Arknights, Suika's Messenger Journey

All she could do was display the limits of her physical capabilities.

"Phew, not bad. Aside from strength, your physical condition isn't much different from an operator who just joined the Guard Department.

Considering your age, these are already terrifying results."

Chen handed the sorted test data to Hoshiguma, but her gaze remained on Suika.

"What about my strength? Did I scare you two?

Hehe, I told you I was really strong.

Ouch, Hoshiguma, what was that for?"

Suika looked quite pleased with herself, only for Hoshiguma to knock her on the forehead.

"Let's go. Heading back?"

"Huh? That's it? Aren't you going to see what I can do? I know martial arts too.

Split a big watermelon into three pieces: one for you, one for her, and the rest are all mine..."

Suika tried to show off her Tai Chi in front of Hoshiguma, but the embarrassed Hoshiguma dragged her out of the training grounds.

In a building some distance away.

"Why didn't you let that child continue the tests?" Lady Wen Yue asked curiously as she stood by the window.

"After the first test, the rest had already lost their meaning, hadn't they?

Besides, her abilities aren't reflected in physical fitness.

And with that miraculous... Originium Arts of hers, Lungmen can't keep her, nor can it protect her.

Besides, someone is already getting impatient."

Wei Yenwu watched the two figures walking away.

After leaving the training grounds, Hoshiguma led her down the street.

At that moment, a commotion suddenly broke out nearby, and several hoodlums began beating one another.

Hoshiguma frowned. Normally, even when Lungmen's street punks fought with weapons, they stayed far away from the Guard Department.

But this was a street less than five hundred meters from the Guard Department. It would take less than a minute for officers to arrive. How did these people dare fight here?

But as a police officer, she couldn't ignore this, so she could only tell Suika to stay where she was.

"I'm police. Everyone, drop your weapons, put your hands on your heads, and squat down..."

Just after Hoshiguma walked away, a car pulled up beside Suika. Several people rushed out and, faster than the eye could follow, grabbed Suika, threw her into the car, and drove away.

"Good grief, kidnapping someone in broad daylight? Have you watched too many Siracusan movies?"

Suika wasn't frightened in the slightest after being taken into the car. Since Hoshiguma had dared leave her standing there alone, she naturally had made preparations.

Hoshiguma might look like a big, rough oaf, but she had clawed her way up from the bottom.

She knew these punks inside and out, and she found the matter extremely suspicious. So when she had walked over earlier, she had given Suika a look, telling her to be careful.

When Hoshiguma heard the sound of the car behind her, she grabbed a nearby table one-handed, turned, and hurled it at the vehicle.

Bang! The massive table exploded into pieces in front of the car, while the vehicle sped farther and farther away from Hoshiguma.

"Originium Arts!" Hoshiguma's expression turned grim. She had considered that someone might mean Suika harm, but she hadn't expected them to send a caster skilled in Originium Arts.

Just as she was about to call for backup, she saw the car, which had nearly disappeared from sight, suddenly jolt to a stop.

She hurried over.

When she reached the vehicle, she saw Suika sitting in the doorway.

"Hoshiguma, you really let your guard down!" Suika said with a grin, as though she hadn't been the one kidnapped.

Behind her, everyone inside the car was slumped over, their fates unknown.

"Don't worry, I didn't kill them. I just invited them to have a little drink."

Suika had once been quite frustrated by her inexplicable Drink Invitation ability, but now that she thought about it, she rather liked it.

After all, the compulsory nature of Drink Invitation was terrifying. Unless the other party could outdrink her, they had absolutely no way to resist her invitation.

"Phew! Good, you're all right!" Hoshiguma let out a sigh of relief.

At that moment, Suika's expression changed. She grabbed Hoshiguma's hand and yanked her into the car. The next second, an explosion erupted where Hoshiguma had been standing, leaving behind a massive crater.

Then several figures emerged from the street with weapons in hand, their targets being Suika and Hoshiguma beside her.

"Do you really think I have no temper?" Suika's fury flared as she faced the people who had nearly killed Hoshiguma.

Before the still-shaken Hoshiguma could react, Suika launched her counterattack first.

She stepped out of the vehicle, and with every movement, her body began expanding rapidly as if being inflated. By the time she took her third step, she was nearly as tall as the buildings beside her.

Raising her fist, Suika roared at the enemies.

"Witness the true power of Mount Oe's Oni King—Four Heavenly Kings Secret Art: Three-Step Destruction!"

With a deafening boom, Suika's punch blasted a huge crater directly into the ground.

Everyone standing within the crater's range was smashed into the earth in an instant, becoming one with the steel ground.

The scattered survivors nearby were dumbstruck by Suika's terrifying strike.

Before coming here, they had thought this would be a simple job.

The order from above regarding Suika had been to capture her if possible. If they couldn't bring her back, they were to abandon the capture attempt and kill her instead. She was not to leave Lungmen.

Though they didn't know why such an order had been given, they felt that capturing or killing a child would require almost no effort.

After the first team failed to capture her, they realized something was wrong and prepared a second attempt.

But then Hoshiguma arrived.

Seeing someone from the Guard Department appear and feeling the plan had failed, the leader decided to proceed directly to the final option and kill Suika.

But Suika noticed something was off. She successfully saved Hoshiguma, who had been within the range of his Arts, while he himself directly received Suika's full-force, furious strike.

