Chapter Eighty-Four: Treatment Time (3)

"The commander has sent word. The first stage of the operation has succeeded. We begin the second stage now."

After receiving Ferren's message, Eluka turned to Kurona with a grave expression. Kurona nodded as well, gripping the little bear in her arms all the tighter.

"Are you ready, Kurona?"

"Mm... Sister Eluka, leave it to me."

"Good."

At Kurona's answer, Eluka turned her head and looked toward the three-story building not far away, the one being used as the soldiers' barracks. Then she took the remote control in her hand and pressed down hard.

"Boom!"

The next instant, at Eluka's action, the building before them burst apart in a violent explosion. Columns of blazing flame tore through the windows of the first, second, and third floors, turning the entire structure into a sea of fire. From a distance, the three-story building looked like a furnace, seared through and through from the inside out.

"YEAH!"

At the sight, Eluka clenched both fists and cried out in delight. Eluka's Fierce Firepower greatly amplified the power and speed of weapons, and the effect was especially pronounced with explosives. The mines she had planted earlier were merely a handful of anti-personnel devices. Yet with the boost from Fierce Firepower, their force was almost comparable to several tons of TNT. In the blink of an eye, the three-story building was utterly swallowed by flames, then collapsed amid a chain of uninterrupted detonations. There could be no survivors inside.

The sudden explosion roused most of the people in the settlement. Civilians and slaves pressed anxiously to the windows, straining to look outside. Soldiers on patrol and on guard from elsewhere also rushed over at the sound, and when they saw the barracks already shrieking and collapsing within roaring flames, the Federation and its allies were all completely dumbfounded.

What was going on? Why had they been attacked out of nowhere?

Worse still, what made the Federation even more uneasy was that once they realized things had gone badly, they immediately sounded the alarm and tried to contact and notify their superiors. But after a flurry of frantic reports, they discovered in horror that they could not get through to the settlement's supreme commander at all.

Now things were truly bad.

For a power like the Federation, which controlled many strongholds, the right to contact headquarters was usually granted by the settlement's ruler. But if even the commander could not be reached, there was naturally no way to open the permissions required to contact Federation headquarters. As a result, the unprepared Federation forces instantly fell into chaos. Many soldiers did not know what to do. Should they find someone to report to first? Put out the fire? Or search for the intruders?

"Don't panic! Follow my orders..."

Very quickly, an officer tried to step forward and restore order, but before he could finish, a spray of blood exploded from the unfortunate man's head. The next instant, he collapsed to the ground, twitching once before falling still.

"A sniper!"

Federation soldiers were, after all, well trained. Once they realized there was a sniper, they immediately took cover in alleys or flattened themselves behind the ruins to avoid the next attack. Unfortunately, that tactic might work against an ordinary sniper, but for Chris, who possessed Absolute Lock-On, it was nothing more than moving target practice delivered to her doorstep. The girl crouched on a rooftop, quietly watching the soldiers retreat into the alley to her side, then firmly squeezed the trigger.

"Whoosh!"

The bullet shot out, circling through the air as if it possessed a life of its own, bending around twice before following the trail of the soldiers who had fled earlier and flying into the alley. Soon, a few screams rang out, and then the alley fell silent.

"My God, Harcly has been killed! What kind of people are they? Where are they firing from?"

"Be careful! Watch it! Take cover! Get into the buildings!"

Chris's elusive sniping left the Federation completely at sea. They tried to use the victims to determine the enemy's position, but Chris was certainly not foolish enough to reveal her direction. Every time, she locked on to a position, waited until the enemy had moved a long distance, and only then fired. Unless there was a specialist in tracking or search among them, it was simply impossible to find her location.

And so it proved. In desperation, after one of their own was shot dead, the Federation even launched rockets toward the direction from which the bullets had come. Unfortunately, the position they judged was so far off the mark it was ridiculous, and the rockets posed no threat to Chris whatsoever. Instead, the abandoned buildings they bombed continued to collapse, leaving the Federation soldiers a miserable, disheveled mess.

"Move immediately to the central district! Find the commander!"

By this point, everyone knew the settlement had likely fallen into serious trouble. The inability to contact the commander only deepened their unease. Yet no one wanted to retreat. After all, the settlement's network permissions were still in the Federation's hands, and they still had some measure of security here. But if they left the settlement and went out onto the wasteland, only the heavens knew what awaited them.

Though, judging by the looks of it, the settlement itself was not exactly safe either.

"Our assistants are doing quite well, it seems."

With the black cat in tow, Ferren moved swiftly across the rooftops, gliding through the night like a giant black bat. Even as he ran, he did not forget to glance back toward the direction where flames were shooting into the sky, and he let out a casual remark.

At the same time, his pace never slowed. He skimmed over the rooftops as though walking on level ground, his speed so great that no one noticed his presence at all. Even if someone looked up, all they would see was darkness. Before long, Ferren and Deline arrived at a place not far away that looked heavily guarded and was surrounded by barbed wire. He did not even need to see the sign to know what it was from the dense scent of network energy emanating from the site.

This was the node, the core region of the energy network, and the most important place in the entire settlement.

"Woo-woo-woo..."

At that moment, a series of urgent engine noises suddenly rang out. Ferren immediately lowered his body and looked up toward the source of the sound. Soon, he saw the tightly closed gate open, and then several armored off-road vehicles and an armored personnel carrier roar past along the road nearby, heading toward the camp not far ahead. Clearly, they had already sensed that something was wrong and had dispatched people to investigate at once.

Unfortunately for them, it was already too late.

Thinking of this, Ferren's lips curved slightly into a faint smile. Then he leaped up abruptly. The trench coat fluttering behind him spread wide to either side, like wings carrying him through the night sky as he dove straight toward the sentry post one hundred meters ahead.

As the node area at the heart of the network energy core, this place was naturally heavily guarded. Moreover, the earlier incident had only put everyone even more on edge. A soldier atop the watchtower heard the rush of wind and instinctively looked up, then stood frozen in place, eyes wide. With his limited mind, the question of how a person could fly was simply too difficult to comprehend.

But very quickly, the sentry shuddered violently and came to his senses. He reflexively raised the gun in his hands and tried to shoot. At that exact moment, he saw Ferren reach out, take a surgical scalpel, and bring it down hard toward him.

The sturdy watchtower, together with the sentry, was cleaved cleanly in two. Bereft of support, the tower swayed twice before groaning and collapsing to either side. The other guards and soldiers hurriedly raised their heads and looked toward the sky, but all they could see was flickering lightning.

"Crash! Crash! Crash!"

Deline, having returned to her human form, raised the spiked club high overhead. One silver serpent after another danced down from the heavens, striking viciously into the ground. For an instant, only flashing bolts of light could be seen endlessly blooming, swallowing every shadow within them, while a pure white radiance seemed to engulf everything.

When the lightning finally faded, only a field of wreckage and charred ruins remained on the ground. Taking in the scene before her, Deline let out a soft breath, then suddenly dropped to one knee. Her body changed once more, becoming a black cat again.

At the same time, Ferren landed beside her and gathered the curled-up black cat into his arms.

"Sorry. I made you work too hard."

"The rest is up to you, Master..."

At Ferren's words, the black cat gave a soft meow and lifted a paw to touch his cheek. Ferren then reached into his clothes, took out an energy chip, and placed it into the cat's mouth. Only then did he gently stroke its back, smiling as he walked toward the tightly shut gate before him.