NOVPUB
Chapter 122: Chapter 122 Reinforcement
Lilith tightened the straps of her custom UV goggle across her face. The moment the lenses activated with a low pulse, the world bloomed into a glowing contrast of violet hues. Outlines sharpened, movement stood out. Even in darkness, she could see it all—clearer than daylight.
With no hesitation, she stepped out of the Black Lotus base into the heart of chaos.
Gunfire roared around her, every shot ringing out like thunder. Sparks exploded off metal. Smoke curled in thick ribbons. Shouts and curses filled the air as gang members from both sides clashed in the shadows of the night. The place was a battlefield—broken glass, bullet shells, bodies.
Behind her, more Black Lotus fighters surged forward, each equipped with goggles and weapons, following their queen into the storm.
Leo was right behind her. Dressed in his usual long black coat, his hood was pulled low, shadows dancing across his jaw. He took position beside her behind an overturned, bullet-ridden sedan. Rounds pinged off the car like hail on a tin roof.
He crouched low, turned to her with a frown.
"We can’t keep dragging this out," Leo muttered, his voice calm despite the chaos. "They’re packing superior firepower—military-grade. We’ll be outgunned, outmatched. At this rate, we’re feeding our people to the grave."
Lilith glanced around—she didn’t need to say it. He was right.
Black Lotus members were dropping, one by one. Their tech and precision gave them an edge in the darkness, but the Crimson Hand had the numbers and the weapons. Modified assault rifles. Custom LMGs. Even grenade launchers. The golden bird wasn’t sparing expense.
Lilith’s eyes narrowed behind the lenses. "Then what do you propose?"
Leo peeked over the car, watching the incoming barrage. "They’re loud. Brutal. But sloppy. I count no more than fifty of them pushing from the southeast flank. If you and I take the fight to them directly, cut through their line from behind... we’ll break their momentum. Our people can push forward without getting chewed up."
Lilith stared at him for a long moment, considering. Fifty. That wasn’t a small number. And charging straight into their teeth was damn near suicidal.
But she wasn’t afraid of dying. She was afraid of losing everything.
With a slow breath, she nodded. "Alright. But we move on my signal."
Leo gave a half-smile, the kind he only ever wore before doing something insane.
They waited—breathing steady, syncing with the rhythm of the battlefield.
Just then, the heavy pulse of a mounted machine gun echoed through the air as it unleashed another deadly spray. Bullets whizzed overhead like angry hornets.
Lilith’s gaze locked with Leo’s.
Now.
They vanished into the trees like phantoms—splitting left and right, disappearing into the shadows that surrounded the base. The undergrowth was thick, branches slicing against skin, boots sinking into mud. But they moved fast, silent.
In just under a minute, they had flanked the eastern push.
Lilith crouched behind a fallen tree trunk. Just beyond it, seven Crimson Hand gangsters were dug into position—shooting wildly toward the base, laughing, shouting, confident in their upper hand. They didn’t see her. They didn’t hear her.
They had no idea death was creeping behind them.
She pulled a curved combat knife from the inside of her boot—sleek, sharp, wicked. She moved low and silent, her breath measured, her presence like a whisper in the night.
She was behind the first one before he even realized someone was near.
Ssshhkt.
Her blade sank into his neck with a wet sound, slicing clean through arteries. Blood sprayed in an arc as he gasped, fell, and choked.
The others turned—confused by the sudden silence of their friend.
And then they saw her.
The faint purple glow of her goggles. The cold, unreadable beauty of her face. Her hair tied back, lips pressed into a thin line, a pistol already raised.
BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM.
She pulled the trigger with clinical precision. Four of them dropped like puppets with their strings cut—skulls popping open, torsos collapsing in convulsions. Blood painted the ground in a wild, ugly mess.
One of them fumbled for his gun, trying to react. She didn’t give him the chance.
BAM.
He was down before his finger even touched the trigger.
The seventh one ran—he turned on instinct, panic in his breath.
Lilith calmly raised her hand and fired a single round.
Crack!
It hit him in the back of the neck. He stumbled, fell face-first into the dirt, twitched once, then stilled.
Lilith exhaled slowly, lowered her pistol.
Behind her, the night was still chaos—but she had cracked the flank.
Farther off, gunfire echoed from Leo’s position—he had engaged his targets too.
Lilith turned her gaze back toward the base. The Black Lotus was already pushing forward, gaining ground now that the heat had been taken off them slightly.
Lilith quickly crouched low behind a crumpled wall of stone and twisted metal, her sharp violet goggle lenses still glowing as she scanned the ruins ahead. Her breathing was calm, eyes locked on a new cluster of Crimson Hand gangsters setting up a second heavy machine gun, this one mounted inside a blacked-out SUV, its engine still rumbling low and threatening.
