Following the source of the sound, Grayson noticed Li Lin standing next to a leaking manhole cover, oozing a dark green liquid. She couldn't help but be surprised.
"What kind of creature is this..."
She quickly drew her handgun, but Caitlyn stopped her in time, "Wait, Sheriff Grayson, he's not an enemy."
Li Lin stepped aside, creating space for Zac to solidify his form.
At the same time, he turned to Grayson and explained, "Zac is not a monster; he's the informant I mentioned earlier who can lead us to Twitch."
However, Grayson, unfamiliar with such an unusual presence, kept her finger on the trigger, maintaining her guard.
After a few seconds, the wriggling green slime fully formed into a "small giant" over two meters tall, catching the attention of an elite enforcer squad not far away.
Seeing no aggressive move from Sheriff Grayson, they merely frowned, keeping their attention on Zac without taking any immediate action.
"I feel very uncomfortable..." Zac's tendrils above his head drooped, and his voice carried a hint of fear. He could sense the enforcers' hostility.
He subconsciously moved closer to Li Lin.
"Don't be afraid, Zac. They just don't understand you," Li Lin patted Zac's arm gently. "And with me and Caitlyn here, no one will harm you."
Zac's yellow eyes quickly scanned Grayson and the enforcers in the distance. Then he nodded and began talking about the main business, "I found the giant rat you mentioned."
His tone resembled that of a child reporting an achievement to an adult. "And you were right; it's filled with negative emotions, especially a desire for gold coins."
Zac scratched his chin, paused for a moment, and continued, "How should I describe it... Oh, right! Just like Mom said, it's as if everyone owes it money!"
Li Lin chuckled at Zac's peculiar expression.
His childlike comments, however, eased Grayson's tension.
"What's your name... uh, Zac, right?" She holstered her gun, trying to sound calm.
Zac, sensing a decrease in hostility from the woman, was happy to engage in conversation. "Yes, it's the name my parents gave me. I like it."
"All right, Zac. You mentioned you found Twitch's trail?"
Seeing Zac's confusion, Grayson added, "Twitch, the giant rat in the sewer who likes to kill people and collect fingers and toes."
"Oh, yes! If you mean the sewer, there is indeed a giant rat, larger than a child in the gutter," Zac confirmed.
Grayson's expression brightened. "Can you lead us to it?"
"Of course, that's what Li Lin asked me to do."
Grayson quickly signaled the enforcer squad in the distance to gather and assigned tasks to each team.
The first team stationed at the factory's sewer entrance, where Twitch was suspected to be hiding, to prevent it from escaping in their direction.
Due to the fortuitous encounter with Zac, they didn't need Kode, who was familiar with the sewer terrain, to guide them.
Therefore, Li Lin, Caitlyn, the second enforcer team, and the third enforcer team followed Grayson, guided by the reformed liquid Zac, towards the lower sewer level.
Li Lin, clad in powered armor, the hovering Storm, and fully armed Caitlyn, along with the enforcers, attracted the attention of scavengers, vagabonds, and sewer orphans.
Except for a few ignorant children, most people immediately distanced themselves upon seeing them.
Enforcers on a case mission had no regard for the lives of the lowly denizens of the undercity.
Soon, the group reached a corner and opened a rusted and moss-covered iron door.
Through this passage, they could directly reach the transfer platform of the sewer.
Fortunately, the stairs here, unlike those near the factory, were made of stone and showed no signs of rust or decay.
Grayson, holding back her nausea caused by the sewer's foul smell filtered through her breathing apparatus, surveyed the surroundings and asked Zac, "With so many branches, which way is Twitch?"
Zac jumped off the platform without splashing a drop of sewage water and went straight in one direction.
"Marcus, you lead the second team to guard here. The third team, quickly follow up."
Just as Grayson was assigning tasks, Caitlyn spoke up, preventing her, "No, with this many people, it's too easy to alert Twitch. This mutated rat is very sensitive; if we send a team, it might sense our presence early, just like this morning, and continue to flee."
A typical enforcer squad usually consisted of 12-15 members, each specializing in different areas. Fighting in such a confined space required choosing individuals with slim and agile builds.
After a brief contemplation, Grayson, acknowledging Caitlyn's reasoning, changed her command, "Amos, Woodrow, Jotun Shack... "
Over a dozen enforcers she named stepped forward, each holding various weapons from Hextech University, including rifles, revolvers, and grappling hooks.
"You guys take another route to encircle it. Contact us if there's any situation. Be careful."
"Understood!"
After receiving their orders, several enforcers paired up and entered the dark area from positions other than Zac's path.
