Chapter 439: Old Grudge on the Run |
After nightfall, the already abandoned Yunhua City looked even more desolate.
Under the moonlight, the broken walls and collapsed buildings stood like tombstones, engraved with the city's former glory.
A slender figure appeared before a supply warehouse. With a single kick, she sent the locked warehouse door flying open, stirring up a thick cloud of dust.
These supply warehouses had been built alongside Beixing's underground shelters back in the day, intended so that various shelters could transport supplies nearby when sudden disasters struck, avoiding the scenario where "far water can't put out a nearby fire."
During the early stages of the 【Earth Dragon Rolls Over】rule, the official organizations evacuated personnel from coastal cities. Due to time constraints, only enough time was available to move people out, leaving behind a massive amount of supplies to serve as the city's burial goods.
Not many such warehouses, still relatively well-preserved, remained within Yunhua City. Most had either collapsed during the intense earthquake or been destroyed by the subsequent tsunami.
The one before them was one of the surviving warehouses.
Inside, various daily necessities were stacked, including large quantities of ultra-long shelf-life food and water.
"There should be some pure metal-can containers around here, right?"
"Excellent!"
Her eyes lit up as she reached out to pick up a can to inspect it. Then, her movements came to an abrupt halt. Without any warning, she hurled the can in her hand straight at the entrance!
"Clang!"
The can was blocked by a vertical shadow, falling to the ground with a crisp sound.
The woman stood up alertly, staring at the person who had appeared at the warehouse entrance.
Most of the latter's figure was shrouded in shadow, only the hem of a trench coat gently fluttering in the night breeze.
"Who are you?" she questioned, secretly preparing her exclusive item.
Guan Tong stepped forward a few paces, his upper body emerging from the shadows.
"You're 'Wei Huo,' aren't you? I've been looking for you for a long time."
Upon hearing the name "Wei Huo," the woman's pupils contracted sharply. She hissed in a low, urgent tone, "Damn it, Han Qiu! You sold me out?!"
Han Qiu?
Guan Tong caught the name with his keen hearing and immediately made his move to subdue her first.
Under his control, multiple shadows surged up from all around Wei Huo, wrapping around her body. But just before contact, they were all repelled simultaneously, blocked by a Mind Power defensive item.
"Shadow!"
Seeing those shadows, Wei Huo immediately confirmed Guan Tong's identity. Clenching her teeth, she said, "Yes, Shadow found me! How the hell am I supposed to know how?!"
Guan Tong realized Wei Huo was using some kind of item to communicate with someone. He immediately urged the shadows to continue attacking, depleting her defensive power to end the fight as quickly as possible.
Wei Huo, in turn, retrieved her weapon—a mirror that resembled a makeup compact.
She aimed the mirror at Guan Tong: "Look at this!"
Even though Guan Tong hadn't actually looked at the mirror's surface, he still felt a wave of mental disturbance. Then, a warmth spread through his right palm.
His own "Mental Stability Anchor" totem was located on his right hand. Its reaction meant Wei Huo was using some kind of mental attack. This made him realize that Suzuki's "suicide" was very likely the result of this same mental influence.
While using her item, she also pulled a teleportation-type item from her storage space, saying, "I know, I'm pulling out right now!"
"Pulling out? With my permission?"
Hearing Guan Tong's voice, Wei Huo's face twisted in shock. Her 【Virtual Face Mirror】item should have left anyone it hit mentally dazed for at least a minute or two. Even if the target was Shadow himself, he shouldn't have recovered so quickly!
Instinctively, she looked up at Guan Tong. But the moment their eyes met, she felt her entire body jolt. Then, an intense pain erupted from deep within her brain, as if her consciousness was being forcibly ripped out of her body.
Before she could even scream, she found herself trapped in a bizarre red space.
"This is... my body! Where did my body go?!"
Wei Huo frantically realized that when she looked down, she couldn't see her own body. It was as if only her consciousness existed within this space.
Then, tiny red dots appeared before her eyes. They rapidly expanded, transforming into the terrifying scenes buried deep in her heart, consuming her whole.
"No...!!!"
Time in the consciousness space didn't sync with the real world.
When she finally snapped back to reality, she found herself collapsed on the ground, drenched in sweat. Her muscles were still spasming in pain from the overwhelming fear.
Before she could recover, several shadows bound her hands and feet, rendering her completely immobile.
