Under the red moon in the sky, in the light of a gas street lamp that was lit at a distance, Lumian identified the footprints and followed them at a moderate pace. Soon, the wet traces dried up completely and no longer served as a reminder.
But Lumian had memorized the size of the four pairs of footprints, the patterns on the soles and the characteristics of each person's walking, so he would not confuse them with other footprints. Even so, his tracking was still quite difficult. Unlike the ruins of Cordu Village, there were tens of thousands of people coming and going in the streets and surrounding areas every day. Not only were the footprints left behind countless, but they also overlapped and destroyed each other, making it impossible to lock on to the real target.
At the same time, there were all kinds of garbage left by the vendors, as well as some negative effects brought about by the bad environment. Lumian sometimes felt like he was looking for a drop of water in the ocean. Fortunately, it was midnight.
There were few pedestrians on the road, and most of them were drunkards. They exuded a distinct smell like fireflies in the dark, and their footprints were more or less staggering. Lumian could rule them out at a glance, and since Maggot and the others had just walked a short distance, many of the traces had not been destroyed. He barely followed them. Sometimes, due to the environment or Maggot's caution, the footprints would suddenly break, but Lumian did not give up. He would calm down and try to walk a long distance forward, to the left and to the right, to look for new traces.
After repeated trial and error and a lot of time, he finally found the footprints he wanted.
In this way, Lumian tracked all the way to Yeluan Street in the market area and stopped in front of a five-story apartment far away from several cheap dance halls.
Footprints of Maggot and his men entered inside.
“I don’t need the protection of my subordinates. I have enough confidence in my own strength…” Lumian muttered to himself silently, becoming more convinced that his target was a Beyonder.
Glancing at the dark corridor, he pondered over how the "hunter" might deal with the corresponding traces before returning to his real residence. He believed that even if he took a calcium carbide lamp and searched the stairs one level at a time, it would be difficult to locate Maggot, and he might even fall into the trap set by the other party. After thinking for a while, Lumian had a preliminary plan, retracted his sight, and walked towards the next street.
Not long after, he ran into a drunk man in his twenties who was already walking unsteadily. When the man reached a broken gas street lamp and began to vomit, Lumian lowered his hat, walked over and said in a low voice, "I want to buy your shirt, 1.5 Felgin."
The drunkard's first reaction was to wonder if he was so drunk that he was hallucinating.
He was wearing a gray-blue tweed jacket that he had bought at a cheap clothing store in the Honest Man's Market for only 1 fil coin, but now someone was actually spending 1.5 fil gold, or 30 ricks, to buy such an old piece of clothing that he had worn for two years.
Am I crazy or is this guy crazy? The drunk tried to raise his head and look at the opposite side, but due to the lack of light, he could only see the vague outline hidden in the darkness.
The next second, he had two cold coins in his hand.
The drunk instinctively weighed the coin and touched the pattern on its surface. He burped and asked, "Why do you want to buy it?"
“If you don’t want to, I’ll find someone else,” Lumian said, as if to take back the two coins.
The drunk stopped asking questions and slowly took off his coat and took out the things in his pocket.
When Lumian walked away with his clothes, he raised his head with difficulty and waved his hand: "Haha, lunatic, a lunatic who gives away money..." When he returned to the bottom of the apartment on Yeyang Street again, Lumian had changed his clothes. He wore a dark blue baseball cap, a gray-blue tweed jacket, washed white trousers, and a pair of old and dirty leather shoes.
Including some things he would need later, his total cost was 12 Felgin.
Looking up at the apartment where no light was coming out, Lumian was suddenly stunned: Why must I target Maggot, the Beyonder? His three subordinates died not innocently, and the star is weak and doesn't know how to hide his tracks. It won't be much harder for the other party to kill them than a chicken... "The fate of being attacked by Montsuri is not chosen, and what kind of person will bear it next! Why did I just think about how to hunt Maggot? I was not like this before. I could be ruthless when I needed to, and I would try to solve the problem simply when I could, without carrying an extra burden...
As his thoughts ran wild, Lumian's mouth curled up. He found that he instinctively chose the more dangerous prey because it seemed to be more challenging and he would feel more comfortable and happy if he did it quickly. Looking down at his left chest covered by clothes, Lumian suspected that this was a certain change caused by the pollution in his body. After a few seconds of silence, he lowered his voice and whispered, "It seems that I am a little crazy..."
