Chapter 193

As she spoke, her hands didn't slow down; she was simply trying to distract Yukina through the conversation.

All agents have undergone emergency self-rescue training, and Furan is no exception. In fact, Furan Efnir. She often worked with Saori was better at combat, while Furan was much weaker in combat. In contrast, she was better at support, hit-and-run tactics, intelligence gathering, and first aid.

Furan skillfully examined Yukina's injuries, while Efnir helped assess them. Soon, Furan pressed on several points on Yukina 'Yukina body, lifted her up, and took her from Efnir's hands.

"I want to get her to receive treatment as soon as possible; she needs rest."

"Senior Efnir, Miss Shiomi needs to be taken to the train. We have a medical team with us, and they will be on standby at the train station."

"Um... thank you."

Efnir breathed a sigh of relief.

She gazed into the distance, at the edge of the horizon, where the Apostle surrounded a person, who was also looking at her.

Their eyes met for a moment, then looked away.

Ayse and Canary led the soldiers in a fierce pursuit of the retreating Apostle. Furan was more seriously injured, so she stayed behind to meet Efnir and guard the rear, dealing with any other potential dangers.

"Furan, can I Yukina to you?"

"Senior Efnir...?"

"Naoko? What are you going to do...?"

Upon hearing this, Yukina suddenly gripped Efnir's sleeve tightly.

"I still have things I need to do."

She was rescued, and Yukina was out of danger, but she couldn't stop here yet.

"Then take this with you."

Yukina paused for a moment, but did not try to stop her. She took off the ring from her finger and handed it to Efnir.

"I didn't use this... but it gave me immense power. Can Naoko wear it?"

Efnir took the ring, Yukina took the opportunity to grasp Efnir's hand and slip the ring onto Efnir's middle finger.

For Efnir, who has deactivated her transformation, wearing it on her middle finger is not a suitable size.

Yukina gently raised her hand to wipe away the bloodstains on Efnir's chin.

"After the battle is over, I want a real..."

"Um,"

Efnir nodded.

I promise you.

75. Escape

Gunshots rang out across the sky.

The rain was thin and cool.

The Apostle's retreat took only a few minutes, appearing like sand being washed away by water, quickly retreating in two directions.

Ayse and the other agents and soldiers naturally had no intention of letting these Apostle off easily, and pursued them relentlessly. As they got further and further away from the train, the abandoned houses also served as cover against artillery fire, so the sound of artillery explosions became increasingly deafening, but bullets continued to rain down on the Apostle. On top of this, there was also Saori, who was exceptionally skilled at Saori between city floors and buildings, in pursuit.

The situation had completely reversed when the Apostle had surrounded and attacked Yukina and Efnir. The Apostle could no longer ignore the soldiers' firepower and had to flee in panic. However, under Ayse's command, the soldiers split into three groups and forced the Apostle to take a longer route from three different directions.

Ayse had received intelligence about the arrival of Suzuda City's maritime support, so she wanted to coordinate an attack from both inside and outside the city with the soon-to-arrive Suzuda City support force.

The Apostle, of course, would not allow her to have her way and continued to resist fiercely.

However, they were no match for the soldiers, so they had to hold off Saori and Ayse while trying to find a way to escape along the route planned by Fujisaki Ryoka.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the ruins, another chase was unfolding— Canary led a group of soldiers in Fujisaki Ryoka.

While the soldiers' speed cannot compare to that of the Apostle, their advantage lies in their weapons and numbers. Now that most of the Erosion Entity in the Maesakagawa Garrison District have been lured and eliminated, the soldiers' role has been greatly explored and brought to the forefront. As long as there are no Erosion Entity, the soldiers can be said to be the sharpest blade in urban warfare.

Moreover, reinforcements from Suzuda City will arrive soon, and the Erosion Entity and Dregs outside the Garrison District will be eliminated by Suzuda City's troops, which will indirectly reduce the pressure on the Garrison District.

In this era, weapons are not in short supply.

The Old Era of humanity was at the height of its prosperity, and the number of weapons stored on the surface or inside was outrageous. After humanity suddenly suffered a blow that nearly wiped out the race, most of these weapons were completely sealed away with the fall of cities and military bases. However, many of them were still transported back into human hands through investigations and dispatches, and existed as important weapons of mass destruction during special periods.

However, there is a crucial issue: this era lacks some key technologies for strategic weapons. In other words, due to the significant decline in human technological capabilities, population, and information networks, many technologies have experienced a break in development, and some are even completely unusable.

