After Lin rolled to his feet, he rapidly hopped backward several times in succession. The pitch-black phantom pursued him relentlessly, both blades now drawn, slashing at Lin's face like two ink-black threads converging.
In that instant, Lin quickly assessed the enemy's height and weapon length. Average speed. Melee type. Highly refined movements.
He reached back and gripped the hilt on his back, pressing the switch. A sky-blue electromagnetic field instantly sprang out, halting the long blades just before they reached him. Then he immediately drew Thunder Cutter and mercilessly slashed straight at the phantom before him!
"Riiip—"
The blue and black blades clashed first, their strength evenly matched. Then Lin's blade burst with dazzling light, violent currents blooming from it and blasting the phantom away.
"Scrape—"
The black figure adjusted its posture in midair, driving both blades into the ground to stop its backward flight.
With some distance between the two "people," Lin finally saw what had attacked him. Though the moment he saw those two blades, he had already guessed.
"Ninja MOTH Soldier..." he muttered the awkward name.
An advanced MOTH Soldier named for its appearance, resembling a Far East warrior, and its two terrifying long blades. Unlike ordinary MOTH Soldiers, which were slow and moved predictably, it could use a variety of combat techniques.
When Lin saw the Ninja MOTH Soldier, he was neither surprised nor serious. He was puzzled.
Why was it this kind of MOTH Soldier?
While he was distracted, the Ninja MOTH Soldier charged again. It was not particularly fast; Lin could handle it with his own speed alone.
In the end, the Ninja MOTH Soldier was only advanced compared to ordinary MOTH Soldiers. Regular soldiers would have more than enough ability to deal with one at this level.
Lin's azure visor suddenly lit up. He stomped his right foot against the ground and lunged forward parallel to it, moving fully twice as fast as the Ninja MOTH Soldier.
"Clang!"
A piercing screech of friction erupted where the blade edges met!
Holding Thunder Cutter in a reverse grip with his right hand, Lin flashed forward in a streak of lightning. The Ninja MOTH Soldier had already reacted, stopping and drawing back its blades to cross them in front of itself. But the instant their blades collided, Lin withdrew his force and leapt up, driving a straight kick into its stomach.
A humanoid structure was easier to deal with than a Honkai Beast. Lin knew every weak point in the human body's joints, as well as the defensive openings of every posture. As long as it attacked in a human stance, Lin would hold an overwhelming advantage.
Kicked away once more, the Ninja MOTH Soldier repeated its old trick and drove its twin blades into the ground. But this time, just as it made that motion, blue lightning shot toward it.
The threat of death forced it to immediately pull back its blades at an unnatural angle and sweep the lightning aside. The sky-blue streak revealed its true form in midair—it was Thunder Cutter, thrown by Lin.
Now, it had failed to fully disperse the force. That also meant it had exposed its weakness.
A black shadow darted out. The helmeted figure caught Thunder Cutter in midair and landed behind the Ninja MOTH Soldier. Then a round, sky-blue full moon bloomed around him.
"Crack..."
Black hair, a deathly pale body, a violet-white core—all were split in two by that slash.
Like building blocks, the Ninja MOTH Soldier separated into two halves and crashed onto the ground.
"..." Lin did not turn back to look at the corpse. He slowly returned Thunder Cutter to the slot in his pack, producing a crisp ding.
Mission complete
Lin glanced at Prometheus's words in the upper-right corner and said in a low voice, "No. Not yet."
Killing the MOTH Soldier had taken little effort, but there were too many suspicious points about this mission itself. What he needed to do now was not report in, but investigate this bizarre incident.
"Prometheus, cut off communications with MOTH. Do not let anyone connect to this channel."
Connection terminated
Lin crossed the distance in a few strides to the Ninja MOTH Soldier's corpse and began examining its body and the two blades.
Everything had a normal structure. There was nothing wrong with it. It was an ordinary Ninja MOTH Soldier.
But the appearance of this MOTH Soldier itself was highly unusual. It had no other climbing equipment, so how had it overcome the height of that wall?
He walked over to the side of the wall facing Changkong City and looked down. With his night-vision goggles, he could see that the machine guns below were operating normally, and the wall was smooth and unmarked.
