Chapter 153: The Brutal Battle for Supremacy (Part I)

However, he did not blame Xue Feifei. After all, panic sets in when concern is deep; with one's closest loved one taken hostage, anyone would find it impossible to remain calm in such a situation.

Although the enemy did not launch another attack, the bomber felt deeply uneasy inside.

He was experiencing some regrets now. He should have left immediately after capturing the two women, but blinded by foolishness, he listened to his companion's suggestion to use the hostage to humiliate the young man and vent their anger before leaving. Consumed by hatred toward the young man, he had now gotten himself into a chaotic mess where whether he could make it out alive later remained an unknown.

He glanced back at the ground behind him. There, the rain-coated woman was still slowly reforming.

What is going on? Why is it taking so long?

The bomber thought, his forehead covered in sweat. Usually, he had seen her quickly reform even when blasted into pieces much smaller than this; why did it feel so sluggish today?

In truth, the rain-coated woman's reforming speed had not changed at all; it was simply the critical situation that made every second feel like a year to the bomber.

Opposite them, Kong Zhe also frowned deeply at the current state of affairs. He could not use brute force right now, as it would likely push the enemy into desperate measures.

Putting aside their escort relationship, he genuinely held a favorable impression of the young girl Tuan Tuan and naturally did not wish to see her die.

With no other choice, Kong Zhe could only speak to stall the other party while figuring out a way to rescue the captive during the ensuing chaos.

"How did you know they were here?"

The enemy's actions were clearly premeditated. Instead of ambushing him while he was fighting the boss, or targeting Hong Ling who was alone, they had gone straight for the Xue sisters. This suggested they likely knew about his side's plan in advance.

But how did the enemy find out?

For a fleeting moment, Kong Zhe suspected that Guo Xuemin or his subordinates had leaked the secret, as this was the most plausible conclusion he could come up with.

"Hehe, pretty boy, take a guess why?"

Behind the bomber, a burst of coy laughter suddenly rang out. To the bomber's pleasant surprise, the rain-coated woman had finally reformed in place.

She covered her mouth with a giggle, as if she had just heard something hilarious. Her raised hand turned into a pool of floating water, constantly shifting shapes in the air.

"I might as well tell you—part of my ability is that as long as my hand touches water, I can eavesdrop on any place connected to that water. Hehe, so your so-called top-secret plan was heard by me crystal clear!"

So that was it...

Hearing this, Kong Zhe understood instantly, while his brow furrowed deeply. He had indeed noticed the sink in the room at the time, but he had never imagined this woman's ability would be so bizarrely powerful.

Yet, a thought struck him immediately, and he frowned as he asked, "Then how did you know we had arrived?"

Kong Zhe was genuinely perplexed. They had deliberately concealed their tracks when they came, using Hong Ling's hypnotic ability to leave no traces at the registration desk. So how on earth had the enemy tracked them? Surely they couldn't have been soaking in water all day long to monitor the entire safe zone?

He felt that no matter how powerful her ability was, accomplishing something like that should have been impossible.

"Hahaha, it's because of this!"

Unexpectedly, upon hearing this question, the bomber suddenly burst into triumphant laughter.

Now that his companion had recovered, they could retreat at any moment. Free from any further worries, he felt considerably more at ease.

The bomber was toying with a pocket-watch-like object in his hand. Kong Zhe noticed that it looked like a GPS device, covered in horizontal and vertical lines along with several red and green dots of light.

"Hmph, kid, I'll enlighten you for free today. This thing is called an Esper Monitor, a device specifically designed to detect espers. As long as any esper appears nearby, they will show up on this dial. The moment you entered the safe zone, we knew right away, haha!"

Espers?

Kong Zhe paid no mind to the other man's attitude, but grew somewhat doubtful of his words. According to the enemy's claim, there were no espers on their side at all. So how had the other party detected them?

Seeming to notice Kong Zhe's confusion, the bomber sneered and said, "Indeed, there are no espers among you, but there is one inside that thing!"

The bomber pointed at the skull syringe on the ground.

Kong Zhe paused, then understood a little. Could that injection be related to the so-called espers?

Or was it simply that anyone injected could be tracked by their equipment?

Kong Zhe could not be certain.

"Roar!"

At that moment, a somewhat familiar roar suddenly echoed from outside the window. Kong Zhe felt a start in his heart and immediately recognized it as the sound of the giant stag.

Yet what puzzled him was why the sound felt so close, seemingly right outside the window.

Before he had time to ponder this, the sound of shattering glass rang out, followed by the entire ground undulating violently like an earthquake. The alternating sensations of weightlessness and hyper-gravity, coupled with the rapidly shifting scenery outside the window, led Kong Zhe to a sudden guess: could the building they were in currently be lifted up by something?

