In an equally dark room, Chiba sat alone before the curved screen in the base command center, repeatedly reviewing Hesta's battle.
From the moment she escaped the Safe Room to the moment she swooped down and shot the Chelated Being dead, the entire process had lasted only 11 minutes and 52 seconds. At key points, Chiba had nearly gone through it frame by frame.
There was no question that Hesta had not undergone a Secondary Awakening, yet she had indeed evaded the Chelated Being's attacks time and again... in a clumsy but effective manner.
Hesta had never received formal close-combat training. A large part of her lucky survival was due to the fact that the Chelated Being Tulan had released this time had been a District 4 researcher in life—it was thin and frail, with no fighting foundation whatsoever.
If its strength or technique had been even slightly better, things would not have ended this way.
Although the base still could not explain why Hesta had been able to keep up with the Chelated Being's speed under those circumstances, there was one thing Chiba knew for certain—Hesta's high-speed combat occurred only when she was fighting the Chelated Being at close range.
When she raced the Chelated Being down the corridor, she could run as fast as other Quicksilver Needles did in Bullet Time;
When she faced the Chelated Being with a gun, she could catch the enemy's movements and maintain precise fire throughout the battle;
But when the Chelated Being was trapped at the other end of the corridor and she carried Shawn toward the Safe Room, she struggled badly, and her speed quickly fell back to her usual level.
Watching the footage, Chiba suddenly felt a chill run down her spine.
If Hesta were truly taken away by people