Chapter 467 Sniper Elite
"So, basically we're playing search and destroy, only the difficulty is cranked up to the max. I can't go around wandering otherwise I'll be spotted, and if spotted I'll be revealed. I can't allow my target to recognize or find me before I find them and terminate them. I also cannot allow myself to be revealed and the worst part is, I cannot fight the guards. This is pretty tough," I mumbled to myself.
I got closer to a small crack in the wall of this run-down house I was teleported to, I took a peak at the outside and was able to see a good portion of this giant city. You could see some form of patrol moving around the streets, but no humans, only the Puppets.
There was a group of three puppets, two looked slender and lean, while the one in the middle of them was pretty much a bulldozer build. Pretty massive with a giant iron ball strapped in one of its arms.
The lean guards were looking around making sure to keep watch while the giant in the middle followed after them. You could notice that their movement was imbalanced, as, the two guards had to stop every time they took a couple of steps waiting for the massive-sized one to catch up.
"Slow and fast. Hmm, I need to note that," I mumbled to myself as I traced other areas of the City that I could see using the small hole in the wall.
Finding nothing of note, I decided to take the higher ground, because there was a temple nearby, it seemed abandoned from the first view, so I had to make sure that it was empty.
I headed out stealthily, opening the door to the house, and immediately dove into the shadows of the alleyway. The black robes were pretty efficient in hiding one in the shadows and using them I was able to move as stealthily as I could. But since I was not fully trusting of my stealth skills, I started using the Traceless Steps.
This allowed me to fully negate my Qi imprint upon the area, and fully conceal myself from sight and senses.
I couldn't last more than a couple minutes in the Traceless Steps state since it exhausts a lot of mental and physical strength, so I had to act fast.
I headed rapidly toward the temple I saw at first because it had an amazing vantage point I can use.
I took a few twists and turns and was even able to move past a cultivator who thought he was fully hidden, the only issue with his hiding spot was the fact he forgot to pull the rest of his robes with him into the shadow, a bit of it was hidden in plain sight.
That man is a dead man.
Once I went past him my eyes darted to the location of the tag on his chest, the number read 755.
It wasn't my target. Not that I was expecting anything, but finding one of my targets this early on could be nothing but the purest form of luck, and I don't rely on that.
I arrived to the abandoned temple in time before my Traceless Steps state was over. And it was good I managed it in time.
Because just as I went inside the temple, a group of guards showed up on the street. These were not the same as before, instead, they were four guards with a build that was muscular and lean, their arms were holding swords and their eyes were red. They were looking for prey.
I went inside the temple and didn't see anything but dust, broken down altars, and a lot of fractured and broken ancient furniture that could easily go for antics.
Those weren't of any importance to me. Because what I needed was the vantage point. This altar had a tower.
Before I headed up the tower though, I wrote a couple of inscriptions on the floor, nothing too complex, it was just a motion detection inscription, something that once triggered it will notify me of the presence of an unknown.
Along with a couple of Nerve Pills that would paralyze any preparators or unwanted guests.
With the traps set up, I headed up the tower.
It had a spiraling staircase that seemed to have broken in several places. But it was still steady and sturdy enough for me to climb, and with a bit of effort, I was able to climb all he way to the top of the tower.
There should have been a bell at the top somewhere since the top of the tower was like that of ancient churches from my old world. But nothing like a bell was anywhere to be seen here, still, it was good, this way I'll be able to move more freely without something as noisy or big as a bell restraining my movements.
Now that I was at the tower's top, I was able to have a far better view at the terrain under me.
The Temple wasn't the highest or tallest structure of the city by any means, but it still gave me a good view of almost half of the city from where I was.
And that was all I needed for now.
I pulled up one of my favorite weapons. A rifle. And not any rifle, this thing was a beast of its own.
The entire barrel was decorated in inscriptions, so many of them that it's mind-boggling.
