Volume 4, Chapter 70 – Beyond the Atmosphere [Volume 4 Finale]

“Bang!”

The shot, which had been fired almost instantaneously, still missed.

Even while injured, Heloise remained extremely fast, and her ability to read an opponent’s muscular movements had not diminished in the slightest.

Firearms that used metal bullets could only inflict serious damage on her through an ambush at extremely close range or through overwhelming heavy fire.

Anran therefore set aside her firearm for the moment and handed that job over to Aila.

Although she had lost many things, Anran still had the Crimson Blade and her exoskeleton armor.

With the additional Agility provided by her equipment, Anran’s Agility had now directly surpassed one hundred.

When she slashed, a string of afterimages trailed behind her. In an instant, she crossed nearly ten meters, and the crimson blade-shadow cut straight toward Heloise’s chest.

Anran showed no mercy whatsoever.

Nor did she dare show mercy against Heloise. She had to pursue a one-hit kill.

Since there was no reasoning with this woman whose brain seemed to be missing a few screws, she might as well kill her. Once the mission was completed, Anran would also obtain a high-level bloodline.

Facing Anran’s relentless assault, the only weapons Heloise could use were her body and a dagger.

“Clang!”

She swung the dagger and knocked aside Anran’s first slash. To Anran’s surprise, the dagger remained completely intact. It, too, had been forged from metal of exceptional strength.

More importantly, Heloise was still faster than Anran during the exchange, though not by much.

It was not a major problem.

Anran twisted her footing, opened some distance, and slashed again.

In a cold-weapon battle, when the differences in skill, strength, and speed were not too great, every extra inch of reach truly did grant an advantage.

Each time the Crimson Blade came down, Heloise had to expend more effort to block it. Anran’s desperate thrusts forced her to retreat.

The difference between their weapons was enormous. This kind of damage trade was deeply unfair to Heloise.

“…”

“Cling, cling, cling!”

After deflecting Anran’s three consecutive slashes, Heloise stopped entangling herself with Anran and swiftly pulled away.

Retreating in order to advance.

She had figured it out. Against Anran in her current state, she could not remain in close combat continuously.

She suddenly transformed into a whirling assassin circling at the edge of the battlefield, using her more agile movements to maintain distance. Then, whenever she found the right opportunity, she moved in to attack. If she could fight, she fought. If she could not, she withdrew the instant she made contact.

She truly was an experienced hunter.

Anran’s expression darkened slightly.

She could not afford to trade wounds with Heloise either. She might end up crippled. Yet if she continued dragging things out, once the Berserk bonus expired, she would become a moving target.

At that moment, a gunshot suddenly shattered the balance.

Although Aila’s bullet failed to hit Heloise, it still prevented her from continuing this effortless game of darting in and out.

Aila’s marksmanship demanded proper respect.

“Bang!”

The second bullet skimmed past Heloise’s backside.

It missed, but Aila was not discouraged. Her objective had already been achieved as long as she could create an opening for Anran.

There were still seven bullets in the magazine. She had to make full use of every one of them.

Aila’s eyes gathered visual data while her internal core rapidly calculated the optimal angle and timing for each shot.

For a time, no one on the battlefield paid any attention to Jarrod.

At first, he stood obediently beside Aila. But after she fired her second shot, he slowly shifted his feet and, without anyone noticing, moved behind her.

With two more steps backward, he could retreat into the small spacecraft.

But Jarrod chose a second path.

He, Jarrod, Level 26, was not some useless spacecraft pilot!

He was a hidden powerhouse with the special profession Disguiser!

He was also proficient in many forms of martial combat. Out in the wider world, even if he was not a grandmaster, he would still be a top true disciple capable of winning glory for his school.

Even the way Jarrod walked deserved close study. It was an instinctive habit formed through years of training, allowing him to switch freely between offense and defense at any moment.

He had not gained experience through desperate life-and-death battles. All he possessed was tireless training, repeated over and over again.

Only through that could his originally frail body break through its limits time after time. Only then could he reach the standard required to take a Gene Enhancement Potion. Only then could he grow from an overlooked second-generation heir into the man he was today.

Now, an opportunity that absolutely could not be missed lay before him.

The powerful enemy was being tied down by Heloise, and only a gunner stood close at hand.

An inexplicable flame burned in Jarrod’s eyes.

That flame had been hidden for a very, very long time.

So long that even he had nearly forgotten it existed.

All this time, he had remained behind the scenes, publicly playing the role of an insignificant nobody.

Now that the opportunity had arrived, that flame had to be unleashed!

First, he would kill the girl with the gun. Then he would join forces with Heloise to kill the woman named Anran. Finally, he would ambush Heloise while her guard was down and kill her as well, after which he could calmly leave aboard the spacecraft.

