True Apocalypse Game

Steel-core shotgun shells had incredible penetrating power. A single blast covered a wide area, making them impossible to dodge. Not even a bulletproof vest could stop them.

What’s more, Aili’s Shotgun was fitted with a silencer.

At Aili’s words, two men in suits, wearing wireless earpieces and holding pistols, immediately stepped out from behind a thicket of bushes.

Both men had their hands raised high in surrender, smiling as they spoke.

"A misunderstanding. You must be the sheriff of Shuanghu Town, right? We’re FBI agents. That missing person case is under our jurisdiction now. We’re here to investigate the case."

Hearing this, Joey and the other two exchanged a look, unsure what to make of the two men.

"Why come all the way out here instead of going to Martha’s house? Show me your identification!" Joey asked in a low voice, his eyes narrowing.

Other than himself, no one knew this was the primary crime scene.

The man in the lead gave a slight smile. He first tossed his pistol aside to show he wasn’t a threat, then carefully opened his suit jacket, pulled a badge holder from an inside pocket, and handed it to Thomas.

"We just received a tip that the missing Martha and her father were seen here."

Thomas opened the badge holder and looked down at it with Aili, confirming that the men were indeed from the FBI.

The ID even identified him as an agent.

At the same time, the other man also tossed his gun aside and reached into his suit, pretending to get his own ID. But in the next instant, he whipped out a pistol and aimed to fire at the three officers!

BANG! Joey fired first. The bullet instantly tore through the Federal Bureau of Investigation agent’s neck.

Aili reacted in the same instant. Just as the first agent—the one who had handed over his ID—drew a pistol from his waistband, she pulled the trigger on her Shotgun.

The steel-core pellets became a shower of steel, shredding through the agent’s body and his light bulletproof vest in a spray of blood. He collapsed to the ground, convulsing.

"How... how did you know...?" The agent, not yet dead, struggled to ask Joey.

’He’d thought his ID had fooled these three hillbilly cops. He never imagined their sheriff had been watching his every move!’

Joey snorted, walked over, and kicked the agent, who was not quite dead, onto his back. The movement revealed a shirt soaked in blood.

As if answering the agent, and yet as if muttering to himself, he said slowly,

"So that wasn’t some geometric pattern. It was the tail of a rattlesnake..."

A red rattlesnake was embroidered on the agent’s collar with colorful silk thread.

And that was the exact same symbol he had seen on the back of their car during the earlier pursuit!

The moment he’d seen the symbol, he understood. Even if they really were FBI agents, they were definitely connected to Martha’s disappearance.

They were in league with those criminals!

"Heh heh heh... You... you have no idea what you’re doing. No idea what a terrifying power you’re up against..." Blood dribbled from the agent’s mouth, his gaze turning grim. A strange smile twisted his lips as he struggled to speak. "Soon, you’ll regret your actions... because you’re about to fall into Hell..."

"whisper... whisper... whisper..."

The agent’s voice trailed off, and then he fell silent.

"Chief, what the hell is going on?! The FBI tried to kill us? We killed two FBI agents?" Thomas stammered, his voice trembling. "Is this really fucking *Sin City*?"

He never imagined his earlier joke would come true. Something was clearly wrong with the high-and-mighty FBI!

That’s the FBI we’re talking about!

The very people regular cops like us look up to!

’Why would they want to kill us?’

’What kind of conspiracy have I gotten tangled up in?’

"Probably worse than *Sin City*." Joey bent down, took a badge holder from the other corpse, and examined it, his brow furrowed. "The ID is completely authentic. I’ve even seen this guy before at a case briefing. He was a damn good detective. Give him another minute and he might have started shouting ’Hail Hydra’ or something."

Aili, who was usually fiery and uncompromising in her hatred of evil, was also visibly shaken. She asked,

"Chief, what do we do? Should we call the police? No, I mean, should we report it to the state? Or call the press?"

Joey thought about the agent’s dying words, slowly shaking his head.

"The State Police have already taken over the case, so they’re likely involved too. Right now, we don’t know who to trust. And so what if we call the press? If these people really have pull, they could easily frame us for violently resisting arrest or trump up some other charge. After all, their IDs were real, the bullet holes in them match our guns, and your Shotgun has a damn illegal silencer on it..."

Despite being the sheriff of a remote town like Shuanghu Town, Joey was well aware of the corruption and darkness within Eagle Country politics.

The recent Epstein case, in particular, and the string of murders connected to the Clintons, had left him with a deep distrust of those in power.

What was happening now only deepened that distrust.

He was certain that if they called the press or allowed other police to take them into custody for questioning, the three of them would be dead in a prison cell long before any trial date.

He was an Iraq veteran. They could easily claim he had PTSD, and then they’d pin the entire missing persons case on him.