Speed and Passion 11 (They Really Made It to Part 11, Huh!)

The moment the Black Crystal Spear formed outside the car, every red light inside flashed on at once.

"Beep beep beep beep beep—"

The piercing alarm nearly blew out Bai Zhu's eardrums.

Milluki had pressed the game controller in his hands so hard it was practically smoking.

"Hold tight!"

The modified car suddenly fishtailed, its rear sliding along the edge of the drainage canal.

The next second, the Black Crystal Spear stabbed down, grazing the rear of the car.

Boom!

The entire car jolted forward, and the outer armor of the trunk caved in on the spot.

Bai Zhu slammed into the seat while holding Number Nineteen, his ribs nearly starting to sing again.

Number Nineteen curled up in the corner, both hands protecting her stomach as her whole body shook violently.

Milluki glanced in the rearview mirror and immediately lost it.

"Do you know how much that layer of armor costs?!"

Bai Zhu pressed Number Nineteen deeper into the seat, keeping his voice low.

"You should be glad she didn't throw up in your car."

Milluki wanted to snap back, but one look at Bai Zhu's expression made him swallow the words.

Something was wrong with Bai Zhu's face.

Normally, even while being hunted down, this guy could toss out a couple of awful jokes.

But now he was not cracking wise.

That was when things were truly bad.

Outside, the woman in white stood above the drainage canal.

She stepped forward gracefully, looking as though she were merely taking a leisurely stroll.

Yet every step carried her a great distance closer.

The Black Crystal Spear hovered before her, its tip lowering slightly.

"Here she comes!"

Milluki sharply spun the wheel.

The spear tore through the air in pursuit, curving around a broken tree and stabbing straight at a weak joint on the car's right side. Milluki's control was absurdly precise, and he narrowly dodged the attack.

Bang!

Frozen dirt and stones exploded upward, jolting the car.

Bai Zhu was thrown down onto one knee. His left hand steadied Number Nineteen's shoulder while his right gripped the hilt of his blade.

"This thing can target weak points too?"

Milluki's face darkened.

"If she keeps hitting us like this, my car's armor won't last long. This is top-tier Nen Tool Armor made by a master! Top-tier! Do you understand? Top-tier!"

Bai Zhu looked at the spot outside where the car had been hit. Debris kept falling off in tiny flakes.

"Top-tier means it starts shedding after getting poked twice?"

"Shut up! Think of a way to deal with this!"

The moment he finished speaking, the Black Crystal Spear outside suddenly stopped.

Before Milluki could breathe a sigh of relief, the spear disassembled in midair and split back into seven Black Crystal Needle Tubes.

Seven black shadows spread out along the sides of the car.

"She changed tactics!"

Milluki hit the accelerator button, sending the car racing onto an old forest road.

The needle tubes split into groups, stabbing toward the wheel axles, window seams, and chassis vents.

"Damn it!"

Milluki rapidly tapped the controls, and several small ports popped open along both sides of the vehicle.

A buzzing sound rose.

The remaining Interference Bees swarmed out all at once, rushing toward the rear.

When Bai Zhu saw how few there were, he could not help mocking him.

"How did your bee swarm go from a luxury buffet to a roadside stall?"

"It's already good enough that I have any left! Do you think I brought an arms factory with me?!"

The Interference Bees detonated behind the car, creating an electromagnetic smokescreen.

The woman in white lost sight of them, and the needle tubes paused briefly within the smoke.

Bai Zhu seized the opportunity and pushed open the side window.

Milluki jumped.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting to die inside the car?"

"You'll die if you go out too!"

"Then at least I'll die looking cool."

Bai Zhu climbed out through the window. With a hard pull and a flip, he landed directly on the roof.

He crouched to steady himself, his Zanpakuto held horizontally before him.

Behind them, the seven needle tubes burst through the Interference Bees and locked onto them again.

Bai Zhu raised a hand.

"Hado #4: Byakurai!"

Blue-white lightning shot toward the foremost needle tube.

