The moment the Black Crystal Spear formed outside the car, every red warning light inside lit up at once.
"Beep beep beep beep beep—"
The piercing alarm nearly blew out Bai Zhu's eardrums.
Milluki had nearly mashed the game controller in his hands until it smoked.
"Hold on!"
The modified car suddenly swung sideways, its rear end skidding along the edge of the canal.
The next second, the Black Crystal Spear stabbed down past the rear of the car.
Boom!
The entire vehicle jolted forward, and a section of the outer armor on the trunk caved in on the spot.
Bai Zhu crashed against the seat while holding Number Nineteen, and his ribs nearly started singing again.
Number Nineteen curled up in the corner with both hands over her stomach, shaking uncontrollably.
Milluki glanced at the rearview mirror and immediately snapped.
"Do you know how much this layer of armor cost?!"
Bai Zhu pressed Number Nineteen deeper into the seat, keeping his voice low.
"You should be grateful she didn't throw up in your car."
Milluki had been about to retort, but after seeing Bai Zhu's expression, he swallowed the words.
Something was wrong with Bai Zhu's face.
Normally, even while being hunted down, the guy could toss out a couple of terrible jokes.
Now he was not cracking wise.
That was the real problem.
Outside, the woman in white stood above the canal.
She stepped forward with elegant ease, as though taking a leisurely stroll.
Yet every step closed a huge stretch of distance.
The Black Crystal Spear hovered before her, its tip slightly lowered.
"Here she comes!"
Milluki yanked the wheel.
The spear tore through the air in pursuit, curved around a fallen tree, and shot straight for a weak joint on the car's right side. Milluki's control was absurdly good, and he narrowly avoided the attack.
Bang!
Frozen dirt and shattered stones sprayed up, jolting the vehicle.
Bai Zhu was thrown down onto one knee. His left hand steadied Number Nineteen's shoulder while his right gripped his sword hilt.
"This thing can target weak points too?"
Milluki's face darkened.
"If she keeps attacking like this, my car's armor won't last long. This is top-grade Nen Tool Armor made by a master! Top-grade! Do you understand? Top-grade!"
Bai Zhu looked at the spot outside where it had been struck. Debris was falling away in a steady trickle.
"Top-grade means it starts crumbling after getting poked twice?"
"Shut up! Hurry up and think of a way to deal with this!"
Before his words had faded, the Black Crystal Spear outside suddenly stopped.
Milluki had yet to sigh in relief when the spear broke apart in midair, splitting back into seven Black Crystal Needle Tubes.
Seven black shadows spread along the body of the car.
"She changed tactics!"
Milluki hit the accelerator, and the car shot onto an old forest road.
The needle tubes split into several groups, aiming for the wheel axles, the gaps in the windows, and the cooling vents beneath the chassis.
"Damn it!"
Milluki's fingers tapped rapidly, and several small openings popped out from both sides of the car.
A buzzing sound rose.
The remaining Interference Bees swarmed out all at once, rushing toward the rear.
Seeing how few there were, Bai Zhu could not help mocking him.
"How did your swarm go from a luxury buffet to a roadside stall?"
"You're lucky there are any left! Did you think I brought a military factory with me?!"
The Interference Bees exploded 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 inside the car to die?"
"You'll die if you go out too!"
"Then I'll die looking cool."
Bai Zhu flipped out through the window, pushed off with his hands, and vaulted straight onto the roof.
He crouched low to steady himself, his Zanpakuto held across his body.
Behind them, the seven needle tubes burst through the Interference Bees and locked onto him 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 off course. It grazed the roof, carving a deep mark into the armor.
The second needle tube came around from the left.
Bai Zhu twisted aside and smashed down hard with the flat of his blade.
Clang!
His arm went numb.
The needle tube was knocked away, but it quickly turned in midair and came drilling back from behind.
The third one shot straight for the window.
Inside the car, Number Nineteen hugged her head in terror.
Bai Zhu kicked off the roof and slid sideways across it, lowering his blade tip.
Bang!
He smashed the needle tube against the outside of the door, less than half a meter from the window.
Milluki's scalp tingled as he watched.
"Bai Zhu! Don't let it pierce through! There's no lining in this car to block life-force extraction!"
"You really know where to cut corners, huh?"
"Who would install protection against something like that inside a car?! What normal person gets chased by this kind of thing?!"
On the roof, Bai Zhu blocked the attacks while using White Lightning to disrupt the woman in white.
White Lightning was not powerful enough, but it could make the needle tubes around her deviate from their trajectories.
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 tracked Bai Zhu's movements.
The feeling was terrible.
Like being scanned by a machine.
Bai Zhu cleaved apart the fourth needle tube and spoke under his breath.
"Fatty, analyze this."
Milluki immediately replied.
"First, she doesn't seem alive."
Bai Zhu fired off another White Lightning.
"No shit. I noticed the moment she got close. What beautiful woman other than one who doesn't shit or fart has to fake even her breathing?"
