Codename Feather's assassin had recently received a special commission.
The commission was still to kill someone, nothing particularly noteworthy. But the client had offered a reward far more generous than the price of murder.
Only then did she learn that the world had another side known as Honkai.
To Feather, this reward was enough to let her live out the rest of her life without worrying about food or drink, never again having to live on the edge of a blade.
She was used to moving through the shadows. There was no doubt that this was an irresistible temptation.
Thus, when the client known as Gray Serpent approached her, she readily agreed.
Feather did not care who the target was. They might be a good person, or they might be a bad person.
But they were both unrelated to her.
Assassins had no sense of justice, nor did they care about good and evil.
With Gray Serpent's help, she infiltrated the target location.
The target's photo showed a man from Shenzhou, eighteen years old.
A genius in biology, someone who should not have died so young.
"But... who told you to be so unlucky?"
She waited.
Within her line of sight, Feather saw the target begin returning to his dormitory.
That was the best hunting ground.
The Oceanic Branch placed great importance on personal privacy, so there were basically no cameras in the dormitory area. There were alarms, but Gray Serpent had already dealt with them all.
As long as it was an electronic device, Gray Serpent was highly skilled with it.
Everything was ready. She had almost nothing to worry about.
An ominous Gray Crow cried high above, signaling that another life was about to leave this world.
Oceanic Branch.
In Chen Ran's world.
"Tap, tap, tap, tap."
The doorbell rang.
Chen Ran was already seated in a wheelchair, his palms slick with sweat.
He had changed into Wendy's clothes. Without a wig, he hastily dyed his hair with fluorescent dye.
The assassin's target was Chen Ran, not Wendy. He only needed to make this woman misjudge things for a single instant, and he would succeed.
According to Mei, if an intelligent and exceptionally capable person intended to kill someone, they would rely on experience and be extremely confident in what they saw and knew.
Such people all had their own "rhythm." Only by disrupting that rhythm would the other side have a chance to counterkill.
There was only one hour, and even accounting for the return trip, Chen Ran naturally could not fully imitate Wendy. However, after disguising himself, he actually looked thirty to forty percent similar to Wendy, with a touch of sharpness as well.
He did not hope to counterkill her.
At least, there was currently no opportunity to do so.
But...
Chen Ran took a deep breath and used Wendy's voice, which he had recorded on his phone beforehand, to say, "Who is it?"
Sure enough, Feather outside the door subconsciously paused when she heard the voice.
"Wasn't the target male?"
A trace of doubt arose in her mind.
Her rhythm had been thrown off a little.
However, as an experienced assassin, Feather still trusted her own observations.
She continued pressing the doorbell, then spoke in a disguised voice. "It's me."
Based on the psychology she had studied herself, when others could not see your face and asked, "Who are you?" all you had to do was use an ordinary voice and say, "It's me."
Then that person would imagine someone familiar to them, lowering their guard.
It was a small trick.
And that small trick had helped her complete many commissions.
However, Feather on the other side of the door did not know that while taking the chance to play the recording from his phone, Chen Ran had already taken out his gun and disengaged the safety.
Disengaging the safety would make a sound, but the sound from the phone perfectly covered it up.
He did not expect to kill her with one shot, but...
Chen Ran unlatched the door.
Time seemed to stop at that moment.
The door opened.
A throwing knife flew toward Chen Ran, but prepared as he was, he had long protected his neck and heart.
With the Oceanic Branch's technology, as long as he did not die on the spot, there was a high chance he would survive.
The sharp blade pierced through his clothes and sank into his flesh.
Enduring the pain, a ruthless glint in his eyes, he fired at the assassin.
That shot naturally missed.
The assassin was experienced, after all. Biologically speaking, no human could ever outrun a bullet, but anime worlds simply did not follow reason.
She dodged the shot.
But...
A bullet struck her in the back.
Behind the assassin, Wendy had already lain in ambush in her wheelchair, having calculated the timing beforehand. She glared at her furiously. "Who are you?!"
This was Chen Ran's contingency plan.
Disrupt the assassin's rhythm and affect her judgment.
Then find an opportunity to counterkill.
Given Wendy's limited mobility, Feather naturally could not have expected her to appear here.
And precisely because of that, Chen Ran had to make her appear here.
One hour was short, but carrying out a plan took an awfully long time.
