We had no choice but to turn back.
"Could some vampires from yesterday still be around? Did survivors make their way here?" Adrian first thought of this possibility, given the special situation in the south of the city.
"But that doesn't make sense either! Even if there were survivors, the ancestor vampire is dead, so his minions would lose their magic source. Without dark element support, how could they keep spreading? Unless there's a second ancestor vampire in this city?"
I shook my head. Cyrae actually gave a rough estimate of how many monsters fell to Earth. She'd been hanging around Aurora Entertainment lately, so she could guess. When the portal connecting the two worlds reopened, besides the imperial soldiers who came later, she saw about 10 or so monsters enter Earth.
These monsters weren't all equally strong, but even the weakest ones were way beyond normal humans. At first it took Cyrae several days to find and kill off the weaker ones. But thre's one or two high-level monsters above 6th rank were much harder to deal with.
"The vampire ancestor from yesterday was probably one of them, right?"
I thought. With Cyrae's current power, dealing with monsters above 6th rank was still quite difficult. That's why she ended up letting Camille escape. By my count, the only high-level monster left on Earth now should be that succubus.
But succubi can only bewitch human minds, they can't infect people on a large scale like vampires. It's not realistic for her to control the whole city center. But the guard's info also said public places like the walking street were still open. This suddenly made me think of another possibility ...
"Could it be some big shot leader coming to inspect?"
And since they clearly said the walking street could stay open, maybe that's the main place the leader wants to check out?
"Anyway, we can't get more info today. Why don't we go take a look and see what's really happening?"
I suddenly felt eager to convince Adrian. The controlled city center really piqued my curiosity. I wasn't totally sure if a leader was really inspecting, but I just didn't want to go back yet.
"Uh, if that's what you want, let's do it!"
Adrian usually won't object to harmless suggestions. Plus he also wanted to know why things suddenly changed like this.
With that decided, we grabbed some fast food to kill time. We waited until the control period started, then went invisible and slowly made our way towards the walking street.
It was quite different from the controlled situation we saw in the south city. Though the big streets were still empty, there were patrolling police and soldiers around everywhere.
Lucky they couldn't see us, otherwise it'd be hard to even find a place to hide.
"Could it really be a leader inspecting? If so, this leader must be super high-ranking!"
I couldn't help suspecting. Then I remembered that notice I saw this morning about reopening the road from the airport to the east city. Could it actually be him?
H-country's top leader would definitely fit this security level. Not to mention they found a portal to another world in the east city - that huge value is definitely worth the supreme leader to come!
The only thing that didn't quite make sense was why the top leader would come to the walking street instead? Surely he doesn't like strolling around shopping streets in his free time?
Getting close to the walking street, more and more police cars for keeping order, but also a few vehicles belonging to TV stations. Now I was almost certain this must be because of a leader's inspection.
"Looks like there are suddenly more people over in that direction?"
Adrian seemed to notice something and pointed ahead.
The place he mentioned was of course the famous Shine Metropolitan walking street, which always has the most foot traffic in the whole city. And according to the notice, some shops on the walking street weren't really affected by this control, the only difference from usual was there were basically no customers.
But the scene wasn't totally quiet. Not far from the entrance, we could see several groups of people slowly moving forward. Besides the guards, we saw a few camera crews that looked like reporters.
"It's right there!"
I grabbed Adrian and we flew towards the biggest crowd, wings spread.
Standing on top of a shop building, we could easily see everything.
"How can it be them?"
The result was a huge shock for me and Adrian.
We never imagined that the people at the center of the crowd weren't the H-country top leaders we expected, but Princess Katarina from the other world!
I remember this princess coming from the imperial capital to Sifur to negotiate peace with the H-country army. But holding the negotiations on Earth's side was really unexpected.
Or maybe the negotiations went smoothly, and she's just visiting Earth afterwards at the H-country government's invitation?
Of course we don't know the exact reason yet. But clearly Katarina wasn't the only member of the otherworld delegation visiting Earth. Besides H-country officials like Wayne Peng accompanying Katarina, I also saw several others in Ilandra Dominion Empire uniforms.
Now the situation was obvious - this city center control was prepared for Katarina! For visitors from another world, touring a busy commercial area like this is probably the best way to show Earth's civilian life. Plus Katarina is only around 30, "shopping" on the walking street really fits the typical interests of her age group.
At least she looked pretty excited now, visiting different shops. As for the shop staff, to keep things secret, most were probably already switched out for government or military people.
"Looks like there's another group of people over there!"
Following Adrain's gaze, I saw another small crowd a bit far away, with less than 10 people. They only had one camera crew filming.
I grabbed Adrian and flew towards where that other group was.
"Since you've already decided this TV recording won't be shown to people on Earth, what's the point of coming to interview us?"
As we got close, we were surprised to find the people at the center of the crowd were none other than Irene from the light elf tribe, and Reed! Reed seemed to be answering questions from the TV crew, but she clearly didn't understand their purpose and was asking back with a blank face.
"Uh, well..."
After hemming and hawing for a while, reporter had to explain the reason behind it.
"We're from National TV, specially approved by the government! Although today's interview won't be made public for now, the discovery of a portal connecting to another world definitely can't be kept secret forever. Sooner or later it will be revealed to the whole world! Our job is to prepare for that day, to record the efforts of H-country soldiers in protecting Earth and our country. At the same time, you otherworlders visiting Earth for the first time is also a very important moment worth documenting."
Obviously this reporter didn't know Reed wasn't actually an otherworld "human", but Irene's elf features were quite obvious. The cameraman kept focusing on her ears.
Since our wings were still out, as soon as we got close, Reed and Irene immediately sensed something and glanced in our direction.
"Huh?"
A surprised look flashed across Irene's face. She was about to speak, but Reed quietly pulled her sleeve.
Of course I'd told Reed about coming to Earth when Adrian and I left. In Earth's environment, she just needed a moment's thought to realize such a strong light element must mean I'd arrived.