Rui closed his eyes as he ran, relying purely on Seismic Mapping. He wasn't afraid of the criminals of the facility hurting him, even with Seismic Mapping alone, he was too good to be hit by them. Rui and Neira had abstained from using Apprentice-level techniques because they wanted to make sure the Martial Artist couldn't possibly realize they were Martial Apprentices.
"She's wiped-out squad C34." Neira cursed, accelerating. They were almost there.
BANG
They kicked open the door at the end of the corridor.
For a moment, everyone was speechless. Rui needed a few seconds to process what he was seeing.
But once he did, his blood boiled.
Thirteen girls, seven boys, shackled in cages, like animals. Bruises, cuts, wounds. Clear abuse and malnourishment. This alone made him feel murderous emotions, but that wasn't the worst of it.
What truly made snap was when he saw semen on one of the girls.
"You..."
His rage shook the air.
Never before had he felt such fury in his life.
His veins popped, struggling to contain the raging blood pulsing and coursing through them. His eyes were bloodshot, reddening with red cracks passing through them. He had clenched his fist so hard that his nails had dug into his skin, blood ebbing out of them.
His face was crumpled with rage. Every cell in his body wanted to kill the people in front of him. His bloodlust was so strong that even Neira flinched.
Out of then ten people that Neira and Rui had opened the door to, only one of them was standing still, unharmed by Rui's intense Apprentice-Realm bloodlust, the remaining nine had already plummeted to their knees.
The woman at the opposite end of the dock undeniably was the target of their mission. Her appearance was a little different from the sketch and the description of her features, but Rui was relatively certain they had gotten a match. She had long blond hair that sashayed down to her waist, past a rather revealing outfit.
She had frozen in shock as she recognized the Apprentice-Realm auras of the two intruders, before immediately turning around and sprinting away.
Rui and Neira sprinted after her immediately. She was the very reason the two of them were even involved the mission in the first place. They absolutely could not allow her to escape under any circumstances whatsoever!
There was just one big problem, as they had soon come to realize.
"She's fast!" Rui cursed as he was unable to close the gap between them. Rui was using Parallel Walk, Helical Breathing, Balanced Direction and even Outer Convergence to move as fast as he possibly could. Yet she was even faster.
('Is she a maneuvering-oriented Martial Apprentice?') Rui couldn't help but wonder. She must have learnt many Apprentice-level maneuvering techniques in order to obtain the speed she was demonstrating.
Neira was slower than both of them, as she fell behind both Rui and the woman. It couldn't be helped; she was a close-range counter-offensive specialist, she was not accustomed to long drawn-out chases such as this.
The gap between Rui and the woman wasn't too much, she was marginally faster than him, but that didn't matter to Rui as much it would to normal human beings. Rui had already memorized her Seismic Signature. As long as the distance between them didn't exceed one hundred meters, Rui would precisely know her exact location at all times. There was no way he could possibly lose track of the heavy seismic radiation she was giving off with her many maneuvering techniques.
They sprinted through streets, alleys, over roof tops and in drainage tunnels. Rui didn't slip up a single time, although he couldn't prevent her from slowly opening the gap, he ensured that he didn't fall back significantly at any stage. He replicated every maneuver and direction she took and ensured he never faltered.
Rui didn't let her out of his vision even a single time. As time passed, just by observing her, he was able to make some inductions about her.
First, she wasn't really a Martial Artist. She was a Martial Artist, technically.
But not really.
She had a layer of fat over her body, and her untoned physique told Rui she likely didn't train frequently and probably hadn't truly trained in a long time. According to the intel, she ran away from every bust of her operation, which had struck him odd.
A Martial Apprentice had very little to fear from ordinary humans. Rui could understand eventually retreating, but running away at the first instance of discovery? If he was in her place, he would have wiped out the raid forces and ensured that he would be able to escape with his goods and valuables, but she abandoned the scene immediately this time and in prior instances.
This told Rui that she was barely a fighter with very little experience. It was quite likely that if he ever managed to get his hands on her, she wouldn't stand even the slightest chance of victory against him. she had probably mastered the maneuvering techniques she was displaying so that she would be able to escape in situations like these.
This just made Rui want to catch her even more.
Neira had already fallen quite behind and had stopped her pursuit, having realized it was hopeless. Her Thermal Eye had a much short range than Rui's Seismic Mapping, which meant she would inevitably lose track of Rui and their target. She could only pray that Rui would somehow capture her, though the chances of that were too low. She had instead taken it upon herself to brief special agent Barnard of what had occurred.
Rui on the other hand didn't stop. He simply ran and ran and ran, and then ran some more.
He didn't how he was going to stop her. He didn't have any strategy, for once. He only knew one thing.
"I don't care if I have to chase you to the end of the continent, I won't let you escape!" He swore.
