In the command room, the screens in front of them went black one after another.

With each screen that went dark, Rui’s expression grew a shade darker as well.

Yun Buci stood to one side, arms crossed as she watched, her face showing neither sorrow nor joy.

She had known all along that even with mastery of the most advanced technology and weapons that surpassed this era, they might not be able to capture Tie Ci as easily as Rui and the others believed they could.

In fact, if Tie Ci could continue to avoid death, then most likely all the outsiders would be the ones to die.

The entire planet, the last remaining humans, would lose their only hope of survival.

Watching all the screens go completely black, Rui punched his own leg again.

Yun Buci was quite worried that if he kept punching himself like this, he would eventually break his leg.

“The underground tunnel terrain is winding and complex, and their movement speed is fast. We cannot locate targets from above ground to conduct strikes,” one person reported. “Now all the automatic-following micro cruise aircraft suitable for underground tunnel tracking have been completely destroyed… eh, wait.”

He pointed to several small screens below, which had originally been pitch black but now showed several red and green human-shaped figures.

Rui confirmed these weren’t the automatic-following aircraft they had deployed, and turned to look at Yun Buci.

Yun Buci shrugged and said, “Just some thermal imaging trackers that are about to be phased out.”

“Thermal imaging trackers can’t be equipped with weapons.”

“I made some small modifications,” Yun Buci said. “Our weapons are already insufficient, so we need to conserve resources. You don’t know this, but even weapons that were phased out years ago where we come from are like using a cleaver to kill a chicken when used here.”

…

In the darkness, Pingzong carried Tie Ci on his back, moving forward along the pipeline.

The underground waterways were intricate and complex, but fortunately someone had already made markings earlier, so the three of them followed the path toward the moat.

The tunnel had strong echoes, so when several thin, square boxes quietly floated up in the darkness, no one noticed.

Another barrier appeared ahead, with an arrow beside it pointing toward the moat. From the markings, they weren’t far from leaving the city.

Pingzong set Tie Ci down and reached out to pry at the barrier.

Two square boxes appeared silently behind the three people, merging with the darkness of the tunnel.

…

Several human figures appeared on the display screen, and a mechanical voice sounded: “Three targets detected. Please select target. Please select target.”

“Initiating scan. Scan complete. Of these three people, one is old and frail, one is injured and ill, and the woman on the far right is full of vitality. According to combat rule eighteen, priority strike should target the individual with highest single combat capability. Recommend selecting her as primary target.”

The target circle automatically focused first on the rightmost human figure.

In front of the screen, Yun Buci stared at those three red human figures.

There was a moment of hesitation.

The operator didn’t receive her command and looked back at her in puzzlement.

The churning emotions in Yun Buci’s eyes gradually settled, and she calmly reached out to adjust the button.

The targeting circle shifted from the right to the center.

“Received. Target locked.”

…

At this moment, the blood and qi within Tie Ci gradually calmed, and though her body was still numb, the most painful period had passed. She estimated she would recover in another quarter hour. Seeing Pingzong about to act again, she said irritably, “Why are you always so superstitious about your own martial prowess and refuse to use weapons? With great enemies behind us, wouldn’t it be better to conserve some true qi? You have a folded Abyssal Iron sword in your backpack—use that.”

“No wonder it’s so heavy!” Pingzong removed the backpack tied to her waist and grumbled as she went to retrieve the weapon.

Then she realized and said happily, “You can say such a long string of scolding words—you’re better?”

Tie Ci smiled slightly, “Soon.”

She suddenly stopped speaking and turned her head.

At this moment, her voice, the metallic clashing sounds of weapons, and Jingxu’s footsteps echoed layer upon layer in the tunnel, creating a cacophony.

Tie Ci’s innate abilities were also slowly recovering. She possessed the gift of exceptional hearing, so all sounds were particularly clear and detailed in her ears—not only voices, the metallic clashing of weapons, and footsteps, but also the dripping sounds from cracks in the tunnel, the splashing sounds of rats running through standing water, the rustling sounds of insects crawling over refuse in the distance… and also a rhythmic buzzing sound.

Not the wing-beating sound of insects, but a sound with clear rhythm that had a metallic and mechanical quality.

It was a sound she had grown accustomed to hearing these past few days.

It had been distant just moments ago, but in an instant, it was right beside them!

Tie Ci wanted to strike but still couldn’t gather her qi!

She suddenly grabbed Pingzong’s hand tightly, “There are weapons!”

She used the greatest force she could muster at the moment, her fingernails instantly digging deep into flesh. Pingzong cried out from the pain and instinctively released her defenses.

