6. Xia Ling: "I'm Such a Softhearted Person"

"So, having a mole is great... Who would have thought that a listening device was mixed in with a bunch of candy?"

"It seems... they're already preparing to take action. Are they planning to take the humanoid robot away? Hmm... so, what about the part where Bronya discovers Rita's tracking, and then Mei confronts Rita?"

Xia Ling closed her laptop, stood up, and patted the dust off her black stockings.

"Well then... let's go check out the situation. After all, there's still a significant difference in strength between these two..."

However, Xia Ling was unaware that Theresa suddenly spoke up as she closed her notebook.

"Wait, Bronya."

"I'll take on the task of intercepting Rita later."

"The headmaster...?"

"Okay, you guys just escort the humanoid machine. The main thing is, I have some questions I'd like to ask Rita..."

"The traces disappear here..."

Rita emerged from the shadows, looking at the mess on the ground with some distress.

"I really want to clean this place up properly... but the mission comes first. Carbon-based Hunter, go and search..."

Before she finished speaking, Rita's eyes sharpened, and a giant, eerie green scythe instantly appeared in her hand. With a swift stroke, she precisely blocked a golden spear.

"Lord Theresa... sneak attacks are not a good habit."

"I'll say the same to you, Rita."

The golden spear was retracted along the chains into the Judas' Vow, and Theresa's voice slowly rang out. "Stalking is not a good habit either."

"Now that we've obtained the Gray Serpent's bio-components, why don't we hurry back to headquarters to decipher the message?"

"Unfortunately, Mr. Gray Serpent doesn't have the habit of carrying information with him, so I also need the data from the humanoid machine."

Rita answered calmly.

"... Let's put the humanoid machine thing aside for now, Rita, I have a question for you."

Theresa paused for a moment, then suddenly spoke.

"Why didn't headquarters delete Xia Ling's file? They even classified it as top secret?"

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't tell you that."

Rita blinked, a sly glint in her eyes.

As expected, Bishop Otto was right. As long as Xia Ling's file wasn't deleted, Theresa would inevitably overthink things.

"I'll make you say it."

Behind Theresa, the Judas' Vow had been fully unleashed, with twelve spears of light locked onto Rita, poised to strike.

"Does Lord Theresa think she has me cornered? Don't forget, Lord Theresa has been retired for several years now. It's hard to say whether her true strength can keep up with the current players."

Whether it's good or not, you'll know once you try it.

Theresa stopped talking and focused on the battle in front of her.

Meanwhile, Xia Ling, who had been observing from afar, was paralyzed with fear.

"Wait, where's Mei Raiden? Where did I, the big cook, go? Why is it Theresa here?"

"Can Theresa beat Rita? She's pretty bad, Rita's only effective against little girls!"

After adjusting the sniper scope on the Crescent Rose, Xia Ling continued to observe the battle from a distance.

"Hmm... Theresa is smart enough not to engage Rita in close combat, but instead prioritizes using her light spear to finish her off... Wait, something's not right."

Xia Ling quickly looked around a few times, then her face darkened.

"Okay, never mind what I said earlier, Theresa is still an idiot after all."

"Didn't she notice at all that the Carbon-based Hunter had disappeared?"

"Now it's time to send it. The Carbon-based Hunter has the ability to concoct poisons at any time. Good heavens, last time it was Yunna, and this time it's Rita. Is Theresa destined to be forever separated from poison?"

Xia Ling covered her face, unable to bear watching what was about to happen.

"Forget it, let's try to save her anyway. Even Mei from the original work managed to evacuate unharmed. If Theresa gets taken away, how will Mei and Bronya rescue her from Rita?"

While complaining about Theresa, Xia Ling removed the sniper scope from the Crescent Rose and replaced it with another accessory.

"This is a collectible I just acquired... It should be far enough away, right?"

"Lord Theresa, I didn't expect that after so much time, your strength has not declined at all."

"Hmph, Rita, you can't beat me in a head-on fight." V (One) Qiba Balinqi Liuyiqun · Chat

Theresa's voice sounded as if she had the victory in the bag.

Indeed, this is the case. Rita is far inferior to Theresa in both physical fitness and endurance, even with the Moonlight Armor itself limiting Theresa's abilities.

If the restrictions were lifted, Theresa's strength would indeed allow her to completely suppress Rita.

"That's true, Lord Theresa." Rita smiled. "But Rita's armor wasn't originally designed for direct combat."

"Lord Theresa, don't you feel your body becoming somewhat weak?"

"What, Rita, you..."

Theresa's eyes widened suddenly, and as Rita spoke, the world before her seemed to blur.

"How careless of you, Lord Theresa ..." Rita sighed. "We had already been defeated by poison once before."

"It seems that Lord Theresa have to visit my base in Changkong City now."

"But please rest assured, Rita will treat you well~"

At this point, Theresa had completely collapsed to the ground, and only some indistinct sounds could be heard.

In her final moments of consciousness, Theresa suddenly heard a sound that seemed somewhat familiar—the sound of a bullet exploding.

"Has... someone come to save me?"

With these questions in mind, Theresa lost consciousness.

However, although Theresa was unconscious, Rita was far from relaxed.

That shot just now rendered the Carbon-based Hunter unusable.

It's important to know that the Carbon-based Hunter is an intelligent machine capable of carrying out independent missions, and it uses the same materials as Rita's Valkyrie armor.

