The walls around the Rat Tunnels had not come from nowhere. They had originally been the walls of the surrounding buildings, later modified into their current form.
If a hole was broken through the wall, it naturally connected to a room.
Millisyn had been startled by the sudden appearance of those three men. Although the Bat Backpack behind her had helped drive the enemies back, she no longer dared move forward. Just as she was about to turn around and look for Joan, a pair of eyes flickered in a crack near the floor.
As if confirming something, the crack in the wall was pulled open to one side, revealing a child's head.
Millisyn recognized this child. Not long ago, she had given him several skewers of meat, only for the boy to snatch them and run away without saying a word.
Although she had listened to Amir and no longer held it against him, she still remembered this child clearly.
So seeing him here left Millisyn very surprised.
The child whispered to Millisyn, "Come in, quick!"
Was he here to help her?
Millisyn hesitated for a moment, then crawled inside.
Joan and she had been chased and blocked from every side. If this opening could be used, they might be able to avoid pursuit.
After crawling into the hole, Millisyn discovered that this was a tiny room. The surroundings were very dim, but also very tidy.
When she looked down and saw the filthy child about to close the stone panel, Millisyn reached out and blocked it, leaving a small gap.
"There's still someone outside!" Millisyn explained.
The child nodded and did not ask anything. He simply waited to the side, watching as Millisyn lay by the crack and observed the situation outside.
At last, she saw Joan. Then came a brief exchange of blows, and the outside fell silent.
"This place can lead outside," the filthy child said to Joan after poking his head out.
But Joan fell silent.
Millisyn waved anxiously. "Hurry, Joan! We can get out!"
"You hide here first, Millisyn. Don't worry about me. I'll come pick you up later." Joan refused the request and crouched down, blocking the opening.
Facing the dark wall, Millisyn looked completely confused. Why would Joan not come in? It was dangerous outside. What was she going to do?
"I'm going out too!" Millisyn tried to open the passage and follow Joan, but the child beside her stopped her.
"Are you going to Dead Hand's camp?" the child asked.
"Yes. I have to go. Thank you for helping me!" Millisyn tried to leave, but the child blocked her again.
"I can take you there!"
Millisyn looked at him doubtfully. He was much shorter than her, with messy hair and clothes as dirty and ragged as his body, but his eyes were very bright.
"Follow me." The child did not explain further. He turned and walked toward another corner of the room.
Millisyn hesitated for a while, but still followed him.
She could tell that Joan had actually been distracted quite a lot earlier in order to protect her. Without her, Joan might already have shaken off the pursuers and escaped.
Maybe hiding here really did count as helping.
But she did not want to just wait.
Amir and 32 were both taking action. She had to do something too.
"My name is Millisyn. What's yours?" she asked, looking at the child in front of her as he was propping up a ladder.
The child thought for two seconds before replying, "Kexi."
"How do you know where Dead Hand's camp is?"
"I've been there."
Millisyn still wanted to ask more, but Kexi had already lowered the ladder. He quickly climbed up, opened another window on the roof, poked his head out, and looked around for a while. Then he lowered his head and said to Millisyn, "Come up."
Joan realized that she had severely underestimated Dead Hand's defenses. After leaving Millisyn somewhere safe, she charged out of the Rat Tunnels with overwhelming force and climbed onto the rooftop.
Leaning down to look, she could see more than a dozen people within range of her naked eye who had heard the gunshots and were now moving toward her.
If she and Valera had acted according to their original plan, their situation would only have been worse. It would have been very hard to infiltrate without being discovered, and eventually it would have turned into a firefight anyway.
But now someone was sharing the pressure for her, so Joan did not feel it was that dangerous.
Against just these people, she was still confident she could escape.
Very quickly, the Dead Hand members surrounding her saw a young woman suddenly streak over their heads. Along with her came a metal sphere dropping into the middle of their group.
After a few short seconds, a massive explosion followed.
Joan turned back from a nearby rooftop and looked at the flames rising into the sky. She smiled.
"That's some real firepower."
Amir had already walked out of the room. The residents in this part of the city no longer dared show their faces. Most of them had hidden inside their homes. Those with basements had shrunk down into their basements, doing whatever seemed safest.
Dead Hand was vicious and brutal even in ordinary times. Only by paying enough protection money could one live in peace for a while. But if someone accidentally provoked them, it did not matter whether protection money had been paid or not. They would still lose a layer of skin. If they ran into a particularly cruel bastard, they might even be beaten to death on the spot.
Now Dead Hand was clearly making some major move. None of the residents dared cause trouble. They could only hide in their homes and pray they would not be dragged into it.
The room Amir had just slipped into had a basement, where two people were hiding.
Without letting them notice him, Amir found an opportunity and walked out.
He had already learned the direction of Dead Hand's camp. Now he needed to figure out how to get there.
Ahead, a Rodian was walking over when a man stopped him.
"Someone's broken in," the man said.
"I saw it. Plenty of people are definitely going to try their luck with us today. We'd better keep them blocked, or Nuruddin will settle accounts afterward." The Rodian took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. Before he could light it, an explosion went off in the distance, startling him so badly that the cigarette fell from his hand.
"What the hell?!"
"Looks like this isn't some blind little brat. Bombs with that kind of power aren't something ordinary people can get. I'll go take a look. You hurry and report to the boss!" The man grabbed his blaster and ran toward the direction of the explosion.
The Rodian crouched down, picked up the cigarette, flicked off the dust, and quickly turned to leave.
Amir, hiding in a nearby corner, heard the entire conversation. He released the spider robot from his bracer.
"Beep beep beep!" BD-4 called a few times from the eaves above Amir's head.
"You go too, BD-4. Stay close to that Rodian."
BD-4 nodded and vanished across the rooftop.
Its small frame was very difficult to notice.
Amir began to wait. Rushing out carelessly would make him far too easy to discover. It was better to let the two robots scout the situation first. If following that Rodian could lead them to Dead Hand's boss, Nuruddin, then many things would become much easier.
32 was very clear about his role. With his powerful body, he needed to draw away a large number of enemies.
After repeatedly leaping across rooftops, 32 relied on the automatic gun barrels behind him to clear out all the rooftop lookouts.
Once that was done, 32 estimated the number of pursuers behind him, decisively dropped into an alley, and activated the lightsaber in his hand.
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🌌 STAR WARS: RELICS OF THE PAST
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