand supported the firearm levelly, the iron sights rising into view from a forty-five-degree angle below. With a subtle shift, her arm drew close to her chest, the sights no longer aimed out at eye level; instead, she pressed the gun butt tightly against her body, attempting to use her own body weight to counteract the recoil.

The man outside watched, and chuckled aloud.

"Center Axis Relock."

His smile did not fade. With a gentle sway of his arms, the moment his palm brushed past his thigh, he flicked a sharp blade into his grasp. Tipping his head, he limbered up his muscles, bent his knees, and lowered his stance slightly, while his other hand swept across his neck, drawing out an identical blade.

Those two blades were steadied by his middle fingers, pinched between his index and ring fingers, with six or seven centimeters of the steel protruding past his palms.

"I haven't used these in a long time."

He rolled his neck. In that very same instant, the blades in his hands flew outward, released from his grip. Without twisting his body or winding up for power, with nothing more than a simple flick of the knives, he launched himself into a ferocious sprint forward.

Jiang Wan’s expression tightened, yet her gun did not aim at the flying blades. Bending lower, she pointed the muzzle roughly toward the space in front of her and fired three rapid shots directly at his chest.

"Bang, bang, bang."

Three gunshots echoed, yet not a single trace of blood appeared on the man’s body. Jiang Wan had no time to check; she twisted her left leg, exerting a sudden, explosive force in the opposite direction. The tremendous thrust propelled her body leaping away to the right. Before she could even steady herself, the man was already upon her.

That pale, razor-thin blade swept toward her throat, carrying a ferocious, murderous intent born to harvest life.

Her expression grew stern as she threw her head back. That streak of biting cold swept past her front like a migrating swallow over level sand, the accompanying air currents stinging her skin. Without altering her grip on the gun, she slammed her elbow fiercely down onto the floor tiles, and the pistol—angled diagonally across her chest—fired another three-shot burst.

Yet the man seemed to have anticipated this. He tossed the blade in his hand straight ahead—an action performed even after she had pulled the trigger—and yet that blade still intercepted the brass-cased bullets.

Jiang Wan’s complexion changed drastically. They were less than half a meter apart, yet he was actually able to block them?!

Narrowing her gaze, she kicked out with the leg that had been braced against the ground, aiming straight for his waist. Supported by her elbow and right foot, she used the upward momentum of the kick to lift her upper body into the air.

The man was still smiling cheerfully. With a block of his left hand at his waist, his wrist collided with Jiang Wan’s ankle. There was a dull ache, but nothing serious.

Seeing Jiang Wan recover her footing, he showed no intention of pressing the attack.

Anxiety gnawed at Jiang Wan’s heart. Finding that her successive attacks yielded no results, her strikes grew increasingly reckless.

Retreating half a step at an angle, she aimed her gun at his chest and lower abdomen, firing three more shots.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

Yet despite the three gunshots, the objects batted away were once again those three pristine blades.

"Not a mortal artifact..." She furrowed her brow, her heart pounding frantically like a drum.

Urgency, fear, and a tangle of other emotions surged within her chest, driving her to close the distance once more with the man before her.

Since ranged attacks failed to reach him, she would fight him face-to-face!

Her gaze was frigid, born of absolute confidence in everything she had learned throughout her life. She shifted from a two-handed grip to a single hand, and her freed right hand drew a sharp blade from inside her shoe.

She pressed forward fiercely, and that streak of biting coldness clashed with steel in the air.

With a sharp clang, the barrel of the gun in Jiang Wan’s left hand pointed directly at his waist. A gunshot rang out, unleashing flames carrying the searing heat of four millennia of human history.

As the explosion of gunfire echoed, the blade—laden with the extraordinary and the bizarre—met the weapon head-on.

Jiang Wan’s expression showed no fear. It was still not close enough.

If close combat wasn't enough, she would shove the muzzle right down his throat.

With a twist of her wrist, she leveraged her dagger to thrust downward, the two sharp blades scraping against each other in the night to spark brilliant clusters of fire.

"Little girl... how many bullets do you have left?"

He looked at Jiang Wan before him and suddenly smiled. "Three, three, three, one. How many bullets do you have left? Two? Or seven?"

...

Out on the street, a vast expanse of scattered blood stained the ground entirely red.