"As for Marcus, lead the remaining people and stay here. Keep communication open and be ready to support us at any time."
With the tasks assigned, Grayson looked back at Li Lin and Caitlyn, "As for those with Zac, it'll be the three of us..."]
Soon, she spotted the storm floating in the air, "Oh, almost forgot about this little one."
"Is it just us?" Caitlyn asked in surprise.
She intended for Grayson to reduce the number of enforcers tracking Twitch, but unexpectedly, Grayson abandoned all the sheriffs.
Li Lin nodded, waving his hand, "It's enough. A storm with full ammunition can handle a whole team."
No one in the room questioned the combat capability of this flying robot.
After all, Li Lin's creativity was well-known, and this flying robot was loaded with a whopping 500 bullets.
Li Lin activated the armor covering the weapon system in advance, Caitlyn turned on the power button of her sniper rifle, and Grayson prepared his precision rifle carried on his back.
The three, along with the robot, followed Zac's steps, winding through the labyrinthine sewers.
After more than ten minutes, they finally stopped.
Suddenly, Zac turned his upper body 180 degrees, startling Caitlyn and Grayson.
"Hush!"
He hurriedly made a quiet gesture, then lowered his voice, "Quiet, this is the limit of the perception range of the rat I tested before. Don't let it hear us..."
As he spoke, the tendrils above Zac's head suddenly stretched straight, and his ears and eyes emitting a yellowish glow showed a hint of panic.
"Uh-oh, I sense that rat coming towards us..."
Caitlyn snorted lightly, "Isn't this good?"
"Exactly, let's lay an ambush here since it's coming into our trap."
Li Lin also nodded, "Alright, let's ambush it here."
Grayson signaled to turn off the lighting, and the entire space instantly plunged into darkness.
If it weren't for the glowing power cores of the powered armor, aerial combat mechanical storm, and Caitlyn's sniper rifle, the entire passage would be completely engulfed in darkness, making it impossible to see anything.
"When Twitch approaches, you immediately notify us," Li Lin told Zac.
"Okay!" Zac nodded in response, then transformed back into slime, climbing up the wall, hanging upside down at the top of the passage.
At the same time, Li Lin remotely controlled the storm, equipped with all weapons systems, to enter another passage and wait, temporarily shutting down all power systems except for flight.
Grayson also hid in a nearby crossroads, on alert.
All three concealed their positions, facing the direction Zac had just pointed out, ready for action.
Apart from the occasional sparse water flow and various sounds from sewer creatures, the entire passage fell into silence again.
After about five minutes, Li Lin and Caitlyn were the first to pick up the faint sound of rushing water.
It seemed like something was moving in the water!
After another two or three minutes, a very familiar, sharp voice entered Li Lin's ears: "Ding ding ding ding ding ding~~"
Oh no, this sound is like Twitch activating his Q ability to go invisible!
Li Lin's heart skipped a beat, worried that this mutated rat might actually enter an invisible state somehow.
He quickly activated the "Data Mind" skill.
As the sound of rushing water approached, Zac still gave no warning.
A thin layer of sweat appeared on Caitlyn and Grayson's foreheads, and their tension grew.
While Li Lin was also nervous, he was not as tense as the two of them.
After all, it was just a lone ADC; they had four people and a robot fully loaded with ammunition on their side.
If they couldn't handle a single rat, they might as well give up...
In simple terms, Li Lin thought: Take this battle seriously but don't get anxious.
Closer and closer!
Suddenly, the sound of rushing water stopped abruptly.
Twitch, crawling in the sewer, halted his steps. His nose twitched a few times in the air filled with various foul odors.
"Huh? There's a human smell..."
He murmured in a low voice, his green vertical pupils showing a hint of fierceness. He quickly took out the chemical-powered crossbow he picked up from the garbage heap, and Li Lin's group shouted in unison:
"Hehe! We found you! Filthy bug!"
As he said that, Twitch took out a glass bottle filled with green liquid from his worn-out bag.
"Oh no, he's going to use alchemical poison!"
As a formless life form formed by alchemical poison, Zac certainly knew what was in Twitch's bottle.
To prevent Li Lin's group from being affected, Zac, at the moment Twitch threw the alchemical poison bottle, expanded his body into a "pancake," completely blocking the passage.
The bottle hit Zac's extremely elastic body like a trampoline, bouncing back intact, and coincidentally shattered in front of Twitch.
Immersed in the poison, Twitch, who was completely unaffected, aimed the crossbow mercilessly at Zac, shouting:
"Oh! Damn! You ruined my toy!"
(End of this chapter)
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