Chapter 239

Su Xiao prepared to rendezvous with Esdeath; always slacking off would make people suspicious.

But before he had walked many steps, a red signal flare exploded in the sky.

"Retreat signal?"

Su Xiao was very puzzled. The Night Raid unit was about to be defeated; why retreat? The signal flare was carried by Esdeath personally.

"Could it be..."

Su Xiao thought of a possibility. If that were the case, he indeed needed to retreat quickly.

Walking quickly through the forest, Su Xiao retreated in the pre-agreed direction.

When he rushed out of the forest, he saw Esdeath and Wave already outside.

"Where is Kurome?"

Esdeath looked at Su Xiao.

"I'm not sure. I encountered a strong enemy whose Imperial Arm could use three types of elemental power. I just finished dealing with them."

Esdeath nodded; she had also seen that huge water ball in the forest earlier.

"Why haven't Kurome and Mr. Bols come yet?"

As soon as Wave finished speaking, a deafening explosion came from the distance, and a mushroom cloud appeared in the forest.

"Is it the self-destruction of Rubicante?"

Esdeath seemed to have guessed what had happened.

"Self-destruction, could it be Mr. Bols..."

"Bols won't be coming back."

Esdeath's tone was indifferent, and Wave's fists clenched.

"Damn it."

The three stood outside the forest. Su Xiao didn't ask why they were retreating; the sky-piercing shouts in the forest already represented everything.

After waiting for five minutes, Kurome still hadn't arrived at the assembly point.

"Kurome won't be coming."

Esdeath held a broken spool in her hand, wrapped with a large amount of extremely fine metal wires.

Those weren't actually metal wires, but the body hair of a Super Danger Beast.

What Esdeath held was the already broken Cross Tail. Cross Tail was an Imperial Arm worn on the person, and now that it was destroyed to this state, the fate of its owner, Lubbock, could be imagined.

Lubbock, Tatsumi, and Mine had fought against Esdeath for so long; it was already a miracle that they hadn't been wiped out.

"General, this Imperial Arm is broken?"

Su Xiao looked at the Imperial Arm in Esdeath's hand with interest.

"Yes, this Imperial Arm had a high compatibility with this generation's user, exerting 100% of its power before finally breaking. Are you interested?"

Su Xiao nodded.

"It's yours."

Esdeath tossed Cross Tail to Su Xiao. He hadn't expected Esdeath to be so generous.

"Many thanks... General."

Su Xiao sighed inwardly. The feeling of being trusted after infiltrating the enemy camp was not good.

"It's nothing. You've been through life and death with me; you've worked hard these past few days."

Su Xiao didn't speak. He somewhat understood the feeling of Reiner from the Titan world. He and Esdeath would definitely have a day of clashing on the battlefield, and that day would not be far off.

"General Esdeath."

An officer wearing the Imperial military uniform rushed out of the forest. The officer was stained with blood, and a wide-bladed sword in his hand was covered in flesh, with chips in the blade, looking like he had just experienced a fierce battle.

"How much longer can you hold out?"

Esdeath's question was straightforward.

"At most one hour. We only deployed 40,000 troops this time, while the enemy's numbers are at least in the hundreds of thousands, and that's a conservative estimate."

The officer's face was ashen.

"The troops in the forest already have a tendency to be surrounded; I fought my way out."

The officer didn't continue.

"Has the Revolutionary Army finally started a full-scale war with us?"

Esdeath was all smiles, as if the casualties of those 40,000 soldiers didn't exist.

"General Esdeath, these troops..."

"We retreat. We must establish a defensive line on the Imperial Capital's city walls as soon as possible, otherwise, we won't be able to stop the Revolutionary Army."

Including that officer, the group of four retreated.

There were over 40,000 people when they came, and only four when they left.

This wasn't the most absurd part; the most absurd part was that the Revolutionary Army had suddenly attacked, yet the Empire had no news of it.

If it weren't for Su Xiao and the others happening to be on the Revolutionary Army's path, the Revolutionary Army would have attacked directly outside the Imperial Capital. At that time, the Imperial Capital might have been surrounded layer by layer before discovering the enemy army.

Reducing border defense forces and having a large number of officials defect to the Revolutionary Army accelerated the Empire's demise.

Now, the Revolutionary Army only needed one beautiful decisive battle to completely knock the Empire down, and a new country would emerge.

The new country might be peaceful and prosperous, but before that, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people would die in the war, or perhaps even more.

On the way back, Su Xiao was in a good mood. The Revolutionary Army had finally arrived, faster than he had imagined. He finally didn't have to pretend to be an Anbu anymore.

Su Xiao's group returned to the Imperial Capital at full speed. Esdeath headed straight for the military camp; she wanted to mobilize the army to launch a war on the scale of millions of people against the Revolutionary Army.

Esdeath's expression along the way was very excited, as if war were a great thing.

Su Xiao was left in the Imperial Capital to wait for orders. He was a member of the Jaegers; he didn't need to be deployed at the start of a large-scale war and would only get busy in the mid-to-late stages, mainly responsible for assassinating enemy leaders.

The hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in the suburbs of the Imperial Capital were quickly mobilized. A large number of soldiers rushed to the city walls around the Imperial Capital, and in less than half an hour, the entire Imperial Capital turned into an "iron bucket."

Everywhere one looked, there were soldiers. This atmosphere of an impending storm made the residents in the Imperial Capital panic.

The situation in the Imperial Capital was not optimistic; even if they could hold on for a while, it wouldn't mean much.

The food stored in the Imperial Capital wasn't much. With the Revolutionary Army completely surrounding the Imperial Capital, a famine would break out within half a month. Not only did the army need food, but the civilians in the Imperial Capital would also consume a lot of food.

This was the desperate resistance of those in power. The mighty Revolutionary Army troops around the Imperial Capital made breaking out a pipe dream.

Su Xiao also knew that he had to seize the time now. If the Revolutionary Army attacked the city, his Anbu identity wouldn't end well either.

The priority was to complete the main mission. According to past situations, after completing the main mission, the return mission would appear.

Now was clearly not a good time to infiltrate the Imperial Palace. It was best to wait another day or so; only after the war had completely started would the waters of the Imperial Capital be thoroughly muddied.

Su Xiao walked on the streets of the Imperial Capital, his gaze scanning around unintentionally. He was looking for a suitable hiding place.

The cooldown of the Flame of Luck had ended. With the decisive battle imminent, this was the most suitable time to open treasure chests to increase his combat power.

He quickly found a dilapidated residential house. The house hadn't been lived in for a long time, and the wall plaster was peeling off.

Using lock-picking tools for a long time, Su Xiao actually couldn't open the door lock of the house.

It wasn't that the lock was unbreakable, but that it had rusted shut.

With a hard pull on the door handle, the lock shattered. After entering the house, Su Xiao firmly secured the door to prevent outsiders from entering.

Arriving at the living room, it was relatively tidy. The doors and windows were sealed, so there wasn't much dust.

Su Xiao sat on an old sofa and took out all the treasure chests: two blue treasure chests and one purple treasure chest.

The two blue treasure chests were dropped by Bulat and Najenda, and the purple treasure chest was dropped by Akame.

Actually, there was also Karl's Scarlet Card, but the time to open a Scarlet Card was relatively long, and the 15 seconds of the Flame of Luck weren't enough.

Su Xiao took a deep breath; the happy moment of opening chests had arrived.