And this problem will worsen over time.

The Old Era destroyed not only technology and knowledge, but also a large part of the industrial base, which is something that humanity desperately needs at this stage.

This directly resulted in a lack of talent and equipment in this era to operate and carry those lethal weapons. However, Suzuda City was an exception because it was originally a riverside city and received a port fleet. As a result, Suzuda City inherited a lot of naval forces and directly took over all the fleet's weapons and equipment, which greatly helped Suzuda City's early development. The Human Federation also established a River Bay Naval Base here.

Even though the base is not large, the combat strength brought by a well-organized army left over from the Old Era still exists, which has become the signature feature of Suzuda City.

The most obvious example is that Xijing City is only considered a medium-sized city in the Human Federation's classification, while Suzuda City was directly designated as a "large fortress city" in its early development and received more resources from the Human Federation. Currently, the number of agents in Suzuda City's central urban area alone is more than four times that of Xijing City. The two are not even in the same league in terms of size.

The support from Suzuda City was one of the reasons why Kusei Maki dared to plan and act so boldly. In this operation, Xijing City, which directly provided intelligence to the Human Federation, made multiple contacts with the Apostle and Angel and left behind prisoners, held a dominant position in intelligence. Kusei Maki was a commander dispatched by the Human Federation, so Suzuda City would also be subject to Kusei Maki's command to a certain extent.

In short, Canary took advantage of this, using signal flares to transmit intelligence and exchange battle information with other squads, while simultaneously dispatching detachments to surround Fujisaki Ryoka from various directions.

Fujisaki Ryoka is the captain and leader of the Apostle Squad. Capturing her would undoubtedly multiply the results of this battle, and with a bit of luck, we might even gain a lot of information about the Apostle Organization.

What Xijing City lacks most right now is concrete intelligence on the Apostle Organization; otherwise, it wouldn't be in such a passive position.

At this moment, on the edge of the residential area ruins, Fujisaki Ryoka carried Hatsukawa Fuka on her back and quickly moved between the buildings.

Not far behind them, Canary leaped down from the rooftop, spun around abruptly, and swung her sword. The sharp blade fell straight down like a meteor. As Fujisaki Ryoka raised her hand to form a defensive barrier, she slid to the side at the last second, dodging the direct hit of the blade.

Canary's "Flying Blade" shattered the thick, solid load-bearing pillar, sending shards of stone flying and bouncing before disappearing into the air.

"Tsk... dodged it... how can you be so agile when you've brought someone with you?"

Fujisaki Ryoka is the captain of the Apostle Squad. Although her combat skills are not as good as Hatsukawa Fuka's, she is still the second strongest among the Apostle. With Canary still recovering from her injuries, it won't be easy for her to take her down.

As well as...

Canary always felt a strange sense of unease about Fujisaki Ryoka — Canary had almost caught up with her several times, but the changing terrain quickly turned the tide.

If Efnir were here, that would be wonderful.

At times like this, Canary would think of Efnir. Efnir taught her how to throw weapons, including techniques related to compressing the Order Force to increase output and maintaining stability and charging up for a burst of power. It could be said that Efnir was Canary's mentor.

Compared to Canary, if that attack had been launched by Efnir, it would undoubtedly have severed Fujisaki Ryoka would have been unable to react or dodge, or she could have simply overtaken Fujisaki Ryoka with several Stairway and tackled her.

However, the current situation is still acceptable. Further north lies an experimental field, and in that open space, Fujisaki Ryoka has no other way to escape.

However, at that moment, Fujisaki Ryoka's figure suddenly sank, and as Canary followed, an explosion suddenly occurred in front of them.

"Um!??"

Buildings collapsed, dust flying everywhere.

Canary was instantly buried under the collapsed rubble and bricks.

This level of damage was certainly not enough to hurt her, but when she rushed out of the ruins, Fujisaki Ryoka was no longer in sight.

Canary immediately jumped up and looked around, but she couldn't find any trace of her target.

"Tsk... this is bad..."

Canary frowned.

76. Ghost

And at this moment--

Taking advantage of the explosion as cover, Fujisaki Ryoka slipped down into the underground passage.

This was a dark, shadowless underground tunnel, devoid of any people or traces of Dregs, and it didn't look like it had ever been visited by any Erosion Entity.

Fujisaki Ryoka was carrying Hatsukawa Fuka on her back as they quickly made their way through the narrow passage.

Where is this place?

