Star Rank Hunter Chapter 80

Original and most up to date translations are posted at volaretranslations.

Chapter 80: Goodbye, Seven Lights

As Cillin fell, the students at the airport began to scream. The excitement from before was completely gone. It was all panic now as they rushed en masse towards the exit. If the security division wasn’t controlling the situation, there might very well be stampedes, car crashes and more incidents happening one after another already.

It was a fact that the school authorities had allowed far more people than usual into the airport for publicity purposes, and it impeded the police and security division’s ability to act. But because a public assassination like this hadn’t occurred for nearly a hundred years or so, they had grown careless.

Since the school authorities had organized an honor guard to welcome the ten participants, Gerrard and the others were immediately pushed to the side the moment they came down. Since Gerrard and the others were obstructed, Gerrard was unable to determine the attacker’s location at once either.

Knight’s body was shaking. He felt as if someone was choking him; a terrible weight in his heart. His father once took him along on a mission to pacify a rebellion, and although he had not truly come in touch with that cruel battlefield, seeing those people from afar flying, falling; blood splattering at every direction was no different from what he was experiencing now. It was just a lot worse because those people back then were strangers, and the one who was currently on the ground was his roommate and teammate whom he had drunk and fought together with.

No one, be it Knight, Gerrard, or everyone else sent down by the army had detected the slightest bit of killing intent. There were no murderous look, no killing intent. It was a sudden shot that came out of nowhere, and there really was nothing they could do to analyse the attacker’s location in time. They didn’t notice anything amiss from the surveillance footages sent over from each zone either.

Lung took out a shot and injected it into Cillin lying on the ground without hesitation. It was something he had always carried with him to preserve his life during an emergency. The medicine would tap into the body’s greatest potential in order to give the patient a stronger vitality. After the injection Lung immediately called a number; it was the number of his own private medical team in Seven Lights. They had the latest analysers with them. Lung wasn’t going to put all his hopes on the people of Seven Lights.

Fu Luo and the medical staff rushed over and performed emergency first aid on the spot. She noticed immediately that the bullet had struck too close for comfort even though it just missed the heart. Moreover, normally speaking Cillin’s condition shouldn’t be as bad as he was right now, so it was likely that the bullet contained some other substance inside it.

The bullet had struck the aircraft behind Cillin after penetrating his body, shattering and disintegrating swiftly. It was impossible to use the bullet to analyse anything, but it showed that this assassination was a premeditated affair.

Since Lung had injected the medicine on the spot, Cillin’s vitals were somewhat stable even though they weren’t strong. But along the way to the emergency room, Cillin’s vitals began to weaken rapidly, and before any effective measures could be taken, the vital signs monitor already showed that Cillin, was dead.

Even then the medical staff still transported Cillin into the emergency room and attempted to resuscitate him, but was met with no success. Lung’s private medical team came, but was unable to overturn the lost cause just the same. The toxin was a kind of plant toxin from Sector Z and was rarely seen in the first place, which was why they had few corresponding antidote in stock. They did have the molecular formula of the antidote, but by the time it was synthesized, Cillin’s vital signs were long gone.

Knight had smashed apart a couple of walls inside the hospital. Seeing his bloodshot eyes and the vicious aura enveloping his being, no one in the hospital dared to say a thing in front of Knight even though they were angry at his actions.

No one actually dared to tempt fate and drag the obviously murderous Knight and Lung back to wherever they came from. But when the duo received a call they hurriedly the place, leaving people wondering what had happened again.

Aiflon, who had become the successor of the Douance Family was already notified of of Cillin’s assassination. Very soon, Aiflon’s men had come over to take Cillin’s ‘body’ and ‘personal possessions’ back home.

The call Knight and Lung received was from Ci Jincheng. All sides were investigating at the moment, but no one had a clue or made any progress regarding the assassin yet, so the moment they heard from Ci Jincheng, the duo immediately returned to the accommodation in haste.

Ci Jincheng sat in the living room. He was the calmest out of everyone in regards to today’s matter.

