Interception

Chen Chuan glanced at the four men closing in. Seemingly paying them little mind, he pressed his boundary credential to check the displayed time. The clash with Nagahide Miyahide had cost them a few minutes, and any further delay over on that side could lead to complications. He turned to Yuan Qiuyuan and the others. "I'm leaving these men to you. Regroup with me as soon as you've dealt with them." Yuan Qiuyuan tossed the scabbard of the Xuejun Saber back to him. "Leave it to us, Captain." Chen Chuan caught it cleanly and sheathed his blade. As for Liuruoqie lying on the ground, the team would retrieve it once they finished up here; there was no need for him to micromanage it. He checked the map once more. Since the distance wasn't very far, he chose not to take a vehicle. Finding his bearings, he stomped the ground. With a resounding boom, gravel burst apart beneath his foot, and his figure vanished from the spot. Inside the command hall, Commissioner Liang watched the developments across every sector. None of the fronts allowed for any relief, but the fissure currently held by Chang Kuanghai was without question the thorniest. Even the fastest of the two emergency response teams would take twenty minutes to reach it. It was hard to say how much the fissure would expand by the time they arrived. The silver lining was that its stability indicated the split offspring was still present. If the interference could be resolved in time, retrieval was still possible. Just then, an intelligence operative reported to him, "Commissioner, Captain Chen is moving rapidly toward that fissure." "What?" Commissioner Liang was somewhat surprised. Hadn't Chen Chuan been intercepted by Nagahide Miyahide and his group? The operative swallowed hard. "Nagahide Miyahide... has been slain by Captain Chen." Beheaded? How much time had even passed? Commissioner Liang checked the clock and confirmed his perception hadn't deceived him. He immediately pulled up the recent footage. After watching Nagahide Miyahide get decapitated in a single stroke, he fell completely silent. For a moment, he couldn't tell whether Nagahide Miyahide had merely possessed an undeserved reputation, or if they had consistently underestimated Chen Chuan's strength all along. At that very moment, Chen Chuan was advancing in the direction indicated on his map. His journey wasn't entirely smooth, however; scattered, intermittent fissures kept obstructing his path. These were unstable rifts. Strong air currents and bizarre creatures frequently surged out of them. If a person plunged inside and couldn't find the correct path, returning right away was by no means guaranteed. On top of that, there were still pedestrians out on the streets. Reckless daredevils, drunks, and addicts were still wandering about, many of them twitching on the pavement as swarms of flying bugs gnawed at them. This forced him to tread with caution, yet even so, his pace was far swifter than driving. On a street nearing the target fissure just ahead, Astrid stood atop a tall building. Suspended in the air above her floated a balloon-like organism. This was a miniature field organism assigned to their squad by the Bolun Company. At this moment, it continuously scanned and relayed information across a nine-kilometer radius. The Bolun Company had always been world-class in extrasensory perception and information transmission, and this localized area broadcast was precisely their forte. Just then, an image of Chen Chuan appeared on her boundary credential. She looked at it and blurted out, "I know him." Sigrid's voice came through the credential: "Yeah, that's the guy who nearly sent you to Valhalla last time. He's heading straight for this intersection. The company requires us to delay him for at least twenty minutes." "Fine," Astrid said. "At least the company isn't ordering us to kill him." Sigrid sounded puzzled. "You're worried about killing him?" Astrid rolled her eyes. "I'm worried he'll kill me." Although the bizarre armor's power had possessed her that day, part of her consciousness had remained awake. The final scene of being struck down was deeply etched into her mind, and she knew full well how terrifying this adversary was. Sigrid replied, "What are you scared of? You've been fitted with the company's latest implants. It's cutting-edge technology, fully tested by you, and it integrates seamlessly with fissure-traverse tactics. Think about how awesome that is, okay?" "Yeah, awesome." Astrid looked down, thinking that it depended entirely on who the enemy was. Bolun Company's extrasensory implants, fissure-trapping generation tissues, sensory transmission cords, combined with her innate spiritual abilities—all of that was enough to handle an ordinary fighter. But... Just as she was pondering, Sigrid warned her: "He's here!" Chen Chuan rounded a street corner. He had only made it halfway when his footing suddenly braked, coming to a dead stop amid an explosive gust of air. Ahead of him stretched a crisscrossing web of cords anchored between the buildings on either side, almost entirely barricading the latter half of the street. Furthermore, fissures flickered ceaselessly, opening and closing at a frequency far exceeding anywhere else, resembling countless bolts of lightning converging in the space. Simultaneously, a flash of silver glinted above. A spear plummeted from the sky with a sharp hiss, plunging into the ground not far ahead. He glanced up and saw a figure in knight's armor balancing on tiptoe atop a high ledge. The suit... was unmistakably the shepherdess armor he had seen at the opera house. So there was indeed someone backing the Xihui Opera House. The Bolun Company? The knight leaped