Mechanical Alchemist

Su Lun and Kai were both injured, leaving traces of blood on the ground.

Since it was a pursuit, the Steam Party members also dared not slow down. They followed the traces to the vicinity of the platform, when suddenly, the guy in the lead failed to see the thin tripwire at his feet and stepped on it.

The safety pin of the grenade "clinked" crisply as it flew off, but the slight noise alerted the burly steel gorilla, who immediately became wary. With swift, lightning-like movements, he positioned himself in front of the group.

There was a loud "boom," with sparks flying, not a small disturbance.

But to little effect.

Ordinary grenades had limited lethality against the fully armed Steam Party members, most of whom had modified mechanical limbs.

But Su Lun hadn't actually counted on this method to inflict significant casualties on the enemy.

The noise of the explosion was sufficient to disrupt the enemy formation, and... attract the attention of monsters!

....

Su Lun, hearing the explosion, stepped out of cover without any hesitation. As his arms instinctively raised, the muzzles of his twin fireguns spewed flames towards the Steam Party members a hundred meters away.

For a marksman, this was the most comfortable fighting distance.

Pop! Pop! Pop...

The guys with gas lamps became the first targets of gunfire, and in the blink of an eye, seven or eight light sources fell to the ground.

"Damn it!"

A roar erupted from the darkness.

And before Su Lun had time to reload, a robust shadow indeed charged toward him.

Just as he had anticipated.

"Here they come!"

Su Lun's pupils suddenly constricted, but he showed no intention of backing down. He fired several more shots in quick succession, emptying the remaining bullets in the cylinder into the shadow.

However, these shots did not hinder the figure's speed in the slightest.

"Clang!" "Clang!" "Clang!"

Bullets sparked off Xis's body as if striking steel plates, ricocheting away.

Even the well-aimed shot that hit the protective goggles did not cause him any harm.

With his bullets spent, Su Lun quickly swapped magazines with dexterity.

His gaze, however, wasn't on the gun, but coldly watching the steel gorilla charging at him as he calculated, "Indeed, based on this strength, even armor-piercing bullets might not penetrate his rune-protected goggles."

If he recklessly used alchemy bullets and failed to hit, the enemy would become alert, and it would be much harder to succeed next time.

These shots served not only to probe but also to lower the enemy's guard, to make him feel that Su Lun's gunfire was no threat!

Just as the steel gorilla was about to collide with Su Lun, a thinner but swifter figure also crashed into it.

"Bang!"

After the muffled sound, a melee ensued.

Kai's "Blade" prosthesis scraped out sparks on the steel gorilla's body, making a piercing metallic screeching sound.

The two were locked in fierce combat.

Su Lun could also clearly hear Xis's cold laugh, as if he were mocking Kai's overconfidence.

Kai pursued the agile ranger career path. If he chose to maneuver around, Xis might not be able to get to him in the short run.

But if Kai chose close-quarters combat, it was just what Xis wanted!

The steel gorilla lacked agility, but in hand-to-hand combat, he held an absolute advantage over Kai.

It was a straightforward confrontation, and Kai had already fallen behind after just a clash.

But as soon as Kai retreated, Xis would definitely choose to switch targets and kill Su Lun, the gun expert, first!

Therefore, when Su Lun and Kai chose this tactic, it meant there was no turning back.

To survive, the two had to have complete trust in each other.

And it was precisely because they had to entangle this guy that Kai, slowed down due to his injuries, carelessly got his ankle caught by Xis and was tossed around like a sandbag.

Life and death hung in the balance of a moment.

At this very moment, Su Lun still stood ten meters away, not retreating half a step.

He calmly reloaded his ammunition and raised his gun once again.

At this distance, even with the violent movements of his opponent, as a "gun expert," it was enough for him to hit the target with every shot.

This time, Su Lun didn't test the waters but aimed at the buckle of the iron gorilla's face mask!