Bang!

The current knocked the needle tube slightly off course. It skimmed over the roof, carving a deep groove into the armor.

The second needle tube came around from the left.

Bai Zhu turned sideways and smashed down hard with the back of his blade.

Clang!

His arm went numb.

The needle tube was knocked away, but it quickly curved through the air and came drilling back from behind.

The third one shot straight for the window.

Inside the car, Number Nineteen wrapped her arms around her head in terror.

Bai Zhu kicked off the roof, sliding sideways across it as he pressed his blade tip downward.

Bang!

He smashed the needle tube against the outside of the door, leaving it less than two feet from the window.

Milluki's scalp tingled as he watched.

"Bai Zhu! Don't let them stab their way inside! This car doesn't have any lining that blocks life-force extraction!"

"You're pretty good at cutting costs, huh?"

"Who would put that kind of protection inside a car?! What normal person gets chased by something like this?!"

On the roof, Bai Zhu defended himself while using White Lightning to disrupt the woman in white.

White Lightning was not powerful enough, but it could make the trajectories of the needle tubes around her shift.

The woman in white raised her head and looked at Bai Zhu atop the car.

No emotion showed on her face. Only her pale eyes slowly followed Bai Zhu's movements.

It felt awful.

Like being scanned by a machine.

Bai Zhu sliced apart the fourth needle tube and spoke in a low voice.

"Fatty, analyze her."

Milluki immediately responded.

"First, she doesn't seem alive."

Bai Zhu fired a bolt of White Lightning.

"No shit. I noticed when she got in my face. What normal beautiful woman, aside from not needing to shit or fart, would even have to fake breathing?"

Milluki continued.

"Second, the needle tubes can absorb life force, and possibly Nen too."

"I already paid tuition for that lesson. No need to repeat it."

"Third, she has no conventional Church records."

"And fourth?"

Milluki paused.

"Fourth, only the upper ranks of the Church probably know her identity and records."

Bai Zhu knocked away a needle tube that nearly drilled into the exhaust pipe.

"That's all useless!"

"There's actually quite a bit of good news."

"What good news?"

"At least now we know that we know absolutely nothing."

Inside the car, Number Nineteen listened to the two of them discussing the woman in white outside.

She clutched the rear handrail and spoke with some difficulty.

"She... she's a saint..."

Bai Zhu lowered his gaze from the roof.

"You know her?"

Number Nineteen's lips trembled.

"We... Ella and I... were called Holy Infant Incubators."

Milluki's fingers froze for half a beat.

"What did you say?"

It was as if Number Nineteen had held it in for too long. Once the words left her mouth, she could not stop.

"We weren't ordinary sacrifices. Ella was Number Fifteen, and I was Number Nineteen. We were baptized separately and taken to the White Room."

Bai Zhu blocked two needle tubes with one swing, his shoulder aching from the impact.

"Keep going. Get to the point."

"That woman... is a completed vessel."

The car fell silent.

Milluki did not respond, but the flesh on his face twitched.

Even he had failed to uncover that information.

How did a pregnant woman who had been tied up and thrown into their car know it?

Number Nineteen clutched the medical case tighter, her voice growing softer and softer.

"We also saw a man. He wore white and looked very much like her. The bishop called him the Holy Son."

"The Holy Son?"

Bai Zhu relaxed for an instant and nearly had a needle tube pierce his thigh. He hurriedly used Shunpo for a short blink, then stepped back onto the roof.

Number Nineteen nodded.

"They said... the Holy Son was the Pope's child."

Milluki did not press further.

He glanced at the rearview mirror and swallowed his questions.

This was not the time to interrogate anyone.

Behind them, the woman in white suddenly raised both hands.

The seven needle tubes accelerated again.

Bai Zhu immediately cursed.

"Will you ever quit?!"

Milluki gritted his teeth.

"Hold tight. I'm taking the maintenance road outside town!"

Before he had even finished speaking, the car suddenly charged down the slope.

Bai Zhu staggered and nearly rolled off the roof.

