"Still chasing me?"
The masked Maiden known as the Gem Witch was currently gritting her teeth against the tearing pain ripping through every part of her body, her heart lodged in her throat.
Even the broom-shaped Grappling Hook in her hand had lost its usual precision and elegance as it swung through the air. Several times, it nearly failed to catch anything, only barely hooking onto the buildings opposite her.
Getting injured was commonplace for a lone, unaffiliated wild Extraordinary like her. But a perilous escape like today's was rare even for someone as battle-hardened as she was.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed more than a dozen pitch black shadows clinging to her like gangrene on bone, relentlessly pursuing her through the deep night like ghosts that refused to depart.
Untiring, unafraid of death, they searched heaven and earth for gemstones, single-mindedly hunting witches.
Their scarlet eyes remained fixed on the masked figure ahead, her cape fluttering behind her. Data streams flickered within those eyes, capturing the scene before them in real time and transmitting it somewhere else.
Every one of them was comparable to a somewhat weaker Level 3 Extraordinary. Working together, they were like a killing machine cobbled together from several parts. They reminded the Gem Witch of the Special Management Department's signature Sword Bearers and Purple Thorn Group's Iron Thorn Squad—except they were several times more terrifying.
They did not seem human. They resembled robots, yet they were not machines, because they truly were living people. More precisely, they were—
Living dead!
"Something like this exists in Tinghai City? Which heretical organization is raising them?" The Gem Witch was full of doubts.
"Whoosh."
The shadows ran and leaped across the walls of Tall Buildings. Between the buildings, they spread their arms like bats, black