Guan Tong walked up to her and looked down. "Your item ability is tied to mental power. How does it feel to be on the receiving end of a mental attack now? If you don't want to suffer more, answer my questions honestly."
"What was that just now..." Wei Huo gasped for a few deep breaths, then lifted her head, staring at Guan Tong in terror. "Scarlet Fear! It has to be Scarlet Fear! You killed the Demon Race and stole their power?!"
News of "Shadow" eliminating the Demons and ending the seventeenth rule ahead of schedule had already spread online, sparking a wave of public criticism against him. Though Wei Huo had been lying low, she wasn't completely cut off from the world and knew about this through the internet.
Connecting the identity of the person before her with what she had just seen in that terrifying consciousness space, she naturally guessed that this was the power of Scarlet Fear!
"I don't have much patience, and I don't want to waste words on you." Guan Tong asked, "Who are you really? Did you kill Suzuki? Who are your accomplices, and what's your goal? Spill everything. If you don't, I'll let you loop through that fear space until you die."
Wei Huo's teeth chattered as cold sweat poured down her face. Those terrifying scenes were too horrifying. She knew she couldn't endure much more, and being scared to death was undoubtedly a crueler fate than being tortured to death by countless forms of agony!
"I..."
She lifted her head, a trace of venom flashing in her eyes.
"I'd rather die than tell you!"
She clenched her teeth hard. A faint "crack" sound made Guan Tong's face twist in alarm.
He immediately controlled the shadows to pry her mouth open. A hidden poison inside a broken fake tooth had already seeped into her oral cavity.
In that instant, he was reminded of Han Ling's death at the Yongzhou base! Both had committed suicide using poison hidden in fake teeth.
"You're one of the 'Commander's' people?!"
The poison acted quickly. She let out a faint, cold laugh. "We... will avenge... the Comman... der..."
With those words, her eyes rolled back, her head drooped, and her life force gradually faded away.
Guan Tong's brows knitted tightly.
He hadn't expected that even after Commander Jiang Lanying had been dead for so long, there were still old subordinates carrying out missions for her.
From the looks of it, although the Commander herself and her core group of Death Warriors had all died at the national border back then, there were still some stragglers that hadn't been weeded out.
"These stragglers are after me to avenge her. Suzuki... was probably targeted because she was the one I contacted for the withdrawal center."
Guan Tong felt a heavy weight in his heart. Although he had long suspected that Suzuki's death was connected to him, he hadn't anticipated that the enemy's identity would be remnants of the Commander's forces.
He stood there in place for a long time before returning to the shelter.
Black Star and White Star didn't know Suzuki, so they didn't ask about the matter.
Uenoshi, however, was very concerned. After learning the situation, she didn't know what to say for a moment.
A tall tree catches the wind; that wasn't something the tree itself could decide.
Besides, given "Shadow's" fame in the world, who knew how many people were secretly watching him, let alone those with old scores to settle.
These people probably knew they couldn't do anything to Guan Tong directly, so they had to find other angles for a breakthrough.
"That woman dying isn't the end of it." Guan Tong said to Uenoshi. "There must be more of the Commander's moles inside the Countermeasures Research Office. Otherwise, how would they know I was the one who found the withdrawal center for Suzuki?"
Uenoshi nodded. "That's very likely."
"I'll find them."
Guan Tong finished speaking and went up to the second floor. He contacted Zhang Minglu and frankly revealed the situation.
After listening, Zhang Minglu's voice shot up an octave on the phone: "What? Who was the name she said? Say it again!"
"Han Qiu. From the looks of it, her alias 'Wei Huo' was just those two characters taken apart." Guan Tong said. "From how excited Dr. Zhang sounds, this person must be inside the Research Office."
Zhang Minglu said hurriedly, "Han Qiu is... wait a minute! I'll call you back!"
Zhang Minglu hung up and immediately ran to Gao Liangwei's meeting room to report the matter.
After learning the news, Gao Liangwei immediately contacted the security office. Shortly after, the security officer reported in shock, "Han Qiu is gone!"
Gone!
This news left Gao Liangwei and Zhang Minglu stunned.
During the 【Third Contact】rule, Han Qiu had submitted a resignation letter to leave the Countermeasures Research Office. However, according to regulations, there was a six-month waiting period—also called a declassification period—between the approval of the resignation and the time the person could actually leave the base.
Counting from the end of January when that rule ended, only two months had passed by the beginning of April. There were still four more months before he could leave the base. How could he have just vanished?
