A Sudden Turn of Events / Assassination and Gray Serpent

The gray-blue camouflaged armored vehicles lay across the main road, sealing off the route into the city district completely.

Fully armed combat squads held their guns as they watched the survivors continuously arriving. Everyone had to undergo their inspection. Rather than defending against Honkai Beast attacks, they looked more like they were deliberately preventing the survivors from entering the city.

With the safe zone just ahead and only dozens of meters separating them from the military's blockade, Kiana suddenly stopped. Her expression was conflicted. She knew her identity could not be exposed. If she passed through an official checkpoint, her location would definitely be discovered.

Once the military's system detected her, the pursuit would soon arrive, followed by endless trouble.

More importantly, she looked at Su Jue beside her, who was leaning against a wall and catching his breath. She might drag him into this as well.

After realizing that the life she had lived for so many years had all been a lie, Kiana had gradually accepted the fact that she was K423. Having experienced betrayal and lonely wandering, she was no longer so afraid of being taken by Schicksal and studied as an experimental subject.

If someone remained in darkness for too long, they would no longer fear the dark so much. But if someone in darkness saw the light, then the darkness would become unbearable.

Before meeting Su Jue, she could still calmly face her own death. But after he saved her, if Su Jue was dragged into the vortex because of her, Kiana would be consumed by endless guilt.

Because she knew what sort of people Schicksal was, and she understood what kind of cold-blooded monster its leader truly was. If Otto learned that Su Jue had seen the awakened Sirin twice and survived, he would definitely become interested in studying him.

At that thought, she slowly released the boy's hand.

"What's wrong?" Having recovered somewhat, Su Jue noticed Kiana looking at him and asked in confusion.

"You go on ahead. I just remembered that I have something to do." She came up with a clumsy excuse, her face growing hot. Straightforward as she was, Kiana simply did not know how to lie.

Su Jue did not expose her. He merely stared at her intently until Kiana's face grew redder and redder, her eyes wandering as she instinctively turned her entire face away, not daring to look at him. Only then did he let out a deep sigh and say helplessly, "All right. What did you leave behind? I'll go look for it with you. Two people will be much more efficient."

"Even though my stamina is a little poor, as long as we don't run into Honkai Beasts, I can still manage."

Already feeling awkward all over from lying, Kiana hurriedly said anxiously when she heard that, "No need. I'm a Valkyrie—I can handle it by myself. We're already at the safe zone. You should go in first. I'll come find you in a little while."

"A wanted Valkyrie?" Su Jue suddenly said.

The girl's breathing caught. It was as though a dark cloud had descended over her heart, and a suffocating feeling welled up inside her.

So he had known her identity all along? What would he choose to do now?

Or had Sirin been right? Had he approached her with an ulterior motive from the beginning?

"What are you thinking about?"

The boy's voice reached Kiana's ears again as she lost herself in wild thoughts. She raised her head and happened to meet his clear gray eyes.

"So you already knew who I was." Her voice was somewhat dry. Was the first friend she had made in months going to leave her too?

"Identity? Didn't you tell me yourself? It hasn't even been many days since we first met." As he spoke, Su Jue showed a look of sudden realization. "You mean the fact that you're wanted? Wasn't that easy to guess? As a Schicksal Valkyrie, you would normally operate in a squad. If you appeared alone in this city, you must have had your own secret."

"Although I don't really understand Schicksal's management system, there are only two possibilities for you to act alone. One, you were carrying out a secret mission. Two, you didn't want Schicksal to find you. If it were a secret mission, you wouldn't be so afraid to show your face. So being wanted was the only possibility."

Kiana stared blankly at the eloquent boy. Sunlight fell upon the tips of his light-gray hair, making him seem to radiate a gentle glow.

If the entire world was darkness, then even a single candle flame would become incomparably precious.

"You're not afraid of me?"

"Why would I be? Because your origins are unknown?" Lowering his gaze to meet the girl's blue and gold eyes, Su Jue's gray eyes showed not the slightest hesitation. "When you saved me from beneath that Honkai Beast, my life already belonged to you."

"Someone who was still willing to save others in desperate circumstances, who carried the light of human kindness amid disaster—how could someone like that possibly be a bad person?"

The boy's voice was calm, yet it was like a ray of sunlight after the rain, piercing through the gloom that had long shrouded Kiana's heart.

Before Sirin's consciousness awakened, Kiana had always been an optimistic and cheerful child. She laughed happily every day without a care in the world, as though nothing could affect her. But after Schicksal betrayed her, the mental defenses she had built from positive emotions finally shattered. Pain, despair, resentment—under Sirin's guidance, these emotions all surged into Kiana at once, continually tearing open the crack in her heart and becoming nourishment for the awakening Herrscher of Void.

And now, Sirin, trapped in the consciousness space, discovered in shock that this crack was actually slowly healing.

"Damn it!"

Kiana knew nothing of Sirin's impotent rage. After confirming that Su Jue had no strange reaction to her identity, the two finally turned their attention to the matter before them.

How were they supposed to get past the military checkpoint?