down from the building and landed before him with a heavy clang, crouching low and spreading her hands against the pavement to disperse the impact. After a split-second pause, she used the ground to propel herself forward in a bounding leap. In mid-charge, she smoothly drew the spear from the street, twirled it level with both hands, and lunged straight toward him! Chen Chuan watched the charging figure. Her stance, rhythm, and jin were all exceptional. The only issue was... her movements were far too slow! He seemed to shift slightly, his body appearing to vanish for a fraction of a second. In the next instant, he abruptly materialized right in front of the knight, driving a fist toward her midriff. Yet just as his knuckles were about to connect, the air before him flickered. The knight vanished from where she stood, and his strike punched empty air inside a glowing fissure. At that exact moment, the knight emerged from another fissure behind him, thrusting her spear straight at his back. But only halfway through the strike, Chen Chuan spun and seized the spear shaft with a crisp snap. The knight made no attempt to contest his grip. Releasing the weapon instantly, her figure flickered along with a fissure and disappeared once more. Chen Chuan caught the spear, snapped it in half, and tossed the fragments beneath his feet. His opponent seemed capable of stepping back and forth through the fissures, making her difficult to catch. He had no time to waste here. Stomping forward, he vaulted over one of the long cords before him and resumed his charge toward the target fissure. Yet before his feet could touch the ground, another rift flickered, and the knight abruptly materialized at his flank, hurling several throwing knives at him. Rolling across the pavement upon landing, she slipped into another flickering fissure and vanished. Chen Chuan swatted the knives aside with a flick of his hand, never breaking stride as he hit the ground running. Seeing that he refused to pause for even a moment, the knight grew somewhat anxious. She began to appear at his flanks with increasing frequency, thrusting with a sword or throwing weapons, constantly striking from his front, back, left, or right. Yet regardless of success, she never lingered, instantly retreating into a fissure the moment she executed an attack. Chen Chuan could tell that her ability to traverse the rifts so freely likely relied on the cords strung across the street, which detected the formation and collapse of fissures and guided her attack vectors through vibrations. Still, that alone probably wasn't enough. There had to be someone nearby acting as a psionic guide. Otherwise, pinpointing his position while he was on the move with such precision would have been impossible. However, he was pressed for time and had no interest in ferreting that person out. Besides... With a whoosh, a fissure tore open ahead once more. As expected, the knight leaped out and thrust a sword toward him, preparing to duck into another opening before the strike even landed. Yet this time, before she could fully slip away, a hand shot out and clamped onto her visor with a loud snap. After weathering so many ambushes, Chen Chuan had thoroughly deciphered her attack cadence. The moment he struck, he seized her dead-on. He tightened his grip, instantly crumpling the entire helmet as the metal groaned and twisted. Yet when the force went through, he discovered the interior was completely empty. The entire suit of armor beneath the helmet collapsed into a clattering heap, scattering across the pavement. There seemed to be no one inside at all. Chen Chuan's eyes flickered slightly. The person inside must have utilized a fissure traversal once again to escape, leaving only the armor behind. Such reflexes and mastery over the rifts' openings were undeniably exquisite. Still, if she dared appear before him again, she could forget about getting away so easily. As for the other one... He cast a glance toward a certain direction. Having no time to deal with them now, he exerted force through his feet. The surrounding air boomed, and with a blur of his silhouette, he was already gone. A moment after his departure, Sigrid stepped out from her hiding spot with lingering dread. Staring in the direction he had gone, she felt utterly helpless. Forget twenty minutes; they hadn't even managed to delay him for two. She looked toward where Astrid had vanished. She needed to retrieve her partner as soon as possible, or Astrid might end up permanently lost inside. Chen Chuan encountered no further obstacles. Furthermore, that ambush—hardly even a proper fight—had pushed his spirit a fraction higher. All in all, it hadn't been entirely without reward. Within minutes, he arrived at the location marked on his map. The other squads dispatched by command were still en route, the fastest at least a quarter of an hour away. Upon his arrival, he was greeted by the sight of security personnel corpses strewn across the ground. In the distance, a vehicle blazed with roaring flames, and further beyond lay a colossal fissure. A brilliant light radiated from it, and swirling snowflakes poured out from within, blanketing the surrounding ground in a thick layer of snow. Before the fissure stood a tall figure with a long-handled axe planted into the ground behind him. Whenever falling snowflakes touched his body, the jin humming over his skin jolted them away, leaving him entirely untouched. As Chen Chuan drew nearer, he could see the slain carcasses of various vicious creatures that had crossed over from the other side piled around the man. At that moment, the man raised his gaze and spoke in a deep, resonant voice: "At last, you're here."