Star Rank Hunter

Original and most up to date translations are posted at volaretranslations.

Translator's Notes: A mini version of a zombie apocalypse!

Chapter 172: Fuse, The Beginning of Chaos [Part 2]

Cillin sped up. Right now he could no longer care to check which forces was standing in his way - anyone who does, dies. How could he be bothered to check when his own life was at risk? Plus, it’s not like every ‘Flying Snake’ member was Qi Geyou’s subordinate. Qi Geyou should have ordered his men to evacuate this place, shouldn’t he? And even if they were Qi Geyou’s men, the fact that they hadn’t left in time basically meant that they had little hope at survival. After all, they had failed to resist the virus and began slaughtering the people around them, and the elites of the two forces were still around too.

They hadn’t encountered a single prison guard up to this point, so they were probably all taken out already. Although every prison - even just a grade one prison - had pretty powerful people, since as the saying goes, ‘however strong you are, there is always someone stronger’, the two forces who came here seriously weren’t something they could deal with right now. He could not expect anything from the prison guards now. He could only rely on himself.. Earlier, the sound of a faraway explosion made Cillin feel much more settled. That explosion was caused by Lung’s microbomb, and judging from the sound Cillin could confirm that Lung was probably near an exit. If he still failed to escape with these conditions, then he would not be a member of the Andrea Family.

When Little Stache saw that Cillin had increased his movement speed, she hurriedly chased after him. She took out a folded long blade and killed every convict who stood in her way. If Cillin himself did not care who was standing in his way, then naturally she cared even less.

The sense of crisis grew stronger and stronger. Cillin did not understand why he would feel this way. Although he had not seen his opponent, he knew based on feelings alone that he was absolutely no match for his opponent right now. This wasn’t a distance that could be closed with a gun or two.

Almost, they’re almost at the byway!

Boom!

A sudden explosion cleaned out all convicts around the byway of the passage. This was no normal bomb, and the center area of the bomb was covered in flames. Even the byway’s walls were slowly deforming under the flames.

Thank goodness Cillin had not arrived at the byway yet, and during that one moment they sensed the abnormality both Cillin and Little Stache had paused their swift footsteps and retreated instead. Otherwise, they most definitely would’ve been engulfed by the flames too.

The explosion and flames excited the convicts beyond the area further. They charged towards the duo from the surrounding passage of the byfork.

Cillin and Little Stache had not time to loiter around this place. They locked their eyes onto a particular passage and ran over to it.

The passage leading towards the prison rooms’ direction at the byway was also where the explosion had originated from. Blue lights that were as straight as blades appeared from the flames before a figure slowly walked out from inside it. It was a blue skinned woman whose eyes looked about the same as the blue blades in her hands, cold, icy and emotionless. The flames did not seem to affect her.

The woman swung the blue blades in her hands when she saw the convicts charging at her. She easily slashed through the charging convicts entirely. The woman did not seem to be paying any attention to these convicts at all. Her eyes were staring right where Cillin was.

When else should they run but now?!

Cillin charged into that passage, and Little Stache was right behind him. They were running for their lives; it was obvious that that woman was no easy picking at first glance. Of course they were running since they were no match her!

That woman ran faster and faster. The convicts blocking her way were like pieces of tofu that were easily cut down without even the slightest noise.

Right now Cillin seriously hated the convicts for how soft they were.

Suddenly he felt a chill behind his back, and Cillin put strength into his legs and jumped to the sides. At the same time, the wrist blade on his arm popped out.

Crack!

The five hundred thousand credits wrist blade heralded by Cary as rare goods broke in response about as cleanly as you could expect.

Fuck! The five hundred thousand credits wrist blade did not even hold out for more than half a second!

He dodged away from the blue blades slashing towards him. It looked like a special energy excitation type weapon, but Cillin had never seen one like this before because the weapon was fully attached to the woman’s hand even though she obviously wasn’t a robot.

Right now Cillin did not have the time to ponder this problem though. The woman had painted them as targets.

After they backed away, Cillin and Little Stache stood still two steps away from each other and faced the woman chasing after them together.

The woman did not look behind her as she cut a charging convict in half. Then, she took one step after another towards Cillin and Little Stache.

Cillin and Little Stache exchanged a short glance with each other. If they couldn’t get away, they they would fight. They had no other choice.

Just when Cillin was about to act, the alarm suddenly started with a series of beeps.

It was the alarm of the prison’s core defense system. Logically speaking, this alarm should not be sounded even if the defense system’s instruction program had been tampered with, unless the prison had already reached a critical state that resulted in the final instruction activating. That instruction must not be tampered with, for the the whole prison would forcefully activate its self destruct program the second that it was. Therefore, the two forces could not have triggered the final instruction while they were still inside the prison.

Since it wasn’t the latter, the former explanation had to be the reason why the self destruct program had been activated. Just what kind of power could put the entire prison in a critical state?

There was no time left for Cillin to think. The exit connected to that passage had entered countdown and was about to close!