He devised the entire plan in an instant. Jarrod was going to go wild for once. He was not a nobody!

Jarrod suddenly moved.

It was not a subtle shift of his feet, but a magnificently forceful technique like a tiger descending a mountain or a flood dragon emerging from the sea.

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Technique Name: Tiger Pounces on Prey!

Bang!

Aila’s bullet immediately went wide and opened another hole in Dawn’s corpse.

At the same time, Jarrod’s pounce knocked Aila straight to the ground.

A crisp clattering sound rang out.

“?”

That did not sound quite right.

But Jarrod had already committed to the attack and had no attention to spare. Tiger Pounces on Prey was only the first move. Next, he would disable all four of his opponent’s limbs with lightning speed, stripping her of the ability to resist.

The commotion immediately caught Heloise’s attention. Anran had her back to Jarrod, so she did not notice at once. She took slight advantage of Heloise’s momentary distraction, but quickly realized something was wrong. She hurriedly opened the distance between herself and Heloise, then turned around and saw Jarrod restraining Aila’s right arm.

His knee pressed down on Aila’s spine. His left hand locked her right arm in place, while his free right hand gripped the lower end of Aila’s right forearm.

“Hah!”

Jarrod gave a low shout. Veins bulged across his forehead as he exerted almost all his strength, determined to break Aila’s arm in a single move.

“…”

Anran tightened her grip on the Crimson Blade.

Heloise’s pupils also contracted slightly. She had not expected this man to be hiding such an ability.

“Ah!”

Aila cried out.

Jarrod applied all his strength and pulled Aila’s arm completely straight.

“…”

Straight.

“…”

What the hell did straight mean?

He had pressed down with so much force, yet he had failed to break her arm? How was that possible?

Refusing to believe it, Jarrod tried bending it again.

It still did not break!

How could this be?

“Let go of me!” Aila shouted from beneath him.

“Shut up!” Jarrod roared furiously. In the spirit of failure being the mother of success, he exerted force with both hands again and again. Yet the result never changed.

“Let me go! I’m angry now!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Jarrod flew into a rage. “Why won’t it break? Why does it still refuse to break? Why?!”

“…”

Anran quietly approached.

Heloise was also shocked by the scene, but she quickly noticed Anran’s movement. She absolutely could not let Anran get over there.

“Why?! Why?! Break! Just break already!”

Jarrod roared in fury. If the arm would not break, how was he supposed to carry out the plan he had just made?

The right arm would not work. No, wait. There was still the left arm.

Jarrod released Aila’s right hand and moved to seize her left.

But this time, Aila did not give him the chance.

Even if she was a robot, she was still a highly intelligent robot. Aila could get angry too.

He had knocked her to the ground, pinned her down so she could not get up, and even tried to break her arm. That was completely intolerable.

“Smack!”

Aila bent both legs backward and drove her heels heavily into Jarrod’s back.

The tremendous force instantly threw Jarrod off balance and sent him flying.

“Thud!” Anran raised her right foot and planted it firmly on Jarrod’s back.

“Feeling angry…?”

“Whoosh!”

Before she finished speaking, Heloise’s attack arrived from the flank.

Six minutes remained on Berserk. That was about enough.

With that thought, Anran instantly activated the second-stage burst of her mechanical footwear.

The Agility bonus increased from fifteen points to thirty, and her jumping ability also became stronger.

“Pfft!” Jarrod spat out a mouthful of blood after Anran stepped on him.

Using the rebound from the stomp, Anran lightly leaped over Heloise’s head.

“Aila, kill him!” Anran shouted.

Jarrod truly was no ordinary person. But regardless of whether he was ordinary, he was about to become a dead man.

The frustrated Aila climbed to her feet. She was already filled with rage toward Jarrod, and now Anran had given her the order to kill him.

She rushed forward and struck the newly risen Jarrod with a punch, sending him flying backward again.

Meanwhile, faced with Anran’s increasingly aggressive fighting style, Heloise had no attention left to spare for Jarrod.

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“Bang!”

Jarrod’s back slammed heavily into the wall, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.

The little girl’s strength was far more astonishing than he had expected. He had known from the start that she was unusual, but he had never imagined she was this unusual.

Even after he had bent her arm with all his strength, it remained completely unharmed. How could anyone from this broken-down planet achieve such a thing?

“Smack!” Jarrod crossed both hands and barely blocked one of Aila’s punches. The backs of his hands were almost pressed against his chest. The muscles in his arms tightened, and his blood vessels looked ready to burst, showing just how powerful Aila’s punch had been.

There was no time to think about anything unnecessary.

He did not want to die here.

Heloise was definitely strong enough to defeat that woman. He only had to hold out until then.

