Chapter 22#

Smiling Gas · 18#

The moment the gunshot sounded, a dark burst of blood blossomed across the colonel’s forehead.

He remained frozen mid‑turn, halted in the stance he had taken when the madman shouted. He must have heard the bullet pass by before it struck, because his eyes protruded sharply, his face frozen in disbelief.

It was the same expression worn by the old Korosha man who had been killed on their first day at Oak Valley for refusing to undress.

The air stilled for a brief second. No one had time to react—no one even realized what had happened. Even the madman paused for a moment before clutching his head in pain as the gunshot echoed.

Then came the heavy thud of the colonel’s body hitting the ground. His mouth hung open, as though he still wanted to bark out an order, but only bright, frothy blood spilled from his throat, melting the snow beneath him.

—And thus, his life of cruelty came to an end.

“DON’T KILL ME! DON’T KILL ME! DON’T KILL ME!”

In the dead silence, the madman suddenly shrieked.

The cry tore through the frozen stillness, like thunder waking a dreamer. The colonel’s adjutant stepped forward and shouted, “All units, alert!”

Metallic clattering erupted as soldiers raised their guns. Yu Feichen had struck with one shot and hit his mark. Pressing against the carriage wall, he slipped like a shadow through the lightless compartments, reloading while running toward the fourth carriage.

Within seconds, he reached the small door of the carriage and peered outside.

All the soldiers had drawn their guns—some aiming at the madman, some at the dark train doorway. Surprisingly, a portion of Oak Valley’s original guards had turned their rifles on the soldiers from the Highland Concentration Camp. The gunshot had come too abruptly; no one could make sense of it.

No one imagined a prisoner—weak, starved, unarmed—might possess a gun.

The remaining prisoners huddled, arms over their heads.

After a few more seconds, soldiers began linking the direction of the gunshot with the madman’s sudden howl, and the guards near the train converged on the door of the fifth carriage.

Yu Feichen pressed his muzzle to the door of the fourth carriage, and again aimed at the research facility’s entrance, where the colonel’s adjutant was directing the scene.

His field of vision split in two—on one side, the pitch‑black carriage wall; on the other, the adjutant standing in the snowy darkness. His sight narrowed, focusing on the adjutant.

His marksmanship was always true, and at this distance, unerring. But even now, he held his posture with ritual precision.

The north wind howled, but his mind was utterly calm.

The trigger clicked softly. Another gunshot rang out.

—This time, the adjutant fell.

In the next instant, a lightbulb burst overhead, sparks briefly stabbing the darkness before leaving the compound dim. Only the watchtower’s fog lamp remained, too weak to illuminate much.

Darkness engulfed everything. Only the ghostly sheen of snow remained, reflecting the scattered oil‑lamps.

Panic rippled through the soldiers.

“Don’t move!” They had finally identified the source of the shot. Three soldiers moved toward the fourth carriage, while another three bounded from the fifth carriage.

Yu Feichen remained still.

He had three, perhaps four seconds before they closed in. His eyes swept over the shoulder insignias—with the colonel and adjutant dead, the highest-ranking man left was a lone lieutenant. A leaderless mass.

A soldier spotted him—shouted—fired. The bullet scraped his cheek and sparked against the carriage wall.

Yu Feichen braced a hand on the iron door and leapt out.

He raised his arm and shot the nearest soldier point‑blank.

As the soldier collapsed, Yu Feichen yanked the submachine gun off his body and fired once toward the watchtower.

A guard about to blow the alarm whistle jerked as a bullet pierced his shoulder; the whistle clattered to the ground as he screamed and clutched his arm.

After that one shot, Yu Feichen tossed the submachine gun aside. Gunfire roared from all directions. He grabbed the dead soldier’s body and propped it up as a shield against the bullets streaking toward him, and with his left hand fired three rapid shots toward the rear carriage door.

Three soldiers charging out with submachine guns fell.

Yu Feichen shouted toward the carriage: “Close the door!”

The blond man complied instantly—slamming shut the door of the fifth carriage and sprinting towards the fourth.

