Kanna's Transformation on Terra

Aside from the time when she had first brought him back to Rhodes Island, this mission had been when the two of them communicated the most.

Just as Misery was about to speak, Kanna frowned slightly. "Which operators are moving forward from the rear left?"

Kanna suddenly asked, pointing in a certain direction.

"Steel Plate and Giant Ant!" Misery answered after just one glance in the direction Kanna pointed.

"Operator Steel Plate and Operator Giant Ant, please be advised. Watch the road ahead. The enemy appears to have set up an ambush roughly fifty meters in front of you. Please avoid it."

The moment Misery finished speaking, Kanna immediately spoke into her earpiece.

"Understood!" Giant Ant's voice came through the earpiece. Under Rain Tiger's Freedom's observation, the two slowed down and cautiously approached the enemy's ambush zone.

Very soon, through the clones she had sent into the ambush zone, Kanna saw the situation clearly. Just as she had said, even though the enemy's morale had collapsed, their leader had been captured, and their command was in disarray, they had still managed to set up a rather impressive ambush while retreating.

Unfortunately for them, they had run into Kanna, an unreasonable map-hacking cheat with full-field vision. The moment she noticed their abnormal halt and encirclement formation, Kanna sent a warning to the operators over there.

Under the assault of the two clones, the hastily assembled ambush position was easily breached, and the enemies involved in the ambush were quickly wiped out. Steel Plate and Giant Ant, who had snuck up from behind, looked at the mess and corpses scattered throughout the ambush zone and felt immensely relieved.

Without Kanna's warning, the two of them would very likely have walked straight into the ambush.

Even if they had thrown out Kanna's clones then, at such close range, the two of them would probably have been buried alongside those enemies.

"You can see those enemies while sitting here?" Misery was curious about this newly revealed ability of Kanna's.

"The rain is my eyes!" Kanna lifted her head slightly, her expression proud.

"Eternal Great Way of the Resonant Divine." As Misery's words fell, a Thunder Seed appeared in his hand.

"I remember this spell not having this effect before." Looking at the Thunder Seed in his hand, which glowed faintly purple like a gorgeous violet teardrop, Misery continued, "Did it?"

"Of course not! But I thought molding Thunder Seeds for people one by one was too stupid, so I simply added an extra spell formula. As long as someone has the Eye of Thunder Punishment and Evil attached to them, saying those words will directly trigger the formula and transform the Eye of Thunder Punishment and Evil into a Thunder Seed that can manifest one of my clones."

Kanna had developed this spell formula by herself in her room while she was confined. It looked lofty and sophisticated, but in reality, it was merely a basic trigger spell.

As for the triggering incantation, it was simply because Kanna thought it would be fun. Triggering it by some other method just did not feel right, so she had ultimately decided to use the eight words "Eternal Great Way of the Resonant Divine" as the spell's activation condition.

"As long as they're within this rain cloud, you can give them the Eye of Thunder Punishment and Evil? There's no range limit?"

"As long as they're still in the rain, there's no limit. But if they go indoors, I can only track them for five minutes at most." Kanna had already more or less tested the new effect of her Prayer for Rain.

If someone was not out in the open or in contact with rainwater, Kanna could not lock onto them inside a building. Once they had come into contact with rainwater, however, if they entered a building, Kanna could continue tracking them for at most five minutes, whether they were friend or foe.

Moreover, she was not actually seeing their movements. It was more like the minimap in a strategy game—she could only judge the general direction of movement and whether people had stopped based on all the moving dots on the map.

Section 152: Chapter 145: Reinforcements Arrive

As a top-tier combat expert, Misery naturally understood just how valuable what Kanna had described was. Given the right conditions, Kanna alone could handle all defense and reconnaissance work.

If Kanna had been around during the Kazdel civil war, then with the Doctor's tactics, they would have steamrolled Theresis long ago.

But it was not too late now. Misery was one of the people who knew Amiya's intentions. Previously, he had not believed that bringing the Doctor back would be of much help to Rhodes Island.

