So-Called Karma 1

It was a trap, but to avoid tipping off the enemy, Lu Mingqiu decided to play along.

Today was Monday, leaving two days and three nights before Wednesday's operation—enough time to summon members from other bases.

Lu Mingqiu never liked fighting unprepared battles; she preferred to have everything under control, with victory within her grasp.

The Holy Healing Church was an old adversary, a mortal enemy. They were pawns of the wealthy, and naturally viewed the Resistance as a thorn in their side. The two organizations had clashed countless times in skirmishes both large and small.

Whenever the Church made a move, thwarting them was always the right call—that never went wrong.

Dozens of people were transferred from around the city. They would head to Ping'an Wharf on Wednesday night to step into the Church's trap, letting the enemy lower their guard and think they had everything in hand.

Among those dozen or so were five espers who could coordinate with each other, and the rest were seasoned operatives adept in various skills.

The Church wouldn't station elites at the wharf; more likely, this was a collection of expendable pawns like Stinger, sent to be eliminated by the Resistance while still serving their final purpose.

Two birds with one stone.

Ping'an Wharf was a mid-sized cargo dock, used mainly for transporting goods; passenger ships docked at another harbor in Nanjin City.

By Wednesday evening, Mirror had arranged a meeting time with her contact, White Mask. At midnight, she brought four Resistance members to the vicinity of the wharf.

Still wearing Stinger's appearance and mimicking his mannerisms, she said, "This is it. Earlier I saw several Church members unloading boxes from a ship, all secretive, looking heavy. No idea what's inside."

The others suspected nothing and followed him deeper, threading their way between the containers.

At the planned ambush spot, three men with machine guns suddenly jumped out and opened fire.

One Resistance member raised both hands, and a high wall of earth instantly rose from the ground, blocking the bullets. At the same time, several more figures emerged, including two espers—one hurling fireballs, another flickering in and out of sight like an invisibility cloak.

None wore clerical robes or Church symbols. One of them, Mirror recognized, was a notorious local bounty hunter.

They were indeed the Church's cannon fodder, and they fired without any regard for Stinger, clearly not caring whether he survived.

Once they revealed themselves, the rest of the Resistance team sprang out and surrounded the enemies, catching them completely off guard.

Just as this group set out, Lu Mingqiu had already led another team to the bar.

Having suspected something was off, Hei Ge had hacked into the nearby public cameras to analyze the people coming and going, finally spotting an anomaly.

Why would this small, two-story bar—capacity a hundred-odd—need two truckloads of supplies delivered every day?

While pretending to be Stinger and stepping outside for a smoke, Mirror chatted with the delivery workers, who said they were only responsible for transport and that their superiors claimed the boxes were full of various foodstuffs.

The Church was cautious: they rotated the delivery crew every two days, and no one among the patrons ever noticed how many delivery trucks came to the back door.

Once Hei Ge found this, he immediately combed through past surveillance logs and discovered this had been going on for nearly half a month.

Large amounts of unknown goods were being brought into the bar with no sign of them coming back out. So where were they going, and what were they for? It raised serious suspicions.

To ensure everything went smoothly, Lu Mingqiu brought all the espers from the base and infiltrated the bar.

It was a small joint: on the ground floor, a dance floor with three poles on the stage, where five dancers—men and women alike—moved, their gestures extremely provocative.

A ring of patrons surrounded the stage, cheering and screaming whenever a dancer made a teasing move, some reaching out to grope their sweaty bodies. The atmosphere was electric.

Every half hour, there was an interactive segment where two customers were randomly picked to dance closely with the dancers, and even kiss.

With their hot bodies and varied looks, the dancers were in high demand.

When Yan Xianchuan and her crew walked in, it happened to be the interactive segment. The stage was directly across from the entrance, and her first glance caught a nearly nude woman hooking her leg around a customer's waist, sliding up and down while cupping his face and kissing him passionately.

She averted her gaze instantly, as if the blue-and-purple lights of the bar had stung her eyes. This society was far too open for her tastes; she'd never quite get used to it.

The team entered in pairs. Lu Mingqiu led the way, unfazed by the scene—she'd seen it all before. With a casual sweep of her eyes, she began assessing their surroundings.

Mirror had already recorded the interior layout, having spent days posing as different people to explore every corner of the bar, both accessible and off-limits.

She'd marked all the accessible spots, like the private rooms and restrooms. Three areas were off-limits: one was the kitchen, unmarked but identifiable by the aroma of food and the clang of spatulas; the other two were a stairwell leading up from the second floor guarded by bouncers, and a corridor past the kitchen that bent out of sight but was blocked by a server before she could investigate.

