Chapter 164: Why Is It Always Star-Crossed Lovers?

The rhythmic crashing of the Siesta waves provided a soothing backdrop to an utterly absurd scene. Three figures crouched sneakily behind a temporary plaster statue erected for the upcoming Obsidian Festival.

Thorns calmly channeled his Supreme Art—the exact same devastating swordsmanship that had just repelled three Sarkaz Royal Court elites—to efficiently excavate three human-sized trenches in the pristine white sand. One pit for each of them. To complete the ensemble, each of them wore a thick bundle of shrubbery on their heads. For some inexplicable reason, the Sarkaz King Theresis had been carrying these bushes around earlier, and their shape was suspiciously perfect for tactical camouflage.

The sheer stupidity of the situation felt incredibly familiar.

“Doctor, are you absolutely certain that if we lie in ambush here, a spectacular yuri drama will unfold on the road?” Thorns asked. He scratched his scalp, feeling a distinct itch as if the branches were trying to take root in his dark hair.

You struggled to wiggle deeper into your designated sand pit, adjusting your position until your face pointed directly at the main road. “Guaranteed. If they dare skip their performance, we execute the Siesta Destruction Plan. We will incite mass panic, trigger the dormant volcano to scald everyone in the city to death, and physically force them to come here and act it out!”

Aya cautiously leaned her head over from the adjacent pit. “Do I have to die too?”

Thorns nodded without a single shred of hesitation. “Of course.”

His internal logic was flawless: the Doctor always had deep, unfathomable reasons for his actions. How could a tactical genius of his caliber not have accounted for necessary sacrifices?

Aya drooped, her expression thoroughly dejected. “Alright… So, you prefer cooked food.”

“And if they still refuse to show up,” you continued darkly, “we will declare war on the entire world. We will cover this entire landmass in active Originium crystals until they have absolutely nowhere left to stand but right here!”

Aya’s face clouded over with absolute gloom. “Do I have to mutate too?”

Thorns hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Presumably. And yes, of course.”

He reasoned with himself again. The Doctor was not a mindless warmonger. There had to be a deeper geopolitical strategy at play. Whatever it was, following orders was the safest bet.

Aya’s expression sank into total despair. “Fine. I am going to become canned cooked food.”

Thorns pondered the culinary implications for a moment. “Canned sea urchin? I think I would be quite delicious.”

Aya stared at him in sheer disbelief. “Ah? Do Aegirs have to die too?”

Thorns was entirely decisive this time. “Of course. To execute the Doctor’s will, I shall gladly lead the vanguard into the boiling pots.”

Miles away inside the Siesta City Hall, the situation had rapidly deteriorated. Watching the armed guards pouring out from the corridors, Ceylon finally grasped the harsh reality. No matter how sheltered or naive she had been, the truth was glaringly obvious. Her trusted ‘Uncle’ Cronin had orchestrated a complete and utter betrayal.

Provence and Skyfire immediately moved to flank her, forming a protective barrier. Provence drew her heavy crossbow, the mechanical limbs snapping into place, while Skyfire raised her Originium staff. They aimed at the encroaching guards. The distinct, lethal glow of active Originium Arts began to flow through their weapons, and their Rhodes Island standard-issue electromagnetic shields sizzled to life with a sharp crackle.

“The emergency exit is to the southeast!” Provence announced. “Miss Ceylon, please stay right behind us!”

Skyfire forcefully slammed the emergency contact beacon on her wrist. Without missing a beat, she swept her staff forward, conjuring a massive, blindingly hot fireball. She hurled the blazing sphere directly into the advancing crowd, adding literal and figurative fuel to the chaotic situation.

“Do not panic, Miss!” Skyfire yelled over the roar of the flames. “Half of Rhodes Island’s elite combat roster is currently vacationing in Siesta. Everyone will have received the distress signal by now. We are going to break out first, regroup, and then come back to tear this entire City Hall down to its foundations!”

“We are taking the emergency exit!” Provence yelled again.

“Understood!” Skyfire replied.

The guards scrambled in a panic. “Block them! Form a barricade! They are going for the emergency exit!”

Ceylon stared at her two supposed bodyguards, her expression incredibly complicated. “Why are you shouting our highly confidential escape plan out loud?!”

Provence blinked, her massive fluffy tail wagging awkwardly as the realization set in. “Oh, right. We are not wearing our tactical earpieces today, are we? Hehe, my mistake.”

Ceylon fell entirely silent. For a brief, agonizing second, she seriously considered just surrendering to the guards.

Relying on the specialized, wolf-claw-like climbing gear integrated into her boots, Provence suddenly launched herself off the floor. She began sprinting horizontally along the pristine hall walls, leaving deep, jagged claw marks carved into the expensive plaster. “The Rhodes Island Employee Handbook explicitly covers this exact hostage scenario! Do not worry, we are trained professionals!”

