Scattered rocks hit the surrounding police cars, riddling many that couldn't evade with holes, and all the autonomous mechs were turned into scrap metal under this flying assault.
The only silver lining was that. Although the police cars were severely damaged, because they were relatively far away and most only suffered splash damage, there were no major casualties among the police.
With her powerful reflexes, Zhu Yuan had already begun to move the moment the monster burst out of the ground. At the last second, she swerved behind a building, successfully using it to shield herself from the flying debris, making her the only one whose police car still retained its mobility.
But even so, it was useless.
Now, Public Security had lost almost all means of attack, and it would still be a while before autonomous mechs from other areas arrived.
And by the time the military intervened, the forces almost entirely stationed around The Breach would take about as long to arrive as Miyabi would to complete her mission and return. In fact, given Zhu Yuan's speed, she might even arrive first.
By then, the monster would have already fully entered the residential area and caused havoc.
Not to mention, through her recent attempts, Zhu Yuan had to wonder if most of the military equipment, which primarily boasted large yields, could truly pose a threat to this monster.
And in the current situation, relying on Public Security's strength to stop it, or waiting for other entities to come to their aid, was practically a fool's errand.
They were the only ones here, and they could only rely on themselves. But they had already almost completely failed.
"Could it be that we can only succeed in stopping it when Miyabi or Grandmaster Yixuan returns?"
No, that's not right. As long as this monster is a creature, there must be a way to affect it!
She just hadn't found it yet! There must be something she hadn't noticed!
Watching the monster, which seemed to be patrolling its own territory, Zhu Yuan's brain began to spin rapidly, constantly recalling all the details from its appearance until now.
Suddenly, recalling the monster's pained roar during the previous missile explosion, she immediately realized something was amiss.
She had previously thought she misheard about the monster being unharmed. But its continuous head-shaking after the attack couldn't be faked.
And with explosions, high temperatures, and shrapnel all proving ineffective, after eliminating other options, the most unlikely option would become the correct answer.
What truly affected it wasn't the missile explosion itself, but the enormous sound it produced!
This monster was extremely sensitive to sound. If she could find a way, she could definitely alter its course and stop it from continuing toward the city center!
Now that she had an idea, the next step was, of course, to put it into practice.
Zhu Yuan immediately ran toward a truck abandoned on the spot.
With a fierce kick, the hood instantly deformed, revealing the equipment parts beneath.
Her goal was to collect the most common and loudest sound-producing equipment in the surrounding environment: air horns.
The Diablos, feeling the complete absence of noise around it, swung its stone-axe-shaped tail with satisfaction and snorted contentedly.
Like swatting away flies buzzing around it, after achieving its goal, it simply turned its head and continued exploring in its original direction.
Normally, the Diablos wouldn't let a single creature that dared invade its territory or annoy it get away.
But this time was an exception.
To find its own kind, the Diablos, completely uninterested in delays along the way, only stopped for necessary feeding. It had almost never paused.
After all, if its own kind was waiting for it there, specifically eliminating all these small nuisances would be too much of a time-waster.
Being alone for such a long time made it highly prioritize finding its own kind.
Procreation was an instinct shared by every creature.
So, no matter what, its primary goal now was to find its own kind.
Without further delay, the Diablos once again submerged underground to continue searching for traces left by other Diablos.
Whether it was tunnels or scent, no matter what, this time it absolutely had to find the other party!
Holding its breath and focusing, the Diablos underground pushed its auditory nerves to their limit, meticulously discerning every sound from its surroundings with all its might.
Its incredibly keen hearing took in all sounds within several miles.
But it hadn't searched much longer when it suddenly felt those humans above it starting to create some abnormal sounds again.
However, compared to the previous cacophony, with only one car moving and no missile explosions like before, it couldn't affect the Diablos's perception of sound at all.
So the Diablos paid no attention to these subtle noises.
But soon, it paid the price for its oversight.
