Chapter 31: Aftermath of the Incident

"It's tragic, isn't it? Everything we have in this world can be destroyed so easily." Yas's hoarse voice sounded.

"You can put me down now," the other added.

Rekton hesitated for a moment, but still put the other down. The other's sequence was higher than his own, and he was more skilled at combat—if he wanted to flee, there was nothing Rekton could do. Besides, the captain and the others were not far away, so there was no need to worry about the other threatening him.

"Though I'd love to hear you tell the story of what happened, shouldn't you consider the matter of how to escape?" Rekton interrupted what the other was about to say.

After a while, Yas spoke again: "As an enforcer of the Church of Knowledge, you should understand that regardless of whether this incident has anything to do with me, as a bloodkin, my appearance here makes me a criminal by necessity. Are you inciting a criminal to flee?"

Rekton shrugged and said, "Just a suggestion. The big shots at the Church have no intention of making things difficult for you, so why should I bring trouble on myself? But others aren't necessarily the same. High-level dealings aren't always known to subordinates."

"If I stay, my sister can leave more safely." Yas's answer was beyond Rekton's expectations.

"I thought you'd want to take them with you," Rekton remarked.

Yas gave a bitter smile: "Of course I want to, but I can't take the risk. The old man is already dead—someone has to step up and draw your attention."

"Come on, help evacuate the ordinary people here first. They all had peaceful, ordinary lives, and now they're gone! As the main factors behind this incident, you all ought to do something, right?" Rekton said, surveying the exhausted crowd around him.

He then reached out and pulled Yas over to where the captain and the others were, and after briefly explaining things to the captain, joined the operation to relocate the ordinary civilians here.

Most people's resistance did not last long, because some mutated animals had already started running into this outer area.

A grayish-blue bobcat the size of a cheetah, who knows when it had run over, stood quietly atop a roof, under the crimson moonlight, like a sculpture.

Rekton's gaze swept over several times without noticing it—he had clearly seen it, yet subconsciously ignored it.

It wasn't until Thea drew her gun and fired in that direction, startling it, that everyone finally reacted.

"Meow~" It sounded somewhat like a cat's cry but not quite—its voice was closer to a beast's howl. Its emerald-green eyes stared fixedly at Thea.

"Bang! Bang!" Two more gunshots rang out—one from Captain Yiketon, one from Thea. The cheetah-sized cat opposite them easily dodged the first bullet, but failed to dodge the second one that followed immediately after.

"Awooo~" After a pained screech, it rapidly retreated and fled the area.

"Don't pursue it for now. Calm the civilians here and evacuate this area as quickly as possible." Captain Yiketon spoke up to stop Thea, who was preparing to chase down the cheetah-sized grayish-blue bobcat.

"What... what was that?"

"Didn't see it clearly. Looked like a cat?"

"How can there be a cat that big? It must be a cheetah!"

Uneasy voices came from the crowd.

The sudden incident made many people realize that the dangers spoken of by the Church and the Public Security Bureau were real. No longer attached to their homes and belongings here, they began urging those ahead of them to hurry up, wanting to flee this place.

"Really... they clearly knew there was genuine danger here, so why were they so unwilling to leave before?" Yas looked at the people around him and spoke with puzzlement.

Rekton couldn't help but feel that what the other wanted to say wasn't this sentence—that he'd realized something was off and so changed his words.

"Because they cling to wishful thinking!" This answer came from Thea, walking over from behind.

Thea's expression no longer carried the usual playfulness and amusement of everyday days; it was tinged with a hint of worry and unease.

Though the sun had not yet risen, the rosy light of dawn had already begun to show itself. The morning light fell upon her, setting off that red hair even more strikingly. Rekton was momentarily stunned.

"What? Already captivated by your big sister's beauty, hmm? Heh~" Thea's voice brought Rekton back to his senses, and his expression gradually turned ugly.

"Oho? Our big boy is embarrassed and angry?" Thea teased even more cheerfully after seeing the change in Rekton's expression.

"I just suddenly remembered that I sneaked out last night, and now it's already getting light. How am I going to explain this when I go back?" Rekton no longer had the mood to entertain Thea's teasing.

Rekton had even forgotten that he had sneaked out from home—he only remembered it just now upon seeing the sunlight on Thea's red hair.

"Uh-hahaha! You really are too adorable. Good luck to you~ Of course, you could also say you spent a wonderful night out with me. I wouldn't mind helping you hide the truth." Thea was taken aback for a moment upon hearing Rekton's answer, then burst into laughter.

"I'll pass, thanks for the offer!" Rekton declined with a smile.