Once the door closed from the inside, soldiers could no longer swarm into the carriages behind Yu Feichen. Hand‑to‑hand combat—even against many foes—was manageable. But in a gunfight, one must always guard the rear.

As soon as he heard the door slam, he turned forward. The muzzle flashes seared into his vision, leaving lingering afterimages. Some soldiers shone flashlights, but Yu Feichen’s relentless movement made him impossible to target; the flashing beams only disrupted each other’s sight.

Dropping the blood‑soaked corpse, he sprinted right, switched his pistol back to his right hand, and fired two accurate shots at two separate positions.

Two more bodies fell—he had taken down their best marksmen.

Another shot rang from his left.

Instinct moved faster than thought. He dodged, returned fire, but suddenly another burst of fire came from the front—someone else had taken down that shooter from the shadows beneath a truck.

He saw them—the two armed hunters who had hidden in the truck earlier. They had slipped under the vehicle and now fired from cover, using the wheels as shelter.

The snow thickened. Blood vanished under the falling flakes, leaving only dark stains expanding blooming around corpses. Then, behind Yu Feichen, gunfire erupted again.

But it struck Black Badge soldiers, not him.

It was the blond man, who had picked up a fallen submachine gun and joined the fray from the third carriage.

With fire coming from three directions, the disorganized soldiers lost their rhythm. Their formations unravelled.

Yu Feichen slipped, unseen and silent, into the densest cluster of soldiers.

He kicked a man’s knee; the soldier stumbled into another. Someone shouted; nearby soldiers surged toward him.

But their submachine guns were too long, unwieldy in close quarters.

One soldier raised his weapon—Yu Feichen shot him.

Another—a giant of a man—lunged from behind and clamped a hand around Yu Feichen’s wrist.

A flash of silver—Yu Feichen drew the small blade he’d hidden on himself. Without even looking back, he stabbed it straight through the man’s throat.

Flinging the body aside to avoid the blood spray, he saw the lieutenant’s shoulder insignia glint in the snow. Two more precise shots dropped two charging soldiers. With his left hand he seized the lieutenant’s shoulder; with his right, he pressed the gun barrel to the man’s temple.

“No—don’t—please…” the lieutenant stammered, trembling. Never having had a gun pressed to his face, the continuous deaths of his soldiers only served to intensify his fear.

Without even waiting for Yu Feichen could speak or act, the lieutenant shouted, “Don’t shoot!”

He certainly knew how to behave as a hostage, but Yu Feichen had no such intentions.

A muffled shot. The bullet pierced his skull.

The shot fell like a death knell. The surviving soldiers faltered—whether obeying their lieutenant’s last cry or paralyzed by terror, none advanced.

Yu Feichen let the body fall and looked toward the center of the field.

Women, elders, and children crouched trembling, as they had when the Black Badge soldiers executed their people. Terrified, stunned, unaware of what had just unfolded, they likely still believed the soldiers were executing prisoners at random.

Those from the Highland Concentration Camp—the mentally broken ones—stared blankly.

—This was what captivity had taught them.

Yu Feichen took a deep breath and looked at them.

A shout suddenly came from beneath a truck—the very words he had been about to speak.

“RUN!”

The first to react were the women—those who recognized the Korosha accent. Terror shifted to disbelief, then flickering hope. They helped the elderly to their feet and gathered their children, and looked up to an impossible sight—the Black Badge soldiers who once killed them for sport now lay dead across the ground.

A second voice echoed:

“RUN!”

The blond man tumbled out from the third carriage with a corpse, dragging it forward as he ran toward the front of the train.

Running, he screamed: “RUUUUN—!”

A woman finally bolted, shrieking, followed by a mother clutching her child, fleeing southward through the snow.

“STOP THEM!” a Black Badge soldier shouted.

Gunfire resumed. The blond man at the forefront was the easiest target, but having learned from Yu Feichen’s actions earlier, he used a corpse as a shield, blocking the deadliest shots.

The gunfire was relentless, but the people kept running. Even those struck by stray bullets pushed on.

The gunfire no longer frightened them—something had shattered, something else had been reborn.

Even the broken prisoners from the Highland Concentration Camp joined, shouting with voices filled with both pain and jubilation, staggering after the women and children into the snowy darkness amidst flashes of light and gunfire.