On the surface, Zhu Yuan watched the traces left by the monster's continuous movement in the distance. Before her were the air horns that all the police officers had collectively gathered from the wreckage of trucks in the surrounding area.
She fixed the horns onto a round plate, then improvised by modifying a barrel into the shape of a large megaphone.
Subsequently, under Zhu Yuan's arrangement, dozens of these makeshift devices were installed in various surrounding areas, pointing straight downwards.
Tolun looked with some hesitation at the rather crude device before him, and then hesitantly asked Zhu Yuan:
"Captain Zhu Yuan, are you sure this thing will really work on that monster?"
Watching the Diablos approach in the distance, Zhu Yuan shook her head.
"I'm not sure, but even if there's only a sliver of possibility, I have to try."
Touching the simple sonic weapon beside her, which was clearly built with brute force, Zhu Yuan said firmly:
"With our current equipment, we can't defeat it. So what we need to do is change its path and stop it from going to the city center!"
Looking at the already very close Diablos, Zhu Yuan unhesitatingly pressed the activation button in her hand.
A tremendous honking sound roared from the air horns directly above it, and amplified by the megaphones, it propagated toward the ground.
Although it couldn't compare to the instantaneous volume of a large-yield bomb explosion, its sustained duration was its strength!
In an instant, the full blast of the air horns made even Zhu Yuan, who was trying to stand as far away as possible, feel her internal organs tremble, and her eardrums became incredibly swollen and painful from the continuous, massive sound.
And for the Diablos, who was fully focused on listening to every movement around it to find its own kind, it was even more unbearable.
Underground, it immediately felt its acute auditory nerves being savagely assaulted.
It was like an electric drill furiously boring into its head, causing throbbing pain.
Although it wasn't enough to make it panic and want to escape from underground like the sonic bombs deployed by humans with oversized weapons during previous battles, its sustained duration was its downfall!
After being dazed and having its ears throb from the noise for just a short while, the Diablos immediately burst out of the ground, letting out an angry roar at the constantly blaring horns in the distance.
With a fierce lunge, the original horn was instantly smashed into a pile of scrap metal by its furious attack.
But then, it was time for the other horns, prepared as a backup, to come into play.
Whenever one horn was destroyed by the Diablos, another would immediately start. One after another, ceaselessly.
At the same time, all remaining missiles were launched at the Diablos's head, completely disregarding potential damage.
The combination was like waking up after an all-nighter, only to find a wedding procession and a line of heavy-duty trucks jammed bumper-to-bumper outside your window, with neither side yielding, one blaring horns and the other setting off firecrackers right there.
Regardless, the Diablos, caught in the center, was starting to buckle under the assault.
When yet another horn began to blare, the already disoriented Diablos had completely lost its patience.
Under the impact of the noise, its perception of everything around it, all processed through hearing, became blurred.
It was like a person with normal vision suddenly becoming severely myopic; everything around it turned into a blur.
The inability to accurately distinguish its surroundings made it incredibly agitated, but the fact that new ones kept popping up no matter how many it destroyed made it suspect it had stumbled into some kind of trap.
This method of guiding it with sound was exactly like the human attack it had encountered that one time. If it stayed any longer, it might just get jumped by four muscular men again and get another beating.
So the Diablos decisively gave up on moving forward and immediately burrowed in another direction.
At the same time, to prevent these humans from further obstructing and tracking it, this time, it decisively chose to submerge deep underground.
On the ruined ground, all the surrounding citizens who felt they had narrowly escaped death remained, along with the police officers who could no longer hold back and collapsed onto the ground, letting out sighs of relief.
"We did it!"
Tolun watched the Diablos turn and leave, excitedly clenching his fist.
However, he didn't receive the same enthusiastic response from the others around him.
Under the setting sun, the flames, deprived of fuel, had already begun to die down. The faces of the other police officers around him, covered in sweat and dust, were etched with profound sorrow.
Although they had succeeded, the original street had been completely reduced to ruins.
