Arknights, but the sickly pretty girl starts

"...Knowing this is enough. I believe she can give the answer. Our suffering will always be there. Perhaps you can also give an interesting enough answer."

Noah's connection with Luo was cut off, or rather, Noah took the initiative to cut off her connection with Luo and broke away from Hai Si's stream of consciousness. When she came to her senses, she felt some sticky liquid on her cheek. She stretched out her hand and confirmed that it was a piece of broken flesh and blood.

Sure enough... while he was in contact with Luo, Skadi and Mace were killing people.

While protecting themselves who had lost consciousness, they killed a large group of Hai Si with the strength of the two of them. Now, I am still lying in Jian's arms. After realizing that I have woken up, Jian whispered something.

"Finally awake? My eldest lady?"

"Sorry..." Noya knew that her sudden loss of consciousness must have frightened them, but she did gain some important information from this adventure. "But this time, it's not a loss."

Precious was still staring at him, so Noah certainly couldn't tell him the details of what happened between him and Luo. He just smiled, and Jian also knew what Noah meant, so he didn't ask any further questions.

However, when Skadi discovered that Noah had woken up, she immediately ran over. "Why did he suddenly faint? Was he attacked by Hai Si?"

"No, I just tried it out, but I didn't have enough skills." Noah waved his hand quickly, "Skadi, where are we now?"

"After we repelled Hai Si, we kept heading in the direction you pointed. However, the size of this underground cave is indeed a bit exaggerated. We were resting after repelling several waves of Hai Si's attacks."

Skadi heaved a sigh of relief after knowing that Noah was fine. "But I feel a little strange. It's like these sea creatures are deliberately driving us in a certain direction..."

"...I see." Noya thought for a moment and understood the situation. "Perhaps, we have indeed fallen into their trap, but it doesn't matter - these sea heirs want to trap us, so we will just follow their will."

"……What's the meaning?"

"Keep it a secret for now, but I can guarantee our safety."

Skadi's premonition was correct. These sea creatures were indeed driving Noah and others away, and the one manipulating the actions of the sea creatures was Quintus, the bishop of the Deep Sea Church. He felt that his plan was going smoothly.

After Noah and the others were driven into the real encirclement, he would naturally be able to capture Noah. As for the deep-sea hunter and the terrifying Caprini, he didn't care at all.

There was something about Noah Kyrielight that concerned him.

If he was not mistaken, Noa was most likely the holder of the telepathic Originium technique.

What he wanted was to let Hai Si devour Noah's talent, so that Hai Si, who had the telepathic Originium skills, would cause great trauma to Agor and Iberia.

——This will bring him one step closer to his grand plan.

But he didn't notice that beside him, the look in Gloria's eyes was hidden under the brim of her hat.

The corners of her mouth lifted slightly——

Who was really driven into the trap?

Chapter 20: Ulpian ~ Among Men...

The three of them fought and retreated. Following Noah's instructions, they did not counterattack Hai Si too fiercely. On the contrary, they adjusted their positions almost completely according to Hai Si's instructions. Soon, they came to a deep pit that looked like a trap. After arriving here, Hai Si finally stopped chasing them. These blue-gray monsters completed Quintus's instructions and simply blocked the entrances and exits and no longer attacked inside.

After the three of them entered this place, Skadi's face changed immediately. It was not because of anything else, but because there was a huge glass container where they were, and inside the glass container was the Ghost Shark Operator Laurentina who had not been seen for a long time. At this moment, she was like a baby curled up in the womb, suspended in a transparent liquid.

"Shark!" Skadi was indeed a little panicked when she shouted Laurentina's nickname. She didn't know why Laurentina appeared here. You know, Laurentina was taken away by Gloria. If Laurentina was caught, what about Gloria?

The Second Captain was actually captured by Hai Si? How is this possible?!

Skadi immediately stepped forward, intending to free Laurentina, but her sword was blocked by a familiar weapon while she was swinging. The two weapons of the same origin collided with each other, and bright sparks burst out in the dark dungeon. Skadi acted hastily and was easily repelled, but she did not care about being repelled. Instead, she looked at the person in front of her in disbelief.

The one who stopped her from saving Laurentina was...

"Second Captain! What the hell are you doing!?"

That's right, the person who appeared in the darkness and blocked Skadi's sword was actually Goletia. Why was she here? Or, why was she with these sea creatures? Why did they stop her from saving the ghost shark?