What the Doctor excelled at as a chess player was laying out the board. Treating him solely as a battlefield commander was simply a waste of his talents. And with the way he regarded human lives as worthless, it was hard to guarantee that Rhodes Island would not eventually become the next thing he abandoned.

He had once worried that Amiya would unknowingly have her authority taken away by the Doctor. But now, with Kal'tsit for civil matters, Kanna for military matters, and old hands like them guarding the way, Teresa's tragedy would never happen again.

Suddenly, Kanna looked outside. "Something is approaching quickly from the southwest! That's the direction of Rhodes Island. Our reinforcements should be here."

Hearing Kanna's words, Misery grabbed the two still-unconscious enemies, one in each hand.

"Go contact the helicopter. We need to send these two prisoners back to Rhodes Island as fast as possible. I suspect our opponent this time may be some major noble, or perhaps even a nation."

After hearing Misery, Kanna nodded, then leaped out of the building in a few quick bounds.

Once outside, she looked toward the horizon and indeed saw a helicopter bearing the Rhodes Island emblem rapidly approaching. Under normal circumstances, the helicopter that had returned from their side might not even have made it back to the landship yet, so reinforcements could not have arrived this quickly. Clearly, Kal'tsit had arranged for people to come assist them after Kanna's group departed.

With her exceptional physical ability, Kanna quickly reached the tallest building near the safe house, then took out her communicator and searched for the helicopter's frequency.

After a burst of static, Kanna successfully connected to the channel of the helicopter's support squad.

"Hello, hello! This is Kanna. Can you hear me up there...?"

After a brief silence, Amiya's voice came through the communicator. "This is Amiya and the ACE Squad. We have reached the edge of the battlefield. Please report the situation and where you need us to provide support."

"Oh, it's Amiya! We've already successfully eliminated most of the enemy's fighting force. The enemy is fleeing outward in disarray. Misery captured two prisoners and says they're very important. They need to be taken back to Rhodes Island immediately for interrogation. They're in the third gray house to the left of the tallest red building."

As she spoke, Kanna jumped onto the roof of the house and waved her little hand at the helicopter, then released lightning as a signal.

Although the helicopter's visibility was not as good as one might have hoped in the rainy weather, once they neared the battlefield, they spotted Kanna's location at a glance.

After all, the bolts of lightning that kept crackling down from above her were far too conspicuous.

Once the helicopter approached, Kanna stopped discharging electricity and guided it toward Misery's location.

Very soon, ACE led his team in a rapid descent and entered the building to meet up with Misery.

On the way, they had encountered the helicopter carrying Rosemary back, and from their brief exchange, they had learned that the enemy was very powerful. But they had never expected that the enemies who had nearly wiped out Rosemary's squad in one go would be directly annihilated by Misery's squad and Kanna.

At that moment, the sniper operators noticed something strange on the battlefield: the "Kanna" figures appearing everywhere.

Operators who knew explained the origins of these "Kanna" figures to them, but that only made them more confused. From what they had learned, each clone only lasted around a minute. Yet from the edge of the battlefield to its center, more than three minutes had passed. During all that time, the number of those "Kanna" figures had not visibly decreased at all, which was highly unreasonable.

Amiya jumped down from the helicopter. Looking at the battlefield around her, where corpses lay everywhere, her expression turned grim.

After poking at a corpse on the ground, ACE said, "Heh! Victorians!"

Hearing ACE's words, everyone turned their attention over.

"Although the weapons and equipment these people used bore no markings and looked like cheap unbranded goods, I was far too familiar with the feel of Victoria's military. Based on what Misery said, I had a rough guess about their identities: the Victorian Intelligence Service. They came from the very agency that made Agent Bond famous around the world."

As an experienced warrior, ACE was intimately familiar with the forces of every nation. After a brief inspection, he had more or less guessed where the enemy had come from.

"Could it be that Victoria's government is preparing to make a move against us? But that can't be right. Didn't Dr. Kal'tsit say we still had allies in Victoria? How could we have received no news at all?"

Amiya looked somewhat flustered upon hearing ACE's words.

