Chapter 132 Top Alpha: He was once a crippled Omega. 42. Qi...
"Whether I'm Black Deer or not, whether I'm smart or not, as long as I come here with a map, the ending will be the same, won't it?"
Qi Pingye grinned, biting down on the pain from the fractured bones, and suddenly shifted the force to his elbow, raising his leg to deliver a knee strike.
As if he had expected this, the blond man instantly tilted his head back, exposing his vulnerable throat, which was covered by android armor that shimmered with blue ripples.
The bullet fired by Qi Pingye with his left hand was blocked, producing a sharp bang.
Sparks flew!
"It's so easy talking to smart people."
Councilor Peng, holding the miniature anti-aircraft gun, casually aimed it as if he didn't care much about the blond man, and laughed, "But you're still too unlucky. Actually, just a second before I walked into this lounge, I was still debating whether to choose Plan A, Plan B, or Plan C."
"You can survive on the other two paths..."
Knives, clubs, bullets.
The light and shadow were sharply and rapidly cut, cleaved, and torn apart. Qi Pingye's hair was scorched by the light blades, and a wisp of fine ash rose from the gaps in the electric arcs.
His legs lost the aid of the AI, but they did not lose the marks left by years of training.
After a brief period of adjustment, they unleashed a speed comparable to that of AI-assisted attacks, allowing him to move nimbly like a hawk or an arrow in the fierce clashes with the blond man.
However, he knew very well that this was not a long-term solution.
The opponent has support and advanced AI that he doesn't understand. As time goes on, he will inevitably be worn down and fall behind. The temporary draw is just an illusion.
What's more, there's also a clearly not-so-friendly councilor named Peng watching closely nearby.
Based on Qi Pingye's understanding of this Councilor Peng, he should have taken advantage of Peng being entangled by the blond man to immediately escape and leave, but unexpectedly he stayed.
Is this a case of having victory in the bag, or is it that the more cautious a person is, the more they are essentially a gambler who craves bloodshed and excitement?
Of course, Qi Pingye could choose to run away and not fight them. But the eerie red arcs of electricity covered all sides of the lounge, and to jump out of the window, he would have to run through those arcs.
But how could he possibly survive?
"Your other two paths..."
Qi Pingye dodged again, avoiding the blond man's knife.
He suspected that the blond man's bones and muscles had been modified, and he dared not take the attack head-on again.
"I think he can only live for another 48 hours at most, no more than that."
Qi Pingye scoffed coldly.
“It seems you’ve guessed my purpose…” Councilor Peng narrowed his eyes slightly and pulled the trigger.
Flames and anti-aircraft shells erupted instantly!
Qi Pingye leaped and twirled rapidly, waves of bullets whizzing past him, bombarding the sofa, tabletop, and walls, turning them all into sieves.
Qi Pingye's shadow flowed through those holes.
The blond man brandished his knife and followed closely.
He neither dodged nor evaded, but the anti-aircraft bullets struck him as if they had hit water, scattering in all directions along with the blue ripples flowing from his armor, leaving not even scorch marks or sparks.
But just seconds before, Qi Pingye's bullet had blasted a hole in his armored throat.
So, this is...
As if thinking of something, Qi Pingye's eyes suddenly flickered.
At the same time, he smirked and said, "To tell you the truth, Congressman, I may know far more than you think."
He stepped over the broken porcelain, bullets swept in instantly, and the lights on all sides exploded with a bang.
“You hold a high position within the Light Party. On the surface, you are a candidate for the next speaker, but in reality, your competitors have a better chance of winning.”
“Julia Collins is a Beta from a commoner background. She climbed up from the bottom and has a great reputation. She is supported by the people and has a solid foundation. She is not someone like you who got up through crooked means.”
"The Ailan Bell people are nothing special, but they have a silver tongue. Every speech they give is packed, their famous quotes spread throughout the StarNet, and they even seem to have military support behind them. Isn't that what you've always dreamed of?"