He could only silently grumble in his heart: "I have no grudge or grievance with you—why do you want to do me in!"

"What a pity! I genuinely wanted to help you." Thea sighed in disappointment, then walked off with a resentful look in her eyes to chat with other teammates.

"You... there's a witch among the enforcers?" Yas's voice carried confusion and puzzlement.

"You also think it's a waste of her talent to walk the Reader pathway?" Rekton expressed that finally someone shared his opinion.

"Reader?" Yas's eyes went wide, looking at Thea in the other direction with complete disbelief.

Sensing the gaze from behind, Thea tossed her striking red hair, turned around in the morning sunlight, and offered a faint smile to Yas, who was watching her. In this moment, even Thea's eyes were gentle.

Yas first looked away with a red face, then stole another glance at Thea. Seeing that she had already turned her head back, he let out a breath of relief. He then felt annoyed at his embarrassing display just now.

"Hehe~~" Thea's teasing laughter reached his ears, making Yas's face turn from red to white, white to green, green to red again. In the end, he could only walk away from this side in frustration.

"Haha!" Rekton let out the laughter of a spectator.

"I absolutely refuse to believe she's a Beyonder on the Reader pathway," Yas said through gritted teeth.

After this little interlude, everyone once again threw themselves into the operation of relocating and settling the civilians here. As the sky grew brighter, more people from the Church of Knowledge and the Church of Earth joined in.

It continued until noon before the people of Hock Street and the nearby blocks were fully relocated to the city square on the south side of Ma Dan. The people of the Church of Earth had set up many temporary shelters here, temporarily settling these civilians.

After Captain Yiketon gathered the squad members together, they took a carriage back to the office area of the Church of Knowledge enforcer squad.

Also brought back was Yas, a bloodkin. Clearly no one was paying attention to him anymore, but for some reason this fellow hadn't slipped away on his own—instead, he followed Rekton and the others to the enforcer squad's side.

"The matter of resettling the residents is temporarily concluded. Our task for a long time to come will be clearing out the mutated creatures on Hock Street and the surrounding areas. Those creatures will follow their instincts to gather and disperse extraordinary characteristics, so if we don't resolve this problem quickly, they'll re-evolve into a new out-of-control demigod." Captain Yiketon said solemnly.

"An out-of-control demigod?" These were the voices of Joseph and Josie.

The two of them were personnel who had only gone over with the Church after daybreak, and didn't know much about the incident.

"You can ask Rekton for the specific details of what happened—he knows the detailed process of this incident. Or wait a while longer, and corresponding materials will be sent over. I'm going to discuss with the Church of Earth people about dealing with the contamination on Hock Street. You all rest up and prepare yourselves—we'll set out soon to clean up the contamination." Captain Yiketon kept it brief.

Finally, he turned to Rekton and added: "Rekton, go home and rest first. Adjust your condition. You don't need to participate in today's mission. What we're facing is contamination—our own condition cannot have any problems."

Rekton didn't dwell on why he was the only one who didn't have to go. He hadn't rested all night, had been through a fierce battle, and then so many things afterward. Rekton now also felt thoroughly exhausted and needed a good sleep.

Captain Yiketon didn't say much more and hurried off to the Church of Earth, taking Yas along with him. After the captain left, Rekton also got up, said goodbye to everyone, picked up his coat wrapped around the Great Magician's top hat, and left the squad's office.

Josie and Joseph still had many questions they wanted to ask Rekton, but a single glance from Thea stopped them.

"Get ready, everyone. All kinds of purification bullets and talismans. Before Sequence Six, we're all weaklings—we can only rely on equipment!" Thea said as she stood up, primarily addressing Jessica and Mr. Korth. Joseph and Josie—one Sequence Eight, one Sequence Nine, both on the Reader pathway—weren't of much use.

"Sister Thea, what about us?" Josie pointed at himself and Joseph beside him and asked.

"Come with me to find the church and the bishop, to get some mystical items. You two just handle logistics and carry things." Thea said casually, looking at the two of them.

Ah! Are we just responsible for moving things? Qiao Xi said with an incredulous look.

Right? Although our combat power is weaker than yours, we can still help a bit, right? Joseph agreed.

If you were on other paths, that would indeed work, but the Reader's Path and the Secret Prayer Person's Path, as the two weakest paths among the Twenty-Two Paths in the early stage, at least need to be Sequence Six or Sequence Seven to be considered strong. Xiya sighed helplessly.

Xiya felt for the first time that the Executioner Squad's composition was very unreasonable when dealing with this kind of event requiring a lot of combat power.

(End of chapter)