Chapter 290: Fog
Guided by the small snake on her wrist, Kazumi passed through several dark alleys, finally arriving at a secluded corner on the south side of the building.
This seemed to be the back kitchen of the restaurant. The narrow, damp path was full of black garbage bags and scattered food scraps, leaving only a small passage wide enough for vehicles to pass. The girl’s leather boots made crisp sounds as they stepped on puddles, and the surrounding air was filled with the unpleasant smell of mixed food and garbage.
Kazumi’s cold and aloof face showed no extra expression. She raised her wrist to glance at the small purple snake still coiled around her hand, then walked towards a dilapidated iron gate at the end of the alley.
“Knock, knock, knock—”
The crisp knocking sound echoed in the silent alley, and then quickly fell silent.
After a long while, with the eerie sound of chains being loosened, the dilapidated iron gate slowly opened from the inside. A tall man with a stocky build and a stiff face appeared before Kazumi. The TV station ID card hanging around his neck confirmed his identity.
“Coffin?”
Like the wail of the dead from hell, the man’s mouth was slightly ajar, and his voice from his throat was a dry, eerie, and strange tone. It was vaguely discernible that he was calling out his codename.
“Mhm, it’s me.”
The girl was not intimidated by such a thing. She held up her wrist and swayed the purple snake wrapped around it, as a form of identification.
The faint purple light flashing on the little snake made the muscular man nod stiffly. He placed one hand on the iron gate, revealing half his body to signal the girl to enter. Kazumi nodded in return, the skull energy on her wrist slowly lit up, and she walked straight into the gate.
…
The subsequent route was similar to what the girl had imagined. Led by the muscular man, they passed through the restaurant’s stairs to the side door on the second floor, and then used the access card from him to directly enter the security staircase of the TV tower from the restaurant.
Silently following the muscular man, the girl’s mind was filled with one question after another.
Although she understood that the TV tower in the center of the North City was the place where the black mist was most released, Masashi Sakuraba should also know that Kazumi had the ability to fly. Releasing the black mist directly with a large number of corpse crows seemed much faster and safer than taking this roundabout way to follow him.
[Is it to coordinate with the magic array’s timing?]
At this moment, Kazumi frowned. After thinking for a while, she came up with a slightly plausible reason, but in her thought, her speed of climbing the stairs slowed down.
“Need some help?”
A hoarse voice came from in front of the girl. Kazumi looked up and saw a pale, robust arm and a stiff face like that of a dead person.
“No need.”
Kazumi was somewhat stunned by the man’s unexpected action, but she quickly adjusted and replied plainly.
“Do we have to walk?”
She looked up at the endless, towering security staircase. Even if it didn’t directly connect to the top floor, the number of floors below was already a height that a civilian could not ascend.
“Mhm, I’ve handled this area, so it won’t be detected by the magic array.”
The man stopped at the girl’s question, responding intermittently in a stiff and hoarse voice.
“Magic array?”
Kazumi was slightly surprised by the man’s answer, as magic arrays seemed to have little to do with heroes, and were more like the methods of psychics, her old adversaries.
“It’s a vigilance magic array set up to prevent the revival of the Great Serpent.”
The man nodded and continued to answer Kazumi’s question concisely.
“Then what is my real purpose here? Anyone can release the black mist, right?”
The man’s words sparked a guess in Kazumi’s heart, but she continued to ask.
Kazumi had collected quite a bit of information about the urban legends of the World-Ending Serpent online. Although most of it was folklore, she learned from Masashi Sakuraba that these urban legends were not fabricated. In Kyoto, a city of over ten million people, there was indeed a seal on a demon god capable of destroying the city.
If her purpose here was not just to release the black mist in the center of the city, then the only explanation was…
“Bait.”
The dry, low tone speak out the answer the girl had been contemplating matter-of-factly. The man turned around, his eyes, which only had whites, staring quietly at Kazumi, who had stopped walking.
“Several heroes are guarding this place as the main array eye. Someone needs to attract their attention so that the other formations can be successfully arranged.”
The words of the man in front of her successfully explained Kazumi’s doubts all along, or rather, her true mission now?
As Kazumi thought, if it were simply to release the black mist, anyone could have done it, and there would have been no need to specifically choose her for such a task.
But if it were bait, everything made sense. Masashi Sakuraba valued her energy control abilities and also her combat capabilities. Combined with the previously known intelligence that Masashi Sakuraba lacked subordinates, he assigned her such a mission.
“Mhm, are there any backup preparations?”
After a slight pause, the girl raised her head, her words still icy.
“Bombs have been planted in the surrounding buildings, but the predicted effect won’t be very good.”
Kazumi nodded in agreement with his words. After all, with the current efficiency of heroes in disaster relief, and with specialized heroes guarding this place as a key area, unless people were directly blown up, it would probably not even be enough to cause a stir.
“I understand.” “How much can you help me?”
After thinking for a moment, Kazumi no longer cared about Masashi Sakuraba’s plan. Although the entire mission should be the decision of the organization’s leader, Masashi Sakuraba, as an executive, clearly had his own plans.
And the only thing she, a chess piece with a little power, could do was probably what he told her.
Live on…
“Information, only information.”
A flicker of emotion flashed in the man’s eyes at the girl’s expression. He took out a document from his pocket and handed it over.
After quietly finishing reading the document in her hand, the dark green death aura condensed in her hand, and the original paper turned into dust like withered leaves, disappearing into the stairwell.
…
On the empty rooftop of the TV tower, the girl stood alone on the rooftop, recalling the last piece of intelligence the man had told her as he left. The emotions in her eyes finally turned into nothingness.
“Let’s begin.”
A jet-black coffin appeared out of nowhere. The girl reached out and took out a swirling mass of black mist from it. Looking at the time on her mobile phone, it finally ticked over to the next hour. Kazumi closed her five fingers slightly and crushed the air mass in her hand with force.
“Crack—”
A sound like shattering glass rang out in the girl’s hands. The next moment, a terrifying black mist, accompanied by a huge energy fluctuation, shot straight into the sky.