They were almost ready to fire again.
Not on her watch.
Lilith’s hand slid to her side where a custom fragmentation grenade was clipped to her belt. She pulled it free with practiced ease, her fingers tightening around it, thumb pulling the pin with a soft metallic click.
She didn’t throw it immediately.
She waited.
Watched.
The man behind the mounted gun—tattooed arms, sweat pouring down his forehead—grabbed the handles, preparing to unleash hell. Just as he opened his mouth to yell, the grenade finally left Lilith’s hand and arced silently through the air.
It landed right in the back seat of the SUV.
The gunner’s eyes widened. "FIRE IN THE H—"
BOOM.
The blast came like a scream from the underworld. The SUV exploded in a violent burst of fire and smoke, the mounted gun flying off in burning pieces, torn to shrapnel mid-air. The men around it didn’t even have a chance to scream. The force ripped through them—limbs thrown, bodies scattered like ragdolls, flames engulfing everything.
A shockwave slammed through the battlefield. Metal shrieked. Dirt kicked up like a rising tide.
And then came the moment Lilith had been waiting for.
With the mounted machine gun disabled, the Black Lotus fighters surged forward.
From the edges of the base and the shattered treeline, dozens of Lilith’s people emerged with fury in their eyes and weapons drawn. Without the suppressive fire pinning them down, they now had the edge. Their goggles gleamed in the dark, their aim precise, their movements sharp.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
Gunfire exploded as they unleashed hell on the remaining Crimson Hand gang members. Men fell left and right, blood spraying across walls, staining cracked pavement. Screams echoed. The tide of battle was shifting.
Lilith took a step back, breathing heavily as she watched from behind cover, flanked by her loyal Shadows. Their figures—tall, sleek, masked in black suits—were silent as death, moving with her like shadows in step.
But even as her people overwhelmed the enemy, Lilith didn’t feel relief.
Something felt wrong.
Something was missing.
She glanced around the field—gunfire lessening, the Black Lotus reclaiming ground.
And then it happened.
A light.
Bright.
Blinding.
It wasn’t from a flare or explosion. It was a focused, white-hot floodlight so powerful that it tore through the battlefield like a second sun.
VRRMMMMMM.
The intense beam swept across the area, and one by one, Black Lotus gangsters cried out and tore their goggles off. The UV lenses weren’t made for this kind of brilliance. Their advantage—gone in an instant.
Lilith gritted her teeth, her vision distorted by the sudden flash. Around her, the battlefield stalled. Gunfire slowed. Confusion spread.
And then her five Shadows moved in quickly, surrounding her in a tight circle.
"Step back, Lilith!" one of them barked. "Get down!"
She backed up, her hand instinctively drawing her sidearm, but she couldn’t see what was coming. The light was too intense, positioned perfectly to obscure whatever hid behind it.
Then she heard it.
VROOOOM.
A vehicle. Heavy. Industrial. Tires crushed the earth as it approached.
Lilith dropped to one knee, hiding beside the rusted remains of a flipped delivery truck. Leo slipped into position next to her, face grim, breathing steady.
"What the hell is that?" he muttered.
The vehicle stopped.
Silence fell.
For a few breathless seconds, everything froze. The light burned through the field like judgment day, and no one dared move. The entire Black Lotus force stayed low, waiting, watching, trying to see past the blinding wall.
And then—
BRA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA!
A roaring storm of bullets split the silence. The noise wasn’t normal—not like the earlier firefights. This wasn’t your standard AK or AR rifle.
This was a GAU-19—a .50 caliber rotary machine gun, the kind that tears through cars like tissue paper.
The hailstorm of bullets ripped through the battlefield.
Cars exploded. Concrete shattered. Trees splintered. The very ground trembled under the brutal rhythm of the weapon. One by one, the cars Black Lotus gang members were using for cover were turned into twisted, flaming husks. Bodies were torn apart—limbs severed, torsos shredded, blood spraying like paint on a canvas of war.
Lilith peeked out just enough to catch a glimpse.
The weapon was mounted on a military-grade armored truck. Reinforced plating, camouflage shell, night vision scopes mounted on the turret. Modified for gang warfare—but unmistakably gifted by someone powerful.
Her breath caught.
"The GAU-19..." she whispered, voice full of disbelief. "The Golden Bird actually gave them a damn anti-vehicle weapon."
She bit her lip, jaw clenching as she watched her people die. Dozens of Black Lotus members had no chance to even scream. The bullets cut them down before they could blink.
Sixty strong, and in under a minute, they were reduced to a bloodbath.
Cries of pain echoed in the trees. Some tried to run. None made it.
Lilith’s hands shook where she crouched, heart hammering. There was no immediate counter. No plan she could whip out to stop that monster of a gun.
