Chapter 691: Gunshot

Pop!

A soft sound was heard, and the head of a Tier 2 bodyguard was flung into the rain. His face was contorted in a grimace, eyes wide with fury and indignation, as he stared at the four towering silver figures.

He was the bodyguard holding the detonator. During the recent melee, he had attempted to lure the silver figures toward the second trap. However, his strength was not comparable to the Tier 3 Xiao Wu; he had only managed to draw them half a street away before two silver figures seized the opportunity, decapitating him from behind.

The detonator rolled across the distant ground with a gurgling sound. Blood sprayed like a fountain, splashing over the two nearest silver figures, cloaking them in crimson and making them appear terrifyingly grim.

Huang Suye witnessed this scene firsthand, her face turning ashen.

It was clear that these three Tier 2 bodyguards alone could not possibly stop six silver figures. The sheer numerical disparity meant they couldn't even lure them into a trap. The crisis of impending death and a profound sense of despair washed over Huang Suye in the rain, almost suffocating her.

Instinctively, she wanted to flee, to dart down the nearby underground stairs and hide in the safe shelter, escaping this bloody battlefield and the silver figures about to pounce on her.

But her rationality told her she absolutely could not move.

The silver figures had been watching her. If she entered the underground shelter, she would expose its location, leading to a massacre of not only herself but also the fifty thousand refugees inside.

If those silver figures breached the underground, the fifty thousand refugees would have nowhere to run, and the shelter would become a bloody inferno.

"Damn it... damn it!!" another blood-soaked bodyguard, still desperately fighting to hold back two silver figures, exclaimed, his eyes bloodshot.

"I'll fight you to the death!"

He roared, his divine energy erupting to its peak, carrying the scattered rain as he charged into the two silver figures. For a moment, he actually held them back, but it wasn't long before another blood-soaked silver figure lunged from behind, severing one of his arms with a single strike.

A desperate scream echoed across the sky. A child, peeking out from a drainpipe, turned ashen with fear and trembled violently.

Standing at the shelter's entrance, Huang Suye caught this scene in her peripheral vision. Her pupils contracted slightly as she discerned the small figure hidden behind the drainpipe. After a brief moment of surprise, she looked at the child with an incredibly complex gaze.

This small drainpipe served as a conduit, connecting the bloody, desperate battlefield with the safe, peaceful shelter. At this moment, two figures, existing in different worlds and facing disparate fates, met each other's gaze.

Looking at the child, Huang Suye involuntarily recalled the young man who had died before her eyes outside the city, succumbing to an infected wound.

At that time, she had carried an entire convoy's worth of wealth, yet she couldn't save the young man's life. Now, having spent all her fortune, she had the chance to save tens of thousands of lives.

As she looked into those eyes—filled with fear yet possessing a child's pure innocence—Huang Suye's body, which had been trembling with despair, suddenly grew calm.

The slaughter drew closer, despair spread, and imperceptibly, the street had been stained crimson.

Huang Suye stood amidst the crimson, like a lamb awaiting death; she had nowhere left to run. Yet, despite this, she managed to force a smile, gently raising a fingertip to her lips in a shushing gesture toward the child behind the drainpipe.

"Shhh—"

"Miss Huang..."

In the shop across the street, Kong Baosheng's face was etched with extreme anxiety.

Kong Baosheng had been hiding under a table in the shop since earlier. Just as he was about to head for the shelter, he witnessed two silver figures kill Xiao Wu, which terrified him and sent him back into hiding. Consequently, he wasn't directly exposed on the street like Huang Suye and the others, and the silver figures hadn't detected his presence at all.

He watched as six silver figures cornered Huang Suye, and her bodyguards fell one by one. His heart instantly leapt into his throat.

"What can I do... what can I do..."

Kong Baosheng wanted to help Huang Suye, but he didn't know how. Ultimately, he was just an ordinary person.

"Isn't there anything that could attract those monsters' attention?"

Kong Baosheng glanced around, and after a moment's hesitation, he hunched low and slipped behind the shop. He then climbed over two walls, re-entering the courtyard of the Jinghong Tower.

He ran quickly back to the stage, treading through muddy soil, and rummaged through a heavy wooden box.

Opera robes, stage makeup, decorative spears, gongs—Kong Baosheng tossed large and small items everywhere. Finally, he pulled out a wind-up wooden horse he had played with as a child.

Kong Baosheng stared at the wind-up wooden horse for a moment, then, still frowning, tossed it aside with a long sigh.

He felt too naive. How could silver figures, capable of destroying a street with a mere gesture, be attracted by a small, broken wooden horse? Not even the wildest fantasy would dare to write such a thing.

"Is there no other way?!"

Kong Baosheng looked back out the window. On the street not far away, the second bodyguard had also been decapitated. Even though they had fought to the death and taken down one silver figure, five blood-soaked figures still approached the last bodyguard and Huang Suye like reapers of death.

Just then, Kong Baosheng seemed to notice something. His gaze suddenly fell upon the detonator, lying in the rain at the theater's entrance, steeped in blood.

He froze in place.

His mind immediately flashed back to the earth-shattering explosion from earlier, and before that, to the bodyguards who had bustled into the sugar shop.

Kong Baosheng's fists involuntarily clenched.

A silver figure, its body largely shattered, slowly rose from the pool of blood.

After the last bodyguard traded his life for another, the original six silver figures were reduced to four. Two of them turned their attention to Huang Suye, the only person left on the street, and walked directly towards her.

The other two silver figures did not target Huang Suye; in their eyes, she was already dead.

They dispersed into the surrounding streets, continuing to meticulously search for any signs of refugees. One of them was approaching the entrance of the shelter.

Meanwhile, Huang Suye was continuously backing away as two silver figures advanced. Her gaze darted through a gap between them, spotting another silver figure approaching the shelter entrance in the distance. Her heart instantly leapt to her throat!

The silver figure looked around, then suddenly lowered its flat head, as if "observing" the ground in front of the underground stairs. The messy, muddy footprints had been largely washed away by the rain, but faint traces still remained.

It slowly raised its head, "looking" in the direction of the underground staircase.

Huang Suye knew she absolutely could not allow that silver figure to advance further. Her fingertips brushed against something cold at her waist. She swiftly drew the revolver, aimed it at the silver figure, and pulled the trigger.

Bang—!!