Inner City, City Defense Force Headquarters, Commander’s Office.
When Pei Su learned that Chen Shijie had already left the city, the expression on his face shifted from disbelief to a ghastly pale, then finally to a twisted, murderous rage.
He abruptly raised his hand and slammed his communicator violently onto the floor!
“Bang—!”
The communicator shattered into fragments, its plastic casing flying in every direction.
The Presence of a Level 4 Ability User suddenly erupted!
In an instant, the documents on the desk and the surrounding furniture were all blasted into splinters by the sheer force of his aura!
The office was left in a state of absolute carnage, looking like a ruin swept through by a hurricane.
Pei Su stood in the center of the wreckage, his face grim and his eyes bloodshot.
The lockdown order had been issued less than a minute ago!
The moment he gave the command, the man had already escaped!
What did that mean? It meant that Chen Shijie was already heading for the city gate before the order was even issued! That useless Zhou Peian! He was too slow to react!
Pei Su closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down.
He took one deep breath, then another.
After an unknown amount of time, he slowly opened his eyes, his expression returning to its usual cold, hard mask.
He pulled out a backup communicator and dialed the channel for the Gate Defense Force.
“Who is in charge of the gate? Put him on.”
A few seconds later, a trembling voice came from the other end.
“Gen… General Commander, it’s me… I’m the Duty Squad Leader—”
“The person who picked up Chen Shijie…” Pei Su’s voice was terrifyingly calm. “What did they look like?”
“I… I didn’t see clearly…” the Squad Leader’s voice shook. “I only saw a blurred shadow… they were too fast…”
“You didn’t see clearly?” Pei Su’s voice suddenly turned frigid. “You were guarding the city gate and watched someone run right past you, and you’re telling me you didn’t see them clearly?”
“Gen… General Commander… that person was too fast… I really—”
Pei Su cut him off, his voice returning to that eerie stillness. “The City Defense Force has no use for trash like you. Take your squad and go die.”
On the other end of the line, the Squad Leader let out a howl of despair. “General Commander! General Commander, have mercy! General Commander—”
Pei Su hung up.
He leaned against his desk, hands gripping the edge, head bowed slightly as he remained silent for a long time.
He had to figure out exactly who had rescued Chen Shijie.
Pei Su looked up, his gaze falling on the terminal in the corner of the office connected to the city defense surveillance system.
He walked over, his fingers tapping quickly on the screen to pull up the surveillance records of the city gate area.
The footage began to play.
Chen Shijie appeared on the screen…
He walked to the gate, pulled out his pass, and handed it to the soldier. The soldier prepared to let him through…
A blurred shadow flashed across the edge of the frame, moving so fast it was almost impossible to catch.
If Pei Su hadn't been reviewing it frame by frame, it would have been impossible to notice.
His fingers moved rapidly across the screen, zooming in and slowing the footage down to a crawl.
The shadow stayed on screen for less than 0.3 seconds.
But Pei Su saw it clearly.
The shadow burst from the edge of the frame, grabbed Chen Shijie by his back collar, and dragged him toward the gate.
In that split second, the silhouette of the shadow became briefly distinct.
A parka hood, long hair, a slender build—
It was her!
Su Wan!
Pei Su’s pupils constricted violently, his heart racing as a terrifying thought took shape in his mind.
Su Wan had actually escaped Shen Han’s pursuit and made it back to the Inner City, rescuing Chen Shijie and bursting through the gate just a second before the lockdown order was issued!
She had done all of this alone.
So where is Shen Han? What about those ten Level 3 Late Stage elites? Have they all fallen at Su Wan’s hands?
At that thought, Pei Su felt a wave of coldness surge from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, making him feel as if he had been plunged into an ice cellar.
...
The moment Su Wan burst through the city gate with Chen Shijie, a bone-chilling cold rushed at them like a tidal wave.
She instinctively looked up. In the gray sky, countless tiny white crystals were falling silently.
It was snowing.
It wasn't the scattered, negligible flurries from before, but a true, overwhelming blizzard.
The snowflakes were so dense it looked as if someone were pouring them from the heavens, swirling and churning in the frigid wind, shrouding the entire world in a chaotic white void.
The temperature was dropping sharply.
With Su Wan’s Level 4 Early Stage physical attributes, her tolerance for cold far exceeded that of an ordinary person, yet even she felt the chill seeping into her bones.
It was a temperature low enough to freeze blood.
Chen Shijie’s condition was even worse.
He was just an ordinary man, a researcher who spent all his time in a laboratory; his physical condition couldn't even match a normal person's.
When they first burst out of the gate, he could barely manage to run a few steps behind Su Wan, but it wasn't long before his steps began to falter. His breathing became ragged and shallow, his face turned from pale to a sickly purple, and his lips were frozen blue.
Su Wan glanced back at him, her brow furrowing slightly.
A thick layer of frost had formed on his glasses, making it nearly impossible for him to see the path ahead.
His hands were clenched tightly around his collar, trying to block the freezing wind from pouring down his neck. While his dark gray combat suit could keep a person comfortable at minus twenty degrees, the current temperature had clearly dropped far below that.
“Can you still walk?” Su Wan’s voice sounded distant in the howling wind.
Chen Shijie’s teeth were chattering. The moment he opened his mouth, the freezing wind poured down his throat, causing him to cough violently.
Su Wan didn't say anything else. She grabbed his arm and continued running forward.
Her speed was significantly slower than before because she had to look out for Chen Shijie.
She couldn't leave him behind. This man was the key to whether the Terminal Station could mass-produce Ability Users in the future. To the shelter, he was vital.
The snow grew heavier.
The path beneath their feet was already covered in a thick layer of snow, each step letting out a crunching sound.
The charred rubble and twisted rebar were gradually losing their jagged shapes under the white blanket, turning into rounded white mounds.
A layer of frost had formed on Su Wan’s eyelashes, and her warm breath condensed into white mist before her face, only to be instantly scattered by the wind.
She squinted, identifying her direction and trudging through the ruins with uneven steps.
Just then, Su Wan’s mental power caught the silhouette of a dozen trucks.
The trucks were struggling through the snow, their wheels occasionally slipping, their frames swaying slightly in the blizzard.
It was the Outer City City Defense Force convoy transporting commoners!
Su Wan quickened her pace, dragging Chen Shijie toward the convoy.
In the lead off-road vehicle, Feng Mu sat in the passenger seat, observing the road conditions ahead through binoculars.
Having received Su Wan’s command, Feng Mu quickly signaled the driver to stop and pushed the door open to jump out.
As the vehicle came to a halt, Su Wan’s figure emerged from the blizzard, dragging Chen Shijie along with her.
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