Chapter Seventy-Two: Three Shots Fired in Succession

Blazing images, a voice of awe-inspiring grandeur, an overwhelming aura—at the heart of the bewildering array, Fairy Shuiyao was suddenly seized by a terror as if the very heavens and earth were about to be annihilated.

She could not explain why, but the thought that Lei Dong, outside the maze, was facing such crushing oppression left her unable to sit still. She sprang to her feet and rushed toward the edge of the jungle.

The heavy pressure seemed to fill the world in an instant, so tangible it weighed upon her chest, making it hard to breathe. The flow of vital energy within her was suppressed to a near standstill. The short distance of less than two kilometers, which would have taken her only a few minutes under normal circumstances, now cost her nearly five.

By the time she burst out of the maze and the forest and reached Lei Dong’s side, she was drenched in sweat.

But she had no time to care. She rushed to him. “How is it?”

Lei Dong did not answer, only frowned deeply, gazing southeast, worry etched so darkly between his brows it could not be dispelled.

Following his gaze, Shuiyao looked out and could hardly believe what she saw. She instinctively raised her hand to her lips. “James Sam? How is this possible?”

She had heard with her own ears in the stone chamber beneath the statue how Lei Dong had thrashed that mad opponent, and later had seen James Sam suspended in midair, the statue’s thick finger piercing from his back through his chest, a sight that left no hope of survival. Yet now, what was she seeing?

James Sam hovered in the air, striding forward as if walking on solid earth. The thick finger in his chest was slowly withdrawing, and Shuiyao seemed to hear the grinding of stone against muscle and bone. Yet James Sam moved with no sign of pain, only striding forward step by heavy step.

A gunshot rang out, shattering the silence. James Sam’s body twitched, but he continued forward undeterred.

Lei Dong was startled—he knew that sound too well. It was the distinctive report of a Type 21 12.7mm sniper rifle. Lang Tianyu had fired! But in Lei Dong’s spiritual perception, the powerful anti-materiel round, capable of piercing even light armor, was stopped cold by the halo surrounding James Sam—it did not even break through the aura. What kind of body was this?

The next moment, the staccato of Type 21 assault rifles and Type 20 general-purpose machine guns erupted.

Then came a series of thunderous explosions. Thirty-five-millimeter grenade rounds detonated one after another before James Sam.

A wailing 80mm rocket streaked through the air, its howl drawing the hopeful eyes of Lei Dong and Shuiyao, and exploded in a fireball that lit up half the sky before James Sam.

But to Lei Dong’s horror, the slender shaped-charge merely punched through the outer shield and exploded in midair, inflicting no harm at all! James Sam seemed like an alien equipped with an energy barrier, effortlessly withstanding the primitive attacks of a backward civilization. And the breached shield was already sealing itself at a speed visible to the eye.

James Sam let out a hideous, rasping laugh. “Ignorant heretics, ants before the might of the Holy Emperor—you shall all—”

But he never finished. Another rocket shrieked through the air, its long tail of flame whipping behind it. Just as the shield was about to fully regenerate, it darted through the breach left by the first round and exploded in a thunderous blast.

The metal liner of the shaped charge was transformed by the explosion into a high-speed, high-temperature, high-pressure jet, a focused energy effect that rampaged within the shield, shaking it to its core.

An armor-piercing round!

While the metal jet of the explosion still had not dissipated, a third rocket screamed skyward, piercing through the same breach, and unleashed a billowing cloud of solid powder and liquid droplets inside the shield before erupting in a massive fireball. The oxygen in the area was instantly consumed. The massive firecloud and overwhelming pressure left Shuiyao reeling, as if witnessing the end of the world.

A thermobaric round!

“Beautiful!” Lei Dong shouted, his spirit soaring.

He knew it was Song Jingang operating the new RS-8 man-portable rocket launcher—a weapon prized by special forces for its simplicity, ease of use, and precision, especially its ability to fire a wide variety of warheads. Though its rate of fire was only ten rounds, in Song Jingang’s hands, three different rockets had been launched in less than ten seconds, each striking with perfect timing and placement. Such speed and accuracy required extraordinary skill and immense calculation power.

Amid Lei Dong’s exultant shout, the already unstable shield surrounding James Sam finally collapsed, exploding in a burst of white light that scattered into nothingness.

But what happened next left Lei Dong dumbfounded once more.

With the shield utterly destroyed, machine guns, rifles, and grenade launchers roared again. Amid the hail of gunfire, James Sam’s body was riddled with holes, jerking and convulsing in the air. Yet not a single drop of blood was shed, nor did he show the slightest sign of pain; it was as if his nerves had been severed, or as if the man had become a ghostly wraith.

James Sam’s expression grew ever more grotesque. He let out a shrill, metallic laugh that sent a chill through everyone’s heart. “You ant-like heretics, you have angered me. Now, receive the judgment of the Holy Emperor!”

He let the storm of bullets pour over him, raised one hand to the sky and the other to the earth, and began chanting an incantation in a language no one had ever heard. Suddenly, the heavens and earth were whipped into a frenzy. In Lei Dong’s perception, the boundless spiritual energy of the world formed a massive vortex, swirling like birds returning to the forest, converging on the statue of the Holy Emperor. The white light from the statue grew ever denser, flowing ceaselessly through the finger still embedded in James Sam’s back and into his body.

James Sam’s form began to swell, like a balloon being inflated, growing taller and brighter until he became a dazzling giant. The radiance around him condensed and compressed, over and over, until at last, on his upraised right hand, a colossal sword of light, hundreds of meters long, took shape.

“In the name of the Holy Emperor, I sentence all heretics to death!” he roared, his voice shaking the heavens.

With a savage downward swing of his right arm, the giant sword of white light flashed down, cleaving through the air toward the ground. A tidal wave of pressure swept out from the blade, enveloping several kilometers around in its force.

“No!” Lei Dong bellowed, stamping his feet as he shot forward like lightning.

“Stay here and watch the hostages—” His voice had barely faded when he vanished into the tall grass.

Shuiyao hesitated, glanced back at the fog-shrouded forest, gritted her teeth, and with a stomp of her foot, sped after him in the direction he had disappeared.