There was no need for words. Cillin and Little Stache used nearly all of their strength and charged towards that passage. The woman had paused on her feet momentarily, and this short pause enabled Cillin and Little Stache to charge to the exit. The countdown on the exit had also just reached zero at this moment.

But just as Cillin’s charging footsteps hit the ground, a terrific attractive force suddenly pulled at him. It was as if a giant hand had forcefully pulled him back into the passage.

He could not resist at all. No matter how he struggled, it was futile.

A whip entangled itself around Cillin’s wrist when he was being dragged back into the passage. Little Stache tried to pull him into the exit, but the attraction force was so powerful that she was being pulled back into the passage instead. However, as the exit closed the whip was cut off as well.

Little Stache stared blankly at her broken whip for a bit. Then, she glanced at the closed door with a complicated expression. Although she hadn’t cooperated with this guy for more than an hour, her impression of him was pretty good. If this man managed to get out, she would absolutely invite him to ‘Fire Phoenix’ as a guest.

Fire Phoenix was a great force at the same level as ‘Flying Snake’ and ‘Mad Owl’. It was just that this area didn’t belong to Fire Phoenix. Little Stache had slipped out only because she wanted to watch ‘Flying Snake’ and ‘Mad Owl’ fight. Who knew she would run into such a troublesome matter and nearly threw her life for it.

Little Stache sighed and turned away. The prison was not long away from destruction.

Back to Cillin. When Cillin was sucked back into the passage by the attraction force, it was not the end but just the beginning. Everyone in the passage including the woman holding the blue light blades were being forcefully pulled to the other end of the passage.

However, an even bigger counter force suddenly appeared in the next moment, and Cillin was sent flying like a ball who had been thrown to one side before being slapped back where he came from with great force.

The two combined force and terrific impact caused Cillin to fly out like a ball that ran into a bat. He could even hear clearly the cracking sounds resounding from his own body.

His bones were broken. As for how broken they were, Cillin no longer had the energy to check. He only knew that this time, he was in deep shit.

Not only did the change in pressure and impact around his body in that very instant caused every bone in his body to crack, and blood to pour out of his nose, ears and mouth, his skin was also cracking up like a dried land as blood poured out from it.

After he had crashed heavily against the exit door, Cillin collapsed powerlessly to the ground. Every miniscule movement felt like it would take incredible effort to execute. When Cillin turned his head with great difficulty and looked at the woman who were sent flying just the same as he not far away, a cold shock rolled over his body.

Although they had both suffered the same blow, he was half dead whereas that woman had only spat out two mouthfuls of blood before settling down into a combat stance and heading towards the other side of the passage.

His head seemed to be hurt as well. Since he was lying sideways, the blood also flowed in that direction and into his eyes. How did he feel?

He didn’t know. Right now Cillin was feeling numb. He wasn’t sure if his nerves were damaged since he couldn’t feel any pain at all. It’s just that everything before his eyes was red.

The air seemed to have become heavier. It was difficult to even breathe. Cillin knew that the symptom was caused by his damaged lungs though. Lungs aside, his internal organs were probably pretty hurt as well, right?

Am I going to die?

Cillin did not close his eyes. He kept staring at the end of the passage. His vision was really blurry; so blurry that he could only see the flickering blue light blades. Who was the woman fighting against? He could not see clearly. He truly could not see clearly. Cillin had done his best, but he discovered that even the blue light blades slowly disappeared to leave behind only darkness.

Cillin could neither see nor move, but he could vaguely hear some sounds. It was the sound of the battle just now. There was a momentary silence after a bang, followed by another bout of intense battle and another pause.

Just when Cillin thought that the people were all gone, two voices rang beside him.

Cillin could only vaguely hear some broken tidbits. ‘Still breathing’, ‘leave’, ‘explode’...

The whole prison had not undergone its final destruction sequence yet, but it was heavily damaged and already looked more like an abandoned refugee camp than a prison.

Inside the prison, blood stains were everywhere be it the passages, prison rooms or monitoring rooms. Less than a hundred prison guard out of several tens of thousands were still alive. Moreover, none of these people had seen anyone from the two forces at all. Perhaps that was exactly why they had survived.

Who could have imagined that the grade one prison that was regarded as a native force of the area, a place that considered both convicts and prison guards to fall under Sector S’ personal affairs, was almost completely destroyed.

This matter affected the many great forces of the Sector that regarded ‘Flying Snake’ and ‘Mad Owl’ as their leaders. Every prison guard in Sector S was alarmed by the news. If almost every prison guard in this prison was eliminated, then who could say that they wouldn’t be next on the chopping block?

Meanwhile, the garrison of Sector S began to move.

As the incident ended, all forces began to take their own respective steps. A reorganisation began to roll through every prison in Sector S starting from grade one to grade five, but a series of incidents were bound to happen during such sensitive times due to the reorganisation.

It was this grade one prison incident who played the role as a fuse and ignited the beginning of chaos in Sector S.