"Go find your ass!" I cursed. "You're crazy—look at the situation we're in. Do you have a death wish?"
Without my protection, in an environment like this, Old Jasper probably wouldn't last five minutes. He gritted his teeth and decided survival came first, finding a lavatory to hide in.
I pulled the curtain shut from outside so the spot wouldn't attract attention. If someone really wanted to get him, hiding in the lavatory wouldn't buy much time either.
"By the way, Ryan, what about you?" Jasper asked through the lavatory door.
"I got the key. I'm heading to the cargo hold to save Selene. You stay right here, don't make a sound, don't go anywhere. Wait until the plane lands before coming out!"
The cabin was in chaos. I wove through the brawling passengers, avoiding combat wherever possible. Even when someone attacked me, I dodged rather than engaged. Every person in here was formidable—any one of them would be more than I could handle.
I just hoped they'd show some restraint during their fights and not punch through the fuselage.
I made my way from the upper deck all the way down to the cargo hold. Along the way, I didn't spot Lucas anywhere. That guy was a veteran operator—avoiding trouble whenever possible, probably hiding out somewhere I'd never find.
I used the key to unlock the cargo hold door and went in, searching for Selene.
The A380's cargo hold was larger than I'd imagined. As the world's biggest wide-body airliner, it measured 73 meters in length with a height of 25 meters across its decks. Even allocated to cargo, the space was still generous—like a small warehouse, stacked with crates and containers of all kinds.
My line of sight was constantly obstructed. I could only search one by one, not daring to call out for fear Morphine might have set an ambush here too.
As I searched, I suddenly heard a faint murmuring sound—"Mmm, mmm." I rushed toward the noise and, sure enough, found Selene locked inside a shipping crate!
I immediately pried open the crate. Selene's hands were bound, and duct tape covered her mouth. Though haggard and disheveled, she appeared otherwise unharmed. I was about to pull her out when I heard a clanking sound—her ankle was shackled with a thick iron chain.
I grabbed a crowbar and was about to pry the lock open, but Selene shook her head frantically, making urgent "mmm" sounds through the tape, as if trying to tell me something.
I slapped my forehead in frustration—so focused on rescuing her, I'd forgotten to tear the tape off first. Once I ripped it away, Selene gasped, "The vest! The vest!"
I pulled open her jacket and was hit with a shock—beneath her outer layer, she wore a black tactical vest, densely packed with explosives. On her chest sat a digital keypad, flashing a countdown: 01:12:09.
"Don't move!" Selene stopped me instantly. "Removing the vest will trigger the bomb! And don't pry the lock either—there's a sensor chip inside. If it's pried open, the bomb will detonate!"
I'd never dealt with anything like this. Panic seized me. "Then what do we do? How do we defuse it?"
"Only entering the correct password will stop the countdown!"
"The password? What's the password?"
"The password is my birthday—ask me—" With those words, Morphine appeared at the cargo hold entrance, flanked by the two bald monks.
"Morphine, you're insane!" I shouted. "You planted a bomb on a plane—do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"Dangerous? Hahaha..." Morphine burst into wild laughter. "Then let me tell you something even more dangerous. This bomb vest is loaded with ten kilograms of TNT. If it detonates, it's equivalent to simultaneously setting off over three hundred grenades. Can you imagine that spectacular scene? Not just this cargo hold—the entire aircraft would be vaporized."
This woman was deranged. "What exactly do you want?"
"Simple. Cooperate with us and kill Shiva. If you keep hesitating, just wait for the countdown to end and the bomb to go off."
I glanced at the timer—just over an hour left. In other words, it would detonate before the plane even landed. I looked at Morphine. "If the bomb goes off and the plane disintegrates, you can't escape either!"
"We never planned on escaping." Morphine sneered coldly. "If we fail the mission Headquarters assigned us, we'll die here alongside Shiva anyway."
I was stunned. This was their backup plan: if I couldn't kill Shiva, they'd simply detonate the bomb and take everyone with him. Shiva wouldn't survive either.
The only catch was that this plan required them to gamble their own lives too.
"Insane," I muttered. "You people are lunatics..."
"Indeed, lunatics," a voice responded as someone slowly walked into the cargo hold. It was Lucas. "To eliminate one Shiva, you'd willingly use the lives of every passenger on this plane as collateral. Headquarters' methods seem remarkably similar to terrorists."
Morphine watched him warily. "Who are you?"
"Three years ago, to deal with me, you pulled exactly the same stunt. In that plane crash, every passenger died. Only I survived by sheer luck, and from then on I changed my identity, hiding from Headquarters' pursuit. I never imagined you people would still haunt me like leeches." Lucas touched his face with a self-deprecating smile. "What's truly laughable is that you pinned the blame for that crash on me—claiming I had a violent temper, went on a rampage, and slaughtered everyone. You people are experts at slinging mud..."
Before he finished, Morphine's face had already changed color. "You're... Shiva?!"
"Correct." Lucas gazed at her calmly. "The person you've schemed and plotted and tried every method to eliminate—is me."
Before Morphine could give an order, her two monks charged forward. One launched a "Black Tiger Pierces the Heart," aiming straight at Lucas's chest; the other leaped up, combining the Iron Bell technique with a Thousand-Pound Drop, bringing his reinforced knee crashing down toward Lucas's skull!
These were killing strikes from the start—simultaneously attacking high and low, sealing off any avenue of retreat!
But within what seemed like an inescapable attack trajectory, Lucas slipped free like a phantom. The Black Tiger fist grazed past his clothing with a whispering "shhh."
It was the dance! My eyes went wide—no mistake, the steps Lucas had just taken to evade were the same "Dance of Destruction" I'd seen before!
The footwork was so intricate that it found life within the impossible!
The two monks were no slouches either. Their coordination was impeccable—missing the first strike, they pivoted and launched a cross-attack. But in that instant, Lucas's body suddenly swelled, muscles surging like waves, and white vapor steamed from his skin.
Shiva had revealed himself!
Stomping his eerie dance steps, he drove one fist into the Iron Bell monk's chest. I'd expected a clash of iron against iron, but the monk grunted and flew backward like a sandbag.
The other monk thrust two fingers straight at Shiva's eyes, but Shiva seized his digits and snapped them. Then a knee drove into the monk's gut, followed by a palm strike under his chin that transformed into a knife-hand, chopping down on his throat.
In under a second, Shiva had unleashed a lightning triple combination—knee, fist, palm!
Was this something human nervous systems could even achieve?
The monk staggered back, blood spilling from his mouth. But his expression grew even more savage. He thrust his middle finger into his own chest at the heart meridian—through some secret technique, his eyes turned blood-red, and he charged forward again, faster and more ferocious than before!
But Shiva simply stopped moving. He didn't dodge or defend. As the monk's fist struck him, Shiva also threw a punch—hitting the monk in exchange!
The monk froze, maintaining his punching stance, rigid. Then his monastic robes tore open with a "rrrip," his back swelling, and with a "splutch," gore and flesh exploded outward, a bloody hole punched clean through.
I drew a sharp breath. "Terrifying" wasn't enough to describe this penetrative force!
Even allowing for the fact that this was a counter-strike, using the opponent's own momentum to double the penetration—such a devastating punch-through was still beyond comprehension. The monk's diamond-hard body, forged through daily training, was like paper before him.
In the blink of an eye, Morphine had lost both her key fighters. She took the field herself, leaping forward with an iron fist aimed at Shiva's skull.
But while she was still airborne, Shiva grabbed her by the throat and slammed her hard into the ground.
The gap in their strength was simply overwhelming.