The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

"Damn... things are starting to get chaotic. If we deviate even slightly, we'll get accidentally injured."

On the empty building, the long-handled gun slightly turned its tip, and the pointed bullet once again shattered the head of a Blood Sand Company thug in the blink of an eye.

But the other side's actions naturally began from there.

"superior!"

With half his shoulder limp, Mike managed to squeeze out a growl from his throat. Behind him, dozens of thugs brandished their blades.

Further away, in the streets and alleys shrouded in thick fog, even more people emerged from the shadows with a dense chorus of footsteps, slowly approaching.

The blade reflects the cold white light of the whale's gas lamp.

But Mike didn't have time to worry about that. Zheng Kui's punch was so powerful that even when Mike blocked it, he couldn't help but lean backward.

Zheng Kui may indeed have some martial arts background, but as Zhang Chang'an observed, his fighting style is mostly derived from street fighting.

So without any preparation or stance, he raised his hands, which were tucked into his sleeves, and delivered jabs and hooks that slammed into Mike's face and abdomen.

"Crack..." As Zheng Kui exerted his strength, the dirt road beneath his feet immediately cracked open like a spider web.

Mike's pupils suddenly contracted. He had witnessed Zheng Kui's attacks countless times over the past ten years. But he had never seen Zheng Kui this fierce before.

At that moment, the slender figure rushing towards him had pale blue steam seeping from its sleeves. A delicate pressure relief valve at one of its joints emitted a high-pitched hiss.

[Mantis]-shaped city fighting exoskeleton.

Armin built his armor using power lines and parts salvaged from mechanical police equipment. It wasn't as sophisticated or heavy as other armors, but by sacrificing defense, he gained greater agility and explosive power.

"Bang bang..." Mike tried to block, but Zheng Kui's fighting style was extremely agile, and those two attacks were just the beginning.

He raised his fist to his chest, the pressurized piston of the steam exoskeleton roared, and a barrage of attacks immediately unfolded like a storm.

Mike's boot heels plowed through the shards of bluestone, leaving him no room to attack. He retreated step by step, being pushed back five feet by Zheng Kuiping.

"Bang!" His back slammed into an overturned handcart, and the rotten wooden frame shattered into pieces.

Zheng Kui's fist pressed against his claws, right in the center of his chest.

"Mike Zhou".

Zheng Kui addressed him by his full name for the first time: "For doing something like this, if you were released in Guangdong, you'd be condemned by heaven and earth."

"I'll kill your mother—" Mike gritted his teeth until blood seeped out, shoved Zheng Kui away, and then, with a sharp swipe of his bleeding shoulder, extended his claws forward.

Zheng Kui's sleeve was immediately torn, and the partially covered exoskeleton left his arm unprotected.

The exoskeleton's pressure relief valve hissed, and his arms were stained with blood, yet he only raised his knee to strike Mike head-on.

As the two of them fought, windows all around the street and in the company's upper floors were pushed open one after another.

"Click-clack..." The barrels of the guns gleamed with the matte sheen characteristic of brand-new firearms under the whale-shaped lamplight.

"Fuck..."

"Bang bang bang bang bang!"

The sharp, piercing explosions of bullets blended together, and flames and bullet heads trailed in a net-like pattern.

"Watch out!"

"Find cover! Find—"

Near Mike, several thugs who had not yet dispersed fell backward as if struck by an invisible giant hand.

Blood mist swirled under the whale-shaped gas lamps, and smoke mixed with fragments of bluestone slabs tumbled in the air still warm from the warhead.

A hail of bullets rained down. Many of Mike's men fell instantly. The remaining dozens scattered, immediately tumbling over overturned stalls, discarded metal barrels, and piles of bricks at the alley entrance.

"Bang...bang..." The gunshots became fragmented as the brothers lying in ambush near the company began to cover the area with fire, but Mike's men were not equipped like ordinary thugs.

Many of them drew their pistols, and even some shortened rifles, and began to return fire, plunging the scene into chaos.

However, amidst the chaos, the gunshots from upstairs were still particularly clear.

The warhead's flight arc left a white trail in the fog.

It precisely bypassed a cart, spun and tore through the head of a thug, and then burst into a cluster of blood behind his head.

The next shot, of the same caliber and with the same trajectory, pierced the skull of an Irish thug who was aiming a revolver at Zheng Kui, just seconds later.

"Hold."

Mike, who was being restrained by Zheng Kui, noticed that he couldn't use his strength on one side of his body. He glanced at the round hole in his shoulder that was gushing blood, then looked up at the dark window.

"Uncle Wang, you're almost sixty... and your eyesight is still so good."

The window did not respond.

Only the third bullet pierced the thigh of one of Zheng Kui's henchmen who was trying to flank him.

………………

At the eastern end of Crowfeather Street, the curtain of the black carriage fluttered slightly.

Harold lowered his tortoiseshell binoculars: "That gunman under Louis's command?"

Inside the carriage, his subordinate confirmed in a low voice: "Yes. His real name is Wang Guangfa, originally from Liaodong, a soldier in the Beiyang Fleet, who killed at least forty French soldiers in Taiwan. After the war, he fled to Hong Kong and only came to England in the seventeenth year of the Guangxu Emperor's reign."

Harold didn't turn around, calmly saying, "Send ten men."

He paused. "No, fifteen. From the side of the bread shop. That building doesn't have a back door; he can't escape."

Harold raised the binoculars again: "Also, let them use all their equipment."

The subordinate obeyed and left.

Soon, heavy mechanical roars echoed from the eastern section of Crow Feather Street.

Accompanying the sounds of the steam engine's cylinders and transmission chain was the vibration of two-ton cast iron wheels crushing the bluestone slabs.

Mike's men decisively parted to make way for a modified heavy steam vehicle, which slowly emerged from the fog.

The company's men immediately focused their firepower on the steam car. Although the carriage was made of thick metal plates, it was quickly riddled with dents and even completely pierced by the concentrated fire of countless bullets.

However, at that moment, the car drifted to a stop, leaving a long trail of steam from the engine, and the behemoth lay horizontally across the field.

"Clang..." The car door, already riddled with countless cracks and damage, opened wide. The interior was dark, with only two points of amber light floating in the depths.

While everyone's attention was drawn to the scene, Mike and his team decisively ripped open their clothes.

They were surrounded by gunfire, and their faces were menacing.

"Pfft..." The sound of flesh tearing made Zheng Kui turn his head back, and he saw that Mike and his many subordinates behind him had all pulled out metal-cased glass syringes.

As the needle pierced their bodies, a pale blue liquid slowly descended through the tube, and a pale blue light began to slowly rise beneath their skin.

The different thugs used different injection sites; some were in the thighs, and some in the injured hands.

Mike, on the other hand, had the needle inserted directly into the side of his neck.

"You're having a blast? Keep playing, you bitch..."

When Mike opened his eyes again, they were bloodshot and a deep blue, and half of his hair had turned the same color as the medicine in the tube.