Illusion Report

Chapter 127: Chapter 95: Chaisi: Snatching an Instant from a Hail of Bullets

Later, Chaisi would think that he only survived that day for two main reasons.

First, the bullets suspended in mid-air had suddenly accelerated. Though still lethal, they lacked the high pressure of ignited gunpowder. In terms of kinetic energy and speed, they were ultimately no match for a bullet actually fired from a gun. If those bullets had come from a handgun within ten meters, not even three of him could have escaped being pierced through.

The second reason was Uncle Kai’s warning.

Before Chaisi could even get a clear look at the situation on the hillside, Uncle Kai had already spotted him.

If Uncle Kai had shouted half a second later, the bullet, no matter how slow, would have been enough to drill into his forehead.

After hearing the two words "Get down," the instant it took for Chaisi’s brain to convert the verbal signal into action felt long enough to contain his entire life. The thirty years of his existence were reduced to the width of a hair—the distance by which the bullet had grazed his face.

The next second, he hit the ground hard, his shoulders absorbing the impact as bits of grass and dirt flew into the air around him.

Those few bullets shot past just above Chaisi, vanishing into the gray sky without another sound.

’What’s going on?’

He didn’t have time to look back. Pushing himself up from the ground, he had just started to rise when he heard someone ahead shout, "Kai Luonan is here! The bullets!"

Chaisi immediately understood the hidden meaning in that sentence and leaped to his feet.

The hilltop green was a chaotic mess, strewn with bodies. Several cars were parked askew, apparently driven up by the Kai Family Hunters during the rescue attempt. Now, their tires were shot out, rendering them useless.

He couldn’t see the person who spoke, as they were behind a car a dozen or so meters away. They just raised a hand toward the air and shouted, "Over here!"

From the voice, he knew it was the same person who had just urged him to hurry up the hill.

Like birds of prey catching the scent of blood and hearing a summons, the few bullets floating in the air instantly dove down, circled halfway around the car, and plunged toward the spot where the person had waved their hand.

"Kai—"

He hadn’t even gotten the "-cle" part of "Uncle" out before Kai Luonan’s command drowned him out. It was the same two life-saving words: "Get down!"

Obeying his command was almost instinctual.

As Chaisi felt himself dive forward, he once again heard the familiar sound of something slicing through the air behind him. In that instant, he suddenly understood.

The bullets that had just grazed his face weren’t like normal rounds that would lose momentum, hit something else, and meet their end. When they missed their mark, they simply stopped and floated in mid-air again. It wasn’t until Chaisi jumped up that they turned around and came lunging for the back of his head once more.

’Is someone controlling the bullets?’

At the same moment that thought entered his mind, the dull thuds of a physical struggle came from behind the car, accompanied by a low grunt of pain. It sounded like someone had been hit by a bullet. Immediately after, a body fell heavily to the ground.

Chaisi clenched his jaw, his muscles trembling. He managed to restrain himself and not jump up again.

No matter how lucky he was, dodging bullets three times in one day was inconceivable. He couldn’t be arrogant enough to think he could evade them a fourth time. The bullets that rushed past his head, just as he’d expected, stopped one after another in mid-air after failing to hit their target.

’They could have easily dove down and riddled me as I lay on the ground, but they stopped...’

’Does that mean my subconscious thought from just now was right?’

The bullets themselves were just ordinary rounds; they couldn’t sense targets by sound or body heat. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have spared the people hiding behind cars or lying on the ground. Only when a target was exposed in the controller’s line of sight, or when someone called out the target’s position, would the bullets come swarming.

’No wonder Uncle Kai told me to get down. The controller themself isn’t on the cemetery grounds. Due to the angle and terrain, can they only see people who are standing up?’

’Uncle Kai...’

Chaisi quickly glanced at the distant car, suppressing his anxiety and trying to detach himself emotionally. Propping himself up on his elbows, he crawled forward a few steps until he could finally see the ground beneath the car.

The body that had fallen from behind the car was wrapped in a bright yellow raincoat.

’It’s not Uncle Kai. Today is the anniversary of Damian’s death. That definitely isn’t Uncle Kai.’

Blood began to flow in his veins again. The tight pressure in his chest suddenly loosened.

He wasn’t hit. After all, back in his prime, Kai Luonan was one of the top Hunters in Blackmoor City.

But before Chaisi could even breathe a sigh of relief, he saw at least twenty or thirty bullets in mid-air start to move. In the span of a single breath, they descended like a flock of birds diving for prey, beaks pointed down, and hammered the empty space behind the car. The lower half of the body in the yellow raincoat was caught in the storm and was jolted and shaken by the rain of bullets.

’Is Uncle Kai still there?’

Just as Chaisi was about to leap up and rush out again, a hushed voice called out to him from a distance, "Don’t go over there!"

He turned his head and only then discovered a Kai Family Hunter hiding not far ahead. Mr. and Mrs. Kai, who had come to pay their respects to Damian in the rain, had set up a large patio umbrella on the grass. A Hunter named Mai Gao was huddled behind a chair in the umbrella’s shade, clutching a blood-stained knife.

"The moment you stand up, those bullets will find you," Mai Gao said in a low, urgent voice. "After taking down one of the yellow raincoats, Mr. Kai definitely knew he couldn’t stay in one place. He probably wasn’t hit. Don’t rush over there and get yourself killed!"

Chaisi stared intently at the area behind the car.

After the shower of bullets, the space behind the car fell silent. He couldn’t see Uncle Kai, nor could he call out to him.

"I was late," he asked, his voice hoarse. "What’s going on here? How many of us are left?"