The idea of this rifle came to me when after my fight with one of the Fire Lord's spears and after being admonished for trying to fix my hoverboard inside the Demonic Sect.
Fire Arms had a lot of power behind their skills, and seeing that bullet lost their effects against cultivators the higher the cultivation stage went up, brought me to think outside the box.
All the weapons I had were powered by Spirit Stones, but those are useless. I thought many times on how I could use Saint Qi to power my bullets but failed miserably to make something. That is until I had a great breakthrough.
The Rifle's stock was actually not a normal Rifle Stock, in fact, it was a reactor. The same Saint Qi reactor that was inside Y. Though this one is more purposed. It isn't generating functional energy, but generating explosive energy on an extremely small scale.
Though I wouldn't call it nuclear fission, something that was close... No, not close, but more like in a different league altogether.
Instead of splitting atoms to create energy, I split Saint Qi which was energy in itself. The idea was pretty absurd at first until I tried it using a simple inscription.
I had written an inscription that would exert energy from a Saint Qi crystal and another inscription that will constantly compile and compound Saint Qi in a specially made chamber. This chamber is made of the same material as Y's Sword and is currently the strongest metal in my possession.
The compounding of this energy will result in a supercharged chamber that will need a trigger. And this trigger is something I never expected to work in the first place. It was actually Heavenly Energy.
It was the same as adding a drop of water to a super-heated pot of oil. And this will double, triple, quadruple, and even more, many more times the energy inside the chamber. And once the trigger is released, I'll be able to shoot down a projectile that moves so fast, and with enough energy that it'll obliterate even an Ascendant without them sensing it.
The trials for this were conducted by my puppets, and in the process of trying it, I lost more than sixty of those puppets. But now I'm sure the rifle works perfectly fine.
The stock had the Saint Qi reactor in it, and the Fission chamber was embedded at the bottom of the barrel. As for the ammo I had a magazine that could hold only three Bullets since three bullets is the maximum amount of bullets this rifle could shoot before the chamber fractures. Shooting anymore will result in my face melting off.
The rifle's interior barrel was carved in an ungodly amount of inscriptions which all had three purposes. The first and most important inscription was the cooling inscription, this will trigger immediately after the bullet had left the chamber, the heat generated is enough to melt steel, so I needed to keep the barrel cool. The second inscription is to reduce friction inside the chamber, so when the bullet is shot, it wouldn't damage the inside of the barrel. As for the last inscription, it was an inscription of rotation which would add penetrative properties to every shot. Air, metal or flesh all will be torn whenever the bullet flies.
Now, this is all fine and perfect, but the bullet itself is the most difficult. As most bullets I shot turned to dust a mere fraction of a second as they left the barrel due to the power behind the blast.
Until I designed special bullets for this rifle. I didn't even have many of them, barely a dozen.
These bullets were composed of several Parts. The first part was the exterior shell, which served to protect the inner bullet from the initial impact. This frame usually shatters the moment the bullet flies. The second part was the bullet itself which would travel a great distance that it had survived the first impact. And the last part was a small pill embedded at the bottom of the bullet. This pill is usually in a solid state before release, and with the power of the blast, it immediately heats up and the components inside it melt as if they were in a furnace.
Consider them as half-finished pills. These hold a toxin that will become highly active the moment it heats up, and upon contact, the poison should spread in bloodstream. And on the chance that the bullet misses, the liquid inside the bullet once it comes in contact with a solid matter or when the chamber of the bullet is compromised or fractured, it transforms into a volatile state and creates a concentrated poison cloud.
I went down on my stomach and pulled the rifle up, my right eye looked through the magnifying oculus and I began adjusting the sight.
The night vision was a great addition to the optic, but I went up a level beyond. I Implemented an inscription on the optic that allowed it to completely ignore anything that is below a certain temperature. Meaning that I created a Thermal vision.
With my eyes locked onto the optic, I smiled as I was able to see people moving behind walls and entire buildings.
"Good, now, lets see, where is my first target..."