Surrounded, Breaking Through, and Toying with the Enemy

Whoosh!

Rain poured down in torrents, the heavy curtain of water shrouding the darkness and drowning every last trace of deep-seated evil.

The hundred-meter distance vanished in an instant. Under cover of the rain, Carl pressed herself against the humus, mud running down her neck and into her collar.

Shielded by a tree trunk in front of her, Carl widened her eyes.

Black tattoos and ragged clothes. These were...

The thugs from Meteor City?

Carl could see them clearly. Every one of the people searching was unmistakably one of the thugs peculiar to Meteor City!

"Search carefully! I smashed that brat's ankle, so she can't have gotten far!"

A hoarse male voice cut through the rain.

"We finally met our quota. It's our turn to have some fun this time!"

The speaker was a tall, thin young man. At his command, the men scattered around him called out in acknowledgment.

"Quota?"

Rain pattered down as Carl frowned. One thing immediately came to mind-the child kidnappings that had recently stirred up such a commotion in Meteor City, according to her original body's memories?!!

She counted the dark figures moving thirty meters away: three on the left, three on the right.

There were only six thugs in total, one fewer than the number of sets of footprints.

The problem was, there had been seven sets of footprints!

She could only see six people. Where was the seventh?

"Boss, the brat's over here!!!"

Suddenly, an excited voice rang out through the rain to Carl's left.

"Let go of me!"

Sarasa's voice, tinged with tears, followed right after.

Carl's expression changed. Sarasa seemed to have been caught!

With no time to think, Carl gripped her dagger and charged toward the voice before the other thugs could react.

Rumble!

A bolt of violet-white lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating Carl's veiled face and the bluish gleam of the blade in her hand.

Mud splashed beneath her combat boots as Carl sprang forward like a cheetah. The black cloth covering her face was soaked through, hiding her suddenly constricted pupils.

"Who's there?!"

The thug gripping Sarasa's wrist suddenly noticed her. His right hand instinctively reached behind his waist, where he had a sharpened dagger, a weapon he had prepared beforehand for self-defense.

Pfft!

The sound of a blade piercing flesh rang out.

As the dagger plunged into the pursuer's throat, Carl heard the wet sound of his artery rupturing. Warm blood spattered the web between her left thumb and forefinger.

The thug felt a pain in his throat, and an overwhelming sensation of suffocation instantly engulfed him.

"Let's go!"

Carl grabbed Sarasa by the wrist and heaved, swinging the girl's frail body onto her back.

She tossed a Bomb Pomegranate with its pin pulled into the corpse's arms, then carried the girl into the curtain of rain.

Sarasa's protruding ribs dug painfully into her back-the girl was frighteningly thin.

Only the thug's corpse remained, lying in a pool of blood.

"Over there! After them, quickly!!!"

The thugs who had heard the commotion reacted and hurried over.

Unfortunately, they were too late.

By the time they reached the thug's corpse, Carl had long since vanished into the heavy curtain of rain.

"Boss, Ken's dead..."

One of the thugs bent down, sadly trying to cover the wound on his companion's neck, but ultimately withdrew his hand in helplessness.

There was too much blood. He couldn't stop it at all!

"Let's go after them!"

The leader of the thugs gritted his teeth.

Just as he was about to set off, something caught the corner of his eye-it was a dark green fruit covered in cracks. Its pale yellow broken stem dripped with sap, as though it had just been picked.

"What is this..."

"Boom!"

A deafening blast tore through the rain, cutting him off.

Terrifying flames sent severed limbs flying into the sky before they crashed heavily back down, staining the nearby dead trees a deep red.

"It went off!"

Feeling the blast wave behind her, Carl showed no joy. Instead, her expression grew even gloomier.

The seventh person hiding in the shadows weighed heavily on her heart, like a great stone!

"Carl, thank you for saving me!" Sarasa leaned close to Carl's ear and whispered from her back.

She knew that if not for the boy in front of her, she might have died in the woods today.

Never mind finding the videotape; in the end, no one might even have found her body...

"Save your strength! We're not out of danger yet!"

Carl's expression was hard. She had already tried to take Sarasa into the manor!

[Manor owner has not reached level 10. Number of outsiders the manor can accommodate: 0]

The system's mechanical voice had rung out inside her skull, shattering her dream.

Hide in the manor?

As the manor owner, she naturally had no problem!

As for anyone else?

Sorry, not a chance!

"Can you still move on your own?"

Running through the woods without slowing or changing her expression, Carl asked the question.

Having come this far, she refused to let all her efforts go to waste!!!

"Yes!"

Sarasa was taken aback by the question, but quickly answered.

Only one of her feet was injured; it wasn't as though both her legs were broken.

The soil of Meteor City did not raise weak children!!!

