20: A Silent Slaughter Feast: The Swarm's Dimensional Reduction Attack

[Command confirmed.]

[Swarm Attack Mode: Activated.]

On the screen, twenty green lock-on boxes instantly transformed into crimson skull icons.

They were dead-locked onto the heads of every thug on the rooftop... Atop the Tiansheng Building, wild winds howled.

The torrential rain lashed against the concrete rooftop like a whip.

This place was over twenty meters above the water level, making it the only "high ground" in the area.

One-Eyed Dragon wiped the rain from his face, one foot stomping on the back of a blood-covered survivor.

He held a rusty fire axe in his hand, his single eye filled with tyrannical pleasure.

"Cry? Go on, keep crying!"

One-Eyed Dragon grinned hideously, looking at the trembling man beneath his foot:

"Weren't you acting all tough just now?"

"Didn't you say your companions would come to save you?"

"Where are they?"

The dozen or so subordinates around him burst into laughter.

"Boss, I bet that kid's companions are already fish food."

"Exactly. In this ghostly weather, even birds can't fly. Who could come to save him? God?"

A yellow-haired thug holding a bottle of stolen liquor took a swig while leering lewdly at the two women huddled in the corner.

"Boss, stop wasting time with this loser. Chop him up for the fish. The brothers are waiting to have their way with those two chicks."

One-Eyed Dragon spat on the ground and raised the fire axe.

"In your next life, remember not to be born into such a shitty world."

He swung the axe high, preparing to enjoy the sensation of the blade slicing through flesh.

However, at the very moment his axe was about to fall.

No one noticed.

Amidst the ink-black rain clouds, twenty palm-sized black shadows were diving down at a high speed that defied physical common sense.

They made no roar of propellers, only a high-frequency vibration of wings cutting through the air—a "buzzing" sound like the Reaper grinding his teeth.

But muffled by the storm, the sound was barely audible... Two kilometers away, in the cockpit of the black iron ghost.

Jiang Ran looked at the locked-on One-Eyed Dragon on the screen; the red skull representing a "high-threat target" was centered on his head.

He took a small sip of coffee, as if watching a silent movie.

"Do it."

zero's cold voice rang out: "Executing Protocol A: Kinetic Cutting."

...On the rooftop.

One-Eyed Dragon's axe was halfway down.

Suddenly.

*Puchi!*

A very faint muffled sound, like tearing silk.

The surrounding lackeys only felt an extremely faint black line flash before their eyes.

Immediately after, One-Eyed Dragon's head, which was still wearing a hideous grin, slid off his neck without warning.

Blood didn't spray immediately because the cut was too fast and too clean; the blood vessels didn't even have time to react and contract.

It wasn't until that head went "thud-thud-thud" and rolled to the yellow-haired thug's feet.

The headless corpse remained standing in its axe-swinging posture for a full second.

Then, from the neck, a two-meter-high pillar of blood erupted like a high-pressure water gun.

*Thud.* The corpse fell.

The crowd that had been laughing just a moment ago instantly fell into a deathly silence.

The liquor bottle in the yellow-haired thug's hand hit the ground with a *shatter*.

He stared blankly at the head by his feet, its eyes still open in death, his mind a complete blank.

What happened? A sniper? But there was no gunshot!

"B... Boss?!"

"Ah!!!"

The women in the corner let out ear-piercing screams, breaking the eerie silence.

"Ghosts! There are ghosts!"

Panic instantly exploded.

This group of thugs, who usually bullied the weak and feared the strong, completely lost their cool. They raised their crude guns and machetes, looking around in terror.

"Who is it?! Get out here!"

"Don't play tricks! I see you!"

They swung their weapons wildly at the pitch-black rainy night, trying to drive away the invisible Reaper.

But what they didn't know was that five meters above their heads, twenty hummingbird drones were hovering quietly in the rain.

Their red electronic eyes watched these lambs for the slaughter with cold indifference.

Every drone had already been assigned its prey.