The fact that the opponent could take down the Carbon-based Hunter with one shot proves that the opponent could also take down him with one shot, or at least seriously injure him.

The instant the Carbon-based Hunter exploded, Rita had already taken cover in the shadows of the building. Based on the trajectory of the bullet at the moment the shot was fired, Rita now knew the approximate location of the mysterious sniper.

Should we risk serious injury to continue testing the waters...?

Rita frowned, her eyes filled with conflict.

Chapter Six Xia Ling: I'm just too soft-hearted.

"How about... we give it a try?"

Rita gritted her teeth. The other party's identity was too unclear at this moment. If she left like this, she would still be in a passive position next time.

It would be better to take advantage of this opportunity, even at the risk of serious injury, to obtain some clues. This way, it would greatly reduce the pressure on either Little Xi or Durandal who would take over the mission next.

Having made up her mind, Rita wasted no more time.

With the armor's power maximized, Honkai Energy was concentrated on the body's surface to defend against bullets that might fly back from the same direction.

However, at that moment, gunshots rang out again.

Another explosion rang out, but this time, the bullet didn't come from the same spot as before, but directly behind Rita.

Rita was immediately terrified. The moment the gunshot rang out, she had a premonition of death. She was completely unprepared; the bullet would come from the exact opposite direction.

However, the bullet did not hit Rita's head or body, but struck a spot not far behind her, creating a deep crater.

As is well known, snipers typically move to a new location as soon as possible after firing a shot in one spot to avoid revealing their position.

Based on Rita's previous deductions, the first bullet must have come from a very far distance. Even if Rita couldn't determine the location from the sound of the gunshot, she could at least deduce the general direction from the remains of the Carbon-based Hunter.

However, relocating takes time. The farther away the sniper is from Rita's location, the longer it will take to relocate.

No matter how fast a sniper is, it is impossible to move to the same position in the opposite direction in less than a minute.

Could it be... a sniper team? Or Xia Ling, Lord Bishop mentioned before?

However, if this mysterious sniper is Xia Ling, putting aside the issue of the weapon's power, just considering the teleportation distance and the time it took for her to aim and fire, the interval between the two shots was less than a minute.

Unless she consumed Kiana's Herrscher Core, how could normal spatial abilities possibly teleport such a distance in such a short time?

Compared to the strength Xia Ling had previously demonstrated, the gap was simply too large.

If it wasn't Xia Ling, then it could only be an entire sniper team, meaning I would likely be surrounded by four or five people.

But if such a group truly exists, from whom would it originate? World Serpent had absolutely no reason to spare its own life; if Anti-Entropy possessed such power, it wouldn't have been in such a passive position before...

Just as Rita was thinking, another shot rang out, this time from a different location.

The other person didn't seem to want to hurt me, but they were urging me to leave...

Rita's eyes revealed a hint of frustration. There was nothing she could do; this time, the enemy was in the dark while she was in the light, and she was completely at a disadvantage. Continuing to drag things out would not yield any results.

We have no choice but to retreat. We just don't know if their target is Theresa or the humanoid robot...

With those questions in mind, Rita quickly disappeared into the shadows.

"Call..."

In the distance, Xia Ling, who had been lying on the ground at a high vantage point, slowly stood up from her hiding place.

"That's really troublesome... Luckily Rita was scared away."

"There were only three temporary teleportation nodes set up before. If she doesn't leave soon, I'll have to teleport on-site and fire a fourth shot."

"To teleport over such a long distance is still quite difficult..."

Rita's guess was indeed correct. With Xia Ling's level of spatial ability, it was indeed impossible for her to teleport such a long distance continuously in a short period of time.

The problem is that Xia Ling's ability is not spatial ability at all.

She only needs to connect the "gates" in several locations in advance, just like setting up teleportation anchor points, to achieve this effect.

Xia Ling removed the collectible item, "Scout's Sniper Scope," from the Crescent Rose and put it back into her system space.

The effect of this artifact is that the farther away from the target, the higher the damage. At the same time, Xia Ling's gun damage can be amplified by the intensity of the Honkai Energy injected.

Furthermore, this energy-charging attack method is classified as a powerful strike by the system, thus allowing the user to benefit from items like "Siracusa's Wrath" to increase damage.

All I can say is that if Xia Ling were given enough time to prepare, her Armor Break Line wouldn't be that low.

However, she usually doesn't have such ample preparation and can only create opportunities on her own.

"Hmm... Rita has already been scared away by me. Next, Mei and Bronya should come looking for Theresa as soon as they find out she's missing."

"The plot should get back on track from here on out, so I probably don't need to worry about it."

"Sigh, this place is no longer safe to stay. Let's leave."

Xia Ling packed away all her equipment and casually opened a portal, but she didn't go in for a long time.

"... Theresa is still lying on the ground. Why don't we go check on her?"

"Yes, let's see how it goes, otherwise what if Rita poisoned her too much?"

Having come up with a reason that she herself didn't quite believe to convince herself, Xia Ling adjusted the direction of the teleportation portal beside her and then appeared next to Theresa.

After poking Theresa's chubby, fair face to make sure she was unconscious, Xia Ling injected a Honkai Energy into Theresa's body to examine her condition.

"Hmm, Rita didn't use her full strength, that's reassuring..."