Chapter 67: Deep in the Wildfire Part 1

This was a cold storage room, or more precisely, a low-temperature airtight cabin. A massive steel vault door, like those guarding bank vaults, stood imposingly in place, while the constant whir of exhaust fans echoed everywhere.

Precision air pressure equipment rotated with mechanical precision, red and green indicator lights flashing alternately on the circuit boards. Strangely enough, both ends of the cold storage had doors, leaving it unclear which direction served as the entrance.

It was hard to imagine stumbling upon something like this deep in the mountainous wilds of Northern Myanmar. The villa, which on the surface looked like a drug lord’s stronghold, clearly hid some profound secret.

The hall was carpeted in vibrant rugs and adorned with wooden carvings, hand-painted Buddha statues hanging from all four walls. In the center stood a cluster of people, close enough to suggest intimacy, yet their auras and presences sharply divided them into two distinct camps.

The Silver-Masked Man faced a middle-aged man whose deeply furrowed brow and wrinkles lent him a faintly sinister air. Yet a soft, gentle smile always played on his lips, making him seem far more approachable.

He had to be the Big Boss.

Ye Jingqiu shot Jiang Zhinan a quick gesture, receiving an affirming nod in return.

By all rights, the leader of an outfit like this wouldn’t be some beefy, tattooed brute of a general. No, the true puppet master was invariably a refined tiger in sheep’s clothing—suave as polished jade, elegant and smiling. That was how it always played out in the movies, at least.

Which meant the scarred man lagging half a step behind the Big Boss was definitely “Second Brother.”

Shi Zui’s eyes swept the hall in a flash. The Silver-Masked Man had only three underlings with him, all radiating thick elemental auras, but these small-time goons posed no real threat.

Second Brother, on the other hand—the one with no discernible abilities—drew her gaze for a lingering moment. He was a genuine fighter, standing tall without menace, upright without stiffness. Lacking Instinct made him all the more dangerous; even the scorching flames of Yinghuo couldn’t erode his iron grip on his blade.

“Noble guest honors our humble dwelling, bringing light to our thatched hut,” the Big Boss intoned in flowery archaic style, offering a slight bow. A strand of jadeite beads, green enough to drip water, gleamed brilliantly around his neck. “But I hear this time you’ve not brought sufficient potion?”

Half the Silver-Masked Man’s face remained shrouded by his mask. He replied in a low voice, “Indeed. I’ve brought little God’s Grace on this visit, for my purpose is to carry the will of God to the four corners of the earth.”

Ye Jingqiu let out a soft “Eh.” This was her first encounter with the Silver-Masked Man rambling nonsense without throwing punches. She hadn’t expected a group that projected such formidable presence to cling to such boyish purity of heart.

Too pure—pure to the point of radiating sheer idiocy.

Yet the Silver-Masked Man had answered so obliquely, plainly handing the Big Boss an opening to probe the nature of that “will.” The Big Boss merely smiled faintly, however, and delivered an unexpected reply:

“No matter. Last year, a guest mentioned that God’s Grace demands pure, noble blood as its medium. Though the blood of ordinary folk like us wouldn’t suit your tastes, I’ve pondered that quantity might compensate for quality.”

The Silver-Masked Man fell silent for a beat before murmuring slowly, “What do you mean by that?”

The Big Boss clapped his hands. With perfect synchronization, the thugs flanking the cold storage leveled their guns. The Silver-Masked Man’s expression shifted drastically. Before he could bellow a command, the thugs jammed their barrels against the freezer doors and wrenched them open with a sharp crack.

In that instant, an impossibly dense reek of blood saturated the cold storage. The ventilation system roared to life, hurling the gut-churning stench straight at Ye Jingqiu and her companions. Shi Zui merely creased her brow, but Jiang Zhinan nearly heaved up last night’s dinner.

“My boys feared dirtying the divine offerings with their hands, so they borrowed these iron tubes instead,” the Big Boss said, smiling at the Silver-Masked Man as though the guns were mere props in a ritual. He stepped aside to reveal a path. “After you, honored guest. Let this blood extend God’s Grace to me and my brothers. Surely that’s agreeable?”

The metallic tang thickened relentlessly. Ye Jingqiu’s face drained of color—the odor was overwhelming, as if someone had torched an entire cemetery right before her eyes. The stench of boiled proteins wove together with raw blood, transforming the freezers into a vision of hell.

Pale-faced, she glanced toward the hall’s edge. Embedded in the floor, the freezers brimmed with human corpses, every body gutted hollow. Organs might have been shipped off to North America or Europe, but such details no longer mattered. These were no longer corpses—merely slabs of meat.

And heaven only knew how much of that meat crammed those freezers.

Her fists clenched instinctively, a spark of fury flashing in her eyes.

This was a power play. The Big Boss had seen through their mismatched motives from the start. He accorded them the respect of “guests” for their supernatural might, but that hardly meant he’d be fool enough to lay down his own life.

The Silver-Masked Man didn’t budge. Tension hung in the air like the hush before a bomb blast. Abruptly, he laughed.

“It seems we need to speak frankly and openly.” His tone was even.

“I am listening.”

“To speak plainly, blood fit for brewing the potion is indeed running scarce in the organization, for it serves a far greater purpose now. Even we can no longer bask in God’s Grace.”