"Don't worry, Amiya! Our allies in Victoria would never betray us. Do you remember that boarding inspection? I suspect this may very well have been the other side's doing. After all, as a Grand Duke, if he wanted to secretly mobilize agents to encircle and kill Rhodes Island, he could do so without going through Parliament. Of course, that was only assuming this encirclement succeeded and the agents didn't suffer too many losses. Now that they've failed to steal the chicken and lost the rice besides, even if we do nothing, once news gets back to Victoria that so many agents and personnel were lost at once, that Grand Duke won't have an easy time of it."

Seeing Amiya's ears starting to twist together, Misery walked over and patted her head, comforting her with a confident look.

"If it really was that Grand Duke, we can have our allies send word ahead and hit him hard on the international political stage. With so many people and such elite equipment, there must have been quite a few elite personnel he personally arranged among them. Once they die here and the news gets back, even if he manages to keep his position, he'll probably have to bleed heavily for it."

ACE offered his assessment.

"Still, send these two prisoners back to Rhodes Island. We need to confirm whether this guess is correct as soon as possible, before the other side reacts." Misery said, pointing at the two unconscious prisoners lying on the ground.

"Amiya, you and Kanna take the prisoners back first," Misery, acting as the temporary battlefield commander, said after deciding on their next course of action.

Flying Around

Having accepted the task, Kanna did not mind at all. She grabbed a prisoner in each hand, walked outside, and leapt twice to reach the helicopter still hovering in midair.

Although Amiya wanted to stay and fight alongside Misery and ACE, she understood how important the two prisoners were to Rhodes Island. After nodding, she headed outside.

"Hey, Uncle ACE, will you be okay dealing with those guys after I leave?" After securing the prisoners, Kanna jumped back down to meet Amiya and asked ACE and Misery as they emerged.

ACE waved a Thunder Seed in his hand. Clearly, in that short time, he had already spoken with Misery and learned of Kanna's new use for her Arts.

"Don't worry. If their morale hadn't collapsed, or if they still had any will to fight, I definitely wouldn't agree to clash with them head-on. But now? They're just homeless Perros. Even if a child were chasing them from behind with a knife, they wouldn't have the courage to turn around. And besides, don't we have this ultimate weapon?"

Kanna gave a thumbs-up. "Then we'll wait for you to return safely at Rhodes Island."

"Sure. It'd be even better if there were a jug of wine waiting for us!" With that, ACE and Misery led their teams in pursuit of the fleeing enemies.

As they were leaving, Amiya suddenly said, "Can we bring back the operators from Rosemary's squad who died? They sacrificed themselves for Rhodes Island. I hope we can hold a funeral for them on Rhodes Island."

Kanna pointed toward the safe house. "No problem. They're all by the safe house. That area is wide open, and the enemies have already been cleared out. The helicopter can land directly there."

At Amiya's instruction, the helicopter landed on a patch of open ground near the safe house. Aside from Amiya, who remained aboard to keep watch over the two prisoners, everyone else split into two teams. One team stood near the helicopter, vigilantly watching their surroundings.

Though Kanna had said the area was safe, it was still a combat zone. It would be bad if some sneaky rat had been hiding nearby without Kanna noticing, only to launch a surprise attack on the helicopter now.

The other team consisted of male operators who were clearly stronger than the rest. Guided by Kanna, they picked up the bodies of the fallen operators from the battlefield, where it was almost impossible to tell who was who, and silently carried them toward the helicopter.

Though Kanna had spoken lightly of it, after seeing the battlefield up close, the marks left everywhere and the bodies strewn across the ground made it clear just how perilous the battle had been.

Before long, the remains of every fallen operator had been brought aboard the helicopter. Once everyone had returned to the aircraft, it took off again and headed back toward Rhodes Island.

Sitting in the helicopter, Kanna studied the body bags. From what she knew, after an Infected person died, the Originium concentration in their body should rise sharply until they eventually became humanoid bombs.

Yet Amiya and the other operators did not seem worried. Though everyone in the cabin was quiet due to the loss of their companions, they were not far from the bodies, and no one showed any fear.

After sitting beside Amiya, Kanna curiously asked about it.