Young children were crying, fathers were silently but desperately digging, and yet the monster's invasion had lasted only a mere ten minutes.
Under the monster's actions, even if the residents here were few, and even if all the police officers had done their utmost to rescue them, many people had undoubtedly lost their lives.
Whether they were citizens of New Eridu or wanderers from outside, these were once vibrant lives.
No one could be happy.
The autonomous mechs that had finally arrived for support, after confirming the monster's disappearance, immediately headed to the police officers' location for rescue.
They then activated life-sign detection equipment over the ruins.
And those rescued police officers, as long as their injuries didn't affect their mobility, showed no intention of resting, immediately cooperating with the autonomous mechs to search and rescue survivors.
But the area, which had once been quite lively, was completely transformed into a deathly silence by this invasion.
No one could be happy while facing all of this.
In silence, everyone was doing their best to search for survivors under the ruins. After much deliberation, Zhu Yuan finally decided to take out the healing potions she carried, both for herself and for Senior Qingyi.
After diluting one bottle into a bucket of water, it was distributed to all rescued injured individuals.
But only a little over ten minutes into this rescue, a new communication suddenly came through the walkie-talkie:
"Bad news, Captain Zhu Yuan! We've received a new alarm call; the monster we just drove away has attacked the concert venue! Immediate support for evacuation is needed!"
And the subsequent words from the other end of the line plunged her already heavy heart straight into the abyss.
"How could this be!"
Did New Eridu have to suffer another massive trauma?!
She had seen the venue application file for this concert at Public Security before. For a new idol, it was an application for a large open-air venue.
Even if the entire ground was the stage with no extra seating, the audience present numbered nearly fifteen thousand people.
Adding the staff, there were definitely more than just that many people at the venue!
So she immediately pressed for more information:
"Was the organizer not notified earlier to arrange an evacuation? What's the evacuation status?!"
However, this time, the voice from the walkie-talkie, though anxious, wasn't as panicked as during the previous city invasion.
"DGA Entertainment, upon hearing they were only on the edge of the evacuation zone, and that the monster was nearly four kilometers away from there,"
As the speaker continued, the voice from the walkie-talkie involuntarily turned angry.
"to avoid potential losses from future ticket refunds, they concealed the information and did not follow the arrangements for evacuation."
"What?!"
Hearing this, Zhu Yuan's eyes widened in shock.
Although she knew that those large enterprises in TOPS cared nothing for human lives in pursuit of profit, this time, they were actually gambling with fifteen thousand lives for money?!
But now was not the time to investigate such matters.
"Damn it! I'll immediately take the equipment to the venue and must hold back the monster's movements..."
Before her words even fell, Zhu Yuan immediately slammed on the accelerator, driving the only police car still capable of movement, and rushed toward the venue.
However, an assuring voice then came from the other end of the line, simultaneously filled with immense shock.
"No, you don't need to hold back that monster anymore..."
Hearing this, Zhu Yuan was instantly delighted and immediately asked:
"Has Miyabi or Grandmaster Yixuan returned?! Or another Void Hunter?"
The person on the other end of the walkie-talkie was staring blankly at the scene transmitted before them. When that unimaginable power appeared before her, she finally understood.
What it felt like to be so shocked that one lost the ability to speak.
She merely mumbled in response:
"No, neither. It's a man. He's currently hunting the monster..."
"Hunting?!"
Hearing this, Zhu Yuan thought she had misheard, or that the other party had used the wrong word, and couldn't help but ask for confirmation.
But after snapping out of it, the other person said with even more conviction:
"That's right, hunting!"
Listening to the other party's firm words, Zhu Yuan found it somewhat unimaginable.
As someone who had truly faced that monster, an entity that could ignore all attacks, what kind of presence would it take for it to become a mere prey?
And this mystery would only be completely solved upon reaching the scene.
____
New Story: FGO: Building a Lostbelt from Scratch, the Winner is Canon
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