"It's simple. We just need to put on some makeup." As Su Jue spoke, he took two hundred-yuan bills that he had saved for a long time from his wallet. "I've dealt with them plenty of times. This is the best makeup there is."

"Money? You mean bribing them? But the city's surveillance cameras can't be bribed."

"That depends on how good my makeup skills are." Su Jue smiled, rubbed his finger against the black marks on a car tire by the roadside, then carefully smeared them over Kiana's fair cheek, turning her from a composed Valkyrie into an ordinary girl fleeing for her life in a panic.

"Name."

"Su Jue."

"Do you have your ID card?"

"Yes, yes." Nodding repeatedly, Su Jue pulled out his ID card from his pocket. Although facial recognition systems were already fully widespread in Sky City, Su Jue still habitually carried his identification. It could avoid trouble in many situations.

"You live in the suburbs? This is the West District. Why are you here?" the uniformed man asked. He repeatedly compared the photograph on the ID card, confirming Su Jue's identity. "And who is she? Where's her ID?"

Her ash-covered hair was rolled into a clumsy, unfashionable hairstyle, and her face was smeared with black grime from the roadside. She seemed to have cried, leaving her face filthy enough that her original appearance was barely visible.

Su Jue gently squeezed Kiana's hand, and she immediately understood.

She lowered her head slightly, concealing her unusual eyes. Startled by the inspector's stern questioning, her body trembled faintly. Then she pitifully tugged Su Jue's sleeve and hid behind him like a frightened fawn.

"She's my girlfriend. Her ID was lost during the Honkai Beast attack."

"Oh, and I came to the West District to see a doctor. This is the medical report I got this morning." As he folded his thin medical report in half and handed it to the inspector, he slipped the two banknotes inside.

The inspector understood perfectly. He flipped through the medical record as though nothing was amiss, but the instant it blocked the camera, he pocketed the bribe.

However, when he found only two bills, he glared at Su Jue in dissatisfaction. As someone with a lucrative post, he was used to taking several hundred or even a thousand each time. If he encountered someone with shady origins, he could make an even bigger haul. Two hundred yuan was already beneath his notice.

With a flattering smile plastered across his face, Su Jue said awkwardly, "Sorry, seeing the doctor delayed us a bit. I didn't expect to run into Honkai Beasts."

After looking back and forth between Su Jue and the girl twice, the inspector sighed.

Forget it. He was probably some sickly guy anyway. Better to take whatever he could get.

Pretending to have finished reviewing the medical report, he folded it up and politely returned it to Su Jue. The inspector wore an expression of righteous integrity. "Protecting citizens during an evacuation is our duty. Checking identities is only to better compile information on the victims. Once the disaster ends, the government will provide everyone with subsidies."

"If she isn't registered, she might not receive any subsidy. Are you sure you don't want to register her identity?"

Pretending to hesitate, Su Jue looked at Kiana. Finally, as though he had made up his mind, he shook his head.

"All right, then. The facial recognition device is broken. Go over there and write down your names." The inspector expertly led them toward another building, when he was really just letting them slip through.

However, he seemed to have miscalculated this time. They had barely taken two steps when a military vehicle screeched to a halt. Its body was entirely black-gray, with only a small Ouroboros emblem printed in one corner.

"Damn it, people from Shencheng Technology."

Kiana heard the inspector's voice and lowered her brow, doing her best not to look up at the people getting out of the vehicle.

"Stop!"

The dark gun barrels were aimed at the three of them. The inspector's expression changed, and he patted his military uniform as he retorted, "Who are you people? How dare you interfere with the military's rescue operation?"

"The military? That assumes you're legitimate." The people from Shencheng Technology did not give him any courtesy. One of them raised the butt of his rifle and smashed it into the inspector's face, knocking him to the ground.

"What are you doing?" The people guarding the checkpoint with him noticed the disturbance and rushed over with their guns raised.

While they spoke, the Shencheng Technology personnel had already searched the inspector and found his identification, which they inserted into a specialized scanning device.

"Beep—Identity verification failed. Unauthorized."

As the alarm sounded, the faces of those stationed at the checkpoint immediately turned ugly. They truly were not regular military personnel, but external members attached to Schicksal. Yet now that the world had fallen into a major Honkai eruption, Schicksal's people were already stretched too thin. Activating external forces for maintenance was entirely normal.

"We have official authorization from Schicksal..." the leader said angrily. Shencheng Technology was merely a relatively large company in Sky City. How could it possibly challenge Schicksal?

If he truly was one of Schicksal's people, then he should have known that in Shenzhou, one could impersonate any faction—but never Schicksal.

Bang—!

Like thunder, a bullet embedded itself in the speaker's forehead, and blood immediately burst forth beneath the sunlight.

"You think we were negotiating with you? No. We were merely confirming whether the dead would bring us trouble."

The voice beneath the mask was low. The moment the shot was fired, gunfire rang out in a continuous barrage. The external members, who had only received rudimentary training, knew little beyond how to fire a gun. Against the prepared forces of Shencheng Technology, it was simply a one-sided massacre.

