Hunted at High Speed

"Faster, faster, faster!"

Li Aoz urged anxiously.

This car, crudely assembled from who knew what scraps by the Outland People, was in even worse shape than he had imagined. The cramped front seat could not fit two people at all, so he gripped the roof with both hands and hung half his body outside. Every so often, bullets from Law Enforcement Division Four whizzed past his shoulder.

Thanks to Outland's wind, snow, and sand, along with the red-black Esha Clouds overhead, the land was dark and dim.

In such low visibility, it would be a miracle if the Law Enforcement Division Four female agents' bullets hit anything. If an entire burst managed to strike a target, it would have to be the Twin Queens' spirits watching over them.

"Quit whining! If you hadn't insisted on siphoning fuel, this car would've gotten us out of here!"

Nomi jerked the wheel from time to time, using the rises and dips of the dunes to break line of sight. However, the Law Enforcement Division Four agents had already flown into a rage. They switched on their high beams, determined to take them down even at the risk of exposing themselves in the darkness.

"Don't panic." Li Aoz looked perfectly relaxed, utterly unruffled. "Just drive. I'll handle everything else."

He quickly calmed down and slipped into player mode.

A glaring white light shone through the rearview mirror. Nomi clicked her tongue, her vision disrupted by the glare.

Li Aoz showed no mercy and immediately smashed the rearview mirror crooked with one punch. Free from the interference, Nomi stomped on the gas without another word, shooting down the slope and leaving Law Enforcement Division Four's off-road vehicle behind.

"Take a detour and head back to Qiu Ran! This car has no protection. If we run into a Sand Snowstorm, we'll be buried alive."

Li Aoz saw the off-road vehicle's lights relentlessly closing in and hurriedly urged her on.

"Forget that for now—damn it! We're out of gas!" Nomi glanced down at the dashboard. The fuel gauge had already gone blank, and cold sweat broke out all over her.

"What do we do!? We made a huge detour to shake them off... We're at least two kilometers away!"

"Up the slope."

Li Aoz swept his gaze over the surroundings. The terrain here was sharply uneven, with several fairly steep slopes.

Nomi did not hesitate. She turned the wheel, and with a bang, a bullet blew off one of her ears. She paid it no mind, kept her foot on the accelerator, pushed the speed to its limit, and charged uphill.

Their movements quickly caught the Law Enforcement Division Four agents' attention.

"What's going on? The vehicle disappeared from view."

Agent Ya Wen put away her gun and dropped down from the sunroof. Her whole body was covered in grimy slush made of snow and sand. She opened her breathing mask and hurriedly asked the colleague in the passenger seat.

"I'm activating heat tracking—it's here. They're moving diagonally along the dune. They're trying to..."

"They're climbing the slope and trying to use it to shake us off? Dream on!"

Tima, an agent in the vehicle behind them, cursed over the channel and shouted at the driver, "Pick up the speed and follow them—everyone else, hold on tight!"

Ya Wen frowned. Pressing a hand to her communications earpiece, she tried to stop her. "Tima, this is too reckless. We don't know what's on the other side of the slope. It could be a trap—"

"Shut up, you pretty little vase from the capital. You fired so many shots and didn't hit a single thing, yet you still have the nerve to yap?"

Tima viciously snapped at Ya Wen and urged them on. "Move! That Imperial dog insulted the Twin Queens, and he has ties to the Rose Army. We have to capture him alive!"

Law Enforcement Division Four's vehicles immediately followed without hesitation. Their off-road vehicles had better performance, more horsepower, and greater torque. A slope like this was nothing to them.

Vroooom—

The wheels sank into the sand and snow, and the engine let out a wail. Pressed hard against their seats by the incline, only a few agents managed to raise their guns and lean their upper bodies out of the vehicle. Braving the snow and violent sand blasting into their faces, they barely made out the battered car ahead and opened fire.

"Get down!"

As she spoke, Nomi pulled Li Aoz into her arms. Stray bullets struck her body, spraying blood, but she had long grown numb to such things. It did not stop her from shifting into first gear, keeping her foot on the gas, and accelerating up the slope.

One or two bullets would not kill her anyway, but Li Aoz could not take many more hits.

"What's going on? Why are they climbing faster than us?" Tima fired a few shots, then realized her own vehicle was making painfully slow progress. Li Aoz's group had already pulled dozens of meters ahead, and she immediately berated the male driver.

The male driver said nervously,

"They have fewer people, so their car is lighter..."

"Get out!"

Tima was frantic. Captain Nimoting had already been humiliated by that Red Arrow man.

This was a rare chance to prove herself. If she could capture him alive, she would definitely receive commendation from the bureau. She might even be promoted to a post at headquarters—at that thought, she waved a hand and immediately led the female agents out of the vehicle to climb on foot.

