Colonial Suit

Chapter 19: Spiral of the Claw (Free Chapter)

Bang!

A loud, muffled sound echoed from the point of contact between the two, but Xue Tong's scream wasn't heard. The dust quickly dissipated, and everyone discovered that Kalisha's metal fist hadn't harmed Xue Tong at all. Instead, Xue Tong's right hand firmly grasped it. However, unlike before, on that slightly thin right hand, a magnificent and exquisite gauntlet appeared, one that none of them had ever seen. Beyond the gauntlet, Kalisha saw a pair of eyes, blood-red pupils.

“Ahhhhh!” Kalisha suddenly screamed.

Before everyone's eyes, Xue Tong's right hand suddenly began to tighten, as if a pair of alloy steel claws, causing countless cracks to appear on Kalisha's metal fist, emitting visible white mist from within.

On the opposite side, Xue Tong's ornate gauntlet remained unscathed, instead flowing with a faint blue light. This faint blue light wasn't randomly scattered but flowed from several crystal lines on the gauntlet that resembled decorations, like flowing starlight, exceptionally beautiful.

“This… what is this!?”

“……” Xue Tong didn't answer, but a strange expression appeared on his face. A bit surprised, but also somewhat expected. He quietly glanced at Kalisha across from him, then his gaze suddenly turned cold, and he uttered a single syllable.

“Claw!”

A faint blue light flashed. Xue Tong's fingertips suddenly sank deeply into Kalisha's fist, as easily as cutting tofu. Immediately afterward, he clenched his fingers and made a twisting motion with his wrist.

“Spiral!”

“Ah!” Kalisha let out a heart-wrenching scream. Just as Xue Tong's voice faded, his steel fist suddenly shattered. Five eerie blue lights suddenly emerged from the fragments, spiraling up his arm. Everywhere they passed, the armor plating shattered, and blood mixed with fragments sprayed in all directions. Kalisha's right arm was instantly twisted into a bloody mess by the blue light spiral.

“It hurts, it hurts so much!” Kalisha screamed in pain, desperately retreating backward, his eyes filled with fear as he looked at Xue Tong.

He was scared, truly scared. He was wearing armor! To say its defensive capabilities were strong would be an understatement; even heavy machine gun fire at close range probably wouldn't cause any damage. Moreover, the armor's fist was made of an alloy structure, with the fist surface covered in impact armor, enough to penetrate twenty millimeters of steel plate. How could such powerful armor be damaged, how could it be destroyed? What exactly were those gauntlets on the opponent's hands, how could they be so powerful?

Kalisha thought frantically, feeling the crushing pain in his right arm. Large amounts of blood sprayed from his shoulder, like a fountain.

“Don't… don't kill me, don't kill me!” Kalisha shouted loudly, scrambling backward on his hands and knees.

He was just the leader of a small bandit group, nothing but a fart in this wasteland. His dream life was to rob a few fat sheep, then exchange the money to arm his bandit group, so he could live a life of drunken dreams. He didn't want to die, not at all.

But he didn't expect that as someone who had opened Pandora's Box, he couldn't just run away.

A gust of wind swept through, carrying sand. People squinted their eyes. At this moment, Xue Tong moved. With a flash of his figure, he caught up with the fleeing Kalisha in a few strides. With an exaggerated swing of his right arm, a tragic arc of light suddenly ejected from his elbow, severing Kalisha's neck with a single blow. In a burst of blood, Kalisha's headless corpse ran five steps before collapsing on the ground, his body convulsing violently as a large stream of blood gushed from his neck cavity.

The benevolent Lord Kalisha was beheaded by Xue Tong with a single blow.

Having completed all this, Xue Tong didn't even bother to look. He lightly tapped his toes and rushed out of the vehicle formation like a crossbow bolt flying close to the ground. The bandits watching outside were already dumbfounded, standing on their motorcycles in stunned silence. Seeing Xue Tong rush out of the vehicle formation, someone shouted, and the bandits woke up from their nightmare, shivering and frantically twisting the throttles to escape.

But they were too slow. Although Xue Tong's sprinting speed couldn't match the motorcycles' top speed, it was easy for him to catch up with the bandits who had just started. In the swirling dust, he was like a fierce cheetah, catching up with the bandits one by one, and with a flash of his light blade, he cut them down. His arc blade was so sharp that not only the bandits but even their motorcycles were split in half. Screams rang out one after another, but in a moment, there wasn't a single living bandit left on the field.

Standing in the crimson pool of blood, Xue Tong took a deep breath of the bloody air, a satisfied expression on his face.