It Only Stops Hurting with a Kiss
The assassin ran away.
Chen Ran was a rookie, and Wendy was disabled. Naturally, they could not stop an experienced assassin.
This was within his expectations. Being able to survive that person's attack was already the greatest stroke of luck the two of them could hope for right now.
"Are you okay?"
Wendy hurriedly pushed her wheelchair over to Chen Ran. "Stay here. I'll find someone to help you."
"Don't. What if the enemy gets angrier the more she thinks about it and comes back for another try? Wouldn't that be unfair to me?" Chen Ran endured the pain, unconcerned with whether he looked pathetic or whether it hurt. He forced himself to stand.
Chen Ran did not trust anyone else at the Oceanic Branch.
It was simple. Since someone could infiltrate this place directly, who knew whether there were other World Serpent spies? What if Wendy went looking for help and found a spy?
The chance was low, but it was not nonexistent.
That was also why he had only asked Wendy for help rather than seeking assistance from other Valkyries. The Valkyries of Schicksal might not be as pure as he imagined.
Only the protagonist group had pure Valkyries.
His clothes were stained crimson over a large area with blood, making him look terrifying.
"Then what should we do? I..."
Visible panic filled the girl's face. To her, their time together had already been enough for Chen Ran to paint a vivid color across her heart.
"It's fine. Don't forget that I'm a researcher."
"When I was attacked, I deliberately chose places with more flesh. None of my internal organs were injured. It'll be fine."
Before entering the simulation, he had repeatedly used the Flame-Chaser's computers to calculate how he could minimize his injuries.
It was like that news story where a nurse stabbed her boyfriend eighteen times and was assessed as having only minor injuries.
Chen Ran was not quite that outrageous, but he was close. After all, his body could not truly be considered that of an ordinary person. His time with the Flame-Chaser had not been wasted.
Although his recovery ability could not compare to that of a Fusion Warrior, he was at least not completely helpless.
Thanks to the knowledge granted by the system.
He felt that he had recovered some strength and said, "Let's go. It's time to talk to the person in charge."
Chen Ran's injury as a participant in the Divine Right Plan caused a stir within the Oceanic Branch.
The Divine Right Plan was currently the Oceanic Branch's top-priority plan, one that had to be carried out. No matter who among its participants was injured, it would affect the plan itself.
Not to mention that Chen Ran's influence on Wendy was obvious to all.
Although the reason Wendy's rejection of the Herrscher Core had gradually disappeared had not yet been determined, the Divine Right Plan's participants believed it was inseparable from Chen Ran.
At this critical juncture of the plan, someone had attacked Chen Ran.
"This is a provocation against Schicksal!"
The person in charge of the Oceanic Branch immediately defined the matter. "The Divine Right Plan is the Oceanic Branch's highest-priority project. I have already commissioned Schicksal's intelligence department to investigate this."
The various branches of Schicksal had no independent intelligence systems, so the matter could only be reported to headquarters for handling.
"Protection for Chen Ran and Wendy will be raised in priority. The more the enemy wants to stop something, the more we must carry it out. Chen Ran is very likely the key to the Divine Right Plan's success."
Clearly, although the Oceanic Branch's chief director could not determine the exact principle behind Wendy's condition, it was definitely related to Chen Ran.
World Serpent's assassination attempt had instead further confirmed his thoughts.
He asked the assistant beside him, "Where is Chen Ran?"
"He's in the infirmary having his wounds disinfected and bandaged. Wendy went with him and requested to take care of him." The assistant paused before saying, "After considering everything, we agreed to let Wendy care for him."
"Good."
The Oceanic Branch's chief director appeared thoughtful.
At that moment, inside the infirmary.
Although his wounds had already been covered in alcohol for disinfection and sedation, he still deliberately grimaced to tease Wendy.
He felt that if he did not tease the little girl a little, Wendy was about to cry.
"I'm sorry. It's all because of me. If I could have been faster and gotten there in time..."
She blamed herself, hating her own helplessness for the first time.
If her legs had not been like this...
Then she definitely could have protected Chen Ran.
For the first time, desire began to rise in Wendy's heart. She hoped her legs would recover soon and that this experiment would end quickly.
Chen Ran blinked and said, "Think of it this way: if you hadn't arrived in time, what you would have seen would have been Chen Ran dried up like salted fish."
"How could I still be here making faces at you now?"
Before you continue