In other words, it could not have climbed up by stabbing its blades into the wall one strike at a time.
Could a spatial-transit MOTH Soldier or Honkai Beast have helped it get up here?
Aside from the Second Herrscher and its accompanying Honkai Beasts, it was unlikely that other MOTH Soldiers or Honkai Beasts possessed such an ability. But Lin had no choice but to consider it a possibility for now.
Lin pondered in a cold, low voice.
This mission itself had come suddenly, and its description contained only vague words like "special MOTH Soldier." After arriving, Lin had encountered a Ninja MOTH Soldier that could only barely be called "special."
It was like someone had casually thrown a MOTH Soldier at him to brush him off, simply to tell him that the matter truly existed.
That was very close to the answer suggested by Lin's intuition. It was also why he had cut off communications.
Lin tossed the corpse back into Changkong City and said to Prometheus, "Prometheus, access the Fifth Branch's city network. Check the surveillance footage to see whether any helicopters flew over the city before or after the mission was issued."
Yes. Searching image records... No flying objects found
"..."
Lin lowered his head and remained silent.
This result was no surprise. Which meant the answer was obvious as well.
"Connect to the Fifth Branch's communications immediately."
Beep—Connection failed
Lin immediately flipped over the high wall and leapt down, sprinting back the way he had come at top speed.
The black eyes that had gradually warmed over the past few days sank once more into bottomless depths.
Inside the Fifth Branch, Fifth Science Department.
"Mei, get inside!"
Kevin knocked down a Claw Mortal with the butt of his gun, fired two more shots into its head, then grabbed Mei's hand and shoved her into the room before slamming the door shut behind her.
"Bang!"
"I'll handle things here. Don't come out until I've killed every MOTH Soldier!"
Kevin immediately turned and dodged a downward strike from a scythe-wielding MOTH Soldier. Gunfire erupted, riddling it full of holes.
Blood and flesh splattered everywhere.
The Fifth Science Department was coated in the colors of blood and fat.
Monsters wandered through the place where humanity should have nurtured hope.
Death descended upon humanity's most brilliant scientists.
Less than an hour after Lin left the Fifth Branch, this place had become hell.
If There Were a World Without Death
"Dad!"
Spasi, who had been walking and talking with Mei, furrowed his brow and turned toward the small figure running at him. He quietly apologized to Mei—"Excuse me"—then bent down on one knee and embraced SiZhi as she threw herself at him.
"SiZhi, why are you here?" Spasi gently stroked SiZhi's head and asked warmly.
"I've been looking for Dad all day!" SiZhi protested unhappily. "You promised we'd celebrate Mom's birthday!"
"SiZhi, don't disturb your father." A white-haired woman walked over gracefully from behind. Though she verbally scolded SiZhi, her sapphire-blue eyes remained fixed on Mei and Kevin. She smiled at them with poised elegance. "Hello, I'm Spasi's wife, Karen. This must be Doctor Mei, and this is..."
"His name is Kevin," Mei casually introduced him.
Karen looked at the distance between the two of them and smiled softly.
Karen glanced around again and asked in puzzlement, "By the way, where is that young man wearing a helmet?"
"Lin?" Kevin took out his communicator and checked it. Lin had left him a message. "He told me he received a mission and headed out, somewhere near Changkong City. What do you need him for?"
"SiZhi said she liked that helmeted big brother, so I came out with her to have a look."
When Spasi heard their conversation, the corner of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. He stood and said to Karen, "Karen, take SiZhi to my office and wait for me. I still need to host Doctor Mei..."
Mei hurriedly stopped him. "There's no need, Doctor Spacy. Family is just as important as work. Just take us to the Fifth Science Department so I can look around on my own."
"This... All right. Where's Bolong?"
"I had him head back first. He has a family too; we can't have him doing all the work all the time." Karen shot Spasi an annoyed look, clearly criticizing his usual habit of overworking his subordinates.
"Haha, true enough. Then Doctor Mei, this way."
In his office, Spasi gently stroked SiZhi's head and sighed as he looked at her innocent face.
"Is there something wrong with that young man named Lin?"