A layer of frost quickly spread from the Abyssal Iron sword in her hand to her entire body, then extended along her arm to cover Tie Ci.

In the blink of an eye, both became ice figures.

At the same time, a thin, square box with edges flashing cold light suddenly emerged from the darkness.

The thing had originally been heading directly toward Tie Ci’s direction, but suddenly paused, as if momentarily losing its target and feeling confused, then confirmed that the target wouldn’t leave in this extremely short time and continued sliding past.

Bright ice crystals scattered in the darkness.

The thing slid past, its edges sharp and cold as a thin blade, cold light flashing.

Blue-green light suddenly blazed in the dim space, like a great river hanging upside down, splashing out a layer of misty radiance, the dark walls reflecting Pingzong’s figure as she leaped up and struck down.

With a soft hiss, the square box split in two and fell to the ground.

With a bang, Jingxu, who had received the warning, used the light to kick down another square box.

Tie Ci leaned against the tunnel wall, pulling her clothes together, feeling a slight cool pain.

Beneath the ice crystals, four layers of clothing had been completely cut through, and a long bloody gash appeared on her skin surface. Blood covered her hand.

If Tie Ci hadn’t identified that sound hidden in the chaos in time.

If Tie Ci hadn’t stumbled upon the right solution, making Pingzong cover their entire bodies with frost in time, losing heat and causing the thermal imaging to suddenly lose its display.

Then what that thin blade would have cut through now wouldn’t be that layer of ice crystals, but her abdomen.

Pingzong let out a breath and cursed hatefully, “Like ghosts that won’t leave!”

She was about to leave when she saw Tie Ci crouch down, pick up the destroyed square box, and light a fire stick to examine it.

In the firelight, the extremely thin edge of the square box flashed with blue-green light.

Pingzong said in surprise, “Abyssal Iron?”

How could the weapons used by those strange people contain Abyssal Iron?

She was about to ask when she saw Tie Ci’s expression and was immediately stunned.

Jingxu coughed and said coolly, “A filial gift to Master, I suppose? What a very loving Master indeed.”

Pingzong: “If you can’t speak properly, can’t you just shut up!”

“You impudent little girl,” Jingxu frowned at her. “This old man is of the same generation as your parents!”

“My parents must particularly regret being of the same generation as you,” Pingzong looked him up and down. “A useless doctor who gets chased around by people!”

Jingxu angrily drew out his golden needles, and Pingzong swiftly brandished her folded sword.

But both their movements were interrupted by Tie Ci. They saw her write something on the square box, then casually toss it aside and stand up.

Pingzong immediately forgot about fighting and asked curiously, “What did you write?”

Tie Ci turned and led the way out.

She said lightly, “I drew a little heart.”

Pingzong: “…?”

…

Two quarters of an hour later, several fully armed soldiers entered the underground waterway.

To prevent further damage to weapons, they deployed human forces this time to retrieve all weapons lost in the tunnel. This was also a regulation of the Management Division—when using advanced force in low-level civilizations, they couldn’t leave super-era weapons for the local natives.

These soldiers weren’t assigned to continue tracking Tie Ci’s group, but instead brought the abandoned weapons back to headquarters.

Rui stared at the various damaged weapons on the table, his expression very unpleasant.

Just as he was about to order the items to be recycled and reused, he suddenly made a sound of surprise and picked up the thermal imaging tracker that had been cut in two.

On one half, in an inconspicuous corner, was carved a small heart.

Rui could confirm this wouldn’t be a marking that came with the weapon itself—military standard weapons never had such civilian markings.

This kind of marking would only appear on jewelry, flowers, and objects meant to express gratitude and affection.

Rui was silent for a while, his gaze slowly turning toward Yun Buci.

Yun Buci was looking at the main control screen. Half the screen showed the distribution of underground waterways throughout the entire capital, with two lines marked in red indicating the two city gates that Tie Ci’s current position could most likely lead to: Chong’an Gate and Nanping Gate.

The other half showed images transmitted back by drones deployed there, covering both city gates. The drones all had Tie Ci’s data built in—as soon as she appeared, they would immediately confirm the target.

Yun Buci stared at the screen, not noticing Rui’s gaze. Rui scanned over those damaged machines again, thinking of the lights and screens that were first destroyed, thinking of the repeated defeats of the bee drones and nanobots, thinking of Tie Ci’s incredible escapes and her understanding of modern weapons that she shouldn’t possess. The doubt in his eyes grew thicker and thicker.

Finally he said, “Why has the Great Qian Emperor been able to escape for so long and is about to be able to leave the city?”

“Hmm?” Yun Buci, who was watching the screen while slurping ramen, didn’t look up and said, “Naturally because she’s smart enough.”