Frostplate did not have a proverb like "haste makes waste," but this decision to abandon the car and climb the slope on foot was still too much for Agent Ya Wen, her colleague, to bear.

"Get back in the car!" Ya Wen said anxiously. "The wind is too strong here. If you climb higher, people will get blown away—"

"Shut up!"

Tima was beside herself with rage. This wicked woman was always trying to ruin her chances. Holding her pistol, she snarled over the channel, "So what if you went to college? Does going to college make you so impressive?! Don't make me laugh. Let me show you how a real field agent fights!"

"Agent Tima, if you keep insisting on this, you'll only get your own people killed. Have you forgotten what Li Aoz just—"

"Beep—"

Agent Tima directly muted Ya Wen's voice. She held her breath slightly, activated her inner strength, and reinforced her body. As a Martial Artist, this bit of protective inner strength was enough to shield her from the wind and sand and let her advance steadily.

Just as she had expected, her sprinting speed immediately surpassed the other vehicles. With her blocking the wind, the people on her side moved much more easily. Several female agents with ample inner strength had already rushed ahead, but she soon overtook them as well.

The opportunity was here!

Agent Tima rejoiced inwardly. With one hand shielding her face from the wind and sand, she raised her submachine gun with the other and sprayed bullets at the ramshackle assembled car ahead.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! "Ti, Tima, Agent Tima!"

She was firing happily as she chased after Li Aoz's vehicle. Shooting the tires would not do much; even if they lost air, it would be hard to bring the car down. She kept firing at the driver's seat, trying to kill the driver.

"Don't go over there, don't come any closer—"

At that moment, the companions ahead of her sounded exhausted, as if they could barely breathe, when they shouted at her, "Don't come over—"

Tima had yet to react when she took another step forward.

Thud! It felt as if someone had suddenly dropped onto her body. Tima staggered, and the abrupt crushing weight nearly drove her to her knees.

Tima's heart sank. She suddenly understood why the surrounding agents all looked so breathless.

"Gravity Aura—this guy's Aoneng can alter gravity!"

She finally understood, and instantly regretted getting out of the car.

A car was made of steel. It could force its way uphill with the power of its internal combustion engine. Human flesh and blood had no resistance at all against changes in gravity.

But the target vehicle was right in front of her. She had a gun, professional training, and capturing an unarmed Aoneng user could not be that hard, could it? More importantly, the reward waiting for her was simply too generous! With that in mind, Tima gritted her teeth and climbed upward with all her might.

The closer she got to the vehicle ahead, the more her spine bent. Tima panted violently. For a non-transcendent person, enduring high gravity for so long was excruciating. Combined with Outland's freezing winds constantly draining her strength, her limbs soon began to go weak.

The shouts of her colleagues in the distance were no longer clear, drowned out by the wind. Tima raised a hand and slapped it onto the target vehicle's rear compartment. The latter half of her body was completely crushed by gravity, and as the vehicle climbed upward, she lay sprawled on the ground and was dragged along.

"Stop!"

She struggled to raise her submachine gun toward the front and growled with all her strength,

"Stop immediately and surrender, or I'll open fire."

The moment the words left her mouth, she saw two hands slowly rise from the driver's seat. Exhausted by the crushing gravity, she instinctively relaxed—but then Tima immediately realized that both the Aoneng and the vehicle's movement were still continuing!

They were still escaping! Bang!

Tima fired a shot at the dashboard. The next moment, her heart tightened.

Click, click—

The gun malfunctioned.

Outland's harsh environment was extremely unfriendly to precision firearms, and malfunctions were common. But she had never expected it to jam at a moment like this.

"Damn it!"

Tima cursed. The next moment, she saw a head slowly poke out from the driver's seat. It was a young girl with her face covered in bandages. She grinned, her pale purple single eye seeming to say, So this is your day.

"Law Enforcement Division Four's lapdogs, welcome to—Outland."

Nomi giggled, while Li Aoz, silently held in her arms, activated his Aoneng again.

Gravity reversal.

The next moment, Tima felt the vehicle suddenly become light. The ground beneath her feet vanished in an instant, and the abrupt change made her scream.

The assembled car cleared the dune and flew toward the sky as gravity abruptly reversed direction. Tima wailed. The sudden shift in gravitational direction subjected her to overloads exceeding positive and negative 12G! Even pilots in G-suits, with professional training and excellent physical conditioning, could not withstand that level of overload.

Tima's body was flung entirely into the air. Her vision went black, and her spine bent and twisted through a full circle. Once she left Li Aoz's gravity range, Earth's gravity caught her again, and she plunged straight toward the ground.

In one sense, she was lucky. At least her head crashed into soft sand and snow.

In another sense, falling headfirst from more than forty meters onto snowy dunes was no different from slamming into a steel plate.