As Spasi's wife, Karen was exceptionally skilled at reading people. She had noticed earlier that Spasi's expression had not looked pleasant when she mentioned Lin.
"There's nothing wrong with his record. If anything, it's exceptionally impressive." There was a machine for hot milk in Spasi's office. He took out a bottle, opened it, and handed it to SiZhi before walking to the window and gazing at the distant high wall. "Only recently did I hear that headquarters had a young man who rose directly from private to captain in just half a year and became a squad leader. His number of missions and their difficulty surpassed those of most veterans. He also made a considerable contribution to ending the Third Honkai War, but..."
That "but" marked the start of Spasi's own opinion. Karen pricked up her ears and listened.
Spasi murmured, "But he is extremely detached in how he conducts himself, rational to the extreme. Someone like that is a good thing in MOTH, but not necessarily for humanity. Because he often pursues absolute procedural justice. So-called emotions are worthless in the face of his principles. It is too dangerous to associate with someone like that."
From their meeting today, Spasi had seen a MOTH-like quality in Lin—the procedural style of ruthlessly eliminating anything that did not conform to predetermined justice.
"I don't think so."
Spasi froze for a moment and looked at Karen's gentle smile.
"That young man might not be as cold as others describe him. I think he must have many things and feelings buried deep in his heart. He only puts on that act because he does not want others to see them."
"You've never met him. How could you know that?"
"Because..." Karen's eyes were filled with maternal tenderness as she looked at SiZhi and softly said, "Anyone SiZhi likes certainly cannot be a cold-hearted child. Besides, doesn't he wear a helmet?"
Karen said, "Helmets are like masks. They are both tools for hiding one's face, preventing others from seeing one's true emotions."
"..."
"Look, Spasi. What difference is there between SiZhi and that child? Aren't they both equally precious lives?"
Karen's smile was as lovely as the setting sun, just as it had been on the day they met. The furrow between Spasi's brows gradually eased.
Spasi took a deep breath and smiled helplessly. "Yes... We are all the same kind of humans."
They were all fighting for humanity. There was not much difference between them.
He swept away his gloom and put on the warm smile he wore around his family. "We've talked so much, but I still haven't celebrated your birthday. Come on, Karen. Today, we'll go to that family restaurant..."
"Boom--------"
Without any warning, scorching flames exploded from the wall behind Karen.
In Spasi's frozen gaze, the terrifying heat instantly swallowed smiling Karen and SiZhi, who was drinking milk, before turning everything before him orange-red.
Like shining starlight, mercilessly scattered by a blazing sun.
"Little Soul, are you still thinking about that boy?"
Soul, who sat slumped in a chair with her head lowered, heard her father's voice and looked up at him listlessly.
The man was helpless when he saw his child looking as though her soul had been stolen. As expected, once girls reached this age, they started overthinking everything. Even if she had grown up, she was still an ordinary girl when it came to emotions.
"Dad, Team Member Lin probably hates me now..."
What Lin had once said to her should have served as a warning, but she had not taken it seriously, leading to this situation.
He would rather be seen as a freak by everyone than allow personal feelings to interfere with his judgment. Compared to him, she was simply far too immature.
"How could that be? I think that kid is a good person. How could he hate you for no reason?" The man walked over and sat beside Soul, smoothing down his lab coat as he asked in confusion.
Soul was baffled by his description. "A... good person?"
"Yes. Isn't he your spiritual mentor?"
"Ah, well..." Soul's cheeks immediately reddened, and she became flustered. "But don't you think Team Member Lin's personality is a little strange?"
"Hmm... He does seem like a kid who doesn't like talking, but your mother and I have lived for so many years. What kind of people haven't we met?" The man shrugged indifferently. "Your mother and I both think that someone who could improve Little Soul's personality so much could not be a bad person. We were just too worked up earlier."
He stared at Soul, whose face had reddened all the way to her ears. "After all, you're our daughter. We have to see which brat picked our family's cabbage, don't we?"
"No, that's not it. Team Member Lin and I aren't in that kind of relationship," Soul explained incoherently.
"Of course not. If you two were already dating and he still treated me like that, I'd show him what for."