“It’s not just that,” Rui said. “No matter how smart a person is, they’re still flesh and blood. Facing these weapons, facing such terrifying tracking, and being injured herself—how is it that she shows not the slightest fear or shock, and not only remains calm and composed herself, but even has her companions deal with our machines in a very systematic way?”

Yun Buci’s chopsticks paused, and she slowly raised her head, saying, “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying,” Rui slowed his tone, “why would she draw a heart for you? Is she thanking you?”

Yun Buci: “What?”

Rui threw the machine with the carved heart in front of Yun Buci.

Yun Buci picked up that half of the machine, stared at the little heart for a long moment, then laughed.

“My good disciple,” she laughed, “even while fleeing, she doesn’t forget to sow discord against your Master.”

“Don’t make me sound so stupid,” Rui said coldly. “The Emperor is overly prepared and overly alert. She only has close relations with you here—how do you explain that? Yun, I’m not targeting you personally, but for the safety of all of us and the success of our plan, I need to report this matter to the Management Division and recommend promoting you. This way, we’ll have done right by the contributions you’ve made for everyone before.”

“Oh, you’ve even learned to dress things up nicely. What do you mean promote me? Isn’t it just that you want to remove my command authority and kick me out of the advance team? You need my resources, territory, and connections here, but you don’t need me giving you orders. What a clever scheme.” Yun Buci laughed heartily and flicked her hand, splattering red oil from her disposable chopsticks onto Rui’s nose. “Look, draw a red nose and you look like a clown too.”

Rui turned his head to wipe the red oil from his nose. “Yun! Say whatever you want, but I can’t keep you in the command center. This is being irresponsible toward everyone’s safety!”

“Fine, don’t keep me then.” Yun Buci stood up and patted his shoulder. “There, go ahead, go write your report, go enjoy your exclusive power, just remember not to come crying back to me later.”

“Your saying this makes me even more reasonably suspicious that you’re tipping off the locals! Yun, please immediately surrender your command authority and leave!” Rui shook off her hand and stood to face her.

“Fine. If I have to go, I’ll go.” Yun Buci chuckled and picked up her instant noodles to leave.

“Wait, hand over the main control room access key!”

Yun Buci stopped in her tracks, and after a long moment turned her head and said, “Have you been possessed by nanobots?”

Rui couldn’t understand this ancient professional term and looked blank.

“You’ve seized my territory, taken my power, and you still want me to hand over the access key.” Yun Buci pointed at her nose. “Do I look that easy to bully?”

Rui said nothing and waved his hand.

A group of tall soldiers in armor appeared like ghosts, the muzzles of their pulse rifles all aimed at Yun Buci.

Yun Buci held her instant noodles and looked at those dark gun barrels, then suddenly smiled.

She said to herself, “If little Ci saw this scene, she’d definitely be very happy.”

“Hand it over. I won’t make things difficult for you, a meritorious contributor,” Rui said behind her. “Since you said you came here to endure twenty years of hardship for everyone’s future and the Management Division’s great cause, then you surely wouldn’t want our great cause to be ruined because of friction between you and me. Otherwise, what would all those years of difficult ancient life and your betrayal of the Great Qian Emperor amount to?”

“Sunk cost fallacy, moral blackmail,” Yun Buci said.

Rui fell silent.

“Actually, this doesn’t work on me, because I think that leaving things to an idiot like you would be what really ruins twenty years of my hard work and everyone’s future.”

Rui’s expression became obviously tense, and he glanced at those cold soldiers.

“You know these people…” he said stiffly, “they have no human emotions…”

“I’ll give it to you then.” Yun Buci interrupted him and tossed out a black card. “But I’m not going back. I want to stay here and watch… you all fail.”

Rui caught the card and didn’t bother with her final attack, smiling with rare satisfaction: “Naturally. You should be allowed to share in the glory of victory.”

Yun Buci gave a short laugh and walked away with her noodles.

She walked all the way outside, leaned against the wall, and looked at the thin pale white line on the horizon. The morning chill formed white mist that swirled around her feet.

Dawn was breaking.

She lowered her head to take a bite of instant noodles.

They had long since cooled and had little taste.

…

When pushing open the last barrier of the underground waterway, Tie Ci finally recovered her mobility.

Before her were two exits: one connected to the surface, the other led down to the moat. The former would still put them inside the city when they emerged, while the latter would take them directly outside the city.

According to Pingzong and Jingxu’s opinions, they should naturally take the moat route. But Tie Ci wasn’t in a hurry and leaned against the tunnel wall with her eyes closed in thought.

