Rena felt her ears had been covered by a heavy layer of something. She couldn't hear anything clearly, and when she touched her ears, she felt a layer of sticky blood. It was only after some time that she could faintly hear the sound of her own heavy breathing, which finally managed to pierce through that layer.
The faint star in the sky was still in the same spot. It had not faded, and she could still see it through the gap between the debris. Rena struggled and pushed away the concrete slab that was over her.
A sharp, broken steel reinforcement bar was sticking out from that concrete slab. If it was a few inches closer, it would have stabbed into her face. Rena gasped for air as she crawled out from under the debris. She mentally prepared herself, knowing that her body would collapse at any minute. However, after she walked two steps, she realized that the bleeding from her abdomen had somehow stopped.
Her white socks were in strips and were so dirty that she couldn't even tell its original color, but her calves were clean. The teenage girl regained her strength with each step, and she gradually could walk at a steady pace. Before long, she even started to jog.
Rena left the state of devastation behind her.
The floors of the four or five multistory buildings were destroyed by the blast from the twenty Ripple Spheres. As concrete and steel were blasted to bits, the buildings crashed down to the ground like a tsunami. Under normal circumstances, the two posthumans in the blast's epicenter shouldn't survive. In fact, Hannie Huang's body had exploded after a few buildings collapsed on her body. Not even one bit of flesh, which sprayed out from under the debris, was larger than the nail of a little finger. She had been squished till her body was like a mash from a juicer. On the other hand, Rena, who was badly injured, survived the explosions.
Once Hannie was dead, her [Truth or Dare] ability was instantly deactivated. Rena remembered looking up and seeing the large buildings collapsing. After that, she instinctively ran as far as she could. She vaguely remembered that when she was just about to run out of that danger zone, she was hit on the back by a concrete slab. She was knocked out and only regained consciousness just moments before. Rena knew that she hadn't been unconscious for long. When she looked around, she noticed that Lin Sanjiu and Derik's building had also collapsed. Her surroundings were quiet, and there wasn't any sign of anyone around.
Rena was very worried. She sprinted like mad to the opposite of the road not far from her. After checking her surroundings, she immediately ran to lift up a manhole cover. "Clash." Rena lifted the manhole cover and threw it aside. She crouched and leaned forward, looking down in the dark waterway, then saw Reno's pale face. He was still lying in the same position. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was steady.
Rena instantly let out a sigh of relief. As expected, Zhu Mingchun, tasked to look for Reno, never thought that Reno was right under his nose. Rena spent some effort pulling her brother out of the waterway. Then, she carried him on her back. Reno was about the same height as her, so his feet were dragged along the ground.
"Lin Sanjiu!" Rena called, afraid that it would draw the attention of other foes that could be hiding. She carried her brother and walked around the rubble, "Are you still alive? Come on, answer me—"
The teenage girl could hear the soft voice traveling far into the distance under the night skies. Shaken, she stopped. After a while, she called out again, "Lin Sanjiu..."
A concrete slab suddenly moved a little as if responding to her. Rena was shocked and quickly stopped calling. "Is it you?" she took two cautious steps forward.
"I see. So, that thing was Lin Sanjiu!" A sharp but hoarse voice pierced the silence. The concrete slab was tossed aside with a thud. With his short stature, Derik crawled out from under the concrete slab. He began shouting crazily, "Puppeteer... Puppeteer's reward! Here... here... I come!"
Under the faint light from the dark skies above, Rena saw Derik's body and couldn't help letting out a gasp. There was no way anyone would recognize Derik as a human. Derik looked as if someone had ground his body on a millstone over a hundred times. He did not have a different front or back, as his whole body was just a cylindrical mass of flesh. His face, skin, and body features had all disappeared—it was weird that he could speak.
When Derik was just about to rush to Rena's side like a madman, a loud noise suddenly rang out from the rubble behind him. Another black shadow, not much larger than Derik flew out. In a split second, Derik fell to the ground while he choked on his blood with gurgling sounds.
The black shadow stopped. It was a white, translucent, half side of a skull.
"That's great! You're still alive!" Rena half-sobbed. She tried to hug Lin Sanjiu, but her arms passed through the skull. She immediately froze.
The skull wrote with some effort: IT'S ALRIGHT. I JUST NEED TO REST FOR A FEW DAYS.
Lin Sanjiu felt fully exhausted. She wanted to close her eyes and not care about anything. She would have long fainted from pain if she still had her actual body when she charged at Derik. The pain that [Mankind's Bane] inflicted on its target was like a boundless black hole in space. It was like an endless abyss; the unimaginable torture was enough to make someone feel that suicide was a beautiful liberation.
However, Lin Sanjiu's Higher Consciousness body did not possess the defensive mechanism to faint.
Even though Lin Sanjiu could attack Derik as a result, it also meant that she had to endure the pain of countless years of agony from his ability. After she wrapped the entire human-faced monolith, she didn't take much time squeezing and grinding it. It only took 4.7 seconds, but that was Lin Sanjiu's longest, darkest, and scariest 4.7 seconds of her life.
"Alright. Can you still move?" Rena wiped her tears. "We will find a place to rest now."
Even though Rena did not know how Lin Sanjiu's Higher Consciousness worked, she knew that Lin Sanjiu was in a bad condition. Even when Lin Sanjiu was just a brain, her form had never been so white and so ethereal. It was as if she was just a column of smoke that would disappear into the air once the wind blew.
As Lin Sanjiu used too much of her Higher Consciousness, she had already converted and used up the amount that maintained Mrs. Manas into her attack. 'After I rest for a few days, I think she will come out again,' Lin Sanjiu thought tiredly. She slowly landed on Rena's shoulders and felt like she had used up all her energy.
"Should we go back to the train?" Rena asked. Since they came to Kisaragi Station, their time on the train had been the safest, so she couldn't help thinking about it. "We can't stay here too long. Zhu Mingchun is still nearby."
"Are you looking for me?" said a gruff voice. "I've been behind you guys all this time."