"Good! We'll split up in a moment." She fastened the rain cloak around the girl. "Run toward Garbage Mountain No. 7. Don't stop until you reach the southern district!!!"

Sarasa's bloodstained nails dug into her shoulder, but the next second, she let go and rolled into the bushes.

The sky was pitch-black, lightning snaked across it, and the rain continued to pour.

In the woods, beside the pieces of flesh scattered across the ground.

"Where did that grenade come from? How could a brat from Meteor City have something like that?"

A military boot ground over a severed limb that was still twitching, and a trace of surprise crossed Xini's face.

In his plan, even if these useless tools were to be disposed of, their master should have been the one to do it!

"En!"

His interest piqued, Xini willed fiery red Nen Aura to pour instantly from the aura nodes all over his body. It formed a thin red line that shot from his severed finger and continued extending into the distance.

The dense curtain of rain offered no more resistance than air, letting the red line pass smoothly through it.

Xini closed his eyes and turned a full circle where he stood.

The red line at his fingertip rotated along with him.

"Found you!"

His fiery red eyes opened, and Xini vanished from the spot in an instant.

With the formidable physique of a Nen user, the few hundred meters between them were no more than a few steps away.

The acid rain that ordinary people feared could not even penetrate the Nen Aura surrounding him.

Much less hurt his body!

The rain gradually eased, thinning to a sparse drizzle.

Sitting with her back against a dead tree trunk, Carl quietly waited for the owner of the seventh set of footprints.

"Meteor City has Nen users guarding it."

"What kind of criminal gang could commit crimes here repeatedly without being caught?"

Carl was fully aware that the enormous gap between Nen users and ordinary people meant they had no chance of escaping the forest.

"Crack!"

The sound of a branch snapping underfoot came from the woods.

Carl had chosen her position carefully. There were no other dead trees within two meters of her, allowing her to react immediately and hide in the manor.

"Brat from Meteor City, why aren't you running?"

Xini raised a hand to push aside a branch blocking his path and walked slowly forward.

He was eager to know what the brat who dared wait for him here was relying on.

"A Nen user?"

Looking at the tall, burly man in black before her, Carl tilted her head and asked tentatively.

"You know about Nen? Looks like you have quite a high standing in Meteor City..."

"Which elder's grandson are you? Pike's, or Vincent's? Or some other old geezer's?"

"Click, sizzle!"

Xini lit himself a cigarette and looked at Carl with interest as he asked.

"Neither."

Brushing the rain from her shoulders, Carl slowly stood up.

"I'm just an ordinary orphan."

"Remember my name-Sheila!"

With that, she gave Xini a cold smirk, and her figure vanished amid ripples of distorted space.

"Phew-cough, cough!!!!"

Xini, who had been about to blow a smoke ring, widened his eyes and swallowed half a mouthful of smoke.

Where was she?

Where had that whole person gone?

Spitting out his cigarette, Xini rushed forward in a few long strides and placed his large hand on the tree trunk.

After a while, he raised an eyebrow.

It was warm!

"So the person who was just in front of me was real?"

"Is he a Nen user too?"

Disbelief appeared on Xini's face. Could his En have made a mistake, taking a Nen user for an ordinary person?

That was impossible!

He had been a Nen user for thirty-eight years, and of all the Nen Aura techniques, En was the one he was best at. There was no way he could have made a mistake!

The Nen Aura around that child had clearly been slowly leaking away, just like an ordinary person's!

After standing there dumbfounded for a while, Xini came to his senses and drove a fist into the tree trunk.

"Bang!"

With a devastating crack, the dead tree, some three meters tall, snapped.

"I shouldn't stay here long!"

Xini looked around, helplessly tossed out those words, and promptly charged into the woods.

He had not forgotten that another brat was missing.

The brat called Sheila had stayed behind and deliberately stalled for time, clearly so her companion could go and warn the others!

How could anyone fail to see through such a simple trick?!

Only half a tree trunk remained where it had fallen into a puddle.

Half an hour later, Xini suddenly burst out of the nearby woods and left in a huff.

Inside the manor, Carl lay on the quilt with a pumpkin in her hands after a refreshing bath, silently watching Xini's performance.

Two and a half hours later, a tall, dark figure suddenly sprang out of the woods. It was Xini!!!

With the tree stump at its center, a fiery red Nen thread wove a spiderweb through the air, covering every inch of ground.

Only when the crescent moon rose above the clouds did Xini stop.

"Thud!"

Seemingly having given up for good, Xini sat down on the half of the stump that remained.

He pulled a cigarette from inside his clothes, lit it, and took a deep drag.

Only after passing the smoke through his lungs several times did he reluctantly breathe it out.

After finishing the cigarette, Xini left for the third time.

This time, he never came back.

Meanwhile, Carl had eaten and drunk her fill in the manor and contentedly drifted off to sleep.

Only a fool would go out before a few days had passed!!!