“This taste… is so good.”

Clang! The two arc-shaped light blades retracted from his elbows. Then the crystal lines on the gauntlet flowed again with a soft blue light. In the blue light, the gauntlet quickly disintegrated and soon merged into his forearm.

“Mr. Xue Tong!” A timid call sounded not far away. Xue Tong turned his head and saw Sarah running over.

The little girl was probably frightened by the previous bloodshed, her face pale, but she still insisted on running to Xue Tong and hugging his arm.

“You, are you alright?”

“……” Xue Tong twitched the corner of his mouth. “I'm fine.”

“Phew, you scared me to death!” Sarah gently patted her chest, looking worried. “I saw you seemed injured just now. I'm glad you're okay, let me see your wounds.”

Xue Tong shook his head. “I'll talk about it later.”

Old Vick also ran over, followed by a group of trembling guards. In the latter half of the battle, the caravan guards could hardly help. But when it came to harvesting the battlefield, these guys finally came in handy. The Sandworm Bandits weren't a big bandit group, and they didn't have much wealth. But they left behind dozens of motorcycles and the loot from their last robbery, enough for these guards to work for half a day. The caravan's losses in this conflict were considerable, with more than a dozen people killed and three trucks destroyed, which was a fatal blow to the caravan. Now with these gains, it could be considered a slight compensation.

Regardless of the guards' busyness, Old Vick ran directly to Xue Tong, a flattering smile on his face.

“Little… ah no, Mr. Xue Tong. This time, it's really thanks to you. Otherwise, we…”

“……It's nothing.” Xue Tong glanced at him, then looked at Sarah, and then said, “This was a transaction, and it's now complete.”

“Uh…” Old Vick was immediately stunned. He couldn't follow up with his next words.

Originally, he thought Xue Tong was just an ordinary person, but now even a fool knew he had misjudged him. Old Vick immediately had the idea of ​​winning him over. His caravan was also a small caravan, and he couldn't afford to hire professional guards. If Xue Tong could join, then the future journey could be worry-free.

But he didn't expect Xue Tong to block his attempt with one sentence. After thinking for a while, Old Vick sighed.

He also understood that a professional warrior like Xue Tong wouldn't stay in the caravan. He was just harboring a glimmer of hope.

“Of course, Mr. Xue Tong. This was a transaction. But we still thank you. The battle is over, please go to the carriage to rest for a while, we will clean up here immediately.”

“Okay.” Xue Tong nodded, and led little Sarah towards the caravan.

The battlefield was chaotic, with broken corpses and weapons everywhere. Xue Tong stopped when he reached the location of Kalisha's corpse.

“Mr. Xue Tong, you…” Little Sarah was a little strange.

“……” Xue Tong didn't answer her, just quietly looked at Kalisha's corpse, with a thoughtful look in his eyes. After a while, he suddenly bent down and began to search.

Originally, two guards had wanted to come over to collect Kalisha's corpse, but seeing Xue Tong here, they were afraid to approach. In fact, everyone knew that if anything in the field was of the greatest value now, it was undoubtedly the armor on Kalisha's body. Although this set of armor had one arm shattered and the helmet separated by Xue Tong, armor was armor, and even scrap was valuable.

Under their greedy gazes, Xue Tong quickly found two mechanical interfaces under Kalisha's ribs. With a flick of his fingers, he removed Kalisha's armor, then picked it up in his hands.

“This is my trophy.”

“Ah… yes, we understand.” The two guards replied with flickering eyes, hurriedly dragging Kalisha's corpse away.

The forcibly removed armor was still in the shape of armor, but it was separated in the middle. Xue Tong didn't know how to restore it to its original state, so he could only drag it back to his carriage. Sarah followed closely behind, and began to treat his wounds.

Xue Tong's injuries in this battle were also not light. There were seven or eight more wounds, large and small, on his body, as if children's mouths were opening. The blood had stopped, but it still looked shocking, making little Sarah feel dizzy. But these weren't the most terrifying. The most terrifying thing was Xue Tong's right calf. Because he kicked the armor's plating with all his strength, the skin had completely ruptured, and even the tibia was exposed. A touch of paleness in the blood and muscle tissue was particularly frightening.

Sarah was a competent apothecary. After carefully examining it, she came to a conclusion.

“Mr. Xue Tong, maybe you won't be able to move freely for the next few months. There are already slight cracks in the front of your shinbone. I don't have suitable medicine here, maybe you can collect some at the next gathering point. So during this time, please take good care of yourself.”

“Okay.” Xue Tong nodded absentmindedly, his eyes never leaving the armor beside him.