On the other side of the road, just like Zhenin had predicted, M2 turned on a corner.
Zhenin looked behind him and saw Ninzhe raising two fingers with his left hand, and one finger dipped in reddish-green mantis blood on his right.
It meant one down, two left, and they're now active.
Zhenin smiled as he prepared himself for his ambush.
Looking around, the area was devoid of life. Other than him and the mantis, there was no one else.
Along the street are more residential houses ranging from two to four stories tall. All of them had been abandoned long ago, but there were signs of violent intrusion on most homes.
The entire street is filled with monotonous beige-colored houses with the shape of domes. Each floor is another dome to the point that three stories houses look a lot like a snowman. Albeit, the top-most domes always has a small platform to park their hoverspheres, which actually makes the house look perfect.
Even without the existence of cars, the roads are the standard six-meter wide two way roads. Most people, prior to the apocalypse, had used things like hoverboards for singles, hoverbikes for pairs, and hoverspheres for four and more.
In a way, the standard six-meter wide road can be considered as six-way roads as these hovering vehicles can only go as high as 12 meters high. The more powerful and luxurious vehicles can fly to the limit. In contrast, the more basic ones can only float around half a meter high.
Unfortunately, the hover vehicles eat up tons of energy. With all the people saving up energy for a chance to escape and as a means to fight, no one uses them anymore. Most of their solar cells were remodeled into energy crystal generators leaving only a handful for emergencies for the head of each faction.
Since the houses here look this way, the lawns are mostly filled with fake snow, which is called Ice Sand. These ice sand have the looks and characteristics of snow, except for their beige color. Unlike actual snow, these don't melt.
The only way to describe the entire street is the face of winter in summer. That is, obviously, before things were dyed with various colors of blood, venom, and any weaponized liquid out there.
The entire neighborhood was a surprise for Zhenin. He expected that he'd have to climb another artificial tree, which is actually spaced 200 meters away from one.
Looking around the houses, there were ice sand mounds on some. It would've been the perfect hiding place for Zhenin's plans. Unfortunately, it's on the other side of the road, and his target isn't blind.
If the goal was to murder the mantis, with how inattentive the mantis currently is, he believed that he could've taken him down the moment he turned.
But now, half a minute had passed, and he still hasn't found himself an ambush spot.
"Maybe I should just wait for him to go past me and hit him in the back?" Zhenin thought.
With how close Zhenin is to his target, his mind became a fluster of plans. Similar to how he felt when Ninzhe was taken by Jack, where he felt like he's being limited by circumstances. He feels like every good idea of his are being denied by a boss for a subpar result.
Unlike Ninzhe, who was trained by his father, Zhenin was taught by his mother on mind games.
Without enough time to nurture the twins, Milna and Jhinupir decided to put them in a specialized training rather than hoping they could learn both. Since Ninzhe has shown better promise on fighting, his half-seahorse father, who could actually fight like a snake, thought him.
Zhenin, on the other hand, has incredible insight and calculative mind, their paths differed yet fused at the same time. Ninzhe became the front while Zhenin acted as the support.
There were still times where Zhenin had to act, but usually, a surprise shot of his gun would do the job. Now that the mission wants the targets alive, his mind absolutely failed to plan for himself.
Being indecisive, another half a minute had passed, and his target is only 15 steps away from him.
Not knowing what to do, he slumped down on the ground and leaned on the wall of the fence. Placing the gun underneath his knee while his feet and toes wrapped around the trigger.
From afar, he definitely looks like a cripple left behind by his group.
To where he was, there are currently two exit points he could use to run. Staying vigilant if there are stragglers coming over and ruin his plan, he began to split his view. His left eye looked to the left, and his right eye went to the right.
Besides being able to breathe in freshwater, this is the only ability the twins inherited from their seahorse bloodline.
Staying completely still, Zhenin waited for his target to pass by. Judging by his estimates, in three more steps, M2 will appear on his sight.
*THUCK*
*THUCK*
*THUCK*
Suddenly, a green man with sharp, bladed arms and 8 segments on his torso. A male half-mantis appeared on Zhenin's sight.
The seemingly inattentive half-mantis suddenly turned vigilant as he pulled out his laser pistol and aim it towards Zhenin.
Just as the mantis was about to finish his flick, Zhenin immediately shot his own gun.
The loud sound of the gun made the mantis duck without being able to shoot. Due to the firearm only aiming at around the chest area of the half-mantis, the shot missed.
Like a proper snake, Zhenin slithered up the wall and made a u-turn downwards while he threw the gun from his foot to his hands.
Since he has to face the half-mantis, his vision became whole again. Due to how eyes work, he lost his sense of depth when he separated them. Now that his eyes look at the same target again, he felt a little nauseous at the sudden appearance of depth.
That did not slow his slithering at the least.
Unfortunately for Zhenin, it only took a second for the man to prepare his shot as the man aimed for him.
Because of how slippery a half-snake is, the best target for a slithering one is their torso. Not only is it the easiest to target, even with the extreme flexibility of a snake, but the entire weight of the fats and muscles combined also reduces the speed at which the half-snake turns.
With his sharp eyes and mind, Zhenin was able to calculate where the man is aiming. Even so, he was alarmed.
*FWOOOM*
An almost solid red beam of light hit and burned Zhenin's left shoulder blades.
Groaning in pain, he immediately rolled on his back and shot his gun at the half-mantis.
At this point, Zhenin threw away the objects of the quest and decided to kill the half-mantis.
Since he already got shot, that means things are already desperate, right?
Pointing his gun up, he aimed for the half-mantis' body.
The half-mantis dodged the shot, shot one back, and hid behind the fence, which blocked Zhenin's line of sight.
With only four shots left on his hd-plasma revolver, Zhenin shot once again before holding the trigger.
Suddenly, the energy crystals in the cylinder dimmed all at once. This is the high-density form of the revolver. Due to how overused the gun is, charging the revolver with energy worth four shots or more will break the firearm.
Due to Zhenin's random shot, the mantis leaned on the fence flatly, on the opposite side of the road in one of the windows of the house, a distorting space with two floating eyeballs took his attention. Reading the distorting air, the mantis understood the message.
Danger.
Fully trusting the distortion, the half-mantis pushed with his feet to jump away.
*ZHOOOM*
A low and loud blowing sound that broke the sound barrier reverberated in the air as the fence he was leaning to a while ago got blasted and ignited under the high-density plasma bullet.
Zhenin's eyes narrowed, with his fastest speed, he got up and dashed at the back of the house. The lingering heat of the laser on his back began to act up.
Before he turned back, he saw on a window. A long metallic barrel glowing red was aimed at him.