His left hand caught the edge of the roof while his right swung his blade to block the needles. The impacts shook his wrist until he nearly lost all feeling in it.

At that moment, Illumi's voice came through the earpiece.

"The ground rescue failed?"

Bai Zhu caught his breath.

"We got one out. Several died."

Illumi paused for less than a second.

"Understood."

Underground archive room.

Illumi closed the last file and stuffed the list and ritual pipeline diagram into his clothes.

Beside him, several medical staff pushed empty medicine carts stiffly past the doorway.

Nen Needles were embedded in the back of every one of their necks.

The operation upstairs had failed, and he was preparing to withdraw as well.

He had already gotten enough from this trip.

If he stayed any longer, the value would drop while the risk would rise.

Illumi stepped into the shadowy passage to the side.

A male voice suddenly came from the shadows behind him.

"So the rat underground was you."

Illumi stopped.

He turned around, his expression unusually grave. He had not sensed the person who had suddenly appeared behind him.

A man in white stood in the shadows.

He resembled the woman upstairs by seventy or eighty percent. He was similarly unnaturally pale, with no rise or fall in his chest and no normal flow of Nen around him.

Black Crystal scalpels hovered beside his hand.

Each one was frighteningly thin.

Illumi did not hesitate in the slightest.

He raised his hand.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Three Nen Needles shot directly at the white-clad man's head, throat, and heart.

At the same time, every doctor, guard, and porter under his control underground moved.

In the medical chamber, someone tore out the drug tube.

In the records room, two nurses shoved over a filing cabinet.

Among the pipes, a porter raised a tool and smashed it down on a Black Crystal transfer valve.

In the rest area, a guard suddenly locked the door from the inside, shutting out the people who had come to provide support.

The alarms finally erupted.

"Internal anomaly!"

"Drug pipeline flow cut off!"

"Cultivation tank pressure imbalance!"

"The core area requests Holy Knight support!"

The man in white raised his hand.

The Black Crystal scalpels blocked the Nen Needles.

Clang, clang, clang.

He looked at Illumi, his tone calm.

"Zoldyck?"

Illumi turned and ran.

Since the other side could recognize him, there was no need to keep pretending.

All he needed to do now was throw the situation into even greater chaos.

The more chaotic the underground facility became, the better his chances of escaping alive. If Ella could handle it, she could handle it; if she could not, there was nothing he could do.

Yet the man in white did not chase him with much urgency.

He raised a finger.

Outside the archive room, a vast network of Black Crystal patterns suddenly lit up in the direction of the altar core.

Illumi's steps halted.

At the other end of the corridor, a group of small figures was escorted out by Holy Knights.

The children's faces were ashen, and their movements were perfectly uniform.

They walked to the altar and fell to their knees, beginning to pray softly.

Their voices carried down the corridor, as though they were controlled by the same person.

The man in white stood at the archive room entrance and tilted his head slightly.

"You think a riot can stop Sanctification Descent?"

He raised his hand, and a Black Crystal scalpel slowly spun between his fingers.

"Father has already awakened."

"It seems we're about to have a new brother."

Illumi frowned.

Inside the core area, Ella lay on a bed.

The restraint on her right hand had already been worn through by more than half. Several puppet nurses Illumi had arranged in advance were also nearby, blocking the door with their bodies.

But in the next instant, the Black Crystal patterns beneath the bed lit up.

The patterns crawled up the bedframe and onto her abdomen.

Ella's body suddenly curled up, and a pained sound squeezed from her throat.

The puppet nurses lunged forward to pull out the tubes, but the Black Crystal flung them away.

Over the communication channel, Illumi's voice was low.

"Milluki."

Milluki was controlling the vehicle while dodging needles. Hearing that tone, his face immediately changed.

"Brother?"

Illumi paused for half a second.

"The plan failed."

"The ritual has begun. Call home and tell Grandfather to come. We can't handle this place. I'll do my best to stay alive. If you can retreat, then retreat. Don't worry about me!"