He didn't plan to change his target. He seemed to be able to smell the smell of blood. This was a blessing and a curse. With his baseball cap pushed down, Lumian carried a bunch of things and went around to the back of the target apartment.
He placed greasy pieces of meat, flammable sofa stuffing and other items in the corner and created a firebreak around them.
Then, Lumian lit a match and threw it over. The sparks spread rapidly over the most flammable material, soon growing from small to large and swallowing up the surrounding objects.
Black smoke rose up, and when the smoke became thicker and enveloped the surroundings, Lumian shouted at the top of his voice, "Fire! There is a fire!" While shouting, he ran back to the front of the apartment and shrank into the shadow of the corner. His plan was, since I don't know which room of the apartment you, Maggot, live in, and what traps you have set, I will let you come out by yourself.
If Maggot was an "arsonist", he would have realized that the flames and smoke below could not form a real fire, and his response would be completely different. Lumian would then be able to judge the other party's sequence number and decide whether to move forward with the plan or give up.
As smoke rose, flames flickered, and Lumian shouted, the residents of that apartment building and the surrounding houses ran up the stairs to the street.
Because the fire was not big and the interior of the apartment was not affected by smoke, no one risked jumping down.
Lumian stopped talking and stared at the entrance of the apartment, while others shouted similar words for him and began to look for the fire.
Two seconds later, a figure jumped down from a window on the second floor and landed on the ground.
Maggot was dressed in a formal red shirt and sail-colored trousers, with his light yellow hair standing up.
Maggot relied on the fact that he was a Beyonder and lived on a lower floor, so he didn't walk through the corridor like other tenants, but jumped directly out of the window.
After landing, he looked back at the apartment and found that the fire was not serious at all. His behavior of jumping out of the window was unnecessary and made him look panicked and stupid.
At this moment, he saw a figure wearing a peaked cap and a gray-blue tweed jacket jumping out from the corner next to him. The figure lowered his head, pointed at him, and laughed, "Look, this guy is so stupid!"
With a bang, Maggot's emotions exploded, and with slightly red eyes he pounced on the man who laughed at him.
He was fast, but the figure was even faster. It had already turned around and ran towards the nearest alley.
Maggert just wanted to beat the guy up, so he chased after him.
The two of them ran one after the other into the dark and deserted alley.
Thump thump thump, the figure rushed to the front of a street, pressed with his right hand, and flipped over.
Maggot didn't stop. He stomped his feet hard, flew up into the air, and jumped directly across the street.
As soon as he landed, he saw the figure stop and turn around.
In the crimson moonlight, the face under the dark blue baseball cap appeared in Maggot's eyes.
He was wrapped in layer upon layer of white bandages, with only his nostrils, glasses and ears showing.
The opponent's left hand was the same, holding a silver-black, slightly evil dagger. Maggot's eyes widened rapidly, and his heart skipped a beat.
He instantly came to his senses and realized that he had just experienced the impact of a similar provocation.
Suppressing the slight uneasiness in his heart, Maggot directly pulled out the black revolver hidden in his waist. He aimed at Lumian and launched a provocative attack: "Just relying on that knife? Idiot, this is the era of guns!"
boom!
Maggot pulled the trigger and a bullet shot out, heading straight for Lumian's head. Lumian suddenly fell backwards, as if he had bent into an arch bridge.
Then, he bounced his waist and flew horizontally, avoiding the second bullet shot by Maggot.
Then, Lumian straightened his body like a spring, and threw the "Corrupted Mercury" in his hand towards Maggot, as if it was just a flying knife.
Just as he dodged the attack, Maggot saw Lumian pounce on him like a tiger.
It was not until this moment that he realized that the other person's ears were stuffed with thick paper balls and were hardly affected by his previous provocation.
The one who knows a hunter best is always another hunter.
This made Maggot's anger surface again, as if he was silently provoked by the other party's behavior.
With a snap, Lumian clenched his right fist and smashed it towards Maggot's temple with a crisp sound.
Maggot raised his left arm and blocked it steadily.
At the same time, he raised his right hand again and aimed his revolver at Lumian's head.
At such a close distance, let’s see how you can dodge.
In an instant, Lumian leaned forward as if he was going to hit Maggot's chest with his head, and stretched out his left hand to grab his right wrist, while his right leg kicked behind his head with great flexibility.
No. He didn't kick the back of his head, but the fallen mercury stuck in the crack of the stone next to him!
The evil silver-black dagger flew into the air and was half-led and half-guided by Lumian's foot as it flew towards Maggot.