Even if the mask was a part of the mechanically augmented exoskeleton, indestructible, the weaknesses of machinery were clear: welding points, joints, and connectors were always more fragile than other parts.

The high-level enchanted goggles could block bullets, but that didn't necessarily mean the buckles that fixed the mask could.

If one shot wasn't enough, then he would fire several.

"Ding! Ding! Dang! Dang!"

Su Lun fired multiple shots, each one precisely hitting the mask's buckle, actually creating cracks in the welding points.

And Kai, engaged in close combat with the iron gorilla, saw his chance and delivered a fierce kick.

With a "clang," the mask fell off.

The iron gorilla's eyes, full of astonishment, were exposed.

Xis, seeing his mask knocked off, paused, and then the great terror of impending death instantly surged over him.

His eyes shifted, and he just saw the dark gun barrel aimed at his eye socket; he also recognized the origin of the gun: "Ironhead" Ivan's famous gun, the "Three-Headed Ghost"?

At the same time, he realized he had been careless.

The ordinary bullets had caused him to lose his necessary alertness, thinking that the gun expert posed no significant threat. However, he did not expect that the other party had alchemical bullets hidden away.

But facing the dark muzzle, Xis's lips curled into a cold smile, "Hmph, naive!"

He was extremely vigilant.

In fact, as soon as he noticed Kai opting for a head-on approach, he sensed something was wrong.

Now, watching his windscreen get shot off, he understood the purpose of Su Lun and his ally.

Haha, breaking the goggles was to hit the eyes, wasn't it?

The idea wasn't bad, but... if professionals could be so easily shot dead, then they would be too pathetic.

Even with an alchemical bullet, to kill him, one had to hit one of the few "weak points" on his body.

Xis's crisis response ability allowed him to instinctively turn his head the moment the mask was knocked off. This angle was a blind spot for shooting, he thought; the bullet posed no threat to him.

But the next second, a scene that filled him with despair occurred.

The moment Xis turned his head, he saw Su Lun on the opposite side make a strange shooting motion, and as the flames burst from the gun barrel...

Was he actually "flicking the gun"?

Seeing this, the sneer on Xis's lips hadn't yet faded, but it turned into horror.

It was too late to react anymore.

In the last moment of his life, this veteran steam party captain, with eyes full of despair, thought of a "mystic-level" gun-fighting technique: "Gun Combat Art!"

It turned out...

There was such a terrifying fellow hiding among the enemies.

Like a venomous viper concealed in a pile of dead leaves, ready to deliver a fatal strike when the hunter was least expecting it.

....

Su Lun's eyes reflected an almost numb calmness as he changed guns, anticipated the angle at which the enemy would tilt its head, calculated the trajectory, and squeezed the trigger while simultaneously flicking the gun away.

There were no mistakes, not giving the enemy any chance to retaliate.

The alchemical armor-piercing bullet fired from the three-silver-skull firearm traced a curved trajectory through the air, precisely hitting the left eye socket of the steel gorilla.

With a "bang," blood and light exploded before his eyes.

The alchemical bullet pierced through Xis Arnold's skull, and the steel gorilla, menacing just a second ago, thunderously collapsed.

This shot was lethal.

.....

Su Lun let out a breath, walked over, and helped up Kai, who was a mess from the fall.

At the same time, he also devoured the grey mist from the corpse.

'Acquired 3 "Xis Arnold" Soul Shards'

'You have gained a small amount of "Intermediate Mechanical Knowledge"...'

'You have mastered "Basic Mechanical Arm Kinetic Device Modification Skills"...'

'Combat Experience +8'

'Spiritual Power +0.12'

Su Lun suddenly felt his mind filled with mechanical techniques, but he had no time to ponder on them.

Because at that moment, the fight was far from over.

He helped Kai to his feet and asked, "Captain, are you alright?"

"I'm not..."

Kai wanted to say he was fine, but before he could finish, he couldn't help spitting out a mouthful of blood tainted with the acrid taste of bile. His head felt dizzy from the blow, and he said with a wry smile, "I won't die just yet."

