Chapter 94 The Real Killer Move

A scavenger?

The Butcher's pupils trembled violently in that instant, like two glass beads on the verge of shattering.

The excruciating pain transmitted from his cerebral cortex felt like ten thousand red-hot steel needles stirring simultaneously, but this pain was far less than the mental shock brought by that word.

A scavenger?

Absurd.

This was simply the lamest joke since the birth of the universe.

Who was he? He was the "Butcher" who crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, a perfect evolutionary specimen injected with Roswell alien black liquid, a war machine built by The Pentagon at the cost of hundreds of billions. His muscle density was three times that of steel, and his reaction speed could dodge pistol bullets fired at close range.

And his "Reaper Squad" was a nightmare that made special forces around the world tremble with fear.

Now, this young man told him that the one who destroyed all this was merely a scavenger?

No gunpowder smoke, no flashes of fire, not even a trace of the humming sound of an energy weapon charging.

Merely a glance.

It was a dimensional crushing, just like a human crushing an ant at will; without even needing to use a finger, just by casting a gaze, the ant's world collapsed.

Divine punishment.

Except for this word, the Butcher had lost all ability to construct language.

"No... No..."

A wheezing sound like a broken bellows came from his throat, and biological instinct drove the Butcher's arm to try to lift—even if just to pull the trigger once, even if just to prove he was still alive.

But he couldn't do it.

Under the gaze of those eyes as black as an abyss, even the electrical signals transmitted by neurons seemed to be frozen.

Lin Yuan did not look at his gun.

He just boredly extended an index finger, his movement as gentle as if he were flicking away a speck of dust.

His fingertip touched the Butcher's cold sweat-covered forehead.

"Hum—"

The air trembled.

There were no special effects of sound or light, only a gentle, vast, yet unquestionable torrent of mental energy that surged arrogantly into the Butcher's brain along that fingertip.

It was like a tsunami pouring into a narrow anthill.

The Butcher's face, distorted by extreme fear, froze instantly.

The bloodshot veins that had been wildly pulsing in his eye sockets quickly faded, and those eyes, always filled with violence and the desire for slaughter, now dimmed rapidly like light bulbs with their souls sucked out, becoming murky and hollow.

The light in his eyes extinguished.

The muscle groups that had been as tight as steel plates instantly relaxed, and this super soldier, capable of dismantling a tank with his bare hands, collapsed like a pile of mud, his knees slamming into the dirt with a dull thud.

Lin Yuan withdrew his finger and disdainfully wiped off the non-existent dust on the Butcher's tactical vest.

He stood up and looked around.

The originally deathly silent primeval jungle was now like an Asura field.

A dozen fully armed "Reaper Squad" members were now either clutching their heads and hitting trees, or slashing at the air with knives; some were even foaming at the mouth, convulsing on the ground, and mumbling words like "ghost" or "mommy."

Mental breakdown.

For Lin Yuan, who was accustomed to fighting high-dimensional monsters like the "Void Devourer," the mental defenses of these "super soldiers," who had mutated merely by injecting a bit of alien residue, were as fragile as a layer of wet toilet paper.

"Tsk tsk, how miserable."

Lin Yuan shook his head, his tone devoid of any pity.

He raised his left wrist, and the communicator specially made before this operation flickered with a faint blue light.

A light tap of his fingertip, and the line connected.

Target: Two hundred meters ahead, the internal channel of the "wind eye" radar station.

"Bzz... bzzz..."

The sound of static passed.

"Who?!"

A roar like a frightened bird came from the receiver, followed immediately by the sound of a bolt being pulled.

That was the station chief, Li Weiguo.

"Station Chief Li? It's me, Lin Yuan."

Lin Yuan's voice was excessively steady; in the background, one could even hear the dull thud of some crazed "Reaper Squad" member hitting a rock with his head in the distance, "It's a bit noisy outside; that's us conducting... um, pest control operations."

"Pest... pest control?"

In the radar station's main control room, Li Weiguo's hand holding the receiver was covered in sweat, his other hand gripping that Type 54 pistol tightly.

He looked at the pitch-black jungle on the surveillance screen, cold sweat dripping from his chin onto the floor.

As the person in charge of the outpost, his intuition told him that tonight was not right. It was too quiet, not even the chirping of insects; that sense of oppression reminded him of the quiet before a rainstorm on the battlefield.

"Ah? Comrade Lin Yuan? Why are you here? What exactly happened outside?"

"Nothing major."

Lin Yuan glanced at the Butcher, who was still drooling at his feet, his tone relaxed.

"Just a few blind mad dogs, don't know where they popped out from, trying to break in and bite people. But don't worry, I've already taken care of them all."

Taken... care of them all?

Li Weiguo was stunned.

Although he was just a technician, he knew what the "mad dogs" capable of infiltrating this kind of border primeval jungle meant. That was special forces! Those were killing machines!

This young man... alone? Taken care of them?

"Also," Lin Yuan interrupted Li Weiguo's wild thoughts, "turn your station's automatic security system to maximum power. Tonight, no matter what noise you hear, even if the sky falls, don't open the door, don't peek out. Understand?"

"Und... understood!"

"That's good. Hanging up."

Communication cut off.

Leaving only Li Weiguo on the other end of the line, dumbfounded, along with a group of technicians equally full of question marks, looking at each other.

Lin Yuan switched the communicator back to silent mode.

