Chen Chuan cast a glance at the approaching quartet, seemingly unbothered. He put a hand on his Realm Pass to check the time.

Fighting against Gongying Changxiu had stalled them for several minutes. Meanwhile, delaying the retrieval of the propagated offspring for even a second might give rise to problems.

So, he said to Yuan Qiuyuan and the others, “I’ll leave these guys to you. Meet up with me when you’re done with them.”

Yuan Qiuyuan threw the Frost King Saber’s sheath at him and said, “Leave them to us.”

Chen Chuan grabbed the sheath and returned the Frost King Saber into its place. As for Flowing Cuts Saber, his team members would collect it for him once they dealt with the enemies. He didn’t need to care about picking it up.

He took a look at the map on his Realm Pass. The marked location wasn’t too far away, so he didn’t get into his car. Instead, after determining where it was, he stomped on the ground.

Boom!

Gravel blasted from the ground as he disappeared.

***

Liang Guanghai was paying attention to various situations in the command center. He couldn’t relax in the slightest for any of the ongoing fights, and the gap Chang Kuanghai occupied was, without a doubt, the most troublesome.

Even the fastest of the two emergency units he sent would need twenty minutes.

When they finally arrived, there was no telling how much the gap would have expanded. Fortunately, it was steady, which meant that the propagated offspring was still inside. If they could kill Chang Kuanghai or stop him, they could still retrieve it.

An intelligence officer gave him a new report. “Special Officer Liang, Captain Chen is moving toward Chang Kuanghai’s gap.”

“Hmm?”

Liang Guanghai was quite surprised. “Didn’t Gongying Changxiu and his group intercept Chen Chuan’s unit?”

The intelligence officer gulped and said, “Captain Chen killed Gongying Changxiu.”

He did?

But only a short time had passed since the battle began.

Liang Guanghai took a look at the clock, and he found that he wasn’t hallucinating. He immediately retrieved the video footage. When he saw Gongying Changxiu being beheaded, he fell silent.

For a time, he wondered whether Gongying Changxiu didn’t live up to his name, or whether he had been underestimating Chen Chuan’s strength.

***

Chen Chuan headed to where the gap was located, but things didn’t go smoothly. Gaps were popping up occasionally and stopping him in his tracks.

They were all unstable gaps, and powerful gusts as well as strange creatures came out of them. If he ended up running inside one and couldn’t find the way out, he might not be able to make it back for a while.

There were also pedestrians on the road. Some daredevils, drunkards, and drug addicts were wandering outside. Some were bitten so badly by the insects that they were twitching on the ground.

Chen Chuan had to pay extra attention to not end up with collateral damage. Even so, he was moving faster than if he had driven.

***

On the street near Chang Kuanghai’s gap was a building, where Astrid was hiding. She was on the roof, and there was a creature resembling a balloon floating above her.

It was the small domain creature Bolun Corporation had given to her unit. It was searching for and disseminating information within nine kilometers.

When it came to enhanced perception and the dissemination of information, Bolun Corporation was among the best in the world when it came to small areas.

Just then, she saw Chen Chuan on her Realm Pass. After taking a look, she blurted out, “I know him.”

“Yeah. That’s the guy who almost sent you to the Heroic Spirits’ Hall. He’s headed to this street. The company asked us to stop him for at least twenty minutes,” Sigrid said.

“Alright.” 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

“Thank goodness the company didn’t ask us to kill him,” Astrid remarked.

“Are you afraid of killing him?” Sigrid was surprised.

“I’m afraid of him killing me.” Astrid rolled her eyes.

While she had been controlled by the strange armor that day, part of her consciousness remained intact. The last attack had imprinted deep into her mind, and she knew just how terrifying this opponent was.

“Why are you scared of him? The company has given you their newest implant. It’s the most cutting-edge technology in the world, and you’ve completed all the tests. You can even move through gaps with ease, which makes them part of your strategy. That’s amazing, you know?” Sigrid shot back.

“Yeah, sure is.”

Astrid looked down. Whether it’s amazing depends on what sort of opponent I’m facing, you know?

Bolun Corporation’s enhanced perception implants, gap-capturing tissue, sensory transmission cord, and her own inborn, unique mental ability allowed her to fight at ease with regular martial artists.

But...

Sigrid gave her a heads-up.

“He’s here!”

***

Chen Chuan took a turn, but before he could complete it, he stopped. The movement caused shockwaves to explode around him.

There were cords strewn haphazardly in front of him. Their ends were stretched to the buildings on the sides and practically blocked half of the street. Gaps flickered among them. Their frequency of opening and closing was much higher than in other places, as if there were multiple bolts of lightning intersecting inside.

