Shackles of Humanity

Bullets followed them like the footsteps of the Death God, stirring up gravel and wood splinters that flew past their ears. Clinging to Luo Kai’s back, Yue Han felt as if she were flying. The scenery blurred past like shooting stars, the speed so great her eyes could barely keep up. ’How can this guy run so fast!’ The moment she tried to speak, a strong headwind rushed into her mouth. She could only close her eyes and take in his strong, masculine scent. Her initial terror gradually began to subside.

The tremendous roar of jet engines thundered in the sky again. This time, it wasn’t a single plane, but a full flight squadron—five fighter jets in total—closing in from all directions to corner them. More soldiers followed close behind. In no time, the mountains and wilderness were completely filled with a dense swarm of war machines. There was simply no escape!

Luo Kai was dumbfounded. ’What on earth did this girl do to deserve such a massive response!’ Cursing under his breath, he could only force his heart to beat faster, expanding his awareness in all directions to search for a path to survival.

Gradually, his body grew hotter and hotter. With each circulation, the surging qi and blood in his body stimulated the Explosive Power of his muscle cells. However, this process also fatigued the cells and consumed their vitality—in other words, it was an overdraft on his life force. But he couldn’t worry about that now. If the army managed to completely encircle them, no amount of skill would be enough for him to escape alive.

Fortunately, the fighter jets had to bank and circle around after each strafing run, and these gaps gave them a chance to escape. Spotting a narrow crevice on a densely vegetated mountain ahead, Luo Kai quickly ducked down and darted inside under the cover of the trees. The fissure was very narrow. Once inside, he hurriedly put Yue Han down and started taking off his clothes.

Seeing Luo Kai’s scar-covered chest, Yue Han’s face flushed red. She quickly turned her head away. ”What are you doing?”

”You take yours off too, quick!”

Yue Han said, flushing with a mixture of shame and anger, ”You’re a scoundrel! At a time like this... you’re still thinking about things like that!”

Luo Kai said urgently, ”What do you think I’m thinking about? What did you do? Why are so many people trying to catch you? Never mind, I can’t be bothered to know. If you want to live, hurry up and get undressed. You’ve really dragged me into a mess this time. We’re swapping clothes. I’ll lure the enemy away, and you find your own way to escape!”

Only then did Yue Han realize her mistake. After a moment’s hesitation, she moved deeper into the fissure and slowly began to undress, stopping when she was down to her undergarments before tossing the clothes out.

Luo Kai hurriedly contracted his skeleton. He was much larger than Yue Han, so putting on her clothes wasn’t going to be easy. Besides, he didn’t even know how to wear women’s clothing.

Yue Han changed into Luo Kai’s clothes and stared with a peculiar expression at Luo Kai, who had suddenly shrunk a full size. She shyly came over to help him get dressed and whispered, ”Maybe... maybe it’s because I’m Mushan’s daughter that so many people are trying to catch me.”

”Who’s Mushan?”

”The head of the Military Punishment Department.”

”Oh, no wonder!” Luo Kai nodded. In this world, individual martial prowess was incredibly powerful. The Military Punishment Department was far from a simple intelligence agency; it was a formidable unit of Martial Artists. A single Martial Artist could take on a hundred ordinary people, to say nothing of the Military Punishment Department, which was teeming with them. Under the cover of darkness, an elite squad of Martial Artists could easily annihilate a camp of several thousand, and even gunfire posed little threat to them.

For a nation, lost soldiers could always be recruited anew, but Martial Artists were not so easily replaced. The importance of the Military Punishment Department arguably surpassed even that of the regular army. For the Xingma Kingdom, controlling the Military Punishment Department meant controlling the nation; no other domestic power could stand against an organized unit of Martial Artists.

”By the way, why didn’t you bring that Stealth Garb you were wearing before? That thing’s pretty good for survival.”

”I gave my Stealth Garb to Fifth Uncle; he’s using it to lead the pursuers away for me. Besides, the Stealth Garb is only effective at night.”