"As for Qi Yun, he has the backing of the Qi family of the Central Star, and the influence of many noble families is deeply entrenched under his command. He also has military achievements—don't worry about whether they are true or not, there are plenty of people who believe them anyway."
"Which of these three isn't better than you?"
Qi Pingye suddenly ducked, and the blade slashed past his hair like a gust of wind.
“You are well aware of this, and you understand that the current promotion and hype are just to use someone as a shield and pave the way for them. But how can you be content with that?”
In high-intensity offensive and defensive battles, physical strength is depleted at an unbelievable rate.
Qi Pingye's breathing gradually became heavy.
But he kept talking.
After nearly being caught by Representative Peng during a routine surveillance mission involving Black Lily, he learned his lesson and conducted an extremely thorough investigation into the man.
Although there is only a little bit of information, it has only been two years since Qi Pingye left the Central Star.
The scattered intelligence, combined with the information occasionally mentioned by Qi Yun and Qi Yousheng, was enough for Qi Pingye to gain a sufficiently new and deep understanding of Peng Youshan.
This is one of the reasons why he dared to confront this treacherous old politician directly.
"You know quite a lot... Are you really from the Intelligence Bureau? Or perhaps you're an intelligence agent for the rebels or some other force on Central Star? Whoever you are, you've chosen the wrong path if you're trying to provoke me."
Representative Peng's lips remained perfectly still, as if he were hunting in a familiar hunting ground, firing his gun with ease. "I'm just not one to get angry."
“Anger and impulsiveness are terrible demons, and only children associate with them.”
"Even if I destroy this map, you won't be angry?" Qi Pingye raised his hand.
“Perhaps,” Representative Peng said calmly, “but I don’t only have this one option. As for you, I don’t know if you have any other options or better opportunities. You have your own goals, don’t you?”
"This map might be more important to you?"
Amidst the arcs of electricity and gunfire, an old man and a young man simultaneously looked up, their eyes briefly meeting.
One was dark and gloomy, the other was cold and desolate.
"Is this why you chose to wait, to use someone else to do the dirty work, and to seize the map that was just one key away from being used, instead of coercing and bribing Black Deer to work for you, or pretending that nothing happened and secretly following Black Deer to the alien laboratory?"
Qi Pingye suddenly said, "Whether it's a real black deer or a fake black deer, as long as it achieves the goal, it's a good black deer?"
Representative Peng paused, his round glasses slightly lowered, "It really would have been better to kill you."
"I knew it; my intuition never leads me to make the wrong choice."
Qi Pingye's gaze swept over Councilor Peng's semi-transparent protective shield for the umpteenth time, as if they were looking at each other during a conversation. "So, you really want me dead."
Representative Peng asked, "Do you think you still have a chance to survive?"
"Aren't you afraid that if you kill me, you won't be able to unlock the third key?" Qi Pingye asked.
“Whether you’re the real Black Deer or the fake Black Deer, you should be quite wary of me, and you should think that I am the most uncertain one among the three keys. So,” Councilor Peng smiled, “you won’t come to see me unless the other two keys can be confirmed to be unlocked.”
"Now that you're here, it proves that you've obtained the biometric information of the other two people, even if the red bar representing the third person hasn't disappeared yet."
He quickened the pace of his trigger pulls, firing indiscriminately, his voice slowly echoing through the gunfire, "That key can only be unlocked by the biological information of the real Black Deer, right? You killed the real Black Deer?"
"It's unlikely that you have his biometric information on you. He must have hidden it somewhere in Shin Kong Hospital before you came here."
"That's easy. After we kill you, we'll thoroughly investigate your biological traces, surveillance tracks, satellite monitoring and analysis data... In short, in this day and age, if you want to, no one is completely without a trace. We can always find the trail you've taken, right?"
“Where you’ve been, who you’ve met, find that biological information from your travel history. Forty-eight hours is more than enough.”
"You can die in peace."
Representative Peng reached a conclusion.
