Artifact Report

Chapter 415 Mak Ming Ho: The New World
She wasn't someone who enjoyed conflict, but Mak Ming-ho discovered that she might have some talent for fighting.

Having lived for eighty-six years, she discovered that she was actually good at fighting—if her life could continue, what else would she discover about herself?
As Mercury charged toward them, gun in one hand, resident Ted had already realized what was happening.

As it said, once squeezed into the human world, the Black Abyss no longer had the power to disperse people; its head went into the Black Abyss and had no effect at all. Once it realized what was happening, it immediately swung its arm back—its shoulder joint was like a lump of hot butter, and its arm swung in a rounded manner at nearly 180 degrees.

The residents used tremendous force, and the wind whipped through the rain curtain; before their arms even reached the ground, a heavy pelt of raindrops arrived as if foreshadowed.

Mai Minghe narrowed his eyes, and in that instant, his body acted before his mind.

With one hand still pressed against the back of the resident's neck, she quickly ducked, narrowly dodging the arm that whistled overhead.

But he dodged too hastily and his footing was too slippery, causing Mai Minghe to lose his balance completely.

Since that's the case, why not—

She remained crouched, like a goat goat butting people with its horns, throwing her entire weight forward and crashing into the resident's lower back.

The driver, who had already lost his senses, suddenly lost his balance and was hit by the car, falling backward—the residents and Mai Minghe fell on top of him, forming a resident sandwich.

"Come on!"

Mai Minghe still held the resident's neck firmly—but her strength was limited, and it was a miracle and a stroke of luck that she could hold him down for even a few seconds. In any second, the resident, Ted, could shake her off and jump up again. "I can't hold him down anymore!"

Mercury arrived amidst the splashing raindrops.

Without saying a word, she turned the machine gun in her hand and pressed the muzzle against the back of resident Ted.

"Wait!" Mai Minghe shouted immediately, "Shoot it on the head!"

Mercury knew this wasn't the time for questions and arguments. He glanced at her, then immediately traced Ted's neck to his head, the muzzle of his gun plunging into the Black Abyss. "Why?"

Mai Minghe had no chance to answer—the gleaming gunfire, spent cartridges, and hazy gunshots all leaped up from the Black Abyss, like a bonfire and fireworks of revelry, cheering loudly from a small rift in the world.

Sensing that Ted's resistance had loosened, Mak Ming-ho immediately grabbed his arms and back and pushed him forcefully into the Black Abyss.

During the brief pause when the mercury stopped, she raised her voice, drowning out the buzzing in her ears and the rumble of the rain: "If you pierce its body, the driver will die!"

“He’s already dead,” Mercury replied, firing several more shots into the head at Ted, who was struggling to get up again.

...In fact, Mak Ming-ho also knew that the driver probably couldn't be saved.

But didn't I become a resident myself back then?

Just leave him a sliver of hope, what if?
She had no time to explain, so she could only grit her teeth and remain silent, struggling with resident Ted as she tried to shove it into the driver's head.

Fortunately, Mercury's eyesight and skill were both incredibly precise and cunning—if someone else had gone through all this with her tonight, resident Ted would have had at least five or six chances to get up by pushing himself up with his hands on the ground.

For humans, its force is simply irresistible—but Mercury always manages to seize the moment when it's charging up, bite the muzzle into its joint, and break its tendons and strength in one go with the bullet, without even touching a hair on the driver's head.

As soon as the residents' resistance ceased, she immediately stopped firing and moved on to the next target.

Although the bullets couldn't kill the residents, they were practically like a scalpel in Mercury's hand, able to cut and sever any critical point in the residents' bodies at her will.

When she discovered that the residents' shoulders were too broad to fit into the black hole the size of a human head, Mai Minghe didn't even need to ask her for a solution—with the precision of a surgeon, Mercury quickly used the kinetic energy of bullets to dislocate the residents' joints, and then the machine gun spun around, using the butt of the machine gun to pierce between the joint bones, preventing them from closing.

Then, the gun was swept downwards, and resident Ted's shoulder was forcibly pulled down to his waist.

She accomplished all of this with just one hand.

Resident Ted was furious.

Even though its head and half of its upper body were buried deep in the Black Abyss, Mai Minghe could still hear its howls and curses—if its head hadn't been so far removed from the world, its furious roars would probably have made the two of them faint.

The more it is pushed back in, the less resistance it can offer, and the faster it is pushed back in.

When he forcefully pushed the resident's feet into the Black Abyss, even Mai Minghe couldn't believe that he had actually stuffed a resident back into the lair—but what to do next?
It has fallen back into its nest, but it can climb out again with just a turn of its head.

Somehow, it seems that the world is tightly bound to the nest, and now one step is all it takes to reach the other side.

