The group gathered together and briefly discussed the upcoming combat plan.
In practice, it was mainly Arden and Yanagi doing the talking. On Yunkui Summit's side, everyone followed Arden's lead, while on Hollow Special Operations Section 6's side, Deputy Section Chief Tsukishiro Yanagi had the final say.
Due to the urgency of the situation, they reached a conclusion within a single minute.
Yanagi, Ju Fufu, and Arden—whose speed was the fastest—along with Yiji as the guide, would pursue Section Chief Hoshimi Miyabi and assist her in suppressing the Overlord-class Ethereal: Nidhogg.
Soukaku, whose speed was slower, and Harumasa, whose stamina was extremely poor, would stay behind to protect the female staff member while dealing with Ethereal fodder that might interfere with the operation.
.....
Whoosh whoosh~!
Arden and Yanagi ran shoulder to shoulder, turning into two shadows as they advanced at extreme speed.
Ju Fufu, carrying Yiji and the scouting equipment, ran at the very front.
"The section chief is over there!"
Yanagi sensed a distant figure and pointed out the direction to Ju Fufu, who was leading the way.
"Rawr~!"
In the next instant, Ju Fufu pivoted at an unbelievable speed like a tiger chasing prey, lunging straight toward where Miyabi had appeared.
.....
Miyabi was extremely fast, but because she had to deal with Ethereals blocking the way, she was eventually caught up to by the four.
"You… came."
She looked at the four who had caught up, speaking calmly with little expression on her face.
"Yeah, we happened to run into you, so we came to help."
Arden didn't mind Miyabi's attitude. She was usually like this—it wasn't disdain or any kind of objection.
"Thanks."
Miyabi nodded, then her gaze fell on the unfamiliar Yiji.
"Oh, this is Yiji, a newly joined disciple of Yunkui Summit. Her Proxy skills are pretty good," Arden introduced briefly.
"Hello."
Miyabi reached out her hand in a friendly manner.
"Y-you too!"
Yiji excitedly shook Miyabi's hand, her eyes full of admiration—after all, a Void Hunter was the ceiling of combat power in New Eridu.
Yiji had once heard that their Silver Squad had been modeled after a certain Void Hunter.
Of course, it definitely wasn't the long-eared fox Thiren standing before her.
"Um… Miss Miyabi, you wouldn't happen to be cultivating right now, would you?"
Seeing Miyabi speaking in a somewhat strange manner, Arden asked.
He had a deep impression of Miyabi's various bizarre cultivation methods—bordering on trauma.
The "castration" cultivation during their first meeting had almost cost him his manly dignity. Since transmigrating, it had been the closest he'd come to his life being over—closer even than the Fall of the Old Capital.
"Yes. Speaking. Must. Two. Words. Cultivation."
"Uh… alright."
Arden's mouth twitched.
Although the two-word cultivation wouldn't harm him, in some ways it was even more abstract than the "castration" cultivation.
"Time. Urgent. Chase."
It had to be said—Hoshimi Miyabi speaking individual words at a time was actually kind of cute.
.....
Chasing, and actually catching up, were two completely different concepts.
Before Arden and the others joined, Miyabi had chased Nidhogg for a long time without catching it. After they joined, although there were now helpers to clear the Ethereals blocking the way, they still couldn't catch up.
This won't work!
Even after placing speed-enhancing talismans on everyone, the distance between them and Nidhogg was indeed shrinking—but the pursuit was still too slow.
Arden looked toward the massive pitch-black rift in the distant sky. That was a spatial rift leading to the deeper layers of Hollow Zero. If Nidhogg escaped into it, pursuing it again would become impossible.
By Arden's estimation, at their current speed, there was no way they could catch up to Nidhogg before it reached the gigantic spatial rift.
For the sake of achievements and the newly appeared mission rewards, Arden didn't want to give up.
"Fufu!"
He shouted to Ju Fufu ahead of him. "Four-wheel-drive mode!"
"Got it!"
Ju Fufu changed her running posture while carrying the equipment and Yiji. She set Yiji and the equipment down, then dropped to all fours and sprinted like a tiger.
"Sister Yanagi, keep an eye on Yiji."
At this point, there was no longer any need for Yiji to guide them—Nidhogg could be tracked by sight alone.
"Mm."
"Senior Brother Arden, Senior Sister Fufu, please be careful!"
Yanagi and Yiji gradually fell behind. At this moment, only Arden, Ju Fufu, and Hshimi Miyabi remained in the pursuit team.
"Miss Miyabi, please get on."
Arden patted Miyabi on the shoulder with one hand and pointed at Ju Fufu in "four-wheel-drive mode" with the other.
His meaning was obvious—riding Ju Fufu would be faster.
"..."
Miyabi looked at Ju Fufu running up beside her and even brushing against her, her expression turning rather strange.
Ju Fufu on four legs was indeed faster than her on two—but riding her somehow felt… odd.
In Miyabi's mind, an image surfaced of herself riding a ferocious tiger while chasing an evil dragon—only for the tiger beneath her to go poof and turn into a tabby cat.
"What are you hesitating for? Fufu won't mind. If we let Nidhogg get away, tracking it again will be extremely difficult."
Arden urged her on.
"Mm-hm, with me carrying you, we can definitely catch up… If we don't eliminate Nidhogg this time, even more investigators and soldiers will fall victim to it!"
"I know. Understood!"
Miyabi shook her head, throwing aside all the random thoughts. This wasn't the time to worry about trivial matters—intercepting and eliminating Nidhogg was the top priority.
And so, the utterly outrageous scene of "a fox riding a tiger" came into being.
.....
Whoosh~!
With Miyabi on her back, Ju Fufu suddenly accelerated.
"Celestial Talisman Arts:Haste!"
Arden also activated [Celestial Talisman Arts]. A layer of golden light covered his body, and his speed increased accordingly, allowing him to keep up with Ju Fufu.
Although the spell couldn't last long, and Ju Fufu's stamina wasn't particularly outstanding either, it was more than enough to cover the distance needed to catch up to Nidhogg.
However, Arden had only estimated the distance—he had overlooked the height.
"Sigh~ Is this as far as we go?"
Riding Ju Fufu, Miyabi stopped at the edge of a cliff, gazing up diagonally at Nidhogg and letting out a regretful sigh.
Nidhogg and the gigantic spatial rift were clearly not far away, yet the three of them were powerless—because the road had come to an end.
The surrounding space was chaotic and disordered. The rift caused gravitational anomalies, turning what had once been solid ground into countless pieces of construction debris floating in midair, becoming obstacles to their pursuit instead.
Miyabi couldn't think of a solution—she even stopped her two-word cultivation.
"..."
Arden gazed at the dragon-shaped Ethereal as it drew closer to the massive spatial rift, his brows knitting together.
"If only I'd borrowed the Qingming Bird."
Arden's dao arts weren't advanced enough to allow aerial flight, but the Bird Feed Pills he refined were enough to make the Qingming Bird obey him and be put to use—and Master Yixuan certainly wouldn't refuse the request of her beloved disciple.
Unfortunately, there were no "what ifs" in reality. Remembering the Qingming Bird now was already too late.
Still, as always, Arden didn't want to give up a piece of fat that was already at his mouth.
"We can't let it escape… catching it again would be a pain… huh?"
Suddenly, inspiration struck—Arden thought of a way.
===BREAK===
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