Confusion, doubt, and even anger collided with each other in Skadi's heart. She was still unwilling to believe the possibility she had just come up with.

"Second Captain, why are you just watching... Have you betrayed us?!" Skadi asked loudly, but Gloria did not respond. She just stood in front of the Ghost Shark, like an insurmountable wall.

"Calm down, Skadi. Perhaps it's not what you think," Noah said. "Ms. Goletti, it's been a long time. I didn't expect to see you again in a situation like this. I think... you don't want to explain too much at this time."

"..." A smile appeared on the corner of Goletia's mouth. "As you expected, Miss Noa Kyrielight."

Of course, Noah could easily sense Gloria's emotions. This kind of calmness was really not what a betrayer should be like, so Noah did not doubt her at all, but just asked Skadi to retreat for the time being.

If Gloria wants to act, then just play along with her. Anyway, the real mastermind behind the scenes probably can't hold back any longer.

Sure enough, soon a figure slowly emerged from the darkness.

"I'm sorry, this invitation might be a bit violent, and I don't want that to happen. But if violence is a path to mutual understanding, then I don't think it's a bad thing."

Quintus, the Deep Sea Bishop of Saltwind City, finally officially met Noya and the others. He looked like a gaunt old man, dressed in a dark green robe, and exuded a lingering smell of decay. He walked over to Goletia's side, a smile on his face.

"She's your friend, right?" Quintus said, pointing to the ghost shark suspended in a glass container behind him, its life or death unknown. "I know your doubts. Entering this place, diving into the underground undercurrent, facing betrayal by a trusted superior, and witnessing the unknown fate of your friend—truly, most people would be on the verge of collapse by now. Fortunately, you are a strong deep-sea hunter, aren't you?"

Skadi opened her eyes wide, anger brewing in her eyes, like lava hidden beneath the ground, with a temperature high enough to burn everything.

"What are you talking about?"

"Calm down, Skadi, he's just trying to make you lose your mind." Noah immediately spoke to calm Skadi's anger, "This... I'm sorry, I don't know how to address you. As a last courtesy, you'd better not say those weird riddles anymore. Now we need to get straight to the point. Let's speak frankly, shall we?"

"Of course, of course, Miss Noa Kyrielight, you don't need to worry. You're our honored guest, and it wasn't easy to invite you here." Quintus rubbed his palms, smiling. "Let's start from the beginning. You disrupted my plan. You blocked the evolution of the people of Saltwind City. You used the science and technology you brought to drive them astray. Of course, I'm not angry about this. It just means they're not firmly on the right path. This isn't a bad thing. Truth becomes clearer through debate. Both they and you will understand my good intentions."

"Humans do make their own choices in the end, but that choice shouldn't be about poisoning their food and waiting for it to take effect – you're depriving them of their right to choose."

Noah snorted coldly. She had seen the fate of the infected people, so she naturally could not be shaken by such stupid words. On the contrary, she only thought that Quintus in front of her was a vicious cult leader.

"The right to choose? Did the Iberian Inquisition, which abandoned them here, give them the right to choose? I gave them food and the right to live, Noah Kyrielight. Compared to you, I am the prophet who saved them from danger. Without me, they would have no way of waiting for you, nor would they have been able to obtain treatment and food. And now you are accusing me of depriving them of the right to choose? No, there was no choice in the first place! Only life and death!"

Quintus sneered. He thought Noah's words were childish and stupid.

"Do you think you are a saint spreading the gospel? No, you are just a demon that prevents them from entering the next stage! Let us see your bloodline, your filthy bloodline, the nightmare - the descendant of the demon who once trampled the earth and whipped everything. How can you talk about "choice"? Did your ancestors ever give the conquered a choice? You are nothing but a stupid hypocrite -"

Quintus' words became more and more contemptuous, but soon he changed the subject.

"However, even so, you have your merits." Quintus smiled. "That is why you are allowed to meet me, Noah Kyrielight. You will become a part of our grand blueprint, and you will become a greater existence than you can imagine."

At this moment, beside Quintus, a strange creature with the body appearance of both an amphibian and a fish crawled out of the water, and came to Noah step by step. Noah stopped the mace-wielding hand and waited for the other party to do something.

The strange creature raised its head, opened its mouth towards Noah, and cried like a baby.

Noah was confused at first, then randomly, the second, third, fourth... these similar sea urchins emerged from the water, slowly crawled to Noah's side, and cried like babies.