"Take everyone away!" After eliminating the armed forces, the Shencheng Technology personnel did not even bother concealing their intentions and began seizing people directly.

Knowing the plot, Su Jue naturally understood that they were capturing experimental subjects, attempting to use everyone in the entire city for World Serpent's artificial Stigmata plan. Schicksal had not yet turned its attention toward Sky City. Under the cover of the Honkai Beast attacks, they acted without the slightest restraint.

Most survivors had followed the official evacuation routes. Only scattered groups like Su Jue's entered the checkpoint area, so there were not many survivors here.

Clearly, the people from Shencheng Technology understood this as well. If they wanted experimental subjects, survivors who had been separated from the main group were the most suitable. Even if they vanished, their disappearances could be blamed on the Honkai Beast attacks.

"Ah!!" Screams rang out as those who had been seized struggled desperately. But once each of them was injected in the neck with anesthetic, the scene quickly fell silent.

Su Jue and Kiana, who were closest, had not yet been injected. But the two had no chance to escape either and could only quietly wait to be captured.

As the two were about to be taken, Kiana, who had recovered a little strength, tried to draw upon the Herrscher of Void's power. The sudden change had disrupted their plans, and she looked worriedly at Su Jue beside her, who seemed to have been scared senseless.

That made sense. He was just an ordinary person. He had probably never seen such a bloody scene in his life.

"Capture these two as well." The leader spoke as he slowly approached them. But when he drew close to Kiana, he seemed to notice something unusual beneath the dirt covering her face. "Why does this person look like that girl Schicksal is hunting..."

Kiana's heart sank. Ignoring the damage Herrscher power would inflict on her body, she forcibly drew power from her already heavily eroded body.

However, before she could act, a dull sniper shot suddenly rang out. The Shencheng Technology man's head exploded.

Two hundred meters away, golden light shone from the eyes of a puppet lying prone on a rooftop.

Sniping and Gray Serpent

The sniper rifle ejected its casing, tossing the scorching shell into the air as it glimmered with golden light.

The puppet, under Su Jue's full control, was as precise as a machine. It expertly operated the single-shot rifle: cycling the bolt, chambering a round, pulling the trigger.

With his main body serving as the targeting point, the puppet's sniping was nearly one shot, one kill. Bursting sprays of blood splattered across the walls, and crimson stains dyed the Ouroboros emblem on the transport vehicle red.

The combat squad was fairly well-trained. They swiftly traced the trajectory from the direction of the blood spray and located the puppet's position.

"About two hundred meters at seven o'clock!" the squad member responsible for reconnaissance immediately shouted. A bullet then entered through his mouth and burst out the back of his head.

His final act of locating the enemy eased the situation somewhat. Ignoring the survivors around them, they all ducked behind the armored vehicle.

When the puppet exposed itself again, the sniper responsible for covering the squad sneered.

"A sniper who doesn't change positions after firing? What an amateur."

Bang—!

The combat squad's rifle was far better than the one Su Jue had acquired. The instant the puppet's location was identified, both sides fired almost simultaneously. The squad's sniper bullet went straight into the puppet's head. Meanwhile, the puppet's bullet took one of the sniper's teammates.

"Hit!" Relieved, the sniper was about to report his result to his teammates when, the very next second, a sniper round pierced his brain, sending the sniper's life and professional knowledge straight into hell.

On the rooftop, the puppet, with only half its head left, felt nothing as scattered wood chips drifted all over the ground.

Cycling the bolt, chambering a round, pulling the trigger.

Controlled by threads of domination, the exquisite puppet continued sniping the people from Shencheng Technology at exactly the same rhythm.

"Monster! An immortal monster!"

Like a precise grim reaper, the puppet continuously harvested the lives of those who remained. Even hiding behind cover could not save them from death's pursuit.

In only a few minutes, the imposing combat team had been reduced to a single person.

Bang—!

The fatal gunshot rang out. Before dying, the last remaining member of the combat squad widened his eyes in terror, with only one thought in his mind.

Why did that bullet turn?

Then came absolute darkness.

Bullets controlled by the Herrscher of Domination did not care whether someone was hiding behind cover, especially not anyone watched by those golden eyes.

Within an extremely short time, corpses already covered the checkpoint. Kiana, still gathering the Herrscher of Void's power, was somewhat dumbfounded. But in the next moment, an intense sense of danger crawled up her back. The other side's gun barrel had locked onto her.

The reflection from the sniper scope entered the girl's field of vision, and she instantly understood that she was the next prey.

Don't dodge.

Yet that was the thought that rose in her mind the instant she was targeted. Su Jue was right beside her, seemingly unconscious from the overwhelming shock. If she dodged, then from this angle, he would certainly die.

Bang—!

The puppet would not give her any time to react. The bullet immediately left the barrel.

Clenching her teeth, Kiana prepared to use her body to take the sniper bullet head-on.

"With a Valkyrie's physical abilities, I should be able to withstand it," she prayed softly.

Just as the bullet arrived, Kiana suddenly felt someone shove her hard. She rolled several times across the ground.