“Oh right, or you could do what you threatened me with earlier, go all out, and destroy the map before you die,” Councilor Peng said with a smile, pushing up his glasses. “That would be great too. The mission returns to the Intelligence Division and starts again. I’ll definitely do better than the first time in the second round.”
Qi Pingye coldly swept his gaze over Councilor Peng.
Representative Peng chuckled as he patted the gun barrel and his belly.
Qi Pingye stopped talking. He lowered his eyebrows, picked up the card embedded in the map chip between his fingers and put it between his teeth, then swung the stick behind him with his backhand.
Where the steel rod fell, the blond man appeared like a ghost.
The blond man's helmet was hit with a thud, and the recoil sent a shockwave through him. The man didn't move an inch, but instead curled his lips to reveal a row of snow-white teeth.
Qi Pingye's face was gloomy.
Time passed second by second.
Snow began to fall from the sky sometime earlier.
Near the empty docking pad, in a ground crew rest area of about 100 square meters, a fierce battle was taking place that no one knew about.
Finally, in a sudden moment, Qi Pingye felt a wave of dizziness.
The light blade slashed through, shattering the cabinet and leaving deep furrows in the wall.
A sharp pain shot through his shoulder and arm. In the moment of blurred vision, Qi Pingye turned his head and could only see a long trail of blood.
This seems to be the prelude to the end of this battle.
Human strength has its limits, the stalemate was broken, and Qi Pingye began to fall into a disadvantageous position.
The light blade left a trail of crimson, the anti-aircraft bullets scorched out horrific holes, and blood and flesh splattered like mud. The color drained from Qi Pingye's face, and his movements became uncontrollably slow.
As if he had observed it, or as if he had derived the result from the analysis of the smart glasses, Representative Peng revealed a deeper smile. He sensed his impending doom, and his eyes turned bloodshot.
“Don’t delay any longer,” Councilor Peng said. “I know you should have companions, or rather, helpers. Whether it’s a real black deer or a fake one, there’s no shortage of these things. But they can’t come to your rescue.”
"From the moment I stepped into this lounge, my guards had already surrounded the dock, and my secretary had temporarily taken control of Shin Kong Hospital. Unless they pilot that space mech that only exists in the imagination of the mechanical master, they have no chance of getting here."
"Die peacefully, accept your fate. From the moment you chose to become a secret agent, you should have known you wouldn't have a good end..."
Representative Peng's words seemed to possess a seductive power.
Qi Pingye had no expression, his face covered with crisscrossing bloodstains.
As Councilor Peng pulled the trigger, the volley of anti-aircraft bullets suddenly split apart, exploding into sharp, firework-like secondary shells the instant the bullets rained down. Qi Pingye froze, letting out a muffled groan, as a light blade pierced his shoulder blade in an instant.
"Cut off their heads and burn them clean."
Representative Peng's voice came through simultaneously.
The blond man responded, and as he swung his knife, he reached out to take the card that Hirano was tightly biting in his mouth.
"I see……"
The moment the blond man's armored fingers gripped the card, Qi Pingye suddenly loosened his jaw and chuckled softly, "Just a disguised use of cobalt electricity. I even wrote a paper on its initial development. I didn't recognize it at first glance. I thought it was something completely new that I'd never seen before..."
"What?"
The blond man frowned, a sense of foreboding suddenly rising in his heart. He abruptly accelerated, about to slash directly at the light blade.
Representative Peng's expression changed slightly, and more bullets immediately shot out from the muzzle of his gun.
But it was too late.
In the lounge, which was about 100 square meters, what they wanted was to exhaust Qi Pingye's physical and mental strength and take him down smoothly. What Qi Pingye wanted was to see through the red electric arcs that were the biggest obstacle to him, and the semi-transparent protective shield around Councilor Peng.
They have achieved their goal. Now, it's Qi Pingye's turn to achieve his.
In the cracks between the floor and ceiling, unseen by anyone and less affected by gunfire, spiders are spinning their webs.
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