At first they cried, then they spoke clearly in human language...

"Magician sister..."

"Want to perform...magic?"

"Sister...I want to see some magic..."

"..." Noah's eyes lit up slightly. After seeing the faces of these monsters and hearing their words, even she could not suppress her inner anger at this moment.

"……them……"

"Haha... Aren't they the kids you met on your first day in Saltwind City?"

"……you……"

"Ms. Noah, aren't you very curious about why that child came before you and evolved?" Quintus smiled. "Because I asked him to go. I asked him to go see you, and the same goes for these children. These sea heirs inherited the memories of those children. They remember you, and they long to see you—"

——They are waiting for you.

"Very good." Noah smiled instead of getting angry, raising his head. "Is this what you wanted to tell me?"

"...Angry? Why should you be angry?" Quintus laughed. "It's precisely because you can't see the road ahead clearly. You don't know what the future holds. You're just a fool, a fool controlled by your emotions! It doesn't matter. Maintain your anger. The angrier you are, the more your heart wavers, and the more you'll realize—you can't do anything. Can you save the entire Saltwind City? Do you think you can turn the tide? Do you know? With a single command from me, all the seamen waiting along the coast will come ashore, and that small camp you've built will be destroyed in an instant—everything you've done is for nothing."

Quintus provoked Noah's anger. He deeply understood that this was the only way to make Noah's spirit flawed.

What she really cared about was never herself.

"Well, now, make a choice - do you want to evolve here? Or let the entire camp be destroyed?" Quintus did not give the people of Saltwind City a choice, but gave Noah a choice.

On one side are the people of Saltwind City. As long as she nods, the people of Saltwind City can be spared. But at what cost?

Become... Haisi?

Noya raised her head, her eyes gleaming as she gazed at Quintus. She had seen the noblest knights, and the most despicable demons. She rarely got angry, and the only time she did so was when she failed to stop the bombardment in Hill County, when she vented her anger on the culprit. Of course, she had also manipulated Operator Reed to burn the culprit to death, though it was irreparable... but...

This doesn't mean some people shouldn't die—

Noah Kyrielet did have murderous intent, and this murderous intent instantly caused the temperature of the entire cave to drop. This pure murderous intent made Quintus feel cold all over, but he thought he had already controlled Noah, and as a hostage in the Saltwind City camp, he had already been invincible.

At this moment, a sharp blade suddenly appeared on his neck. Quintus' smile froze instantly. He slowly turned his head, only to see that Goletia's weapon was already against his throat.

"Golatia? What are you doing?" he asked. "Don't you want to save Laurentina? No one can save her except me. You have no choice."

"...I think now is the right time." Gloria remained silent. Honestly, she'd acted a little too early, but she had a premonition that if she didn't act now, something unforeseen would happen. "Hand over the Ghost Shark's healing method and disperse the Sea Si surrounding Saltwind City. Quintus, you have no choice now."

"Gladiya!" The most surprised person was, of course, Skadi. As expected, Gladiya hadn't betrayed them. She had only endured the humiliation and gone undercover for Shark's treatment.

"...Golatia, you're really bad at disguising yourself. Do you think—do you really think you're one of us?" Quintus laughed hoarsely. "Let me tell you, the attack on Saltwind City had already begun before I decided to show up. As for Laurentina's treatment? That doesn't exist. The amount of Originium solution in Laurentina's spinal fluid is enough to infect a small country. From the very beginning—I didn't intend to give you a choice, idiot."

puff-

As Quintus said this, Goletia's long sword had already pierced through Quintus' chest and lifted him up high.

"—Idiot. Do you really think I haven't thought about this?"

-

On the coastline of Yanfeng City, Haisi are coming ashore and attacking all living things on land according to the instructions of their compatriots.

Although their number is small, half of the high-level combat forces in the camp have left. These number of Hai Si are enough to cause a massacre. Although Hai Si do not have the concept of massacre in their minds, they are indeed obedient and listen to their compatriots.

They climbed onto the shore, sharpened their claws, and devoured all the living creatures on the shore.

Return to the group——

But they didn't notice that there was a man standing on the shoreline, a masked man holding a huge anchor.

"The numbers...are they just this much?" He muttered to himself as he gazed at the swarm of sea urchins that had already crawled onto the shore. "That's a lot easier than I thought."