Kai turned to look at the corpse of Xis Arnold with a bullet in its eye socket, then at Su Lun, his expression extremely complex.

Su Lun's astonishing performances time and again had completely reshaped his impression of this "newcomer."

It turned out that he was not only an "expert in firearms," but also adept in the superb gun technique "Gun Combat Art."

This was a superdifficult gun skill that only truly talented professional gunmen could master...

"With that skill, no wonder he's so confident," Kai thought to himself, also grateful that he had chosen to trust.

....

From the sound of the explosion to the point where Xis charged them and was killed by Su Lun and Kai's cooperation, the entire process took just over twenty seconds.

'Red Hair' Kuntu, watching from a distance, had thought that with Xis personally in action, even if he couldn't kill the two men, he could at least hold them off.

Then he and his gang could rush over and easily kill them.

But unexpectedly, things did not go as planned. The explosion sound attracted monsters hiding in the shadows!

The nimble mutation monsters that could climb walls appeared out of nowhere, using their long proboscises to kill one gang member after another.

The members of the Steam Gang were held up in place.

Screams were incessant, and the gunfire melded into chaos.

But unexpectedly, it was this momentary delay that turned the situation on its head.

In just a few seconds, Kuntu watched in disbelief as Xis, a professional like him, was killed, and with a headshot no less.

Kuntu was shocked to his core, only then understanding why those two had bothered with a bomb they knew would be useless.

Originally, the purpose was not to harm people, but to distract the monsters!

Seeing Xis killed, Kuntu suddenly felt a desire to retreat, but it seemed to be too late.

The densely packed wall-crawling mutation monsters had already surrounded them...

...

What was originally a duel between two sides, instantly became a three-way melee with the addition of mutation monsters.

Su Lun looked at the monsters and asked with a solemn expression, "Captain, can you still fight?"

Kai's face was no less strained as he took out another potion and injected it into his leg, saying, "I can hold on a while longer."

While speaking, he cast a glance at the Steam Gang members who were desperately fighting the monsters in the distance, a mocking smile on his face: "Now it's about real skill to see who can survive."

The Steam Gang members were too busy to fend for themselves; without their intervention, it wasn't certain that those guys could make it out of the monster horde alive.

Compared to that, the situation for Su Lun and Kai, though not great, was not necessarily worse than before.

Some monsters had also been attracted by the gunfire and climbed above their heads.

However, the cooperation between the two was not bad— one gunner never missed a shot, the other a slayer with each slice.

Although these mutation wall-crawlers were incredibly fast, the two fought and retreated, managing to hold their ground temporarily.

But suddenly!

As Su Lun was fighting, he unexpectedly noticed a clump of "grey mist" in the pile of monster corpses.

"Huh... an elite monster actually produced a Soul Shard?"

Even though monsters, due to their low intelligence, rarely had "grey mist" appear on their bodies.

At that moment, having just headshot a powerful mutant, he saw shards on its body.

Because the body had fallen close at his feet, Su Lun devoured it while shooting.

But... after digesting the information from this mist, his expression suddenly turned odd.

'Acquired 2 "Mutant Mutation Monster" Soul Shards'

'You have gained 'Partial Sewer Network Layout Information'...'

'You have received some incomplete visions...'

'You have mastered the "Intermediate Climbing" skill...'

'Spiritual Power +0.01'

....

It was no surprise that Su Lun acquired an "Intermediate Climbing" skill from these wall-crawling mutant humanoids.

The "Partial Sewer Network Layout" was also expected...

But the "incomplete visions" that followed made Su Lun feel that something was not right.

The perception system of the monsters was not as clear as a human's vision, yet in the memory of this creature, Su Lun saw a piece resembling a thermal imaging fragment in warm yellow.

Even though it was unclear, he recognized it—a mysterious sickle-shaped item!

PS. Brothers, votes please~