This jungle returned to peace, except for the occasional groan of pain.

He crouched down, his gaze falling on the Butcher's right hand, which was still twitching slightly. It was holding a black tactical terminal.

Lin Yuan skillfully pried it off but did not immediately check the screen.

For him, the information on the screen was too slow and too easy to forge.

The most authentic intelligence was hidden in this vegetable's brain.

"Borrowing a look, you don't mind, right?"

Lin Yuan muttered to himself, extending his finger again and tapping it on the Butcher's temple.

This time, it was not an attack.

[Void Affinity] talent activated.

Lin Yuan's consciousness seemed to transform into countless invisible tentacles, following the neural synapses, extremely carefully probing into that mass of gray matter that had already short-circuited due to overload.

He did not touch those deep memory regions—those were the forbidden zones of personality and emotion; rummaging there was like stirring a pot of paste, both disgusting and unnecessary.

What he needed was the cache.

Just like the last few programs running before a computer crashes.

The field of vision changed instantly.

The originally dark jungle disappeared, replaced by countless broken, flickering image fragments, like broken old film.

A pitch-black room.

A syringe piercing into a vein.

That white old man wearing a four-star epaulet, slamming the table with a ferocious face.

And that top-secret electronic document marked in red.

Countless chaotic information streams washed over Lin Yuan's consciousness; he was like a skilled gold prospector, quickly screening out the shining gold grains from the silt.

The image froze.

That was the mission briefing the Butcher confirmed one last time before setting off.

"Target: Daxia Southwest Border, 'wind eye' radar station."

"Mission nature: Black operation."

"Directive: Cause irreversible damage, kill everyone. Must be extremely cruel, must be extremely high-profile. We want to make the Daxia people feel pain, feel fear, and force them to reveal that trump card hidden in the Northwest."

Lin Yuan's eyebrow twitched slightly.

Kill everyone.

These animals never intended to leave any survivors.

The image continued to jump; that was a deeper level of strategic deployment, the real killing move after the "Reaper Squad" served as the vanguard.

A huge map of the Western Pacific.

Countless blue dots representing warships were crazily converging towards the same coordinate from the directions of Guam, Hawaii, and even the Indian Ocean.

"Follow-up plan codename: 'Freedom Shield'."

"Scale: 1st, 3rd, and 7th Carrier Strike Groups."

"Time node: 24 hours after the attack."

"Ultimatum: ..."

Lin Yuan opened his eyes abruptly.

In those eyes that were originally as calm as water, it now seemed like a layer of ten-thousand-year-old ice had formed.

He slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, looking at the Butcher at his feet who had completely become a cripple, and the corners of his mouth hooked into an extremely cold arc.

"Very well..."

"What a 'Freedom Shield'."

"What a way to force us to reveal our trump card."

Since you want to see it so much, don't regret having your eyes blinded.

He stood up and fished out the secure phone with only one line from his waist.

He pressed the only red button.

"Beep—beep—"

It only rang twice before the call was answered.

"Chief, it's me."

"Lin Yuan!!"

The voice from the receiver almost shattered Lin Yuan's eardrums. Chen Weiguo was obviously guarding the phone the whole time; there was a clear tremor in his voice, which was anxiety suppressed to the extreme.

"How is the situation on your end?! You aren't hurt, are you?! The support team is already five kilometers away; do you need fire support?!"

A series of questions pelted over like a machine gun.

Lin Yuan could imagine that the old general, usually as majestic as a mountain, was probably gripping the phone, the veins on his neck popping out.

A warm current flowed through his heart.

"Reporting to Chief."

Lin Yuan's voice was very steady, carrying a magical power that put people at ease.

"No fire support needed. Thirteen 'bugs' have all been 'cleaned up'."

"The cleanup process was very smooth; no firefight occurred."

"Our side, zero casualties."

"And..." Lin Yuan glanced at the radar station still lit up not far away, "'wind eye' is unscathed; Station Chief Li and the others don't even know what just happened."

Dead silence.

On the other end of the phone, there was silence for a full five seconds.

Only Chen Weiguo's heavy breathing could be heard, like an old engine cooling down.

"What?!"

Finally, the old general's voice erupted, with an incredulous cracking tone, "All... all taken care of?! How long has it been? Ten minutes?! Lin Yuan, that's the 'Reaper Squad'! Intelligence agencies evaluated them as S-class threat monsters!"

Chen Weiguo's hands were shaking.

He had thought Lin Yuan could win; after all, he was the person who built a starship. But he had thought of a pyrrhic victory, a bloody battle, a result where he would be heartbroken even if Lin Yuan lost a single hair.

Zero casualties? Unscathed?

Did this kid treat those biochemical monsters like cabbage to be chopped up?

"You... you kid, how on earth did you do it?" Chen Weiguo asked hoarsely.

"This... some technical details are not easy to explain; you can understand it as a kind of high-efficiency 'physical persuasion'." Lin Yuan did not intend to dwell on this issue; after all, explaining metaphysical concepts like "Void Affinity" to a materialist general was too exhausting.

"Chief, that's not important."

Lin Yuan changed the subject, his tone suddenly becoming serious, permeated with a murderous aura.

"I now have intelligence more important than these thirteen corpses, which I must report to you immediately."

"I found the entire upcoming plan of the Eagle in the leader's brain... I mean, in his terminal."