Luo Kai said no more. He peeked out to take a look, then turned and tossed a military map to Yue Han. ”Alright, wait for an opportunity and escape. To the east is Ping Mountain Port, and to the south is the rest of the Xingma Kingdom. You could also just find a better hiding spot. Goodbye!”

”You... be careful!” Yue Han watched his retreating back intently, a strange feeling welling up in her heart—a mix of reluctance to part and a deeper concern.

...

No longer burdened by the dead weight on his back, Luo Kai’s speed increased another notch. He zipped like lightning to another mountaintop, let out a roar at the patrolling Winged People in the sky, and then beat a hasty retreat. Moments after he left, the summit he had just been on was engulfed in flames.

Using the forest for cover, Luo Kai charged back and forth within the encirclement, drawing the attention of nearly every enemy. Among them were powerful Martial Artists.

When a bullet nearly grazed him, Luo Kai knew a formidable opponent had arrived. A group of black-clothed Martial Artists was forming a ring around him. Their bullets arrived before they did, predicting and cutting off his escape routes. With gunfire coming from the front, back, left, and right, there was no room to dodge. A spiraled bullet slammed into his arm, embedding itself deep in his gray-hued skin.

Ignoring the pain, Luo Kai drew his gun and returned fire. The bullet pierced the trunk of a large tree and struck one of the black-clothed men in the shoulder, the sheer kinetic energy shattering his scapula.

The large-caliber handgun Gao Gang had given him was even more powerful than a rifle, with a higher muzzle velocity. Its only drawback was the tremendous noise. His ears were ringing from the blast. In such a critical moment, he couldn’t afford to block out his senses. In fact, he had to enhance the Insight they provided, which made the ringing all the more unbearable.

In the brief moment it took him to fire back, the surrounding black-clothed Martial Artists closed in. There were seven or eight of them, and each one moved like lightning to attack. The swiftest was one armed with a Dog-Leg Saber. While still a hundred meters away, he hurled it forward. The spinning Curved Saber became a black whirlwind, shredding every branch in its path to splinters.

Luo Kai dodged and leaped to the very top of a tree, looking up at an approaching fighter jet. The jet dove, strafing him. This time, he didn’t flee. Instead, he pushed his Spiritual Sense to its absolute limit. The violent surge of his qi and blood felt as if it would tear his body apart. With it came that familiar feeling of omniscience, filling his body and mind. The trajectories of countless bullets flooded his brain, and he dodged the incoming barrage by a hair’s breadth.

Just as the jet was about to fly overhead, he leaped violently into the air. The branch beneath his feet snapped instantly. The jump carried him seven or eight meters high, but it wasn’t enough. The jet was right above him, still two meters out of reach. Those two meters were the distance between life and death.

The black-clothed Martial Artists who had just arrived understood what he was attempting to do. ’He’s actually trying to hijack the plane!’ Seeing his ascent stall as he was about to plummet back to earth, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief and raised their guns to fire.

But at that exact moment, Luo Kai’s body suddenly expanded. His entire frame stretched into an exaggerated, elongated shape, and his arm extended several times its normal length, grabbing the plane’s wing in the nick of time.

He could be seen scrambling rapidly to the cockpit, where he shattered the Solid windscreen with a single punch and slipped inside. The fighter jet wobbled from side to side for a moment, then stabilized. Accompanied by a piercing shriek, it rocketed away, leaving a trail of dust in its wake.

Below, the black-clothed Martial Artists stared at one another, utterly speechless. Such a massive-scale capture operation had actually ended in failure, causing them, a self-proclaimed elite unit of Martial Artists, to lose all face.

”Son of a bitch, where the hell did that kid come from!” one of the black-clothed Martial Artists cursed, ripping the black cloth from his face to reveal a large, scarred visage.

”Forget about him! We’ve been tricked. Mushan’s daughter can’t have gotten far. Go get the military dogs and conduct a full search!”