Knight was extremely dissatisfied with Ci Jincheng’s reactions, and he expressed this dissatisfaction directly in his tone, “Speak!”

Lung said nothing and sat down on the sofa. He still hadn’t put away the murderous aura around him, and his face was just as ugly. Everyone who knew Lung would know from his appearance that a foul wind and a rain of blood was coming. Lung had never been a kind and gentle person.

Ci Jincheng did not mind Knight’s tone. Instead he passed over his personal tablet.

“This is the message I decrypted from the code Cillin left behind. Read it first.”

When Cillin was shot, Ci JIncheng was the closest one to him. This was obviously not a coincidence. When Cillin had fallen Ci Jincheng was crouching right beside him, and at the time Ci Jincheng was pretty worried and anxious as well. But the moment he saw Cillin’s finger movements, he knew then that the matter wasn’t as simple as it seemed.

The finger movements he made were a kind of code. It was a more complicated code, different from the one Cillin had used during the double combat tournament. The former wins at speed, and the latter wins at complexity. One would need to perform multidimensional decoding and matrix analysis to understand it. At the time Cillin’s movements were rather subtle, so even if the medical staff did notice they would only think that it was caused by a wave of spasms.

The killing intent on Knight and Lung faded after they read the contents on the tablet. However, their faces were a little distorted. Right now, all they wanted to do was to drag Cillin out of the hospital and whip his ‘corpse’ bloody. Knight even purposely ran into Cillin’s room for a look and, motherfucker, there really was nothing substantive left in the room at all. The whole thing was premeditated from the start!

In the message on the tablet, Cillin had only explained briefly that this assassination was something that was planned for; that they need not worry about it and that Cillin Douance would disappear from this world from hereon.

The first reason he gave them an explanation was because of trust. Cillin was confident that the trio would not hurt him. The second reason was the consideration that the trio would probably turn Seven Lights and a couple other Sectors upside down if he chose to say nothing.

At the same time, in the research division, the chief Mo Heng had shut himself up in the workshop after he returned from the hospital. Even if someone had something to say to him, they would swallow their words the moment they recalled Mo Heng’s ugly expression and low pressure surrounding him.

Anyone would think that his current state was due to the fact that his beloved disciple was assassinated, but this was in fact, not the case.

Mo Heng was feeling horrible, that much was true, but it wasn’t from sadness but from depression. He knew about this ‘assassination’ a long time ago. The machine Cillin assembled prior to the integrated warfare contest had a code in it, and it was something only an engineer would understand. But although an engineer would know that it was a code, they would not be able to decipher its meaning because it was arranged in the order of a person’s habit. The message was different in each person’s eyes, and unless they knew the correct order, the message was nothing more but gibberish.

From the code, Mo Heng had learned of Cillin’s intent and that he would leave after the integrated warfare contest. Although Cillin promised that he would contact Mo Heng, but man, what was he going to do with this annoying feeling in his heart? Now that Cillin was gone, he could no longer boast openly to anyone about his disciple.

Kang Man, fard and the others felt that the whole thing about Cillin’s assassination was surreal. They found themselves unable to quite accept that such a great and outstanding person, who was just talking to them about the welcoming feast a moment ago, would disappear just like that in the next. It was without a doubt a shock to them.

Lung offered a one hundred million bounty to search for the murderer, but of course this was but a mere guise. Otherwise, with the kind of blood that flowed inside young master Lung and the Andrea Family’s veins, the bounty would not be a mere hundred million.

Since there were no progress made despite prolonged investigation, Seven Lights announced to the public that the assassination was probably carried out by ‘Black Thorn’. This was the statement Aiflon of the Douance Family had provided, therefore Lights had borrowed it themselves. Moreover, this statement would minimize Seven Lights’ responsibility in the assassination, which was something the higher-ups of Seven Lights were happy to see.

Twenty day later, on a starship in Sector D, a brown-haired, sturdy built and honest-looking young man walked into a room while carrying a backpack behind his back. The person inside the room had been waiting for a while already.

“Long time no see, commander.” The young man smiled good-naturedly and said.

“Welcome back, Cillin.”

Chapter end