"Captain? What should we do?"
Looking at the map and note in her hands, Catherine and her team members fell into a dilemma.
Should they go or not?
Why did the person who left these two pieces of paper kill the Blood Cult Leader? Why not meet now, but insist on leading her to the Elasia Empire's armory? Who exactly was this person?
She didn't know the answers to any of these questions.
If she just wanted to complete the mission, she could go back and report now.
But—she was a member of "Northern Fire."
She bore the mission of saving the Holy Kingdom.
The mystery behind the Blood Cult Leader's death needed to be solved.
The answer behind it might add some possibility to the slim hope of saving the Holy Kingdom.
Barely suppressing the tremor in her voice, Catherine said to her team members:
"I'll go alone."
If everyone went together to such a heavily defended place, they would probably be easily discovered.
Now Catherine had to go to this dangerous meeting alone.
"But Captain..."
"Follow orders!"
Under Catherine's command, the team members had no choice but to obey.
"I'll go now. You wait here for me. If I don't return within three days, don't worry about me anymore. Just take the news of victory back!"
Leaving these final words, Catherine disappeared into the darkness, leaving only team members with tears glinting in their eyes.
Outside the Elasia armory, Catherine climbed the tallest building in the area and looked at the soldiers patrolling inside the armory, hoping to discern a pattern in their patrol routes.
But after watching for a long time, she still couldn't see any pattern.
The soldiers were patrolling with almost no regularity, yet these seemingly random patrol routes were nearly impenetrable.
Catherine, observing the armory from the tall building, was extremely surprised.
How could such a large number of soldiers manage to avoid contact with each other while patrolling in routes that had almost no pattern?
It felt like... like they were being controlled by someone.
It seemed that infiltrating the armory without conflict would be impossible.
Having made up her mind, Catherine's figure once again disappeared into the darkness.
Outside the armory, Catherine put away the dagger in her hand and broke off a relatively thick branch from a tree.
Although using a dagger would be more convenient and safe, she didn't want to cause any deaths.
No matter what, as a member of "Northern Fire," she held great reverence for life.
Unless it was absolutely necessary to kill to silence someone, she would never take another's life.
Her plan was simple—avoid conflict with soldiers as much as possible. If soldiers blocked her path, she would try to knock them unconscious from behind, drag the unconscious soldiers to places where no one could discover them, then continue forward.
But when she knocked out the first patrol soldier, she immediately felt the atmosphere change!
It was an intuition from a professional assassin.
She seemed to be targeted by something...
It didn't take long before she knew exactly what had targeted her.
What had targeted her was the entire armory's patrol force!
"Surrender and you won't be killed!"
Looking at the soldiers who ran over at unimaginable speed and surrounded her completely, Catherine found it utterly bewildering.
Logically, the commotion from knocking out that soldier shouldn't have been so loud!
Moreover, she hadn't heard the soldiers communicate at all, yet after just a few steps she was completely surrounded!
Most terrifying of all, even after surrounding her, the soldiers didn't exchange a single word among themselves, yet they all shouted "Surrender and you won't be killed!" in unison.
Had the coordination between these soldiers reached the level of a thousand people acting as one?
Looking at the soldiers surrounding her, Catherine's heart sank.
It seemed the security force of the Elasia armory was indeed much stronger than she had imagined.
Taking out the dagger from her chest, Catherine threw it on the ground.
She was confident she could fight her way out, but she couldn't guarantee she wouldn't kill anyone.
Her original intention for joining the organization wasn't to kill people, but to save them.