Agent Tima's head was driven entirely into her chest cavity. Then the impact bent and snapped her spine, which burst through flesh and sprang out. One eyeball was squeezed from its socket by the sudden change in blood pressure and rolled across the ground for a long while.

Whoosh... Crunch!

Then she was crushed beneath the wheels descending from the sky. Li Aoz steadily adjusted the gravity and let them land safely. Nomi shifted into neutral; with the fuel completely exhausted, the engine had died entirely, and the whole vehicle now glided solely through Li Aoz's gravity adjustments.

"Baaahahahahaha—did you see that expression on her face just now? It was just like Frostplate Civilization! Oh, she probably doesn't have Frostplate Civilization left to die with. After all, anyone who can work for Law Enforcement Division Four probably had to sacrifice an entire page of their family tree."

"I saw it. She did look pretty desperate."

Li Aoz waited for a while before the experience notification finally appeared.

You killed Lv.15 Law Enforcement Division Four Agent 'Tima Laye'. Your total damage contribution exceeded 70%. You killed an enemy above your level. Team reward... calculating

You gained 1200 experience points

After leveling up, although he no longer suffered an experience penalty for teaming up with Nomi, the smaller level difference between him and his enemies also meant less experience gained.

"Not bad. That means every four or five female agents gives me a chance to reset my mutation."

Li Aoz calculated silently. Since he lacked efficient farming methods in the early stages, the bulk of his experience still had to come from completing quests.

Gravity Aura allowed him to challenge certain elite enemies above his level, but it was difficult to obtain 100% of the experience reward. Fortunately, he had two human teammates here, which raised his experience gains.

If he had teamed up with beasts or animals instead of humans, the returns would have been pitiful. There were not many races in the universe that could help with experience and growth the way humans could.

"Your ability is really useful!"

Nomi grinned from ear to ear. She patted Li Aoz on the shoulder and hooked one arm around his neck, clearly in a wonderful mood.

However, the next moment, she casually said,

"Red Arrow's little beauty, how many lies have you told me?"

"Maybe even the name Li Aoz is fake."

"Oh, I see. Fake Li Aoz. Why not change your name to Wosh Pianzi? Li Aoz was already a tacky, weird, awful-sounding name anyway."

"Then what about dropping the 'Aoz' and calling me Li Si?"

"Li Si?" Nomi gave a dry laugh, drawing out the sound in a shrill voice. "Little Li~~ Sounds nice. Like a eunuch."

"Which is why I added the 'Aoz'—besides, I once had my fortune told. They said I lacked water in my fate, so I added an Aoz. Mm, pretty good. I'm much more hydrated now."

"I don't see what's so hydrated about you. You look human enough, but not a single word out of your mouth is true."

Li Aoz smiled, unconcerned. The two joked around, and the atmosphere relaxed considerably.

"If you really can't stand it, just assume I've always been lying—special reminder: that sentence wasn't a lie."

He looked at Nomi's 201 Favorability (Affection), folded his arms, and said nothing else.

Nomi rolled her eyes at him, tightened her arm around his neck, and said irritably, "Tch—you don't have a single honest word in that mouth. Then let me ask you this: do you like women?"

"I'm not entirely sure. It feels like someone is aiming at us."

"Answer me! You bastard, answer me already! Do you actually like women or not?"

Nomi rolled her eyes at him. "Tell the truth."

"That's really hard to say."

Li Aoz thought back.

"When I first got into anime, I thought I liked mature women. Then I heard people say little girls were treasures. Later, tsundere little girls fell out of fashion, so people dragged me into liking beautiful girls with long black hair."

"Is white hair not okay?"

Nomi muttered softly, her egg-white hair lifted by the wind.

Li Aoz did not hear her and continued reminiscing. "Later, a fan sent me a photo. It was a schoolgirl, and I was thrilled. I thought I had a female fan. Just when I had decided that schoolgirl beauties were my thing, he sent me a voice message in a thick Tianjin accent: 'Bro, do you like my cross-dressing? I've also got Hatsune Miku and Luo Tianyi. Which one do you want to see? Don't go looking for pretty older girls outside. Just come to me.'"

Li Aoz pondered for a moment, then said, "Later, I realized gender didn't matter, and race didn't matter much either. As long as they're good-looking, I can accept them."

Crack!

"Hey, stop losing your mind here! You're going to break the steering wheel!"

Cat Sister's new book, "Starting with a Core Pod," is updating so fast I can barely keep up. Thinking back to the fun I had reading Holy Sword and Knight of the End, I never expected to meet Cat Sister on the new book rankings now. I'm truly incredibly excited.

Readers, please vote and invest if you can. Crimson wants to compete on the same stage as her idol and catch up to Cat Sister!