*Boom!* as the 100th floor crushes the 99th floor, a tremor runs through the entirety of the hotel building.
"Looks like starting today this hotel will only have 99 floors."
"I can't believe he actually did that…"
Running down the stairs, Nian Yao Yao raises a sigh.
"As insane as the plan is, it is rather effective. Not a single person would try to make us stay when they're all running for their lives."
"You think Hua got crushed?"
"Who knows?"
"Cameras show more dolls further down."
Informed of this by Tian Cheng, Nian Yao Yao asks—
"Can't you hack them like before?"
"The other side seems to have a highly competent electronic warfare specialist. It would take too much time to hack through their reconfigured firewalls."
"Enemies further down, gradual depletion of stamina per step… Ai, we're getting off the stairs."
Opening a door that is marked with the floor number it leads to, Nian Yao Yao waits for everyone to move out of the staircase, prior to turning her attention to Zhui Yun.
"Zhui Yun, take out your Relic and cut us a way down to the base floor."
"Got it."
Assuming a grasping posture, a two-handed bronze sword that measures to be a bit over three feet in length manifests within Zhui Yun's grip.
The handle of this weapon is wrapped in light green silk with a taotie handguard, and the blade is equal to the width of an adult's hand.
As everyone takes a few steps back, Zhui Yun begins to cut up the ground.
...…
*Bam! Thud! Thud!* as the ceiling of the 98th floor collapses, two bodies fall from above.
The first body is a headless corpse, while the second—
"Not bad. Cuts quite well."
Examining the soft sword, Long Hua smiles before directing a glance at the headless body that was originally a Moon Guard.
(Interesting…)
Drawing in a deep breath, Long Hua absorbs the spirit Qi that is emanating from the corpse's opened wound.
(It's way less than that practitioner who claims to be a member of the Ling Yuan family, but…)
Seeing a bar code tattoo present on the body's forearm, Long Hua constricts his eyes.
(Is it just because he's a Sinner that he's able to be a vessel for spirit Qi, or…?)
Recalling the corpses of non-Sinners that he had seen in the distant past, Long Hua isn't very certain.
(Much of the ordinary human corpses that I've seen in the past had been left out to rot for a while, so maybe the spirit Qi contained in them had already been scattered? Or maybe ordinary humans possess so little spirit Qi that it's not even noticeable? Another possibility is that—I wasn't a practitioner at the time, so maybe I wasn't even qualified to see it? Too many questions, and very little answers…)
Heaving a sigh, Long Hua leaps off the pile of rubble that was originally a part of the ceiling.
(In any case…)
Glancing at the ground in front of him, Long Hua raises the soft sword.
(I can't unleash my full cultivation base due to the city's detection system, but it looks like releasing it through a medium in the form of sword Qi is still doable. Maybe it's because the amount of spirit Qi used is very little?)
Slashing at the ground, sword Qi emanates from his blade, resulting in—
*…! …! …! …!* four lines being drawn out.
As the cut portion of the ground falls onto the floor below, a gap that Long Hua is able to fit through is created.
Arriving on the 97th floor, Long Hua continues to repeat this process, as he gradually makes his way down the building.
...…
In the hallway of a lower floor—
"Finally caught up to them."
"Tch. What a bunch of copycats…"
Pulling her sword out of the ground, Zhui Yun clicks her tongue, as she glares at the nine Moon Guards—who are dropping down from the hole that she had cut out.
Similarly, to Nian Yao Yao's idea of cutting their way down to the base floor, the Moon Guards had the same idea in mind, as a few among them held blade-type Relics in hand.
"What a tricky situation to be in."
A bead of cold sweat rolls down the side of Nian Yao Yao's head, as she finds herself facing six RS800s—that had stepped out of the door that leads to the stairs.
[So, my idiotic daughter, are you planning to put your amateur-level combat skills to the test, or are you going to surrender?]
Hearing Nian Tao Tao's voice from one of the RS800s, Nian Yao Yao grinds her teeth together.
"Old hag, you really know how to pick on a person's sore spot…"
Due to her special physique, Nian Yao Yao would consider herself a competent fighter. However, skills and raw strengths wise, she couldn't possibly compare to a trained Sinner, or a crude war machine for that matter.
"…"
Setting Jing Yao down, Tian Cheng steps in front of Nian Yao Yao with her magenta-colored eyes open.
Strapped to Tian Cheng's waist is Kun, the sword that Long Hua had plundered from Huang Wu.
[An android? Oh, I see, so this is the culprit behind that hacking.]
Due to Tian Cheng's outward appearance being focused on resembling a human as much as possible, Nian Tao Tao's initial impression of her is far removed from a combat-specialized doll, however—
"The RS800's most reinforced area is their chest…"
Drawing out the archaic sword, Tian Cheng kicks off against the ground, and approaches the RS800 that is closest to her.
With wind like swiftness, Tian Cheng impales the RS800's chest.
"The reason for this is because their CPU that I had just destroyed is located here."
*Thud!* with pinpoint accuracy, the archaic sword had stabbed through the RS800's CPU—causing it to collapse the moment Tian Cheng withdraws her weapon.
...…
Sitting within the passenger compartment of a moving helicopter, Nian Tao Tao turns her head away from the monitor that is positioned to her right and looks to Jing Yin.
"Has tech related to dolls reached a level where the dolls are able to appear fully human-like, while meeting military war machine standards?"
"I think that doll is an exception to the rules."