Hatsukawa Fuka asked softly, her voice hoarse and low, echoing the rumbling behind her in the narrow, dark tunnel.

"A tunnel."

"That's what Fujisaki Ryoka said casually."

But Hatsukawa Fuka shook her head.

"It looks like someone was here recently. There are walking and dragging Trace on the ground, and it looks like it was roughly cleaned. There were some other items piled up here before. This tunnel is very dry, unlike a hastily constructed temporary opening. Despite the lack of ventilation and electricity, there is plenty of fresh air. It seems like this is a tunnel connecting to somewhere else, and it was used for escape. Moreover, it was deliberately opened not long ago. That person must have been you, right?"

Fujisaki Ryoka remained silent, while Hatsukawa Fuka, observing the walls and floor, continued:

"You knew all along that this place might come in handy, so you've been intentionally luring that agent to chase you from the beginning, so you could cleverly leave her clueless near that remote experimental field. Am I right?"

"Why are you asking these questions? If I were you, you should just rest."

Hatsukawa Fuka was right.

Rather, what Hatsukawa Fuka said was exactly true.

After the effects of the inhibitor wore off, Hatsukawa Fuka regained her original self, intelligent and perceptive, and naturally couldn't hide this matter.

In fact, at the end of the Old Era, because humans did not yet have effective measures to deal with Erosion Disaster, even in urban areas, many buildings would leave some emergency passages under them. On the one hand, this was to use the barrier provided by the ground to reduce the impact of Corruption Energy to a certain extent, and on the other hand, it was to provide more ways out when Erosion Disaster occurred.

Of course, it turned out that such underground tunnels were not very useful in that era. Without the protection of the Boundary Stele, the Corruption Energy fluctuations would penetrate the thin surface layer with almost no attenuation, turning all the humans inside the tunnel Mutation Dregs.

When later people arrived in the city, the first thing they did was blow up all the tunnels, with the aim of burying and killing the Dregs inside.

Therefore, the people who once hid in the tunnels of that era turned their hiding places into tombs, which can be considered a kind of completion of their lives.

In short, there was a time when "emergency tunnels" were popular in human cities. Similar to the underground emergency escape routes set up in this era to conform to the Boundary Stele System and the Shelter System, in order to ensure that these tunnels would not be used by Dregs and Erosion Entity, people would set up the tunnels in a pattern with multiple exits and entrances, just like a rabbit's burrow. Even if one side was blocked, people could still escape to the other side.

Right now, Fujisaki Ryoka is flying close to the ground in a hidden underground passage.

This tunnel is hidden beneath that building, a secret passage unknown and unused by anyone else. Yet, she knows all the entrances and exits of this place perfectly. So, Fujisaki Ryoka's sole purpose in risking her life to come to this neighborhood adjacent to the endless experimental rice fields is to find this underground tunnel.

Only by getting Canary to catch up and then turning the tables on her can she escape Canary's pursuit.

She succeeded.

Hatsukawa Fuka completely saw through Fujisaki Ryoka's plan, but from Fujisaki Ryoka's perspective, it wasn't hard to understand.

Suddenly, an explosion occurred from the other side of the tunnel. In the narrow tunnel, the sound waves seemed to be amplified infinitely, causing a painful ache in the eardrums.

Fujisaki Ryoka grimaced for a moment, then stopped and ran away in a different direction.

She didn't know why the explosion had occurred, but she didn't want to pin her hopes on "possibility"—she had more than one escape route, and there was no need for her to risk going towards the source of the explosion.

"Liang Xiang, may I call you that?"

At that moment, Hatsukawa Fuka suddenly leaned against the back of Fujisaki Ryoka's neck, and a subtle sense of dislocation and sudden closeness made her feel uncomfortable.

She shrank her neck.

"Casual."

A series of silvery laughs came from behind me.

Without the inhibitors, Hatsukawa Fuka seemed like a completely different person, which made Fujisaki Ryoka very uncomfortable.

"Liang Xiang, have you abandoned everyone else?"

"No, it's just a different road, and it's clearly more dangerous on our side."

"But in their eyes, your behavior is not much different from 'abandoning'."

"I don't care what others think, I only do what I believe is right."

"Is 'correct'...? This kind of word always feels so far removed from our lives."

"What one person considers 'correct' is merely their own perspective; don't overinterpret it."

"Hehe~ You're still the same."

Hatsukawa Fuka smiled again, her voice lowering slightly. Fujisaki Ryoka pursed her lips and quickened her pace.

"Liang Xiang... I feel like they're catching up soon..."