As Rita's timer hit 10:00, Ana was the first to dash out. Her speed was no slower than when Bianka had left with Azhar.
Judging by the direction she took, it was a confident choice.
Shu didn't leave immediately. He looked at Susannah, deciding to see what she would do first before making his own move.
Although Ana had used some tricks to achieve a more visually stunning effect, the equipment she wore was real.
It was inflated, but it was unlikely to be entirely inflated.
From the looks of it, she clearly intended to rely on that equipment to search for and capture the two.
However... she probably wouldn't be able to catch Bianka if she was determined to run.
Then he would set his own standard of strength a little higher than Ana's.
If Ana could corner Bianka, then he would catch her. If Bianka could toy with Ana... then he would just have to push Bianka to her limits.
The person he really needed to learn from was Susannah. Susannah had no high-tech gadgets, nor did she possess any extraordinary powers.
As an ordinary person, if Susannah wanted to achieve anything in this game of hide-and-seek, she would have to use her abilities in an unconventional way.
And what he needed to learn was precisely this ability to utilize his own power to the maximum. After all, his current situation was that he had the theoretical numbers but lacked the ability to apply them.
He believed that Susannah would provide him with a good lesson on how to utilize his abilities to the fullest...
"Hmm... let me think..." Susannah didn't immediately spring into action either. It seemed that in the past ten minutes, she hadn't thought about what to do next at all.
But it wasn't too late. Shu could feel Susannah's entire thought process...
"Where would Lady Bianka go... Lady Bianka..." Susannah muttered to herself. The next moment, as Susannah looked up, Shu suddenly felt a hint of...
Bianka's aura?!
"Yes, if it were me, I would definitely go to this place," Susannah said solemnly in a voice that sounded remarkably like Bianka's. Then, under Shu's stunned gaze, Susannah seamlessly switched back.
Next, as if guided by a divine hand, Susannah happily skipped into the darkness, leaving a dumbfounded Shu behind to process this "lesson."
Wait... is that even possible?
How did Susannah have such an ability? Was it personality profiling or personality simulation? Was such an ability even useful?
No, no... if one understood someone well enough, it was possible. But this level of understanding...
Shu looked up at Susannah's cheerful, retreating figure and felt a chill run down his spine.
Just how well did she know Bianka? The two of them... he didn't think they were that close!
Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Shu managed to glean a little insight from this.
Putting oneself in another's shoes, using deep simulation to imitate the other person to understand their possible thoughts was also a way of gathering information.
Shu, in a gloomy mood, was the last to leave. He used a method similar to Ana's, but with an elegance that came from the core of his being.
If Ana had propelled herself forward with some kind of braking force, then Shu's departure was completely natural. With a light tap of his foot, he melted into the darkness.
Rita remained in place. Her eyesight was good enough to see Shu's secondary acceleration in the darkness. Only after the buildings of Sapphire City had blocked his figure did she look down at her phone.
On it were the locations of Azhar and Bianka in the city.
After the two had left, she had started a location share with the three seekers. Now she had the locations of all five of them.
This was actually to facilitate her in dispatching someone to rescue Azhar at any time. As for the results, she didn't need to pay attention. She was confident that they would tell her everything.
She already had her own evaluation criteria for each of them.
For Azhar, as long as she was willing to use her own abilities and chose to split up with Bianka, she would get a perfect score.
As for Ana... she needed to demonstrate sufficient efficiency in using her own abilities. Whether she could reasonably integrate and use that equipment, and whether she could achieve the desired effect, were all criteria for judgment.
And Susannah... that would depend on how well she understood Bianka. As long as Susannah could meet Bianka based on her understanding, it would be a victory.
And Lord Shu... he had to at least show a convincing performance, right?
Until now, Rita had not seen this disguise of Shu's demonstrate much ability. He looked like an ordinary person.
...But he was definitely not an ordinary person now.
---||---
Shu shuttled through the darkness for a while before stopping. Although he really didn't want to activate his perception ability, that's how it was when you wanted to move fast. You couldn't be fast without a field of vision.
So, as he ran, Shu noticed several different energy fluctuations left behind.
It seemed that Bianka and Azhar had separated here, which was somewhat surprising information.
Ana had also chased them here. But judging from the tracks, Ana had probably gone after Bianka, while Azhar...
Shu looked up with a strange expression.
She was right ahead.
The night seemed to have transformed into a pack of wild beasts, lurking in the shadows, watching every person in the darkness with covetous eyes.
Were they toying with her with fear, or were they waiting for an opportunity to pounce and kill her in one bite?
Azhar didn't know how many times she had swallowed, but the fear in her heart had not subsided one bit.
She clutched her phone tightly, the screen already locked on Rita's number.
She had already made up her mind. If she really encountered those... things, she would call immediately to give her last will and test... no, to try and call for help.
A cold wind blew through the street, making Azhar shiver violently. She whipped her head around, but could only see darkness.
"Why... do I feel like something is really watching me?" she muttered to herself, then rubbed her arms with a shudder and continued to walk cautiously down the street.
Shu slowly emerged from the corner, for a moment feeling like he had forgotten that this was a game of hide-and-seek.
And that he was the seeker.
