Chapter 148 "Ice Claws"

"Okay." I replied, my voice calm.

"Great!" Bai Zang snapped his fingers in satisfaction.

"Along!" He yelled out the door. The scarred man who had led the way immediately pushed the door open and came in, a look of fear still lingering on his face.

"Take Miss Ji to the cleanest room. Go to the armory and get her two magazines of 9mm pistol ammunition, a shotgun, and thirty rounds of slug ammunition."

He looked at me with sharp eyes, "In a week, I want to see the key to the cold storage door. Don't let me down, new buddy."

Aaron came in upon hearing the noise, and motioned for me to follow him. I glanced at Bai Zang one last time; the smile on his face had faded, leaving only a deep scrutiny and a hint of elusive vigilance.

He picked up the lighter again and turned it quickly between his fingers, but his eyes were always locked on my leaving back.

The door closed behind him, blocking out the sword-like sight.

Aaron led the way silently, passing through the noisy first floor and walking up the metal stairs of another building.

Along the way, he kept looking at me secretly. I ignored his looks and followed him calmly.

In fact, I am quite familiar with the structure of this stronghold. After all, it was me who found this stronghold for the Black Dragon Gang.

Thinking of this, I suddenly thought of Fan Buqiu and the double moons that day, and couldn't help but sigh.

It feels like only a short time has passed, but I seem to have grown a lot. I don’t know whether it is good or bad, but at this point, I have no way out.

He continued to do this until Aaron stopped at the door of a room.

"It's here." Aaron's voice was still a little tense. He pointed to the room and didn't dare to look at me any more. He didn't have the arrogance he had when he stopped me outside just now. He just avoided my sight and said quickly: "The ammunition will be delivered to you later." After that, he left almost as if he was escaping.

I looked at his back, feeling a little confused. Am I that scary?

I didn't think much of it, and walked into the room. It wasn't big, and there was a faint smell of dust. It was decorated in the same simple style as my previous dormitory at the Investigation Bureau, but it was clean.

I closed the door behind me, blocking out all the noise from outside. The cold metal door pressed against my back, bringing a strange sense of security. My tense nerves finally had a chance to relax. I let out a long, silent breath.

The first step has been completed, but there is still work to be done.

It’s not because of the dock, but how to drive the development of the entire Black Dragon Gang and expand the faith at the same time.

I came here for only two things. The first is to develop the Black Dragon Gang as quickly as possible. The second is to use this place as the center to initially establish the belief in "Lord Xingqiong".

Aaron soon sent someone to deliver the weapons: a heavy box of ammunition, two magazines of 9mm pistol ammunition, a reasonably well-maintained pump-action shotgun, and thirty heavy slugs. I examined the weapon, and the touch of the cold metal brought back a familiar rhythm of the battlefield, like my days at the Bureau, only the equipment was a bit lacking.

The next day, early morning, at the old pier.

The fog was so thick that it could not be dispersed, like the rotten skeleton of a giant beast, soaked in the grayish-white fog and the strong and choking fishy smell.

Rusted gantry cranes pointed twistedly toward a sky shrouded in red mist. Broken shipping containers piled on the shore like discarded building blocks. Waves lamented the embankment, a dull, sticky sound.

There was an eerie silence in the air; even the sound of the wind had disappeared, leaving only the pervasive, damp smell of rust and rotting seaweed.

My target is the entrance to the huge underground cold storage.

At that moment, it was like a black hole, embedded in the side and rear of a warehouse deep in the dock. The heavy metal door was tightly closed, covered with a thick layer of ice crystals that shimmered with a faint blue frost.

The open space in front of the door was also covered with ice. Several twisted, frozen corpses covered with white frost were half-buried in the ice, their postures retaining the fear and struggle before death.

I think it must be the person from the Black Dragon Gang who was killed here before.

Looking closely, I saw that some of them were people whose abilities had been awakened with my help before. I looked away with some regret.

At the edge of my vision, the fog seemed to distort slightly. It wasn't an illusion; it was the objects moving.

They emerged silently from the shadows of thick fog, from the cracks in shipping containers, and even from the icy sea. Their bodies were covered in grayish-white carapaces that resembled cracks in ice, and they crawled on all fours, with bone spurs as sharp as icicles extending from their joints.

The most terrifying thing is their claws - they are not solid, but composed of highly condensed ice crystals that emit a chilling cold air. As they move, they scrape against the ice on the ground with a teeth-grinding "sizzling" sound. Their heads are flat, with only two deep holes that shimmer with a faint blue phosphorescence. They have no mouths, but cold air is spewing out from those holes.

There were no fewer than twenty of them. They didn't pounce immediately, but instead locked eyes with me with their deep blue "eyes," moving slowly, like a pack of wolves hunting on an icy plain. Their invisible chill formed a web, plummeting the air around them, until even my eyelashes began to form tiny ice crystals.

The meeting gift was quite grand.

But what I'm thinking right now is... these things are really great for refrigerators! They can solve the problem of freezing things without any electricity!

No matter how much I think about it, the current situation does not allow me to be absent-minded.

Because one of the "ice claws" has suddenly attacked!

It was very fast, but fortunately I reacted in time and dodged sideways, while at the same time I drew my Miao Dao and chopped it out with my backhand.

However, the real battle is not a turn-based game, and the other "Ice Claws" have already attacked me.

“Clang!!!”

The ice crystal claws collided with the blade, making a loud sound of metal clashing.

The shock made my palms numb, but the pain from the cold erosion was even worse.

Although the power in my body has been almost transformed, I have not evolved the ability to resist the cold. Fortunately, my body is stronger than before. Although not as strong as Song Nanxing, it is enough for me to withstand it.

But being able to fight doesn’t mean I like to fight.

"Looking for death!" Taking advantage of the rebound force from the brief confrontation, I retreated a distance to the side where the "Cramp Claw" was, and suddenly raised the shotgun in my left hand, with the muzzle almost touching the flat head of the other Cramp Claw that was attacking me!

Boom! ! ! ! !

A deafening roar! The massive kinetic energy of the slug exploded at close range! Ice Claw's head was like a watermelon struck by a sledgehammer. The ice-crystal-covered shell and everything underneath instantly exploded, sending a viscous blue-black slurry and ice fragments splattering everywhere! The headless corpse collapsed to the ground with a thud.