For now, retreat a step.
That was what Red thought.
But the monster pursued her relentlessly. Her lips curled back, baring jagged canine teeth. Her scarlet tongue licked her lips like an unsated beast, and danger glinted in her crimson eyes. Before Red could react, another blood-soaked gust slammed into her face.
Red was not panicked at all. She assessed the person's mental state—and whether she needed to kill her.
"Target outside the mission."
She dodged another pounce and silently picked up the dagger from the ground.
"It can basically be confirmed that she is Inspector Ch'en of the Lungmen Guard Department. Killing her is inadvisable. Retreat for now."
She reached the correct conclusion and decisively withdrew from the small battlefield.
"Don't... run!"
Ch'en pursued her relentlessly, but this was not much of a problem. Red quickly adjusted her mindset, imagining herself hunting in the wilderness and evading pursuit by a savage predator.
Lungmen's dark, damp back alleys were the perfect place to evade a hunter.
One chased, one fled.
Hoshino stood atop the shrine, frowning as she watched everything unfold below. Only after the two vanished one after the other did it begin to feel real.
"What... exactly is going on with Ch'en?"
As though she had thought of something, she closed her eyes and checked the Memory Battlefield interface.
The pitch-black silhouette had become a little clearer.
She only looked for a moment before opening her eyes again. Staring at the now-empty ground, she could not help but smile bitterly.
She ran off.
It could now be confirmed with absolute certainty that the boss of this Memory Battlefield was Ch'en. More precisely, it was Ch'en after undergoing a mutation due to some unknown influence.
As for why she had mutated—
Hoshino had given her a Crimson Sakura. Perhaps