"What... what is happening?"

The rain-coated woman and the bomber opposite him clearly wore expressions of complete bewilderment.

Rumble.

As the tremors grew increasingly violent, the ceiling of the upscale private room finally gave way and collapsed entirely.

"Not good! Be careful!"

Barely having time to shout those words, Kong Zhe yanked out the Apocalypse Sword and leaped upward, flicking his wrist to coat his entire body in Samadhi fire, which then poured completely into the sword.

Swinging his heavy sword continuously against the slab of concrete pressing down from above, amidst a splatter of sparks, he finally cleaved a safe passage leading upward.

Soon, however, Kong Zhe realized that it wasn't just their room that had collapsed, but the entire building. The building stood six stories high, and they had only been on the second floor, meaning massive falling debris continued to plummet through the high altitude.

"Be careful! Xiao Lei, take Xue Feifei and stay behind me!"

Kong Zhe shouted downward, then resumed swinging his sword relentlessly, batting away the falling debris along their path.

As for anything else, he no longer had the bandwidth to care; merely protecting the two people below required him to push his abilities to their absolute limits.

"Okay!"

Xiao Lei replied in a panic. Under normal circumstances, she might have been paralyzed by fear, but fortunately, she was now a formidable awakened individual and had witnessed plenty of the world alongside Kong Zhe. That prevented her from breaking down, especially since there was someone right beside her who needed her help.

Xiao Lei hurriedly rushed over to lift Xue Feifei up.

"Feifei Jie?"

Ignoring Xiao Lei's cries, Xue Feifei simply stared blankly in the direction of the two espers in the distance. That area had already collapsed, and the figures of the two individuals were obscured by layers of dust.

"Tuan Tuan!"

Xue Feifei let out a piercing scream, but received no response.

Xiao Lei clenched her teeth. At this moment, she could not hesitate; Xue Feifei clearly lacked any capacity for judgment, leaving Xiao Lei with no choice but to hoist her up onto her shoulder and leap forward along the path Kong Zhe had cleared.

Xue Feifei's eyes were somewhat unfocused. Carried by Xiao Lei's soft body amidst the swaying motion, her ears seemed to catch countless cries, while massive clouds of dust fell continuously before her eyes, landing on her head and clothes, coating her in grime.

It was only after a short while that the swaying sensation finally ceased, as if they had landed on some flat ground.

"Feifei Jie, are you alright?"

Xiao Lei's voice sounded. Xue Feifei lifted her head with great effort, and right before her was Xiao Lei's tear-stained face, gazing at her with a heart-wrenching expression. Beyond that lay the beautiful night sky.

The place they were currently in seemed to be the rooftop of another building.

Suddenly remembering something, Xue Feifei hurried to look backward, and the sight filled her with absolute terror.

Not far away, the building they had been in earlier had been completely razed to the ground.

Beneath the moonlight, that giant boss monster was rampaging with bared fangs and brandished claws.

The area around it was swarming with awakened individuals. Aside from a few melee fighters, the majority were ranged, clutching firearms exchanged from NPCs and firing frantically at the boss.

In an instant, the spot had practically turned into a veritable storm of bullets and gunfire.

"No, Tuan Tuan!"

Xue Feifei screamed in anguish, her tears finally uncontrollable, gushing forth like a breached floodgate.

"Don't worry, Tuan Tuan is fine for now!"

At that moment, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Like grasping a straw to save her life, Xue Feifei turned her head in a rush.

Kong Zhe was standing right behind her, flicking the longsword in his hand and gazing off in a certain direction with a deep frown.

Xue Feifei instinctively followed his gaze. On another building not far from them, two figures were conversing. They were the bomber and the rain-coated woman from earlier. Although both of them looked thoroughly disheveled, they had somehow survived the collapse.

To Xue Feifei's immense relief, Tuan Tuan was currently resting soundly in the woman's arms, appearing completely unharmed.

Though she was still in enemy hands, at least she was safe; that alone made Xue Feifei endlessly grateful to the heavens.

Observing the scene before him, Kong Zhe's brows remained tightly knitted. The chaos of the situation had completely slipped beyond his control. The boss's health bar was nearly depleted and probably wouldn't survive another dozen seconds, so it posed no real threat.

The critical issue, however, was that they still had a hostage in the hands of those two espers. If they didn't reclaim her immediately, the enemy might leave at any moment, making it exceedingly difficult to track down Tuan Tuan later.

Moreover, Kong Zhe soon noticed that the two espers had started moving; judging by their trajectory, they were heading toward the exit of the safe zone.

No, that wasn't it!

Kong Zhe quickly realized the truth: they weren't heading toward the boss, but rather toward the safe zone's exit. It merely looked misleading because both locations lay in the same general direction.