Ryūsei and Zhao Xi were among the earliest Demon Hunters Hao Ren had met. The grudges they had formed when they first met had long since vanished, and Hao Ren now regarded them as acquaintances—not friends, but people with whom he had some ties.
During the Corpus Rebellion more than a month ago, Ryūsei and Zhao Xi, like the other Demon Hunters, had been urgently recalled to the North Pole by headquarters to participate in the counterattack against the Elder Council. They had lost contact after that. Among ordinary humans, they might have been superhumans capable of soaring through the heavens and burrowing into the earth, but in the great battle at Corpus, Demon Hunters like them had been merely two of countless foot soldiers fighting on the front lines. Without exceptional luck, their lives were no more secure than anyone else's.
Hao Ren had been run off his feet during the Corpus War. Afterward, he had been busy sorting through a mountain of prehistoric records and dealing with disputes among the Others. It was only now that he suddenly remembered Ryūsei and Zhao Xi. More than half a month had passed since the civil war ended. The new council and the Demon Hunters who had already been stationed in the Arctic were busy rebuilding Corpus, while the field operatives summoned from all over the world were gradually returning to their original bases. The Demon Hunters' thousand-year foundation could not simply be abandoned. They had to rebuild their network of influence in the modern world as much as possible—or, failing that, at least ensure they could keep track of developments around the globe.
So if Ryūsei and Zhao Xi were still alive, they had probably already returned to this city.
Carrying the Data Terminal, Hao Ren arrived at the middle