Even if he could not match Aila’s strength, he still had skill!

“Aaah!”

Jarrod roared, releasing the pressure in his heart.

He might suffer temporary setbacks, but he would never be defeated so easily!

Will Like Bedrock.

This was the combat style Jarrod excelled at most.

If he could not become the most dazzling person, then he would at least become the one who survived to the end.

Jarrod began fighting steadily and cautiously. Although Aila forced him backward step by step, at least he avoided the embarrassing fate of being killed by a single punch.

“Cling!”

The Crimson Blade left a wound across Heloise’s arm, but she did not even furrow her brows.

After deflecting Anran’s attack, she thrust her dagger forward again.

“I should have killed you the first time we met,” Heloise said.

“Classic villain line.”

“…”

“You might as well regret not killing me at the Far East Branch base.”

“I was in a hurry to return that time. I barely had any stamina left.”

“Then there’s nothing you can do. It seems you’re destined to never kill me. So be good and let me kill you instead!”

Anran gave a low shout and finally used the ultimate technique she had been hiding.

The Crimson Blade’s attached “skill”: Blind Your Titanium-Alloy Dog Eyes!

A dazzling beam of light instantly stabbed into Heloise’s right eye.

Heloise’s vision abruptly turned completely white. She urgently tried to open the distance between herself and Anran, but Anran still landed a heavy kick directly on the wound in her abdomen.

“Pfft!”

She spat out a mouthful of blood.

Anran frowned as she looked at the slash across her thigh. Even after being caught by an ambush like that, this woman could still counterattack. She was terrifying.

But…

Anran turned around. To everyone’s surprise, she thrust her blade into Jarrod’s back.

The distance of several meters vanished in an instant.

The sharp blade easily pierced through Jarrod’s back, and its tip emerged from his chest.

“Bang!”

At the same time, Aila’s punch came crashing down.

“Pfft!”

With agonizing pain coursing through his body, Jarrod was utterly unable to counterattack. He could only watch as nearly forty centimeters of the blade protruded from his chest.

“Wah!”

He also spat out a mouthful of blood.

“Backstab attack confirmed. Dealt 140% damage.”

“-768”

…

“Jarrod has entered the [Severe Injury and Bleeding] state and will lose 3% of his HP per second.”

“Jarrod has entered the [Puncture Wound] state. All attributes reduced by 70%.”

“Jarrod…”

Jarrod, my ass. Whatever. He had been instantly killed anyway.

Anran swiftly pulled the Crimson Blade out with a diagonal slash. The razor-sharp blade met no resistance, and when Jarrod collapsed to the ground, his body looked almost as though it had been cut in half.

“I…” Jarrod lay face-down in the classic Yamcha death pose.

“Clatter!”

A medicine bottle slipped from his hand and shattered on the ground. Pale-green liquid quickly spread across the floor.

In his final second, Jarrod remembered his family, which was located an entire star system away.

He, Jarrod, was a member of Night Owl.

To reverse his unimportant position within the family, he had come to this backward planet to carry out a mission.

He had killed two successive leaders of Morningstar, found a puppet to take their place, and then, just as he was about to return home, he died.

“Splash…”

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The medicine soaked Jarrod’s foot. The skin there, originally yellow, unexpectedly turned pale blue.

“Next is Heloise.”

Anran resumed her stance.

Aila also stood on the same battle line beside her.

Three minutes remained. Against an injured Heloise, and with a powerful helper like Aila beside her, Anran was not afraid in the slightest.

Heloise glanced at the exit. At their current distance, escape was impossible. Since she could not run, she could only fight.

If she fought with her life, she could at least take one of them down with her.

She tore off her outer garment and wrapped it around her bleeding wound, instantly leaving herself dressed far more lightly.

One extra layer of clothing or one fewer would not affect her defense anyway.

“Whoosh…”

Heloise blurred forward and charged straight toward Anran.

Even with such severe injuries, her movement speed was still nearly equal to Anran’s after activating the second-stage burst.

However, Anran no longer wanted to fight Heloise like this.

Her jetpack activated, and she flew directly into the air.

This was the launch bay for the small spacecraft, and the ceiling was more than fifty meters high.

“…”

Heloise froze after her attack hit nothing.

How was she supposed to fight like this?

She could only change her target to Aila. Since Anran trusted this younger sister so much, then she would put that trust to the test.

“Aila, there’s no need to hide it anymore,” Anran said.

“???”

What did that mean?

Heloise rapidly closed in with her dagger. Then she saw an astonishing sight.

Aila’s hands turned silver-white at an incredible speed. Most strikingly, blue-glowing glass tubes were embedded near her joints.

“Cling!”

The dagger was caught directly.

“A robot!”

Heloise shouted in disbelief.

No.

