Bella's new plan was also filled with uncertainty. How to engineer a collision between Death and the curse, how to ensure the two forces didn't fuse together and wipe out the survivors—no one knew. It was all guesswork with what they had.
The original plan—locking Death inside a giant metal container—wasn't scrapped. Instead, it was combined with Bella's plan as a backup.
There had been sixty-one survivors of Flight 180. Five were already dead. Some were abroad, others completely untraceable. In the end, only forty-two survivors were gathered.
Unlike Bella—who encountered countless wandering ghosts on the road, every one of them eager to mess with her—Victoria Hand's presence made even the ghosts stay away.
Not only were there no bureaucratic obstacles, but the spirits vanished too. Bella couldn't help doubting the world again. Is this a universe where rank overrides fate? Not Marvel? Do ghosts fear government officials here? What about the ones run over on the highway, the decapitated ones, the ones stuffed into concrete pillars? Where are you all? Come say hi to Victoria Hand! Make friends!
From Arizona, they crossed New Mexico and headed into Oklahoma.
They encountered five lethal traps on the way.
The first four targeted survivors. The agents were agile, well-trained, their reaction speed far surpassing civilians—saving four people was effortless. But the fifth attack shifted its target: one of the agents who had rescued someone earlier.
Death no longer cared about rules. Whoever interfered became the next target.
"This is good news," Victoria Hand said.
Bella, as the creator of the plan, silently agreed. She had long noticed Death was strongest when focused on a single individual. Humans couldn't stay alert forever—one moment of rest, one surprise strike, and it was over.
Unless you were someone whose body was as hard as reinforced steel, the kind who could tank a point-blank anti-materiel round to the eye, even most supernaturals were vulnerable if Death caught them off guard while resting.
The core of Bella's plan was to introduce variables—the more lifeforms involved, the better.
On her way to Arizona, she'd already discovered Death's intelligence wasn't high. Its behavior had become especially chaotic when dealing with the three vampires.
Three vampires and it got confused... so what happens when it faces tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of undying insects?
She really looked forward to that scenario.
During a rest stop, Bella asked Claire to teach her how to use a handgun.
She wasn't old enough to legally carry one, but with almost no offensive abilities, holding a gun would at least give her some sense of security.
Claire agreed, drew her pistol, and prepared to show her how to aim.
But the moment she raised the gun—
A heavyset woman bumped into her from behind.
Bang!
The gun went off.
Thankfully Claire was fast—her wrist twisted outward, and an agent grabbed her arm. They barely prevented young Alex from having his head blown apart.
"Ladies," Victoria Hand said sternly, "I suggest fewer unnecessary actions."
Bella and Claire both laughed awkwardly.
"Yeah. No more gun lessons."
...
Sapulpa Canyon on the plains of Oklahoma perfectly embodied "wide land, few people." The nearest town was ten kilometers away, and reaching it on foot required crossing at least two mountains.
Modern residents no longer remembered the wars between early settlers and Native tribes, but they still instinctively avoided the canyon—no roads, plus old warnings passed down for generations.
Even America's usual daredevils refused to go. The canyon had become a paradise for plants—there was nothing there. Why go? No point.
Some businessmen had plans to build roads and develop a luxury villa district taking advantage of the canyon's natural beauty, but the project remained purely theoretical.
The convoy didn't pass through the town. They took another route into the mountains. Many survivors were overweight, with no stamina at all—yet for the sake of survival, they pushed forward through gritted teeth.
Claire's classmates were fitter than office workers, but even they were exhausted after climbing one mountain.
At first, a few male students were still excited, catching weird bugs in the wild and proudly showing them off to the girls as if proving their courage. Now they were barely alive, drained of all energy.
The only ones still going strong were the agents, Storm, the Redfield siblings, and Bella.
"Bella, your stamina is incredible. Do you exercise a lot?"
Even with her attempts to hide it, Victoria Hand had picked up on something unusual about Bella's physicality.
Bella could only continue promoting Forks High's "joy-based education":
"Yeah, our school makes us take four back-to-back PE classes every week. We have to play four full volleyball matches! And sometimes, after volleyball, we still go play basketball with the boys. The training is insane—my stamina just kind of happened..."
It was a pretty big lie. She'd only been at Forks High for ten days. What "joy-based education" had she really experienced? But the agents didn't care about such trivial details. A transfer student's school life meant nothing to them; they were busy with real work.
Claire, standing next to her, looked shocked. Her shooting and close-combat skills were good, but her stamina was always lacking. Preparing for college meant even less time to exercise.
She could climb two mountains, sure—but nowhere near as effortlessly as Bella.
"With that much training... can the girls at your school even keep up?" she asked.
Keep up? In their dreams!
Bella pictured the glasses girl wheezing like a bellows, and the former school beauty whose head steamed like a dumpling steamer after every match...
But she continued praising Forks High's "joyful curriculum," eager to deflect attention from herself:
"Sometimes after volleyball we still have to practice sprinting, long jump, and indoor rock climbing..."
Is your school raising students or training professional athletes?!
Victoria Hand chuckled. "So Bella, after high school... what's your plan?"
Bella had long decided—she needed to study, and she needed a lot of time.
So she answered firmly, "I want to research the histories of different peoples. History teaches us a lot. Mistakes that have already been made—we shouldn't repeat them."
Not only did she state her aspiration, she also patched up the earlier story about studying Native American history.
"That's actually very nice," Victoria Hand said. "Compared to field agent work, I prefer teaching at a school myself... doing research in the lab."
Bella nodded along politely.