She showed the radar screen to everyone and calmly explained on their behalf:
"Our primary target has already been mostly wiped out by that woman just now. The radar is showing..."
Amikura Mako lowered her head and saw the red dots representing the monsters.
Several were clustered around Aki Hayakawa and the others.
The remaining few were stationed outside the mall entrance, in the direction where those fiends were...
Amikura Mako instantly understood what Hayasaka Ai meant and lowered her voice.
"Our top priority now is to find Santa Claus..."
Beside them, Kushida Kikyo, her shoulder-length hair neatly cut, looked at the headless remains littering the ground and could not help swallowing.
That familiar feeling of being instantly defeated.
That familiar despair of having no power to resist.
The fear of being dominated by Neferpitou yesterday surged back into her mind, making her calves tremble faintly once again.
"Are you okay, Kushida?"
Matsushita Chiaki noticed something was off and asked softly.
"I'm fine..."
Kushida Kikyo pressed her lips together tightly, forcing out a strained smile as she shook her head.
"I'm fine... It's just, now that most of the puppets here have been cleared out... which way should we go next?"
"Fewer is better."
Matsushita Chiaki offered a word of comfort. "At least we won't have to worry about getting ambushed and assimilated, and it'll be easier to pinpoint the real target."
As she spoke, Matsushita followed Kushida's somewhat wandering gaze toward the mall entrance.
A scar-faced middle-aged man had, at some point, entered the department store in broad strides, carrying a fiend in each hand.
He looked up at the figure above the atrium and spoke in a hoarse voice.
"Quanxi, long time no see."
At those words, Quanxi, who had been about to deliver the final execution to