This was actually the most reasonable explanation. Anran had never seemed particularly worried about her younger sister’s safety because Aila was a robot!

“I’m not at ease because Aila is a robot. I’m at ease because of Aila’s strength!”

Anran raised the gun she had picked up earlier and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Heloise could only abandon her dagger and leap aside.

“Crunch, crunch!”

Heloise swallowed.

She felt a trace of absurdity.

Aila had eaten the dagger in only two bites. That meant Heloise could no longer obtain any weapon at all.

Was her own body the only truly reliable weapon?

With an indomitable will, Heloise charged forward. For someone who had already lost everything, death no longer seemed like a loss.

…

The energy in Anran’s mechanical footwear ran out, and the additional thirty Agility disappeared. But that was not important.

What mattered was that immediately afterward, Anran launched a charged impact containing thirty-six units of energy directly into Heloise’s abdomen.

The stored energy was below forty units, so there was no air-pressure impact. Even so, the punch carried more than twice Anran’s normal strength. When it struck Heloise’s wounded abdomen, the pain nearly made her lose consciousness.

The merciless shock damaged her internal organs, and her body slammed heavily into the wall.

Anran followed like a shadow. With a wet tearing sound, the Crimson Blade plunged into Heloise’s chest, pierced through her body, and embedded itself directly into the wall behind her.

Blood.

A massive damage number.

Game notifications that seemed as though they would never stop.

“You lost.”

Anran pronounced the result of the battle in an icy voice.

“Cough!”

Heloise spat out a large mouthful of blood. Anran had to shift slightly to avoid being sprayed in the face. She still had to tilt her head back to look up while standing before Heloise, but she was now in an excellent mood.

From inexplicably earning Morningstar’s hatred at the very beginning, to being chased and slashed by Heloise, and finally to this moment, she had at last stabbed straight through this deranged woman!

Through her chest, mercilessly pierced by a sharp weapon!

“You…”

Heloise’s vision had already blurred. She lowered her head and could just make out Anran’s face.

That hateful face was now so close, yet she could no longer perform even a simple movement like raising her hand.

As time passed, even Anran’s face grew increasingly indistinct.

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The bell of death had rung. Heloise could hear death’s footsteps approaching.

She tried to recall her past as so many people did in their final moments, only to discover that this was an extravagant luxury.

Her past was not as short as she had always believed. Even if it were presented as a slideshow, there was no way to finish it within this brief span of time.

So cold. Even her blood was almost completely gone.

At least let me raise my hand once.

That was what Heloise thought.

In the end, she could only speak in a voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz.

“That story…”

That story?

Anran raised her head.

The game notification had already sounded in her mind.

Heloise was worth 57,000 EXP.

And just like that, she died.

When her eyes closed,

when her consciousness was about to vanish,

when she lost all sensation,

in a place where no sound could be heard,

in a place where nothing could be seen,

Heloise suddenly remembered a few things.

They had happened back in the cage.

They were things that had never appeared in the plot fragments.

They were things she had never told anyone, not even Anran.

So what was the ending of that story?

In truth, she did not care at all whether the Resistance’s uprising succeeded.

She truly held no expectations for it.

She had only wanted a reason to keep living.

She possessed nothing, and there was no meaning in being alive.

Rones had given her a purpose, so she had followed it.

When Rones died, she placed Rones’s purpose upon herself.

Now, as she faced death, every restraint had been undone.

She could finally look at the world through her own pitiably fragile values.

If she had an epitaph after death, it would probably contain words like executioner.

But Heloise did not regret anything.

She did not regret the things she had done.

If she was evil, then so be it.

None of that mattered.

At the very least, she had left traces behind during this period of her life.

It was still that unspoken scene from her memories, that embrace that had felt so warm.

Warm…

War…

…

Gone.

Heloise was dead. The mission was complete, and the high-level bloodline was now in Anran’s hands.

When Anran pulled out the Crimson Blade, Heloise’s body toppled toward her. Anran made no attempt to catch it.

But at that moment, something unbelievable happened.

“Anran…”

Aila murmured Anran’s name as she stared at the strange sight before her.

Heloise’s body was burning.

It burned as it fell.

But the flames were blue.

Gradually, Heloise’s body was completely consumed, leaving behind only a dim sphere of light floating in midair.

[Heloise’s Soul Orb]: Alchemy Item.

“???”

Although Anran had no idea what was happening, she still put the object away. It was an alchemy item. Perhaps she could sell it for a high price if she encountered an alchemist in the future.

“…”

…

On January 8, Imperial Calendar Year 8103, as the first summer storm over the Tabus Western Continent was moving away from Trade Station No. 3, a small spacecraft drew little attention as it flew out through the mountain pass and quickly broke free of the atmosphere.