“The other side very likely has my data. As soon as I show my head, there will be many…” She made a shooting gesture. “Bang.”

Pingzong mechanically twitched the corner of her mouth, thinking that little aunt was indeed a pervert—after being chased and hunted all this way, having seen countless strange things, she could still go “bang bang bang” with her little mouth.

She couldn’t laugh. Imagining countless red-glowing monsters hovering over the moat, with white light stabbing down like a giant net as soon as Tie Ci showed her head, and nowhere to hide even on the water surface… she shivered.

In such circumstances, even Duanmu Lai would probably be helpless.

Would Sang Tang’s darkness domain be useful? Probably not either. Those little monsters could track in darkness, penetrate stone, shapeshift, fly… they were omnipotent.

“What do you mean by your… data?” Jingxu asked. “Can’t you disguise yourself?”

“Probably things that belong uniquely to one person, like your body type, your skeleton, your skin texture, the distance between your eyebrows, your fingerprints… every person is different from every other person. No matter how you disguise yourself, these things won’t change.”

“Then what do we do?”

“What about teleportation?”

“You’ve seen their speed and tracking capabilities.”

Pingzong said nothing more, and after a while said, “We can’t go through the moat. It’s too inconvenient in the water, and it’s not as good as going by land. It’s not far from the city gate there. When the time comes, we’ll get more people to help escort you and charge together. I don’t believe it—no matter how many monsters there are in the sky, they have to scan through them one by one, right? If everyone’s blocking for you, there’s nothing they can do, right?”

“If those machines have autonomous consciousness, if their set target is to kill me at any cost, then do you think they’ll give up because civilians are in the way? Or will they clear away whatever is covering the target, regardless of how many layers there are?”

Pingzong recalled those elusive monsters of various shapes that looked very cold, and shook her head without daring to hold much hope.

The latter possibility was really quite likely.

That would very possibly lead to a massacre.

Jingxu suddenly said, “How can a ruler be so indecisive? And so affected? Setting aside whether your people are willing to die for you, you should know that your life is worth exchanging for so many common people. Besides, haven’t you given orders during wars? Weren’t those soldiers who died on the battlefield lives? At this point, you’re being squeamish!”

Pingzong glared at him but also felt he had a point, looking at Tie Ci with disapproval.

“Zhen naturally values the lives of the people. If Zhen doesn’t value them, they certainly won’t value Zhen either. This is what my Mas…” Tie Ci paused, “…but the key issue isn’t this, but that Zhen wants to avoid having large crowds directly face the other side’s terrible weapons as much as possible.”

“Think back to your feelings when you first saw those machines,” Tie Ci said. “Shock, even fear, right?”

Neither of them spoke, feeling it was embarrassing to admit.

“You two are both at the grandmaster level and still felt this way. Have you thought about how the common people would feel facing such weapons?”

“Extreme terror, instant collapse. Indeed, Zhen’s people are not cowards, but courage has its limits. They’ll fight when they feel they have a chance. But overly powerful force and a chasm-like disparity will directly make people lose all courage.”

“Fear spreads. Zhen doesn’t want Zhen’s people to scatter at the first sight of the enemy before they even reach the battlefield.”

“We’ll have to face it eventually. Can we really count on the other side to remain merciful forever?” Jingxu still couldn’t understand.

“Zhen will try to avoid it, or delay this scene as long as possible. Zhen will first strive for a few victories to boost morale, let the people know that although the enemy is powerful, they’re not invincible. When we fight then, Great Qian’s chances of victory will be much greater. Of course, if Zhen can solve them personally, that would be even more perfect.”

“You’re crazy—you’re not a god! You’re not even comparable to the Three Mad and Five Emperors of old. Do you know what our fate would be facing those weapons!”

“Zhen has already faced those weapons many times.”

Jingxu was speechless.

“Since Zhen wasn’t shot dead at the beginning, who knows who’ll be unlucky next,” Tie Ci smiled. “At the very least, Zhen doesn’t want Zhen’s people to see Zhen fleeing in panic through the crowd, completely powerless to resist.”

“Aren’t you fleeing in panic right now?” Jingxu looked the Great Qian Emperor up and down with a very annoying gaze.

Tie Ci wasn’t angry and said, “Not at all. Zhen is clearly eloping for a thousand li.”

Jingxu: “…”

He stopped talking. He discovered that whether it was Tie Ci or Murong Yi, although their personalities were completely different, they both truly had a touch of madness in their bones.

“So… the moat?” Pingzong asked, lowering her head to tighten her face covering.

Tie Ci’s smile faded, her gaze becoming concentrated and somber, reflecting the flickering dim light of the fire stick.

“The moat,” she said.