Chapter 108: Battle Situation

On the other side—

Ephnel was still unaware of Masaki Hinaki’s appearance.

At the same time, due to the influence of the Erosion, the two of them were still unable to establish contact with Fushihara Ayaka and Erincia, so they were completely ignorant of what had happened on Canary and Ayse’s side.

Yukina still lacked experience and training and could not face the Erosion Organisms in battle alone.

Therefore, Ephnel and Yukina divided the work.

Yukina was responsible for monitoring the situation on the high tower with a wide field of view, informing Ephnel and providing support fire, while Ephnel was responsible for clearing out the appearing Erosion Organisms one by one.

But gradually, Yukina discovered that something was wrong.

“Naoko… the number of Erosion Organisms seems to have increased again…”

Yukina stood on the high tower, her weapon gripped tightly in her hand, as she looked worriedly in the direction where the strange movement had suddenly occurred.

An Erosion Organism she had never seen before had appeared there.

Looking down from where she stood, the entire area was in full view.

Except for a few blind spots, she could immediately discover where people needed help and where Erosion Organisms had appeared, and relay the information to Ephnel.

However, the seven Erosion Organisms they originally thought were there had long been eliminated.

Later, she found that one more seemed to have appeared at some point.

Ephnel had just banished it, and now another one had appeared.

This situation, which was beyond her grasp, made Yukina begin to doubt her own abilities.

‘Did I miscount?’

‘I was the one who insisted on coming with my sister, but in the end, not only could I not help much in the battle, but even the basic intelligence processing work was a mess. It seems like I haven’t done anything right.’

This made Yukina feel helpless.

“Another one appeared? This is the ninth one, right?”

Soon, Ephnel’s voice came through the earpiece.

Compared to Yukina’s nervousness and worry, Ephnel showed no fluctuations in her emotions.

But the more Ephnel was like this, the more Yukina’s mind would wander.

She was currently acting as an operator.

As an operator, if the information she provided was full of loopholes, the impact on the battlefield was self-evident.

Ephnel adjusted her combat strategy based on her intelligence, but if a flaw in the intelligence ultimately led to a mistake in Ephnel’s plan and she got hurt, Yukina didn’t even dare to imagine such an outcome.

In the end, she was the one who had insisted on coming.

If she couldn’t do anything and became a burden, then Yukina would never be able to forgive herself.

So, at this moment, Yukina was even more nervous than when facing the Erosion Organisms.

“Tell me its location.”

“This time it’s in Area 2.”

Yukina very carefully checked the map on her electronic bracelet, then raised her eyes and confirmed it again.

“North side of Area 2. This area… has no personnel needing evacuation.”

“This place… I remember I was there ten minutes ago.”

“That’s right… at that time, Naoko had already cleared the Erosion Organisms there and evacuated the crowd smoothly, but… now another Erosion Organism has appeared…” Yukina said in a low, sad voice, “Maybe… I missed it…”

“No, I don’t think we missed this one in our intelligence. Rather, it is indeed a guy who appeared there later…”

“Eh?”

Ephnel was chasing after the Erosion Organism and didn’t notice the change in Yukina’s tone at all, simply offering an explanation.

“I can’t be completely sure of the specific situation yet. Anyway, I’ll go over there again. Yukina, you stay there and continue to observe. If an Erosion Organism appears somewhere else, pay more attention and see if there are any strange movements nearby, or any suspicious people. Tell me as soon as you find anything.”

“Mmm…”

With that, the two of them temporarily cut off communication.

…

At this moment, Ephnel was running rapidly on the rooftops, leaping and landing steadily on top of a signal tower with the help of “steps.”

The view here was not as open as on the high tower, but it was more than enough to observe the surrounding area within a thousand-meter radius.

Soon, she found her target—at the far end of her line of sight, an Erosion Organism, crawling on the ground and writhing its body forward slowly, appeared in her vision.

It seemed not to have sensed the presence of humans and was crawling forward aimlessly.

Now that the evacuation of the crowd was basically complete, Ephnel was not in a hurry to討伐 this giant crocodile-like creature.

Instead, she observed it with a stern expression.

In a single disaster, the number of appearing Erosion Organisms should be fixed.

This was common sense.

But this time, there was an “exception.”

This was undoubtedly the work of the enemy.

If the enemy was someone like the “Apostles,” then such an abnormal situation would actually be normal.

The last three Erosion disasters made it impossible for Ephnel to make a dogmatic judgment based on past experience.

However, Ephnel had been following the Erosion Organism and had observed it for a full three minutes without seeing any particular abnormalities.

It had only destroyed some circuit equipment because it reacted to electrical energy.

Other than that, it had been moving slowly.

Just as Ephnel was about to try other ideas, Yukina’s voice suddenly came through the earpiece.

“Naoko, another Erosion Organism has appeared… this time in the eastern part of Area 2, the staff dormitory area.”

“It’s there this time?”

Ephnel pondered for a moment.

“About a twenty-minute walk… maybe even faster if I jog… The time between the appearance of the ninth and tenth one is…”

If one assumed that the appearance of the Erosion Organisms was man-made, then calculating based on the time difference, the time required to go from the location of the ninth Erosion Organism’s appearance to the location of the tenth’s appearance would perfectly correspond to the time difference between their appearances.

Ephnel didn’t believe in such a coincidence.

After a pause, Ephnel said, “Alright, keep an eye on it. I’ll be there soon.”

“Mmm!”

With that, Ephnel leaped down and ran quickly towards the Erosion Organism a hundred meters away.

The Erosion Organism also discovered Ephnel at this time and tried to twist its cumbersome body to attack her, but Ephnel didn’t give it a chance to turn around.

She leaped high with the help of “steps,” spun her body in mid-air, and her long spear also circled around her body, accumulating power with the force of her spin, and then she threw it fiercely.

A silver light fell like a meteor.

In an instant, the ground trembled, and rubble flew everywhere.

A dull, loud bang exploded with the Erosion Organism at the center.

Layers of smoke and dust spread out like giant waves, then contracted and rose into the air.

Specks of mottled starlight rose from behind the smoke and dust.

Ephnel only glanced at it before stepping over the “steps” and turning to run in another direction.

Just then, Yukina’s voice came through the earpiece again.

“Naoko, near the place where the Erosion Organism appeared, I found a person…”

…