The Guard Department Arrived in Time

As the surrounding crowd screamed and fled in every direction because of the battle, Suika, who had just been as tall as a building, shrank back down at a visible speed like a deflating balloon.

After landing, Suika rubbed her backside, then got up, grabbed Hoshiguma, and ran into the distance.

Just moments ago, after punching through Lungmen's armor plating dozens of meters thick, she looked up and saw several people standing on the rooftop ahead, dressed in black and wearing Black Mantles.

Somewhere else, Suika might not have recognized them. But in Lungmen, that attire immediately revealed their identities—the Black Mantle Shadow Guards, Wei Yenwu's most powerful subordinates.

In that instant, countless schemes and conspiracies flashed through Suika's mind.

No ghost would believe Wei Yenwu knew nothing about this.

After all, if he didn't know, several Black Mantle Shadow Guards couldn't possibly have happened to appear here.

But Suika also didn't quite believe he was connected to those trying to capture her—or even kill her.

After all, Old Wei might be muddleheaded at times, but he had personally issued the order expelling Suika.

If he wanted Suika to do something for him, he could simply come find her. There was no need for such a roundabout, pointless stunt.

Then were these people's actions something he had tacitly allowed?

Or was he unable to stop them from acting within Lungmen?

Suika's thoughts were a mess, but she knew one thing clearly: for now, the best choice was to get as far away as possible and hide with Hoshiguma at the Guard Department.

At least under the authorities' watch, no matter how arrogant these people were, they couldn't possibly dare attack the Guard Department.

After all, if something happened outside, Wei Yenwu could still claim Lungmen was too large for him to manage everything. But if something happened inside the Guard Department, that would be a direct slap in his face.

Hoshiguma's mind was buzzing.

Earlier, she had vaguely suspected that someone might mean Suika harm.

But their methods were far more ruthless and decisive than she had imagined.

What shocked her most, however, was Suika.

That figure that had suddenly grown incomparably huge, and that terrifying blow that punched through a floor dozens of meters thick and tore apart half the street—Hoshiguma briefly felt as though she had crossed into another world, a world of myths.

After all, aside from characters in legends, she had never heard of anyone who could punch straight through the streets of a mobile city.

"Don't just stand there..." After pulling Hoshiguma to a relatively safe spot, Suika finally relaxed when she heard police sirens drawing closer.

"You..." Hoshiguma looked at Suika with a complicated expression.

Ever since the tests had begun, Suika had constantly shattered her understanding of the world.

That terrifying strength, those bizarre abilities, and that spell that made her suddenly grow larger—Hoshiguma had thought she understood Suika well. Now it seemed she had only seen what Suika wanted her to see.

"Who exactly are you?" Hoshiguma's voice was somewhat dry.

"Me? Ibuki Suika.

Come on, do I still have any reason to lie to you now?" As Suika spoke, she scanned the surroundings. If anything suspicious approached, she was ready to invite it to sleep for a while.

"You..."

"Are you asking about those guys? The few in the middle of that punch are definitely dead. As for the ones at the sides, it looks like they were lucky enough to survive.

But maybe their luck isn't that good after all..."

Suika looked toward the alleyway where the attackers had appeared. Those people, stunned by her blow, had retreated back into the alley. But would they really be safe once they got inside?

She didn't think so.

Since those Black Mantle Shadow Guards had appeared on the rooftops at just the right time, she didn't believe they were merely there to watch the show.

After all, one person would have been enough to watch. There was no need to send so many.

And just as Suika expected.

The Black Mantles who had met Suika's gaze from the rooftops, after a brief moment of shock, shifted their attention to the fleeing assassins.

The moment those people entered the alley, the Black Mantles captured them one by one.

Perhaps Suika's punch had simply been too shocking, especially for the few who had survived it head-on. Even as the Black Mantles seized them, they remained in a deeply confused state.

To ensure silence, the Black Mantles had no choice but to knock them all unconscious before taking them away one by one.

"Damn, was this place bombed with Originium explosives?"

Not long after Hoshiguma and Suika left, Chen heard reports of a terrorist attack outside. She immediately led people over from the lobby.

When she arrived on the street and saw the torn-up road and the highly conspicuous deep pit on the other side, she couldn't help swearing.

As far as she remembered, the last time she had seen a scene so devastated had been during that battle when she was young.

"Hoshiguma!" Chen shouted her partner's name, hoping she hadn't been caught up in it.

"Chen, over here!" A familiar voice called out.

Following the voice, she saw Suika waving at her beside a cart on the other side of the street, while Hoshiguma stood beside her in a daze.

Judging from Hoshiguma's expression, she must have witnessed the entire thing and still hadn't recovered.

After spotting their colleague, the Guard Department officers swiftly ran over and placed the two under protection.

"What happened over there?"

Chen asked quietly.

"This place isn't safe. Should we talk back at the Guard Department?" Before Hoshiguma could speak, Suika's words earned an immediately approving look from Chen.

"Fine. I'll have two officers escort you and Hoshiguma back to headquarters first."

Chen decisively arranged for two people to take the unsettled Hoshiguma and Suika back to the Guard Department.

Meanwhile, she led the remaining officers in continuing to inspect the area.

This was one of Lungmen's main roads, after all. With damage this extensive, they had to investigate it thoroughly—especially whether Originium explosive devices had been involved. Leaving without finding out would be negligence toward the surrounding environment and Lungmen's safety.

Suika pulled Hoshiguma along, and they soon returned to the Guard Department.

The two were arranged to rest in a secure room.