Forget it, I'll follow her for a while. Azhar was also a participant in the assessment. The longer it took for her to be caught, the higher her score should be.
Bianka should be able to hold out for a long time. Once Azhar was caught, he would go and have a go with Bianka.
---||---
On one side, Shu hid in the darkness, watching Azhar move forward, full of fear, turning her head at every step. On the other side, Ana had already found Bianka's location.
Bianka, who was shuttling between the buildings, came to a sudden stop and, unnaturally, flashed backwards in mid-air.
An ice-blue figure quickly flashed past her, the outstretched hand just a centimeter away from the tips of her hair.
They passed each other by a hair's breadth. Bianka quickly retreated and landed on the roof of a building, looking at Ana on another building with lingering fear.
Ana was also looking at Bianka, who had unnaturally hovered in the air for a moment, with a mixture of shock and suspicion. Her next move was delayed by this momentary hesitation.
But she quickly adjusted. The equipment on her body once again glowed, making her particularly conspicuous in the night.
Bianka also quickly became serious, her body slightly bent, ready to flee at any moment.
Their gazes met in the darkness. The next moment, they both started moving almost simultaneously.
Bianka turned and ran without hesitation, in a straight line. Ana chased after her with all her might, also in a straight line.
But Ana soon realized that her speed was no match for Bianka's! Even with her equipment at maximum power, Bianka was slowly pulling away...
Was this the strength of the great Durandal?
Ana was secretly amazed. She had only heard that the leaders of these special teams were all extraordinarily powerful, but she had never seen them in action.
When Bianka had left with Azhar earlier, she had clearly been holding back, but it was still beyond the ordinary, so at the time, Ana thought she could do it too.
Now it seemed that she really couldn't catch up to Bianka.
But... what about Azhar?
Now there was only Bianka in front of her. In this short time, they had already covered a long distance. That meant... Bianka and Azhar were separated.
Wait, wasn't Azhar just an ordinary person!
Ana's advance suddenly stopped. She looked at Bianka, who had also stopped in front of her, in disbelief.
"Senior Bianka, did you leave Senior Azhar behind?!" she questioned Bianka, while already pulling out her life-form detector and starting to search for other life signals in the city.
"Azhar suggested we split up," Bianka answered honestly. Ana's brows furrowed even deeper.
"Sapphire City hasn't been thoroughly cleaned up like ARC City. There may still be dangers like zombies lurking in the corners. Is it not biased of you, Lady Bianka, to let Lady Azhar act alone?"
As Ana spoke, her hands moved faster and faster, extracting several key pieces of information. The range displayed on the life detector was rapidly shrinking.
And what Ana said made Bianka's pupils tremble violently. Just as a coordinate popped up on Ana's life detector, she suddenly felt something behind her.
She turned around to see that Bianka had silently appeared behind her. Ana subconsciously turned and grabbed, only to find that Bianka had shot out a long distance again.
In the direction they had come from, and also the direction the coordinates were pointing.
"Thank you!" was all Bianka had time to say before she shot off at a speed that left Ana dumbfounded.
The wind from her high-speed movement even made Ana, who was at least ten meters away, feel her hair stir.
This... this is Senior Bianka's true strength?!
No, maybe she was still holding back!
Despite her shock, Ana still activated her armor and rushed towards the coordinates at top speed.
She had noticed that the target was moving, and not slowly. Bianka was heading to the original coordinates. The time it would take her to get there would definitely cause a discrepancy between her and Azhar's positions.
This discrepancy wasn't a big problem. Bianka could quickly adjust for it.
The big problem was... there was more than one reaction displayed where Azhar was!
Something had been following Azhar!
---||---
...There was definitely something following her!!
Azhar, who was running wildly in the night, let her tears flow freely on the street. The extreme fear in her heart made her run for her life.
Perhaps because she was overexerting herself, Azhar's running was erratic, but when she got close to a wall, she would bounce off and run towards the other wall.
Even though she was out of breath, Azhar could still feel that the thing behind her was still chasing her...
She had no choice but to keep dragging her legs, crying and running, praying that someone would find her quickly and take her back to Rita or Bianka.
And then she would never walk alone at night again!!
Fear was demonizing everything around Azhar, and the demonization bred more fear.
And as one of the demonized, Shu looked at Azhar, who was running with both weakness and desperation, and began to hesitate whether he should just appear and "catch" her and take her back to Rita.
The child's fear was overflowing into his heart, and it was even affecting him.
And it looked like Azhar was about to collapse from exhaustion. If this continued, she might injure herself...
He should act.
Just as Shu thought this, his extended perception fed him the information that something was rapidly approaching.
A friendly.
Instantly identifying the information, Shu, who had just stepped out of the corner, retracted his foot.
The next moment, a glowing Ana descended from the sky. She slowed down just before landing and finally landed gently in front of an exhausted Azhar.
"Thank goodness, you..." Ana had thought that Azhar, who had proposed splitting up, would turn and run when she saw her. But to her surprise, almost as soon as she landed, the ten-year-old child ran headlong into her embrace.
Her little forehead made a satisfying thud against Ana's armor. The next moment, a tear-streaked face looked up from Ana's arms, wailing.
"Waaaah—you're finally here!! Catch me! Hurry up and take me back!!"