The Silver-Masked Man’s voice rumbled low and heavy, only to surge with sudden fervor. “But a priceless opportunity now lies before us both! It hinges entirely on whether you can grasp it!”

The Big Boss replied gravely, “An opportunity—you mean the chance to wield power like yours?”

The Silver-Masked Man nodded. “Precisely. We are straining every effort to rouse our sole true God’s emissary. She shall bestow upon us power and riches aplenty. The slumbering emissary lies not far from here at all. I have come to urge you to join us in seeking her out.”

“And the location?”

“Return Ruins—or, put another way, the ocean. The sole entrance we’ve uncovered thus far lies in the Gulf of Thailand. Should you agree, I will guide you there myself.”

The Big Boss waved a hand, and the thugs slammed the freezers shut. The ventilation ducts droned on undiminished, the high-powered fans shifting to a higher gear. Air pressure was plummeting fast; linger much longer, and the ultralow atmosphere would pin them fast against the steel walls.

Ye Jingqiu and Shi Zui exchanged a tacit glance, pieces falling into place.

After a long silence, the Big Boss finally spoke. He lowered his head for the first time, addressing the man before him with an honorific, though his words carried a note of apology. “Forgive me, sir. The entrance you mentioned is simply too far for us. I’m just a man without any grand ambitions.”

“Have you truly made up your mind?”

“I’ve truly made up my mind. Would you care to stay for dinner, sir?”

A cold laugh leaked from behind the Silver-Masked Man’s mask. “I advise you to think it over again. Even God’s Grace can be taken back by us.”

The moment those words left his mouth, Scarface Second Brother suddenly thrust his hand upward in a fierce gesture. Guns reappeared throughout the room, chambers racking with crisp, uniform clicks. With two sharp snaps, the thugs’ index fingers were already on their triggers!

But the barrels were aimed—

At the Big Boss.

Ye Jingqiu let out a soft gasp, thinking this was one hell of a backstabbing drama. What would come next? Would Second Brother break down in tears, hysterically accusing the Big Boss of ingratitude after all these years? Or would the Big Boss turn pale and deliver a heartfelt lecture, trying to bring his subordinate back to his senses?

She let her imagination run wild to ease the tension, but her right hand had already quietly gripped the long blade that had once severed Wu Hong’s head.

The Silver-Masked Man burst into loud laughter, as if everything was firmly under his control. He lowered his voice. “Are you still set on this path? For the sake of our years of acquaintance, I’m willing to let you live.”

Scarface’s face remained impassive, as restrained as ever, as if he weren’t the one ordering the betrayal. The Big Boss, surrounded by death, stood unmoved like a mountain. He scanned the circle of thugs and sneered. “And if I say no?”

The Silver-Masked Man smiled faintly. “Then… fire!”

“Bang bang bang—”

The thugs pulled their triggers in unison. But in the final instant before the bullets flew, they unhesitatingly swung their muzzles around. In a flash, a torrent of dense gunfire poured out like mercury spilling across the ground, all aimed squarely at the Silver-Masked Man.

The gunshots were deafening.

The Silver-Masked Man reacted with astonishing speed, twisting his body backward into an impossible contortion. Three attendants used their bodies as shields, blocking the first wave of bullets for him. But these were well-trained thugs—how could they let the barrage end there?

They split into two teams with perfect coordination, one covering the other as they reloaded. Empty magazines clattered haphazardly to the floor while the MP5s and UNG-12s roared, spitting solid steel rounds.

In moments, the room was littered with spent casings, leaping from the breeches and nearly obscuring Ye Jingqiu’s view. It was too intense, the air thick with muzzle flashes. The concrete-and-steel walls of the cold storage sprouted countless bullet holes, hundreds of rounds hammering toward the Silver-Masked Man in the span of a single breath.

No one—not even 007 or Schwarzenegger—could dodge a storm like that.

Yet the Big Boss still hadn’t ordered them to cease fire. His eyes were locked on the direction where the Silver-Masked Man had vanished, a flicker of fear in his gaze.

What was he afraid of?

A curtain of eerie blue flame erupted out of nowhere, swallowing every bullet like a divine miracle.

Instinct: Blue Sea.

The temperature in the cold storage skyrocketed as flames representing thousands of degrees surged forward, carrying the breath of the Grim Reaper. In an instant, they clamped down on the thugs’ trigger fingers like piranhas, igniting a chorus of agonized screams. The tide seemed on the verge of turning.

“Don’t stop! Keep firing!”

Second Brother bellowed the order at the top of his lungs. He and the Big Boss had feared this so-called emissary for too many years. Tonight, he had come with the resolve to purge that nightmare from his soul. Even if every last underling died here, it would be worth it.

The gunfire blazed, sparks flying everywhere. At that moment, the Big Boss yanked down a nearby circuit breaker and shouted toward the ceiling. “With dangers like this, I ask that the guests upstairs stop spectating!”

The ventilation system ground to a halt. With a loud bang, the duct’s metal wall swung open.

Pressure sensors lined the duct entrances. The moment Ye Jingqiu had entered the vent, the Big Boss had known intruders were upon them. Yet he hadn’t stopped them or sent his men to kill them.