Chapter 27: The Shenzhou Tablet Arrives on the Battlefield!
***
When Cocolia received another report from her subordinates, she felt like a bolt from the blue:
“Lady Cocolia, Lady Sin has been captured by the enemy!”
“What did you say?!”
She stared at her subordinate with a tiger-like gaze that seemed ready to devour, her eyes filled with disbelief.
The subordinate trembled somewhat, but the next moment, he heard his superior’s boisterous laughter as Cocolia impatiently waved her hand:
“Impossible, absolutely impossible!”
“How could those few pieces of trash possibly be a match for my most prized daughter Sin?”
“Moreover, I had her take the Titans with her. How could those three people possibly be a match for the Titans!”
“Lady Cocolia, it’s entirely possible!”
The subordinate quickly bowed and explained:
“Although Lady Sin did indeed have the upper hand initially, that man called Jiang Qiao suddenly called out a girl named Yunyun. With a wave of the wooden staff in her hand, lightning flashed forth, directly destroying all the Titans that Lady Sin had brought! And Lady Sin was captured as a result!”
“This subordinate witnessed it all firsthand! There’s not a word of falsehood!”
“Yunyun… lightning?”
After hearing these words, Cocolia’s expression instantly became somewhat unpredictable.
As an executor of Anti-Entropy, she wouldn’t be as surprised as Kiana and Raiden Mei about humans being able to discharge electricity.
What she was thinking was, someone with this kind of ability couldn’t possibly be the ordinary person she had initially thought!
Moreover, according to her subordinate’s account, that girl called Yunyun wasn’t among the three people initially, but was called by the man named Jiang Qiao.
In other words, that man named Jiang Qiao wasn’t actually alone, but had some kind of force backing him?!
Damn it, I was careless!
Cocolia bit her lip tightly, her face turning iron-blue.
At this moment, a somewhat hoarse voice sounded behind her:
“It seems you’ve encountered some trouble, Cocolia.”
It was Gray Serpent.
As a cluster robot designed by Mobius, Gray Serpent had bodies existing all over the world, and Nagazora City was naturally no exception.
Cocolia didn’t even look back, angrily questioning: “You knew all along?”
“Not that early, just about two days ago.”
Gray Serpent’s answer instantly made Cocolia lose her composure.
Two days, that was about the same amount of time since that man called Jiang Qiao had made contact with Raiden Mei.
“Why didn’t you tell me!”
“Watch your tone. I had no necessity to notify you. Besides… didn’t you also notice from the beginning? You just didn’t take that man called Jiang Qiao seriously.”
After expressing his displeasure, Gray Serpent’s hoarse voice carried a hint of helplessness:
“However, I don’t really have the right to say that, since I only suddenly realized his purpose when that man brought Raiden Mei and Siegfried’s daughter toward the ME Corp building.”
“In this regard, we’re actually the same.”
They had both been deceived by Jiang Qiao. Looking back at that man’s actions, it was as if he knew someone was watching his movements, deliberately compressing this attack into an extremely short timeframe, leaving no room for reaction and catching Cocolia completely off guard.
Cocolia was silent for a moment, then asked aloud:
“What’s behind that man called Jiang Qiao?”
If it was the serpent lurking in the shadows, perhaps it would know clearly, she had this thought.
But before Gray Serpent’s arrival, Cocolia had actually suspected whether that man called Jiang Qiao was one of the serpent’s people.
Because it seemed only the serpent could do such a thing.
However, this thought quickly collapsed on its own, since the planning of this Nagazora City Honkai eruption was itself a mutually beneficial deal satisfying both parties. The serpent had no need to pull such tricks behind her back.
If there were, she wouldn’t be able to stand here talking.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it that you don’t know, or you don’t want to say?”
“I have no need to lie to you. This world is vast, perhaps some corner of history hides a behemoth.”
Of course, Gray Serpent actually suspected more that the background of that man called Jiang Qiao came from outside the intrinsic world.
Although what was hidden in the shadows was indeed as vast as the sands of the Ganges River, to be able to make the serpent completely unable to find any breakthrough like this man did, even that Schicksal Overseer who had been in power for 500 years absolutely couldn’t do it.
“Then I’ll leave them to you.”
Although she was annoyed by dealing with the serpent, Cocolia could only compromise due to reality.
“Remember to bring my daughters back safely!”
If it were in the past, she wouldn’t have given in.
As long as preparations were thorough, what did a girl who could discharge electricity amount to? Cocolia had accumulated quite a few trump cards through years of internal warfare.
But unfortunately, that bastard called Jiang Qiao was really too cunning, directly launching a fast attack that left her with no time to react.
With Bronya and Sin, her two main support pillars, removed, and the locally deployed Titan forces insufficient in number and completely unable to be reinforced in time, Cocolia could only hope for the serpent to help solve those invaders.
“Hehe, you’ll hear good news.”
Gray Serpent’s hoarse voice was filled with confidence.
Unlike the useless Cocolia, even with such a short reaction time, the serpent could easily devise countermeasures.
No matter what the other party’s true nature was, the moment the serpent made its move, the outcome was already predetermined.
At the same time, Nagazora City under the night sky also welcomed a dark figure that had rushed through the starry night.
It was a girl wearing a metal mask and a full-body technological tight-fitting battlesuit.
Shadow Knight — the 4th generation Valkyrie battlesuit developed by Schicksal headquarters based on the Key of Blankness excavated from Previous Era civilization ruins, special equipment that could grant the wearer extremely strong close combat abilities and aerial combat capabilities.
And its wearer was precisely a new student from St. Freya Academy this year, a young and beautiful girl of about 18… at least her figure matched that of an overage blooming maiden — Fu Hua from Shenzhou.
Compared to the distant Schicksal headquarters in the Mediterranean, St. Freya Academy, which was also located in the Far East, was undoubtedly much closer. So after dispatching Rita, Otto, out of concern, additionally commissioned this old friend of his to come investigate the situation.
To avoid attracting the attention of his dear granddaughter, Otto even had Fu Hua fly directly from St. Freya to Nagazora City using Shadow Knight’s flight capability, total time took less than 2 hours.
“This city’s Honkai energy reaction…”
After setting foot in Nagazora City, Fu Hua immediately noticed the city’s abnormality upon removing her mask, frowning deeply.
Due to the Edge of Taixuan, she was extremely sensitive to Honkai energy dispersed in the air.
In the past, Fu Hua had also visited this city.
But the feeling Nagazora City gave her then compared to now was like heaven and earth!
If this level continued to increase further, this city would probably become the epicenter of a Honkai eruption before long.
“Is this why Otto sent me here?”
Otto hadn’t given her specific details, but looking at this drastically changed city, she still instinctively connected it to that, and—
Looking at the image of the young man captured by satellite in the projection before her, Fu Hua instinctively clenched her fists.
“— Is the rise in Honkai energy connected to this person?”