"Since you're all gathered here."

Far away, Jiang Ran set down his coffee cup and tapped lightly in the air.

"Then I'll send you all to your reunion."

[Instruction: Free Hunt.]

As Jiang Ran's finger fell, the feast of slaughter on the rooftop of the Tiansheng Building officially began.

"Buzz—!"

This time, the sound of wings vibrating like the Reaper's teeth was no longer concealed.

Twenty hummingbird drones simultaneously shifted from hovering to attack mode, like twenty black bullets with eyes.

With a scalp-numbing sound of breaking air, they dove down from the rainy night.

"Ah! Stay back!!"

The yellow-haired thug frantically raised his homemade shotgun and pulled the trigger blindly at the sky.

*Bang!*

Fire spat out, and countless iron pellets scattered in the rain.

But such primitive gunpowder weapons were laughable to a hummingbird with an intelligent evasion system, like watching a slow-motion replay.

The targeted drone performed a right-angle maneuver in mid-air that defied inertia, instantly dodging the barrage.

The next second, it turned into a streak of black light.

It pierced straight through the yellow-haired thug's gun-wielding wrist, then looped back in the air, grazing the back of his neck.

*Puchi.*

Blood splattered.

The yellow-haired thug didn't even feel the pain; he only felt his vision spin before seeing his own headless body slowly collapsing.

A massacre.

This was a completely asymmetrical massacre.

The thugs' pride in their cruelty and numerical advantage was a joke before these mechanical killers from a Level 3 technological civilization.

Someone tried to duck into the stairwell, only to be blocked at the door by a drone that had rushed in first.

Those sharp Diamond Wing-Blades vibrated hundreds of times per second, instantly slicing open his throat.

Someone tried to jump into the water to escape, but was struck by three drones simultaneously mid-air.

The massive kinetic energy shattered his spine directly, and he splashed into the water like a broken ragdoll.

In less than thirty seconds.

The once noisy and violent rooftop returned to a deathly silence.

Rain washed the blood from the floor, flowing through the drainage pipes into the pitch-black flood below.

Only the few survivors who had been waiting for execution remained in the corner.

They huddled together, trembling, staring blankly at this miracle-like scene.

The boss, One-Eyed Dragon, who just moments ago was going to chop them up for fish food, now had his head rolled by the drainage ditch.

And those ferocious thugs had all become cold corpses.

Above the corpses.

Those terrifying black mechanical insects did not leave immediately.

They hovered in mid-air, their red electronic eyes coldly scanning the surroundings.

After confirming there were no survivors, they emitted a synchronized hum and formed a V-shaped formation.

They instantly pulled up and vanished into the vast night sky.

Just as they had come, they left silently, without taking a single cloud... Two kilometers away.

Jiang Ran set down his empty coffee cup.

On the main screen in front of him, a green pop-up window representing "Threat Cleared" slowly emerged.

"Mission complete. Ammunition consumed: 0. Energy loss: 3%." zero's voice remained devoid of any fluctuation.

"Good job."

Jiang Ran stood up and stretched.

This feeling of not needing to personally intervene, not needing to get one's hands dirty, and being able to decide the life and death of others with just a flick of a finger was indeed addictive.

This was a true "Dominator."

Beside him, Su Qingyu was completely dumbfounded.

She knew Jiang Ran was strong, but that was physical strength—ramming people with a big ship, hacking people with a blade.

But today's scene had completely overturned her perception.

The intelligence, speed, and killing efficiency shown by those drones were simply not something current Earth technology could achieve.

"Who... exactly... are you?" Su Qingyu looked at Jiang Ran's back, her voice a bit dry.

Jiang Ran turned around and looked at the female doctor who was beyond shocked, offering no explanation.

He walked to the window and looked out at the still-raging rainy night, his gaze deep.

"Who I am isn't important."

"What's important is that from today onwards, these waters..."

Jiang Ran's finger traced lightly across the fogged-up glass, circling the range shown on the radar map.

"...belong to Jiang."