Chapter 329: Chapter 327 This guy is tricky, need to raise the price_1
In the residential building above, Emily lowered her binoculars. She didn’t immediately signal Katerina to act, planning instead to wait until they began the transaction before dealing with them.
That was her habit.
Even if she knew the boxes contained flour, she wouldn’t take action before the transaction began.
It wasn’t that Emily was rigid; she was simply certain that the contents were indeed flour.
Since she knew it was flour and could act during the transaction, why rush?
Better to wait and catch them red-handed.
She only resorted to methods unbefitting a detective when she wasn’t sure what was inside.
When she knew, she was quite willing to patiently wait, watching things unfold as anticipated.
"Katerina, that man wearing the Stars and Stripes doesn’t look easy to deal with. Are you sure you can handle him?"
"As long as he’s not a Superpower User, just a martial artist, I’ve never been scared of anyone."
Katerina’s voice was filled with confidence. In martial arts alone, she had yet to be defeated.
A breeze tousled Emily’s hair, prompting her to tuck a stray lock behind her ear. She smiled. "Then let’s just wait patiently."
She didn’t notice that the breeze, after brushing her cheek, hadn’t moved on; it lingered, circling quietly above her.
Aozawa was also waiting, intending to test the strength of Katerina’s Defense Barrier.
If there was no crisis, he would create one. As long as he wasn’t discovered, it wouldn’t arouse suspicion.
Aozawa blew gently towards the abandoned factory.
He remembered this was where he and Iroha had played their haunted house adventure, a place where he’d often gotten an unexpected—and rather soft—faceful.
He hadn’t expected this abandoned factory to be a Yakuza site for flour transactions.
He wondered if Takahashi and the others had removed the scary traps inside.
Aozawa drifted into the abandoned factory. There were no remnants of the haunted house traps.
Of the twelve individuals present, excluding the group leader and the man in the Stars and Stripes attire, everyone else held a black box.
They were waiting for the buyers to arrive.
Murai Rise didn’t have to wait long.
At exactly eight o’clock, the lookout shouted, "Boss, they’re here!"
The van that entered the abandoned factory flashed its headlights three times, then extinguished them.
Eight people emerged from the van and walked towards the abandoned factory.
Timing it perfectly, Emily said, "Katerina, go."
Katerina didn’t remain squatting. Her tall figure shot forward, as swift as a cheetah yet as silent as a prowling cat. Anyone watching would have felt it was uncanny; her large frame should have thudded loudly as she ran.
Katerina sped towards the abandoned factory. Instead of using the main entrance, she gathered strength in her legs, vaulted over the two-meter-high wall in a single bound, and landed inside the compound.
The ground was overgrown with weeds. Ahead were blackened walls and empty window frames, their glass long gone, leaving only dark, skewed rectangles.
The moon was dim that night. The moment Katerina’s feet touched the ground, her leg muscles tensed like a fully drawn bowstring. When released, she shot forward like an arrow, smashing through an already crooked window frame and bursting inside.
"Mr. Miki, to our partnership," Murai Rise said, just about to reach out and finalize the transaction.
Suddenly, a tall figure burst into the factory.
Before he could react, Sunny, like a cat spotting a mouse, pounced.
Fists and feet met. BANG! The sound reverberated through the air.
The dislodged window frame clattered to the ground.
Sunny felt as if his right foot had struck a steel plate. A powerful shockwave traveled up his leg, numbing his calf slightly. He stumbled back a few steps to regain his balance.
"Shoot!"
Murai Rise reacted quickly, drawing his gun, aiming at Katerina, and pulling the trigger.
PFFT! PFFT! PFFT! The silenced shots weren’t loud, but they still echoed in the quiet factory.
The eleven men of the Murai Group, including the eight buyers, all drew their guns and fired.
Bullets struck Katerina, but her custom-made bulletproof vest withstood the small-caliber rounds. However, the force of the impacts was unavoidable.
Katerina’s outer clothes were riddled with holes, but she paid them no mind, focusing only on protecting her eyes from stray bullets.
She took a deep breath, her chest swelling, then unleashed a deafening roar: "RAAAH!"
It was like the roar of a dragon or the bellow of a tiger. The soundwave exploded through the factory, shaking some window frames so violently they clattered to the ground.
The sound stunned everyone, dazing them momentarily.
Seizing the opportunity, Katerina charged. Her body coiled low, then shot upwards like a flood dragon bursting from the sea.
Her massive form reached Daniel in a single pounce. A heavy punch followed, spinning his head like a top. As he twirled, Katerina grabbed his ear, lifted his over-one-hundred-pound body as if he were a club, and swept him at the surrounding men.
BANG! Several men stumbled back from the impact. She tucked in her shoulders, elbows out, and charged like a wild bull.
Sunny, standing to the side, dared not approach. It wasn’t that he feared Katerina, but at such close range, the wild shots from the others could easily hit him.
Sunny’s Stars and Stripes jacket wasn’t bulletproof; it only had a bullet-absorbing property.