Mai Gao seemed to notice the gun in his hand. "Guns are useless. The area is covered by an Illusion effect. Every bullet we fired was stopped and taken control of. We couldn’t kill the enemy; instead, our bullets became their weapons to pin us down and kill us. We didn’t expect it at first and were caught completely off guard, losing a lot of people right away."

Chaisi looked up. Lying on the ground, his vision was limited, but he could still make out several bodies in the distance. Some wore yellow raincoats, and some did not.

"The Illusion effect is indiscriminate; if the yellow raincoats fire their guns here, their bullets will be stopped too. But this is their home turf, so it doesn’t matter if the bullets are stopped. There are more than enough of them in the air already."

"They’re searching for us everywhere. As soon as they spot someone, they signal the bullets in the air to shoot down... The few of us who are still alive are scattered and hiding in different places. I figure the others are doing the same as me—trying to take them out stealthily when a yellow raincoat gets close. If we fail, all they have to do is shout, and all the bullets will come down on us... I don’t know how many of the Kai Family are left now, but the casualties on both sides are probably high."

’In other words, if Uncle Kai hadn’t shouted to warn me, he wouldn’t have exposed his position and been put in danger.’

He glanced again at the spot behind the car where Uncle Kai had been. He had to get over there, see for himself that Uncle Kai was safe, and protect him as he left... But how could he get there?

Before Chaisi could come up with a plan, another figure in a bright yellow raincoat appeared in the distance. Even though Mai Gao had said all fired bullets would be suspended in the air, the person was still carrying a Desert Eagle, walking step by step toward the car where Uncle Kai had been hiding.

In that instant, Chaisi realized what he was about to do.

It wasn’t just him who wanted to know if Uncle Kai was still alive; the attacker behind the scenes wanted to know too.

There weren’t many places to hide in the cemetery; it was mostly open ground. Even if Uncle Kai had escaped that rain of bullets in time, he could only be dodging and weaving between the cars. He couldn’t have gone far. It wouldn’t be hard to find his position by sending someone over.

Having learned their lesson from the last yellow raincoat who was killed at close range, the second one wouldn’t dare get too close. Besides, he didn’t need to.

Upon discovering Kai Luonan’s hiding spot, the yellow raincoat just needed to fire a single shot at him. Once that bullet was stopped in the air, it would become the perfect signpost. Then, the rest of the bullets floating in the air would surely strike Uncle Kai before he had a chance to get up and flee.

The image of "Uncle Kai getting shot" flashed through his mind like a needleprick, almost making Chaisi leap to his feet. He bit his lip hard, forcing himself to stay perfectly still.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of risking his life; his own life wasn’t worth mentioning. But there was only one chance to save Uncle Kai, and it was the moment the yellow raincoat found him.

"Mai Gao," he ordered the Hunter under the umbrella, his eyes fixed on the yellow raincoat, "Move. Find another place to hide."

"...Huh?"

Chaisi didn’t know if he had understood.

Because in the next second, just as the yellow raincoat was about to step between two cars, he stopped abruptly, having clearly spotted his target. He was wearing a headset. While speaking hurriedly into it, he quickly backed up a few steps and raised his gun.

Chaisi had always been fast, but in that moment, he exploded with a speed he himself had never anticipated. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

The motion of him leaping up from the ground and lunging for the large umbrella was so fast it was like a single frame of film a director deemed unnecessary and simply snipped from time. As Chaisi grabbed the umbrella’s pole and yanked it straight up, a gunshot rang out in the distance, a BANG that nearly shattered the gray, heavy sky.

All he could do now was pray that Mai Gao was right, that the bullet fired by the yellow raincoat would also be stopped in its tracks.

The moment the gun fired, the controller’s attention must have been focused on the yellow raincoat. And it was in this brief moment of distraction that Chaisi had his chance to act.

The long, heavy patio umbrella became a blur as he swung it in his hands.

With a series of CLANGS and CLATTERS, Chaisi used the umbrella to either knock away or sweep up many of the bullets floating nearby. As he ran, he swung his arms with all his might and hurled the umbrella toward the yellow raincoat’s position.

The moment the umbrella left his hands, Chaisi was already close. He leaped, diving straight onto the car, rolled over the hood, and landed on the other side.

He had just crouched down when he heard a series of THUDS against the other side of the car. He knew it was the bullets that had been trailing him, unable to stop in time, hitting the vehicle. If he had been a fraction of a second slower rolling over the car, he would have taken them all in the back.

Logically, no matter how fast he was, he couldn’t outrun the bullets in the air.

But Chaisi had used the controller’s brief moment of distraction to sweep away a large number of nearby bullets with the umbrella. The controller had been forced to regroup the bullets and accelerate to pursue, which had given him a sliver of an opportunity. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com

The instant his feet hit the ground, Chaisi didn’t waste even the blink of an eye. He pounced on the yellow raincoat, who had just staggered aside to dodge the umbrella. Before the man could even get up, Chaisi’s hands were on his throat, pinning him firmly to the ground.

Just then, the walkie-talkie tucked into the back of Chaisi’s waistband crackled to life.

It was hard to believe that less than ten minutes had passed since Morando’s attack. Mercury’s Mercenaries had finally arrived at the cemetery.

But before answering the walkie-talkie, Chaisi first ripped the headset off the yellow raincoat. Through the earpiece, he heard a man’s voice asking urgently, "...Respond. Where do I send the bullets?"

He let out a low, breathless laugh.

’The mastermind’s attack on the Kai Family... was over.’