Of these, the top was immediately ruled out.

The upper floors housed a hotpot restaurant, and even if there was an intermediate floor sealed off, it was too small and not hidden enough to be a Church base.

The basement was the most likely spot.

Every secret organization seemed to have a knack for digging holes.

The immediate challenge was how to bypass the staff and slip into the underground base unnoticed.

But Lu Mingqiu already had a plan: the vents.

Aside from Mirror, the Resistance had another shapeshifter, a man named Ger.

He could alter his physical structure to become any species he'd seen—from tiny flies to whales—and the Resistance rarely called him by his name, preferring "Grand Druid."

Ger's esper power was low-level; he had no other abilities beyond shape-shifting, and the transformations didn't last long.

But there was no such thing as a useless power—only users who didn't know how to exploit them.

Lu Mingqiu had Ger turn into an ant, carrying a custom-made microchip, crawling down the ventilation system to infiltrate the bar's basement.

In areas without surveillance, he'd expand to a larger size to move faster; where cameras existed, he'd stick to blind spots or crawl along cracks in the floor and walls to stay hidden.

He had a few hours of operational time to infiltrate, during which he couldn't contact his comrades. Fortunately, every place he crossed was automatically uploaded to Hei Ge, generating a map that let the others track his movements and status.

Ger scurried through the vents at full speed, heading downward for nearly an hour, until he reached a distinctly different area.

His esper power might be low-level, but used well, it was a game-changer. All the vents in the Resistance base were fitted with filters and electric grids precisely to block such intruders.

The Church clearly had no idea they had this trump card. With little effort, Ger crawled through the mesh and spotted the Holy Healing Church emblem stamped in the room below—he'd found the right place.

He kept moving along the duct lines but noticed the base seemed understaffed. Based on Mirror's observations, there should have been many people gathered here.

Ger felt puzzled but pressed on, eventually reaching the surveillance room. Sliding out through the narrow vent slit, he crept toward the computer mainframe.

One person sat in the surveillance room, absorbed in a church text, occasionally glancing up at the screens.

Ger slipped in through the cooling fan, transformed into a scorpion, and used his pincers to insert the chip into a port.

The chip contained a fragment of Hei Ge's data, which would let him hack into the network here.

After finishing, he reverted to an ant, retraced his path, and, circling behind the man, returned to human form.

His body stretched and lengthened, all without a sound. The man remained oblivious, still reading his text, unaware of the presence behind him.

When Ger became an animal, he could only carry gear that was tight against his body. Things like guns would fall off the moment he shifted.

So what he carried were mainly electric shock discs, and what he'd practiced most was throwing.

He wore a black bodysuit, his head completely bald, and stood silently in place. Lifting his hand, he pulled a round, button-sized shock disc from his waist.

With a flick of his wrist, the black disc spun and struck the man's head, embedding itself right into his skull. Blue sparks leaped, and the man went stiff instantly. His book began to fall, but Ger caught it smoothly with one hand.

【Infiltration successful.】

The moment his success was signaled, Lu Mingqiu moved.

The guard at the kitchen door was easy to deal with—no need for complicated mind tricks. Pretending to ask for directions, she hypnotized him into going to the bathroom, and he wandered off.

The Holy Healing Church had an AI monitoring the entire premises, and if it detected any anomaly, it would send an immediate alert. So no matter what, hacking the surveillance equipment first was always the top priority.

Hei Ge taking over the base's network had another advantage: he could open the back door for them, letting them head downstairs without identity verification.

Hei Ge 【There are very few people in the base, only seven. Wait—a team just returned, and they're moving crates.】

As he spoke, he transmitted a map of the underground base, tagging the enemies in red. Five red dots were clustered together.

Seven plus five was only twelve. Why so few people?

Lu Mingqiu felt a sense of dread. "Take care of them separately," she ordered.

The team dispersed, leaving Yan Xianchuan by her side. Together, they charged toward the group of five. After just a single exchange, all five dropped unconscious, knocked out by Lu Mingqiu's esper power.

They were ordinary humans, not espers.

Yan Xianchuan stepped forward, pried open one of the sealed plastic crates, and compressed food spilled out across the floor.

She opened another—same thing. They were packed full of compressed food.

Aside from these few people, the base was empty, clearly evacuated long ago.

Lu Mingqiu stared at the dark tunnel ahead. "Where does this lead?"

Hei Ge replied, "Unknown. All the data here has been wiped clean."

Her eyes darkened. "Tell Gold Ring to take these people away for interrogation."

"Let's take a look."

Yan Xianchuan nodded and moved forward to scout the way.