“The small building ahead is Black Spider's hideout. He lives on the third floor. He should be very alert, so let's not make any noise,” Li Yalin whispered.

Han Xiao's voice came through the earpiece, "No need to be so careful, Black Spider has already spotted you."

"How do you know?" Li Yalin pouted, looking unconvinced.

As soon as she finished speaking, the silence of the night was shattered by a burst of gunfire. A series of bullets rained down from above, and Li Yalin and the others instantly rolled away, taking cover behind the corner of a nearby alley, their faces grim.

When had they been discovered?

Although they wouldn't be injured by such a simple ambush, without Han Xiao's warning, their reactions wouldn't have been so quick. Thinking of this, Li Yalin's expression turned serious, and she carefully adjusted her earpiece.

A man stood high up where the bullets had come from, looking down at them with a twisted, eerie smile, making no attempt to hide his arrogant demeanor. His defining feature was a black spider tattoo on his left cheek. He wore a black combat suit and held an assault rifle. With a wave of his hand, ten masked men, wielding firearms, appeared from various alleys, subtly surrounding Li Yalin and her team.

"The intelligence was wrong, how could he have accomplices!" Lin Yao exclaimed, his eyes wide.

Li Yalin's heart sank.

Black Spider sneered, "I dare to stay in Xidu, did you think I would be unprepared? Last time, Bureau Thirteen made me suffer a loss. I, Black Spider, always repay my debts. Since you dare to reach your claws at me, I'll chop them off!"

Black Spider was a solitary bounty hunter and assassin with a notorious reputation in the underworld. He could often lay a series of traps before his target even realized it, leaving them with no escape, like a spider's web.

Li Yalin suddenly spun around and kicked the wall. A flash of bright yellow light, and the wall collapsed with a roar. The falling rocks formed a barrier, blocking the enemy's line of sight.

In the early stages of the martial arts path, Qi (life force) could be attached to fists and feet, granting extraordinary strength. Li Yalin was at E-class, with an energy level above 300 Ona, approximately level 25.

Black Spider led his masked squad in forming a circle, using firepower to suppress them relentlessly.

Li Yalin and Lambert, pulling Lin Yao along, constantly dodged, using the alley's layout to their advantage. Fortunately, they were skilled enough that none of them were hit despite the perilous situation, but they were forced into a dead end.

Black Spider and his men blocked the alley entrance. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said with a look of ecstasy, "Little bugs caught in the web, every hair on your bodies is radiating fear."

"You think you've won?" Li Yalin raised an eyebrow, secretly exchanging a look with Lambert.

Black Spider seemed to have heard something unbelievable, exaggeratedly looked at his ten teammates behind him, spread his hands open, and declared flamboyantly, "With a single command from me, you'll be riddled with bullets, what makes you think you can challenge me?"

Li Yalin said in a deep voice, "Then why haven't you made a move yet?"

"Killing you won't do me any good. If I capture you as hostages, I can collect a ransom." Black Spider waggled his finger, everything was under his control. He knew that his words would be transmitted through the agents' earpieces to Bureau Thirteen. He relished this feeling of showing off, and suddenly sneered, "But I only need one of you!"

Black Spider waved his hand, ready to give the order to fire. At that moment, Li Yalin suddenly jumped up, her feet flashing with a bright yellow light, leaping from wall to wall, ascending rapidly. Her movements were graceful, like a dragonfly skimming the water, rapidly closing the distance in mid-air with elusive footwork.

"Kill her!" Black Spider's expression tightened, and his subordinates opened fire on Li Yalin, but they couldn't aim at Li Yalin, whose speed almost created afterimages. Only a few bullets hit Li Yalin's body, turning into small iron pancakes on her clothes.

Li Yalin's close-fitting suit was lined with ceramic fiber bulletproof fabric, which bullets couldn't penetrate. Her physical fitness allowed her to withstand the kinetic energy of the bullets, and she wasn't afraid of the gunmen at all. The previous escape was all an act to lure the enemy into a concentrated encirclement, making it easier to eliminate them all at once.

In the brief moment when the enemy's attention was divided, Lambert seized the opportunity to strike. With a swipe of his hands across the knife pouches at his waist, four throwing knives struck the throats of four men in the blink of an eye.

The others were shocked. As half of them were about to turn their guns on Lambert, Li Yalin shattered the wall in the air with a kick, sending down a shower of rubble, blocking Black Spider and his men's attacks. Accompanying the rubble was Li Yalin, descending like a hawk swooping down on its prey.

Li Yalin pulled out the hilt of the folding combat blade from her waist and slashed down. When it was still thirty centimeters away from the enemy, who slightly tilted his head, thinking he could dodge it, suddenly, sections of the blade, several decimeters long, extended like抽条 (choutiao - to sprout), instantly eliminating the distance. With a flash of the blade, the enemy's neck was slit open.

Suddenness was another advantage of the folding combat blade.

"Good weapon!" Li Yalin's eyes lit up.

For a martial artist to get close to ordinary-level gunmen, the result was self-evident. Thirty seconds later, blood flowed all over the ground, and only Black Spider, whose hands had been chopped off, lay on the ground.

Li Yalin snorted softly and retracted the folding combat blade. She was very satisfied with this weapon, which could extend and retract freely, and could be short or long.

"Not bad." Han Xiao praised calmly. He hadn't said anything all along because he wasn't worried about them being defeated here at all.

"Th-thank you," Lin Yao said awkwardly.

"Not including you."

Lin Yao lowered his head in frustration. He hadn't been of any use at all.

"Little girl, you can't kill me."

The seriously injured Black Spider laughed hoarsely, a look of fearlessness on his face, staring at Li Yalin teasingly.

Without a word, Lambert pulled out his gun and blew Black Spider's head off, splattering red and white matter all over the ground.

Li Yalin and Lin Yao silently looked at Lambert.

Lambert was expressionless and said calmly, "Just try and you'll know."

"... Oh well, he's dead, he's dead. Anyway, the superiors didn't tell us to keep him alive. I need to take a good bath when I get back, I'm covered in blood and it stinks."

Li Yalin stretched lazily.

At this time, Han Xiao spoke, "Don't relax, Black Spider is still alive."

Li Yalin almost pulled a muscle, pointed at the corpse whose head had been shattered into minced meat, and said unhappily, "He can still live like this?"

Han Xiao said calmly, "He's an Esper (ability user) with a very difficult ability. You'll know if you lift the mask of the first masked man on the left."

Lin Yao hesitated and said, "But there's never been any information on the dark web about Black Spider being a superpower user. You might be mistaken."

Li Yalin curled her lips and said earnestly, "It's not 'might be', it's definitely mistaken. Newbie, I understand your eagerness to make a contribution, but you can't make up false information to amuse us."

Han Xiao was speechless. This melon-headed girl really needs to fill in the holes in her brain.

(Recently I've been feeling uneasy, I always feel like I'm being stared at by the void, I don't know if it's just my imagination...)