Silver lightning flashed above, and a long spear came plummeting to the ground.

Shick!

It stabbed into the ground not far ahead from Chen Chuan.

When he looked over, he saw a person in armor standing on the tips of her toes on a roof and wearing what was clearly the shepherdess’ helmet. Chen Chuan remembered it from the play.

Western Wisdom Theater was supported by Bolun Corporation.

The shepherdess jumped down from the building and landed with a clang in front of him. She squatted down and pushed her hands on the ground to negate the force.

After a brief pause, she leapt forward. She grabbed the spear, spun it around, positioned it flat in front of her, and thrust it.

Chen Chuan watched her approach. Her stance, rhythm, and refined force were all great, but she was just too slow.

With the smallest of movements, he vanished from sight. The next instant, he appeared in front of the shepherdess and threw a punch at her stomach.

When his fist was about to land, the shepherdess flickered and disappeared, and his punch landed on a flashing gap.

At the same moment, the shepherdess appeared in the gap behind him and thrust her spear, but halfway through, Chen Chuan turned around and grabbed her weapon. The shepherdess refused to engage with him in a contest of strength. She immediately let go. Her body flickered in the gap, and she disappeared again.

Chen Chuan pulled the spear over and broke it before throwing it on the ground. It seemed like the shepherdess could move between gaps, so it would be difficult to capture her, but he didn’t have time to waste here.

With a stomp on the ground, he jumped over a long cord and continued on his way to Chang Kuanghai’s gap.

Before he landed, a gap flickered, and the shepherdess appeared beside him and threw several daggers at him. When she landed, she rolled to the side. The gap beside her flashed, and she vanished once more.

Chen Chuan smacked the daggers away without stopping. Once he landed, he continued running.

When the shepherdess saw that Chen Chuan was ignoring her, she panicked. She kept showing up beside him to either thrust a weapon at him or throw projectiles. Regardless of whether she succeeded or not, she never lingered around. After attacking, she dipped into a gap to hide.

Chen Chuan took note of how freely she moved through the gaps. Perhaps she was able to sense when a gap appeared or disappeared through the cords strewn across the street. Then, through the vibrations on the cords, she could determine where she should attack next.

But this alone wasn't enough. Someone else had to be around as a guide for her senses. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for her to locate where Chen Chuan was every single time.

Chen Chuan was in a hurry, though, and didn’t have time to find that person.

A gap in front of him tore up, and the shepherdess jumped out, just as he expected. She thrust a sword at him. Before it hit him, she ducked into another gap.

This time, though, before she could sink into it, Chen Chuan reached out and grabbed her face plate.

After the numerous ambushes, he had figured out her attack pattern and captured her the moment he attacked.

He tightened his grip, and the helmet caved in. The metal creaked as it bent out of shape. Yet when Chen Chuan clenched it, he found that it was empty.

The entire suit of armor fell onto the ground in a clatter and scattered all over the place. No one was inside.

A flicker of surprise appeared in Chen Chuan’s eyes, but this should mean that the shepherdess had used the gap to hide, while leaving only the suit of armor behind. Her reflexes and her mastery over when the gaps closed and opened were masterful.

But if she appeared in front of him again, Chen Chuan wasn’t going to let her escape so easily.

As for the other...

He looked at a certain spot.

He simply didn’t have the time to bother about that one right now. With a stomp on the ground, the air around him exploded, and he left.

Once he was gone, Sigrid walked out from her hiding place with her heart thundering in fear. She cast a glance in the direction where Chen Chuan left and felt resigned. Forget twenty minutes, they hadn’t even been able to stop him for two.

She cast a glance at the spot where Astrid had hidden. She had to locate her soon, or she might get lost inside.

***

Chen Chuan didn’t run into more obstacles, though the ambush that couldn’t really be counted as a fight had still managed to make his mind stronger, so he hadn’t come out of it with nothing.

A few minutes later, he arrived at the location stated on the map.

The other units who had received similar orders were still on their way. The fastest one would need another fifteen minutes.

When Chen Chuan arrived, he saw the ground covered in security guards’ corpses. A car in the distance was burning, and further ahead was a large gap.

Bright light flowed out from within it, and snowflakes floated about. A thick layer of snow covered the ground around it.

A tall man stood in front of the gap with an axe behind him. When snowflakes landed on him, they were bounced off by his refined force.

As Chen Chuan drew closer, he also saw carcasses of fearsome creatures from the merged space around the man. Clearly, he had killed them after they crawled out of the gap.

The man looked up and said grimly, “You’re finally here.”