"The situation you mentioned generally happens to Infected people who die from Originium infection. Because they can no longer suppress the rising Originium concentration inside their bodies, it continues to increase rapidly after death, and once it exceeds what the body can contain, it causes an explosion.

"For those who didn't die from Originium infection, although the Originium inside their bodies will still continue to increase, the rate is much slower. Accordingly, it takes far longer to reach the body's limit.

"If the former erupts within minutes to hours, then the latter may take weeks or even months."

Amiya explained quietly in response to Kanna's question.

Kanna nodded after hearing that. No wonder that although patients on Rhodes Island often died from outbreaks of Originium infection, she had never heard of any doctors or nurses being hurt because of it. Apart from their deep research into the illness and meticulous procedures, it was also because medical personnel had long worked with Originium infection and understood every aspect of the disease.

Soon, the helicopter returned to Rhodes Island's deck. Several teams were already fully equipped and ready to depart. Clearly, the Rosemary squad that had returned earlier had completely relayed the intelligence to Kal'tsit, and Kal'tsit had already arranged follow-up support teams.

Amiya leapt directly from the helicopter onto the deck with Kanna and stopped the helicopter that was loaded with personnel and ready to leave.

"There's no need to go. The battle over there is more or less over!" Hearing Amiya's words, the support team aboard the helicopter looked both confused and noticeably relieved.

After all, before setting out, they had already prepared themselves for the possibility of never returning. Based on the account given by the returning Rosemary squad, Kal'tsit had firmly told the support team that they would likely be facing a regular army from some country.

Soon, the helicopter carrying Amiya's squad descended from the air.

First, the two still-unconscious prisoners were carried out by the operators. Then, several body bags were carried down by the remaining operators.

Everyone was delighted when they saw the prisoners, but upon seeing the body bags one after another, everyone on the deck fell silent.

Kal'tsit, who had received advance notice of Amiya's return, also emerged from the doorway with several people.

She first looked at the bodies of the operators that had been carefully placed on the ground, then said to Scout beside her, "Take the two prisoners to the isolation room in the Medical Department. Leave the rest to Amiya..."

Scout nodded solemnly, picked one prisoner up in each hand, and headed into Rhodes Island's interior.

After speaking, Kal'tsit turned to the operators standing nearby in full gear and continued.

"Since the battle is already over, there's no need to send so many people as support. Kanna, make another trip and take Action Team A4 to bring ACE and the others back."

After Kal'tsit finished speaking, the captains of several action teams let out sighs of relief and led their subordinates back into the island. Only the members of Action Team A4 remained, ready to depart.

After a brief farewell to Amiya, Kanna boarded the helicopter once again.

"Kanna only just got back, and now we're sending her out again. Is that really okay?" Watching the helicopter fly away, Amiya felt somewhat dejected. It had been such a difficult battle, yet she felt as though she had not helped at all.

"Rosemary's mental state isn't very good. Amiya, go assist Perfumer in restraining her." As the little rabbit's "mother," the experienced Kal'tsit understood at once that Amiya had started overthinking again when she saw her ears droop.

With a simple sentence, Kal'tsit calmly made Amiya pull herself together again.

Open a Bounty

It was a new month, and there happened to be a recommendation slot too (The Beginning. -- Nightmare of Youth), so I'm going to be black-hearted and try opening a bounty.

Same as last time, it ends at exactly midnight tonight.

66 monthly tickets: one extra chapter.

88 blades: one extra chapter.

5,000 in tips: one extra chapter.

I don't think anyone will donate, but I'm adding these two anyway. After all, a person has to have dreams. (Hands on hips.)

Silver treasure chest: ten extra chapters.

Gold treasure chest: fifteen extra chapters.

Recommendation votes still count too. (Dog head.)

But let me say this up front... take it easy, everyone. Getting ten extra chapters together is about enough. If I grit my teeth, I can still manage that. If there are too many, it'll probably take me ages to pay them all back.

PS: What if there aren't even ten extra chapters... I'm a little nervous.

Annihilated

As she boarded the helicopter again, Kanna felt her butt going numb—the back-and-forth flights had lasted too long, and the little exercise she got from that fight just now was nowhere near enough.