He raised the anchor in his hand and pulled the iron chain made of fine steel. The heavy anchor in his hand was as light as a toy. Then, he exerted all his strength and threw the anchor directly out. The anchor made a terrifying sonic boom in the air. Hai Si naturally could not have failed to notice the movement, but when they raised their heads.

Destruction has come—

Boom...

A huge pit appeared on the coast, with the anchor as the center. The terrifying energy like a meteorite falling to the ground instantly evaporated the pioneering sea tribe, and even the vibration was felt in the camp.

"Now, it's time to clear the waterway." The indifferent man appeared in Hai Si's sight only slightly slower than the anchor. He pulled the anchor from the ground, carried it on his shoulder, and walked towards the group of strange-looking Hai Si step by step.

Hai Si, who had no idea what fear was, stared at this man, a monster who seemed to them closer to them than to humans.

It has only one thought.

Preying… He was preying.

Chapter 21: Blockade

After Hai Si came ashore, the surveillance equipment originally set up by Noah started to work, and the evacuation was immediately stopped in the camp. The camp was made up of mobile houses. The advantage was that the construction speed was extremely fast, but the weakness was that it was relatively fragile. In this case, it was impossible to use the camp as a defensive stronghold, so the only way left was to evacuate the crowd. Muirseth and Dorothy who stayed in the camp reacted quickly, and with Ulpian's delay, they successfully evacuated most of the residents of Saltwind City from the camp. In the absence of Noah, they could not make up their minds - after all, the current residents of Saltwind City had no combat effectiveness.

With the camp's strongest fighters having left the scene, they really didn't have much room to resist.

"No, I have to go back. That mysterious hunter may be powerful, but how can one person withstand so many sea monsters?" Muirseth said to Dorothy beside him. "Dorothy, take everyone to the laboratory. The defense facilities there are more solid. I'll go back and take a look."

Dorothy didn't say much. At the seaside, if Noah, Skadi, and Mace were not counted, Muirses, who had sufficient support from water molecules, was the strongest, and she was the only one who could delay for a while.

They have to delay long enough before Noah comes back from investigating.

As Muirseth turned back to support Ulpian, Dorothy's eyes fell on the transmitter storage tank that had been specially escorted here. Although her original intention in developing transmitters was not to use them as weapons to take lives, she also knew that transmitters could save lives, but they could also kill people. These nano-scale creations were both good medicine and deadly poisons. Dorothy's body had long been injected with transmitters. Through these transmitters in her body, she could remotely control and even manipulate them... But once this was started, it was hard to say whether it would not be noticed. If the military targeted her...

She didn't want the transmitter to become a murder weapon, but if the transmitter could protect these people...

Being a kindhearted woman, she was torn between two options, but now she didn't have much time to think. The consequences... were not something she could consider.

-

"So that's how it is. So there are still some bastards alive—" Inside the underground cave, Quintus immediately understood why Goletia was so confident. There were actually other deep-sea hunters in Saltwind City. "You bastards, how could you not have died off back then?"

"Actually, I'm surprised too, but this is not something you should consider." Gloria's long sword had pierced Quintus' chest. If he were a human, he would have been dead by now, but obviously, Quintus had already crossed the barrier of humanity. The next moment, Quintus, who was skewered on the long sword, let out an inhuman scream, and his human flesh swelled and cracked, with countless branches pulling out of his body. The rapidly increasing size and mass forced Gloria to throw him to the ground and then quickly retreat.

Quintus—no, the individual originally named Quintus had begun some kind of irreversible transformation. The object that was originally human-shaped had begun to collapse. At this moment, inside the transparent container behind Quintus, the Sleeping Beauty quietly opened her eyes.

She stretched out her body like a baby who had just woken up. After stretching, she punched the glassware.

The terrifying power of the deep-sea hunter instantly penetrated the reinforced glass, and as a large amount of Originium solution splashed everywhere, Laurentina had just escaped, and Skadi understood and immediately threw the box she had been carrying at her.

"shark!"

"Understood!" The box containing the weapons was smashed directly by the shark, and the weapon belonging to her fell into her hands.

Suddenly, the roar of a chainsaw was heard in the underground cave. The next moment, the sharp saw blade was spinning at high speed and came into close contact with Quintus' mutated flesh and blood. A blue-gray liquid - probably blood - splashed as the chainsaw rotated. The strange shriek like a curse resounded throughout the entire underground cave.

There are three deep-sea hunters here, Goladia, Laurentina, and Skadi. This is not good news for Quintus.