Milluki continued.
"Second, the needle tubes can absorb life force. They might absorb Nen too."
"I already paid tuition for that lesson. No need to repeat it."
"Third, she has no conventional records in the church archives."
"And fourth?"
Milluki paused.
"Fourth, only the church leadership probably knows her identity and records."
Bai Zhu knocked away a needle tube that had nearly drilled into the exhaust port.
"That's all useless!"
"There's actually quite a lot of good news."
"What good news?"
"At least we now know we know absolutely nothing."
Inside the car, Number Nineteen listened to the two of them discussing the woman in white outside.
She gripped the handle in the back seat and spoke with difficulty.
"She... she's a saint..."
Bai Zhu looked down 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 though Number Nineteen had held it in for too long. Once the words came out, she could no longer 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 reply, but the flesh on his face twitched.
Even he had failed to uncover this information.
Why would a pregnant woman dragged into their car know it?
Number Nineteen hugged the medical kit tightly, her voice growing softer and softer.
"We also saw a man. He wore white and looked a lot like her. The bishop called him the Holy Son."
"The Holy Son?"
Bai Zhu let his guard down for an instant and nearly got stabbed in the thigh by a needle tube. He hurriedly used Shunpo for a short flash, then landed back on the roof.
Number Nineteen nodded.
"They said... the Holy Son was the Pope's child."
Milluki did not press for more.
He looked in the rearview mirror, then forced his questions back down.
Now was not the time to interrogate anyone.
Behind them, the woman in white suddenly raised both hands.
The seven needle tubes sped up again.
Bai Zhu immediately cursed.
"Are you ever going to stop?!"
Milluki gritted his teeth.
"Hold on. I'm taking the maintenance road outside town!"
Before he had even finished speaking, the car plunged down the slope.
Bai Zhu staggered and nearly rolled off the roof.
His left hand hooked around the edge of the roof while his right swung his sword to block the needles. His wrist was nearly numb from the impacts.
Just then, Illumi's voice came through the earpiece.
"The ground rescue failed?"
Bai Zhu took a breath.
"We got one out. Several died."
Illumi paused for less than a second.
"Understood."
Underground archives.
Illumi closed the last document and tucked the list and the ritual pipeline diagram into his clothes.
Beside him, several stiff-moving medical staff pushed an empty medicine cart past the door.
Nen Needles were embedded in the back of every one of their necks.
The operation above had failed, and he was preparing to withdraw as well.
They had already gotten enough from this trip.
If they stayed any longer, the value would drop while the risk would rise.
Illumi stepped into the shadowy passage to the side.
A man's 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 looked seventy or eighty percent similar to the woman upstairs, equally unnaturally pale. His chest did not rise or fall, and no normal Nen aura flowed around him.
Black Crystal Surgical Knives floated at his side.
Each one was terrifyingly thin.
Illumi did not hesitate in the slightest.
He raised his hand.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Three Nen Needles shot straight toward the white-clothed man's head, throat, and heart.
At the same time, every medic, guard, and porter under his control underground moved.
In the medical chamber, someone pulled out the drug tubes.
In the records room, two nurses shoved over the filing cabinets.
Among the pipes, a porter raised a tool and smashed it down on the Black Crystal transfer valve.
In the rest area, a guard suddenly locked the door from the inside, shutting the reinforcements outside.
The alarms finally blared.
"Internal anomaly!"
"Drug pipeline flow interrupted!"
"Cultivation tank pressure imbalance!"
"Core area requests Holy Knight support!"
The man in white raised his hand.
The Black Crystal Surgical Knives blocked the Nen Needles.
Clang, clang, clang.
He looked at Illumi, his tone calm.
"Zoldyck?"
Illumi turned and ran.
Since the other man could recognize him, there was no need to keep up the disguise.
All he needed to do now was throw the situation into even greater chaos.
The more chaotic it became underground, the better his chances of escaping alive. If Ella could handle it, she would; if not, there was nothing he could do.
Yet the man in white did not pursue him with any urgency.
He raised one finger.
Outside the records room, vast 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 synchronized.
They walked around the altar, dropped to their knees, and began to pray in low voices.
Their voices drifted through the corridor, as though they were being controlled by the same person.
The man in white stood at the records room entrance and tilted his head slightly.
"You think a riot can stop Sanctification Descent?"
He raised his hand, a Black Crystal Surgical Knife slowly turning 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 around her right hand had already been worn through by more than half. Several puppet nurses Illumi had arranged in advance stood around her, using their bodies to block the door.
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.
Illumi's voice was very low over the communications channel.
"Milluki."
Milluki was controlling the vehicle to dodge syringes. Hearing that tone, his expression changed on the spot.
"Brother?"
Illumi paused for half a second.
"The plan failed."
"The ritual has begun. Call home and get Grandpa here. We can't handle this place! I'll do my best to stay alive. If you can retreat, retreat. Don't worry about me!"
Before you continue