"A car is coming," Mercury suddenly called out to her, gesturing with his chin towards the front. "Go stop it, we need to get out of here right away."

When Mai Minghe looked up, he saw a pair of headlights, submerged in the dark rain in the distance, driving towards him like lanterns rising from the bottom of a lake.

She immediately jumped up and frantically waved her arms—as she stepped into the headlights, a thought suddenly occurred to her.

...It was just a coincidence that a car happened to arrive. Mercury had just sent her away.

There is only one reason for doing this, which resident Ted had already hinted at quite clearly not long ago—

A gunshot rang out, a muffled sound coming from behind.

When Mai Minghe turned around, Mercury's gun had just been raised from the driver's chest.

In the rain, which was half-lit by the headlights, their eyes met.

Mercury's expression remained calm, as if she had simply finished her coffee and gently placed the cup back on the saucer. The next second, Mercury averted her eyes, stepped into the torrential rain dimmed by the headlights, and raised her machine gun at the oncoming vehicle.

"Mercury!" Mai Minghe exclaimed immediately.

Mercury glanced at her sideways and paused.

After a long moment, she finally turned her gun towards the sky and fired a burst of gunfire.

The warning was so clear, yet the car still didn't slow down after the gunshot—was it thinking? Were it weighing the situation? Was it trying to escape? —It wasn't until Mercury neither moved nor dodged, but instead pointed its gun at it, that the car finally reluctantly came to a stop, little by little.

Mercury held the machine gun horizontally with one hand, pointed it at the driver's seat, and waved it outwards.

The driver is not an idiot.

The heavy raindrops pounded on the car, almost like the driver's tense heartbeat striking between heaven and earth.

After a few seconds, the car door was finally slowly opened.

A young woman raised her hands and slowly stepped into the rain, straightening her body.

When the three of them glanced at each other's faces, they were all taken aback.

"Jin Xueli?"

"mercury?"

As soon as Mai Minghe and Shuiyin finished speaking, they looked at each other and asked in unison, "You know her too?"

To be precise, it was only Mai Minghe who knew Jin Xueli—on the night of the gunfight in the back alley of the bar, she didn't even know if Jin Xueli had seen her face clearly.

However... tonight, Kim Seol-ri seemed absent-minded, as if her mind had just been greatly shaken. Even with a gun pointed at her and recognizing an acquaintance, she still seemed unsure of where to go next.

What happened to her?

In any case, just being able to run into her is a small stroke of good luck.

Mak Ming-ho is determined to find every dominant player in the game.

“Now that we know each other, things are easier. Get in the car, we can talk inside.” Mercury’s tense face relaxed slightly, and he gestured with his chin toward Kim Sulli. “This is not a place to linger.”

Jin Xueli glanced nervously behind them.

She must have seen the body; but she still seemed to be missing a piece of her soul, her face as if covered by a layer of mist, and she simply turned around and got back into the driver's seat.

Even if the driver is already dead...

Before getting into the car, Mak Ming-ho took one last look at the motionless human body on the ground in the distance.

The Black Abyss Belt still floated around his neck, but it seemed to be gradually losing its color, as if it were about to revert to a mass of exhaled breath. But when it completely dissipated, would the driver's head still be in the same place?
Even after his death, a steady stream of residents continued to emerge from various welfare housing construction sites into the world.

This was not a necessary sacrifice to protect humanity; it was merely an insurance policy they took to protect themselves.

If Mercury could offer an explanation, defend herself, or say anything else, Mak Ming-ho really didn't know how to answer her.

But Mercury never mentioned it; it was as if she had only done something as trivial as turning off the lights before leaving the house, something not worth mentioning, and for which she owed no explanation.

The three of them got into the car and slammed the doors shut.

For a few seconds, no one spoke or moved.

The three of them seemed to be in a state of vague bewilderment and helplessness—at this moment, no matter how experienced they were hunters or how many years they had lived in the world, they seemed to have become helpless children for a short time, waiting for an adult to tell them what to do next.

The world has changed so much that none of them recognize this new world.

“Drive,” Mercury was the first to break the silence.

"Where to?" Jin Xueli asked blankly.

"Where were you originally going?" Mercury countered.

"……do not know."

Mercury turned her head and frowned at her upon hearing this—just then, Mai Minghe interjected from the back seat, "I have somewhere to go. Would you mind taking me there?"

Jin Xueli turned around and looked at her blankly. "Ah, I think I've seen you before..."

"We are all game players."

Mai Minghe gradually calmed down, and her voice became steady. After all, the two girls in front of her were young enough to be her granddaughters. "Please take me to the welfare housing construction site on Cain Street. I heard there's another contestant there, and I need to find her. I have something to tell you."

(End of this chapter)