Chapter 98: Delivering the Final Blow

Chu Ning had not noticed that the dead had come back to life. Perhaps he had been a little careless, not examining the corpse thoroughly enough and missing the fact that the man had only been pretending to die.

In any case, it did not affect their search for the target. From the situation at hand, Chu Ning and the others encountered many corpses, each meeting a different end, and he could not help but sigh that the real difficulty of this mission had never been the target’s supposedly formidable combat power as described on the poster.

Human beings seemed to possess a peculiar gift for turning on one another from within, and that struck Chu Ning as both utterly realistic and deeply exasperating. Reason plainly told him that they ought not to clash before the target was fully subdued, since doing so served no one’s interests.

Yet after finishing off several half-dead men sprawled on the ground, Chu Ning no longer entertained such noble illusions. He himself could not even keep from killing the other competitors, so what right did he have to stand on some moral high ground and demand better of others?

“This...”

After witnessing Chu Ning kill a human being with his own hands, Tanya had become much more indifferent toward the practice of finishing off the wounded during their search. She comforted herself with the thought that this was entirely for the sake of the injured: better to lie there waiting for the blood to drain away and the body’s functions to collapse bit by bit.

Far kinder to send them on their way ahead of time. In its own way, that was a form of swift release.

Waiting for death really was terrifying. Tanya knew that all too well. She could not exactly call an ambulance on their behalf, and if her own interests were not involved, she would not have minded doing so.

But since this operation would affect the profits they expected to reap afterward, Tanya could only look on coldly and ignore the pleading figures on the ground.

Neither of them found this surprising. They continued to search for the target at their own pace. Judging from the commotion so far, no one had located the target’s position yet; otherwise, things would hardly still be at the level of these small skirmishes.

The chemical plant was large, yet not so large as to be boundless. If they were searching alone, it would indeed be difficult. After all, this was not some treasure fixed in place, but a living target with its own emotions.

Depending on the surroundings, the target would actively shift its position when necessary. If they were unlucky enough, they might keep missing one another forever. Fate was cruel in precisely such ways.

A plot device worthy of any movie, and forever timeless.

Still, with the number of people who had entered the chemical plant at present, once the search truly began, the target would not be able to hide for long.

Chu Ning hurled a stone with full force at the half-dead man on the ground. His choice had been cautious enough to prevent even the dying man’s final counterattack. After all, when cornered, there were always those who would cling to the hope of dragging someone down with them.

As for asking the man about the target’s whereabouts, Chu Ning did not care in the slightest. The moment the target was discovered, the situation would surely roil like ice dropped into boiling water. Looking at the fallen man, he did not seem like someone who had found the target.

Tanya, on the other hand, wanted to know the man’s identity in more detail. But Chu Ning stopped her from wasting time and effort on it, insisting that it was unnecessary.

Knowing who the other party was might only make things more troublesome; their worries would grow uncontrollably.

Chu Ning’s reasoning was sound. Once they had chosen to kill and silence someone, the victim’s faction would inevitably decide how to respond based on the killer’s strength. There was no need to elaborate on what might follow.

Those who should come knocking would come knocking sooner or later. Those who should not come would never trouble them merely for the sake of a disposable pawn; at most, they would leave behind only a death record.

Even death is not without its injustice.