Ceylon was still mentally reeling from Cronin’s betrayal, but her shock was quickly being overridden by sheer bewilderment. She turned her head to watch her companions execute their so-called professional counterattack. Skyfire—the exact same aristocratic young woman who had been shrieking in pure terror at a mere twenty-centimeter cockroach on the floor just hours ago—was now casually incinerating a crowd of armed mercenaries without a single shred of psychological burden. She was even finding the spare time to offer Ceylon emotional support between fireballs.

“What kind of deranged organization is Rhodes Island?!” Ceylon cried out. “Why would they put domestic terrorism in an employee handbook?!”

“We are a registered pharmaceutical company,” Provence corrected cheerfully. She spun in mid-air, accurately shooting a fire alarm dozens of meters down the corridor with a blind, over-the-shoulder shot. Before her boots hit the ground, she fired three more bolts, shattering a neat row of pressurized fire extinguishers mounted on the wall. Thick white chemical powder violently expanded, filling the enclosed corridor and sending the pursuing guards into fits of blinding coughs. “Note to the Mayor’s office! Next time you embezzle city funds, do not skimp on the fire safety equipment!”

In that suffocatingly narrow space, the high concentration of cheap, low-quality fire suppressant powder mixed perfectly with the ambient oxygen. When Skyfire’s superheated flames licked the edge of the white cloud, it instantly met every single chemical condition required for a catastrophic dust explosion.

A deafening roar shook the building.

Under the horrified, watchful eyes of the Siesta citizens gathered in the plaza below, the upper floors of the City Hall violently detonated.

Riding the shockwave, the highly agile Catastrophe Messenger scooped the squishy Caster Operator under one arm, grabbed Ceylon with the other, and leaped straight out of the freshly shattered glass window into the open sky.

The guards coughed in the burning rubble, completely outplayed. They never intended to use the emergency exit at all.

This was the fundamental truth of Rhodes Island. Their Operators spent every waking day frantically trying to save people, listening to endless hellish life stories only to watch those same patients succumb to their infections anyway. They carried the weight of lost families, unsolved conspiracies, and the ticking time bomb of Oripathy in their own bloodstreams. When a Rhodes Island Operator needed to go downstairs, they did not take the stairs. They certainly did not take the elevator. They took the window.

Staring down at the rapidly approaching concrete plaza, realizing she was about to be forced into a terminal-velocity elbow-drop, Ceylon finally lost the very last shred of her aristocratic grace. Her voice cracked into a complete, unhinged breakdown.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

Just this morning, she had been playing the role of the sharp, brave, politically savvy Mayor’s daughter. How had her life devolved into blowing up her own City Hall and elbow-dropping twenty-eight floors onto solid pavement by the afternoon?

Back on the tranquil beach, Thorns shifted in his sandy trench and tilted his shrub-covered head. “Doctor. I believe I just heard someone screaming in the distance.”

Screaming? That definitely was not part of the script.

You pondered this anomaly for a brief second. “Probably an auditory hallucination. Keep your eyes glued to the road for me. I am going to scroll through some short videos on my terminal for a bit.”

“Oh. Understood,” Thorns replied, fully embracing his role as a compliant, unquestioning NPC.

Struggling to free one arm from the compacted sand, you tapped the screen of your PRTS terminal. The live tactical feed flickered to life, immediately displaying your elite Operators in the middle of a twenty-eight-story freefall.

On the screen, Provence spread her limbs like a flying squirrel. She flared out her massive, fluffy tail—a distinct physical mutation caused by her Oripathy—using the sheer volume of fur to drastically increase their air resistance. As the concrete rushed up to meet them, Skyfire waited until they were exactly ten meters from the ground. She thrust her staff downward, manipulating her Arts to blast a violent counter-current of high-temperature exhaust directly at the pavement.

The thermal updraft caught them, killing their momentum. The three girls tumbled into a messy, groaning heap on the slightly melting asphalt. A perfectly safe landing.

Their tactical cooperation was surprisingly compatible. You nodded in quiet approval.

This was the proper, scientifically sound way for high-intelligence Terrans to survive a lethal drop. It was infinitely better than wrapping oneself into a calcified egg and relying on sheer, brute-force toughness to bungee jump from ten thousand meters without a rope, only to walk out of the crater with superficial scratches. You were looking directly at Saria.

Suddenly, Thorns lowered his voice to a tactical whisper. “Doctor. Someone is approaching.”

Down the sunlit road, a figure stepped into view. She was a cold, utterly silent assassin, her hair tied back in a striking gray-to-black gradient high ponytail. She wore a translucent tactical raincoat over her combat gear. Holding a radio transceiver in one hand, she began issuing frigid, methodical orders to her hidden subordinates, directing them to blockade the perimeter.

“Make absolutely sure not to hurt the young lady,” her voice drifted over the coastal breeze, sharp and measured. “As for the Rhodes Island personnel… do whatever you want with them.”

You desperately signaled Thorns with a frantic, wide-eyed look from your trench.

Look alive, Thorns! The Leading Lady has finally arrived!

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent!