After another round of careful questioning, drawing out quite a bit of key information from She Quan, Renith slipped a small knife from her codex.
A flash of cold steel glinted, cleanly and swiftly ending She Quan’s life. This time, it was She Quan himself who had begged for it, but Renith had never intended to let him go anyway. That blade only fulfilled an outcome already decided.
Once she had disposed of She Quan’s body and quietly erased every trace, Renith headed straight to Sannava without pause. After getting a clear picture of the current situation, she returned to the office.
Vista and Antina had vanished since the previous night and still hadn’t returned.
The large office felt exceptionally empty and cold, with only Renith left—oh, and Filof, who sat quietly to the side.
“It will all be over soon.”
Renith murmured softly. For some reason, an inexplicable premonition was spreading deep within her heart. Carrying that elusive sense of foreboding, she slowly closed her eyes and sank into a meditative state.
At the same time, Leoro and Oseku were sitting face-to-face, the atmosphere between them tense and hostile.
They hadn’t been allowed to join today’s battle, all because the last mission assigned to them had ended in complete disaster.
“Oseku, this was all your doing! If you hadn’t insisted on sneaking into the barracks first, how would we have been discovered and ended up with nowhere to run, looking like complete fools!”
Leoro was fuming, jabbing a finger at Oseku, his voice trembling slightly from agitation.
“Hah! I believe the strategy of sneaking in was sound. It was entirely because your movements were too loud that the whole operation was exposed!”
Oseku refused to back down, craning his neck stubbornly, his eyes full of defiance.
The two went back and forth, trading arguments, neither willing to concede an inch. This quarrel, it seemed, was the only way they had to prove themselves right now.
At the moment, with Vista and Renith both absent from the administrative hall, the place had become their personal battleground, and they were arguing with enormous enthusiasm.
“There’s always someone with mediocre skills who loves to boast about how great they are. But in the end, they didn’t even fire a single shot, hiding like a cowardly turtle!”
Leoro’s lips curled into a mocking sneer.
“So firing a shot makes you something special? You didn’t hit a single thing, and you still have the nerve to stand here squawking about it!”
Oseku shot back instantly, his eyes brimming with contempt.
Vista’s group had long since untied the administrative staff, but since they were using the administrative hall as their base of operations, the staff couldn’t do their jobs normally. With nothing better to do, they just lingered around, enjoying the spectacle of Leoro and Oseku’s drama with great interest.
Though it was still rather boring, compared to just staring blankly into space, the quarrel did add a strange dash of amusement to the dreary atmosphere.
From the context of their arguing, everyone learned that Leoro and Oseku had been inseparable since birth. Not blood brothers, but closer than brothers.
Yet their relationship had never been harmonious, simply because Oseku, who was a little older, seemed to be slightly better than Leoro at everything he did.
At first, the villagers would always say,
“That Oseku kid is really something, smart and capable.”
Feeling he couldn’t measure up to Oseku in anything, Leoro started mimicking him, trying to catch up.
For a while, the villagers’ words changed:
“That Leoro kid seems even more outstanding than Oseku. A promising future to look forward to.”
Hearing this, the usual sparkle in Oseku’s eyes gradually dimmed. All he could do was to keep getting stronger, to surpass Leoro again and win back the villagers’ praise.
In the end, a rift formed in their relationship.
Leoro, with his fiery temper, couldn’t help but start cursing whenever he saw Oseku, and Oseku no longer indulged Leoro, always showing off how well he had done that day.
This state of affairs had continued right up to the present.
Vista had sent the two of them on a mission hoping they would cooperate properly and shake hands in reconciliation afterwards. But judging by the current situation, Vista’s plan had clearly failed.
Not only had these two not reconciled, they had instead begun pointing fingers and blaming each other.
“Hey! Have you two had enough of your squabbling yet!”
Vista, fresh from a victorious battle, breezed back into the administrative hall with a dozen or so workers in tow. One of the workers simply couldn’t stand watching their behavior any longer and couldn’t help shouting out.
Hearing this shout, the nearby administrative staff froze for a moment, then hurriedly fled back to their offices, as if terrified of getting caught in the crossfire of the argument.
Leoro and Oseku looked towards the main entrance, chagrined, a hint of embarrassment on their faces.
“You two really make me worry. I just want you to have a better relationship. Why is that so difficult!”
Vista sighed helplessly, wiping the sweat from his forehead, momentarily at a complete loss for words.
“Impossible!” x2
Leoro and Oseku said in perfect unison, finding a moment of accord when they should have had none.
Vista shook his head in resignation. He wasn’t Antina; he had absolutely no idea how to handle their situation. All he could do was forcibly order them to stop this pointless behavior, then shove each of them into a small office in the administrative hall to reflect, hoping they would seriously think about their actions.
“We cooperated smoothly with the gang’s forces and captured the western main road, successfully driving away all the enemies. But judging by the current situation, we won’t be able to continue pushing forward in the short term.”
As Vista spoke, he walked over to the office desk in the administrative hall and carefully pulled out a map of Mobius City.
He meticulously gestured on the map, clearly outlining the general area currently occupied by the workers and the gang.
“This is the area we currently hold… and here!”
Vista’s finger landed heavily on a road, not far from a marking that seemed to indicate a flowing river.
“This naturally divides Mobius City into two parts, creating a north and south city, and becomes the crucial dividing line between us and the enemy.”
Vista went on and on like this, trying to clearly convey his strategic thinking to everyone present.
However, only a few could barely keep up with his train of thought. After all, those gathered here were mostly uneducated workers, and grasping such complex strategic analysis was indeed somewhat difficult for them.
Just as everyone was being lulled into drowsiness by the lengthy explanation, a piercing sound ripped through the quiet sky above Mobius City like a sharp blade, enveloping the entire city in its grating shriek.
The piercing sound instantly jolted the workers awake.
They snapped out of their stupor, hastily fumbling to pull out their guns, their eyes full of panic. Looking around, however, they found nothing had happened.
The piercing sound lasted for a long time, keeping everyone’s nerves stretched taut.
Eventually, the sound gradually faded from their ears, as if a violent storm had finally passed.
But immediately afterwards, a deafening boom came from the northeast part of Mobius City, like a sudden clap of thunder from a clear sky, making the very ground tremble slightly.
Everyone rushed to push open the doors of the administrative hall. They saw thick, black smoke rising in the northeast, blotting out the sky and sun.
“That seems to be the direction of the Bolland Firearms Factory!”
Someone shouted. Everyone’s hearts clenched, sensing disaster.
Vista made a snap decision and, taking everyone with him, including Leoro and Oseku from their solitary confinement rooms, headed towards the northeast.
Along the way, most of the scattered worker groups quickly merged. A contingent of over one hundred twenty people rushed non-stop towards the explosion site, worry etched on every face.
The explosion in the northeast made the two gang leaders extremely restless.
They knew very well what the Bolland Firearms Factory meant to them. Although most things there had already been moved out, the most important production equipment was still inside—that was the key to their future development.
But sitting there fretting wouldn’t do them any good. So Sannava hurriedly dialed the First-in-Command’s phone number, a hint of urgency in his voice:
“First-in-Command, it seems like there’s trouble over at the Bolland Firearms Factory. I hope you can go and check out the situation at the scene.”
The First-in-Command was clearly very concerned about the matter too, and said decisively on the other end of the line:
“Alright, I’ll arrange it immediately.”
So the Viscount had already been dispatched early on, which put Sannava and the Third-in-Command slightly at ease.
With the Viscount there, everything would be fine, they silently reassured themselves.
“What is that?”
The Viscount stood quietly atop a small hill, a gentle breeze brushing his face, but unable to disperse the seriousness in his eyes.
He gazed at the Bolland Firearms Factory, from which thick smoke billowed. He saw something long and narrow, a colossal thing like a snake, piercing straight through the entire factory building.
The crimson flames from the explosion flickered their tongues of fire, crazily scorching the entire factory, burning everything inside to ashes.
“A train?”
Renith also rushed over in haste. The piercing sound and the explosion had yanked her straight out of her meditation, and the ominous premonition in her heart grew even stronger.
She landed beside the Viscount, recognizing the colossal object, her eyes full of bewilderment.
“But trains are supposed to be in the west and south of Mobius City, right? So where did this train come from?”
Hearing the Viscount’s question, Renith thought briefly, then gave a reasonably plausible explanation:
“That piercing sound just now was also made by the train. Most likely, it was traveling at too high a speed, making it difficult to brake. The fact that the screeching sound stopped abruptly means the train derailed and crashed out of control into the Bolland Firearms Factory.”
“But that’s too far, isn’t it? It shouldn’t be possible to this extent.”
The Viscount frowned deeply.
An ordinary train derailment shouldn’t result in it flying nearly five kilometers off course. Why had this happened?
At this point, Renith hesitated no longer. She released magical particles and focused her senses on the interior of the train. Once she perceived the situation inside, it gave her a start, and her face turned somewhat grave.
She hurriedly clutched her codex, while simultaneously gripping her short staff.
The situation Renith sensed made her feel things were getting rather tricky.
“What happened?”
The Viscount couldn’t help but ask.
Renith’s gaze was locked intently on the train carriage as she replied to the Viscount beside her:
“There are people inside! More than nine hundred of them! They should be Kerk’s forces.”
“My magical particles cannot penetrate nine of them. Furthermore, among those nine, one person’s strength is on par with yours, and one is even slightly stronger than you. That is to say, among the nine, there are seven Barons and two Viscounts.”