Acting on professional instinct, he pulled his employer, Murai Rise, aside. The fate of the others was none of his concern.
Is this woman a Yakuza Hunter? Murai Rise’s face was a mask of shock. By the time he uttered those words, several men had already been brutally killed.
When he finally thought of running, the PFFT! PFFT! PFFT! of gunfire had ceased, leaving only a room littered with corpses.
And standing amidst the bodies was the tall woman, her hands stained with blood. Her brutal, cruel aura seemed to freeze the summer night’s warmth.
This person is a very tricky enemy, Murai Rise thought, his scalp tingling.
"You can’t beat her?!"
"It’ll cost extra."
"No problem! As long as you can kill her, money is negotiable."
Murai Rise nodded eagerly.
Sunny said in a deep voice, "Then I’ll distract her. You find the right moment to shoot. Her eyes are her only weakness."
"Okay," Murai Rise nodded.
Although fewer people remained, the oppressive atmosphere inside the factory didn’t lessen; instead, it intensified.
Sunny’s hands hung loosely at his sides. Though they appeared to be mere skin and bone, they were now slightly bent into claws. The backs of his hands showed prominent tendons and bulging veins, devoid of any fat, as if forged from raw iron.
"Impressive skills," Katerina complimented.
Regardless of his character, Katerina thought, to develop such hands must have required unimaginable hardship.
"What a pity."
Sunny shook his head in rebuttal. "There’s nothing to pity. Did I train for twenty years just to spend another forty practicing? Women, wine—once I’m strong, I’m going to enjoy it all."
He had trained so hard precisely to get ahead, to become a free man in the United States, not some ascetic who only knew grueling practice.
"That’s why I say it’s a pity," Katerina said.
The moment she finished speaking, Katerina’s shoulders twitched. A ferocious aura instantly erupted within the factory. In that moment, she transformed into a tiger in human skin.
A series of cracks, like popping soybeans, echoed from her joints as she lunged.
Her previous silence shattered. This time, she moved with the roar of wind and thunder, determined to finish Sunny in a single blow, avoiding his attempts to restrain her and expose her eyes to gunfire.
Her eyes were the only vulnerability her bulletproof vest didn’t cover.
In martial arts novels, this would be the classic fatal pressure point.
After all, a martial artist wasn’t a Superpower User. Her flesh and blood couldn’t make her eyes impervious to bullets.
Sunny dared not be careless. He stomped his foot, his hands lashing out like lightning, trying to seize Katerina’s wrists and create an opening for Murai Rise to shoot.
But as his fingers closed around her wrists, his heart sank. Her strength is beyond imagination!
Sunny couldn’t hold her for even a second. He released his grip and leaned back sharply, their bodies now inverted relative to each other, Katerina above and Sunny below. Ordinarily, they would have simply shot past each other.
But Aozawa didn’t let the opportunity slip. The gentle breeze he controlled rapidly gathered force, transforming into a sharp gale that struck Katerina squarely in the abdomen.
From this angle, Katerina couldn’t possibly see that it was Aozawa, in the form of the wind, who attacked. She would only assume it was Sunny’s move.
A sense of deadly crisis flared from Katerina’s abdomen, shocking her. How could Sunny counterattack twice in such a short time?! she thought.
In that split second, it was too late to react fully. Her only option was to arch her back, bracing to absorb the impact she believed came from Sunny. As the fierce wind—strong enough to tear her in two—struck her midsection, a nearly transparent, iridescent light flickered across her skin.
BANG! Katerina was thrown into the air, spinning several times before she hit the ground.
She looked slightly astonished. Was my force-dispersing technique really that perfect? Such a dangerous attack, and I’m completely unharmed?
Sunny was also stunned. What just happened? he wondered. He only knew Katerina was terrifyingly agile, able to flip in mid-air using only her core strength, without any leverage.
As a gentle breeze, I’ve tested Katerina’s Defense Barrier, Aozawa thought. It’s far weaker than mine, but the fact it withstood that last blow means it should handle a high-caliber sniper rifle. Also, when her Defense Barrier was attacked, I felt it too. Morimoto Chiyoda’s Defense Barrier isn’t as strong as Katerina’s, but it should also be able to stop bullets.
With these thoughts, Aozawa deactivated the Defense Barrier he had placed on Katerina.
Katerina, noticing nothing amiss, cautiously observed Sunny for a moment, then lunged again.
Sunny tried to dodge.
Katerina suddenly halted. Twisting at the waist, she planted her left foot firmly and launched a high kick at Sunny with her right. It was so fast he barely had time to raise his arms to block.
BANG! Katerina’s kick sent him flying. Pushing off her left foot, she lunged after him.
Her right hand feinted, drawing Sunny’s attention, while her left shot out, fingers stabbing toward his eyes. Her thumb then hooked his nose.
Using Sunny’s body as a shield against any bullets, Katerina then hurled him at Murai Rise.
Murai Rise dodged, but in the next instant, a powerful gust of wind hit his face as Katerina’s fist filled his vision.