Nearly a thousand footsteps pounded the snow, echoing through the mountains.

One of the hunters—before escaping—switched on the truck’s headlights. The bright beam lit their path—away from the detention center, toward freedom and new life.

Yu Feichen moved in the darkness behind them, with a fresh weapon and ammunition taken from the lieutenant. He slipped toward the southern gate, where the crematorium tower and the small two‑story building were visible. A dim lamp glowed by the gate. A familiar figure flickered into view—Gerold.

Yu Feichen understood, thinking of what he had seen days ago. After firing a few more shots to secure the Korosha people’s escape, he slipped along the wall toward the small building.

Inside was silence. He climbed up the back wall, stepping on window frames to reach a half‑open window on the second floor.

Suddenly—a blinding beam lit up the entire building.

A searchlight flared to life, flooding the compound in blinding white, illuminating everything within two hundred meters—including the running crowd.

Then, through the broadcast loudspeaker mounted on the building, a gentle voice spoke:

“My dear Korosha friends, please stop running.”

The same gentle voice that had once assured the chemistry teacher’s wife, Leanna, “Dr. Sieber and I will take good care of you and your child.” But now it sounded muffled, distant—filtered through layers.

It was the doctor.

The fleeing footsteps did not falter.

“Please stop running. I’ll repeat.” The voice grew louder, deafening. “Otherwise, we will release toxic gas. It will reach lethal concentration in moments and deliver you to the gods.”

A squad of soldiers in white gas masks—ghostly‑faced in the dark, with large black oval lenses over their eyes and black tubes connecting to filter cannisters over their mouths and noses—ran toward the southern gate, dragging long, thin hoses extending from the first floor of the building.

Smiling Gas.

A gas that could make people die with a smile in an instant.

It had followed Oak Valley Concentration Camp from beginning to end.

Yu Feichen climbed into the second floor. A lab assistant in a white coat stared at him in terror. He pointed his gun; the assistant stayed silent. Firing would alert those downstairs, so he knocked the assistant out with the gunstock.

The facility was connected to a separate storage room. Yu Feishen wanted to search it, but after he freed the pregnant women and disabled captives strapped to the dissection table, the doctor’s voice over the broadcast had gained a dangerous edge.

—He descended quietly. He knew where the broadcast device was—on the first floor.

The first floor was dimly lit. The massive gas cylinders cast long shadows. The doctor, also wearing a white lab coat and a skull‑like gas mask, spoke slowly into the microphone:

“Now I’ll begin the countdown. 10, 9—”

The southern gate stood open. Through the windows, he could see the Korosha people still running through the snow without looking back. In this moment, their desire for freedom outweighed death.

“8, 7, 6—”

The soldiers in gas‑masks opened the valves at the tops of the hoses. The doctor meant it.

“5, 4—”

Yu Feichen raised his gun, aiming at him from afar.

“3, 2—”

Then, from among the cylinders occupying most of the hall, a calm voice sounded: “Doctor.”

The doctor whipped his head around.

A figure was slowly climbing to the top of the largest cylinder, one hand pressing the heavy valve, the other holding a brown glass bottle—used for storing extremely corrosive acids in this world.

—It was the chemistry teacher, Gerold.

“Make them stop,” Gerold said, more steady than he had ever been, “or I’ll open it—or pour this.”

Either action would release a massive cloud of Smiling Gas instantly.

“Your gas masks cannot filter out the gas at this concentration, Doctor,” Gerold added.

“It’s you.” The doctor’s masked face showed no expression. “You’ve really decided to do this?”

Gerold only stared down at him. His fingers trembled, but his gaze was resolute.

“One last time. Let. Them. Go.”

The doctor chuckled softly.

“If I recall correctly, your wife is upstairs. She isn’t asleep yet.” His tone grew gentle, coaxing. “Don’t you want to talk to her?”

As he spoke, he slowly turned his gaze toward the stairs.

—And froze.

At the top of the stairs, Yu Feichen leaned lightly against the railing, idly spinning his pistol, watching him with a faint, unreadable smile.