Gao Liangwei immediately announced, "Get the base surveillance footage!"
He personally went to the monitoring center with Zhang Minglu and had the operator pull up all surveillance footage from the "observation zone" where Han Qiu had been staying since his resignation.
On the surveillance footage, Han Qiu came out of his room at regular hours every day to eat and rest. He looked calm and routine—until tonight.
The video showed that tonight, he hadn't come out for dinner at his usual time and had stayed inside his room the entire time.
Zhang Minglu speculated, "He must have used a 【Communication Scroll】or a similar item to get in touch with that woman. He knew he'd been exposed, so he found a way to escape the base."
"How did he escape?" Gao Liangwei asked. "His access authority was frozen. He couldn't have gotten through any of the security doors. Plus, this observation area has special settings that prevent the use of teleportation-type items."
"...He must have had an unreported hidden item or ability." Zhang Minglu said. "Director, think about it. Han Qiu is a smart guy. Since he was one of that Commander's subordinates, he would have planned an escape route for when he was exposed long before he even entered the Research Office!"
Gao Liangwei's face darkened. This incident clearly showed that he, as the director, had been negligent in screening personnel.
But what he couldn't understand was, since Han Qiu was connected to that Commander, why hadn't the thorough investigation back then caught him? And why would Han Qiu, after nearly all of the Commander's faction had been eliminated, still risk going after Shadow—just to avenge a dead woman?
He recalled Han Qiu's slightly smiling face and felt that this young man, laden with so many impressive titles at such a young age, was far from being a blindly loyal fool.
"Director, what do we do now?" Zhang Minglu asked, his tone worried. He knew that once a smart person like Han Qiu escaped, catching him again wouldn't be easy.
Gao Liangwei said gravely, "We need to inform the higher-ups. At the same time, issue a global warrant for his arrest. What he's done threatens national security, even human security. We cannot afford to let this slide."
"What about Guan Tong..."
"Tell him the truth."
"Understood, Director."
...
Outside Beixing's northern border, a young man in protective gear stared in the direction of Beixing and let out a deep sigh.
"Better to have no teammates at all than to have a lousy one... truer words were never spoken."
This person was Han Qiu. After receiving the message from "Wei Huo" that Shadow had found her, he knew the Research Office was no longer a safe place. So, before he could be tightly controlled, he quickly activated the measures he had prepared in advance to leave.
He had no words for the incompetent teammate "Wei Huo." From the moment she had taken unauthorized action against Suzuki, he had considered her a ticking time bomb that needed to be ditched as soon as possible.
His original plan had been to wait for the six-month declassification period to end, leave the Research Office normally, and then secretly take care of that woman. But to his surprise, before three months were even up, "Shadow" had found her.
"Speaking of which... how did Shadow find her, anyway?"
Han Qiu was a bit puzzled by this.
On his advice, that woman hadn't just stayed away from densely populated cities—she had gone to the completely abandoned metropolis of Yunhua. He was confident that no one would normally find her there, yet the result proved otherwise.
"That woman might be stupid, but she shouldn't have exposed herself on purpose... 'Shadow' must have some unique way of finding people? Or maybe he used some kind of item. Hmm... I need to be careful too."
Han Qiu knew that his own name had already been exposed, and he would likely become a target for "Shadow" as well.
He also knew that after discovering his escape, the Countermeasures Research Office's Gao Liangwei would certainly apply for a global warrant against him. This would severely limit where he could go.
"Before the 'Super City' projects in smaller nations like Lury actually get off the ground, they'll only be puppets of the three major powers. Not worth going to. That new Administrator of Xisiya is on friendly terms with Beixing and seems to have connections with 'Shadow' too. Forget being welcomed—they might even try to capture me... Hmm, that leaves only the Suroma Empire."
Han Qiu pondered for a moment before making a choice he had long anticipated.
He smiled slightly. "The Commander was trying to escape to Suroma back then, I assume. Too bad she left too late, and an even bigger shame was picking the wrong contact person. Hiring a mindless killing machine like Lucifer to pick her up—it's only logical that she didn't make it out. But I, Han Qiu, am different."
He raised a hand toward the sky, as if trying to grab hold of something: "This game the Fire Thief designed—I'm not about to quit early before clearing it. And if I'm not the 'designated clearance candidate,' then finding the right person is absolutely critical... 'Shadow' is far from just one of them."