Chapter 722: The Chase

Chapter 722: Chapter 73: The Chase

The explosion was incredibly sudden. Even people far from the street could feel a wave of intense heat and the force of a shockwave.

Their ears were filled with roaring and sharp cracking sounds. Even the surrounding buildings trembled from the blast’s impact, and all sorts of debris rained down from above with a CLATTER.

At the epicenter of the explosion, the smoke and dust parted, and Chen Chuan walked out completely unharmed.

The only signs of the blast were some new dents and pockmarks on his mask, and his overcoat was almost shredded to rags. He ripped off the coat, then took off the mask and tossed it to the ground.

Fine debris and rubble were still falling from the sky. Anything that landed on him was instantly deflected, making the patch of ground where he stood a noticeably different color from its surroundings.

Just then, he heard a crackling static from his Realm Token. Both the audio and video feeds had become fuzzy and indistinct, likely due to the explosion’s interference.

However, Realm Tokens were self-repairing. His, as a manager’s, was specially made to withstand explosions of considerable intensity. Although it was glitching now, it should recover in a little while.

He glanced at the ground. ‘Those larvae before probably weren’t just digging tunnels. They were also carving out spots to plant explosives.’

He could tell this was a premeditated attack. It seemed he was the target.

Planting explosives under an entire street was a bold move. Even a powerful Fighter wouldn’t be able to escape once they entered the area. Taking a direct hit from a blast like this would mean either death or critical injury.

But it was different for him. Even without his Second Self, he could have tanked the explosion relying solely on his Horizontal Heart Strength Training, which was exactly what had just happened.

In fact, the psychic warning had come a little late precisely because while the explosion was dangerous to him, it wasn’t *that* dangerous. If he had truly encountered a life-threatening situation, he would have sensed it before even entering the area.

‘But who knows how many residents were on this street,’ he thought. ‘It’s unlikely any of them survived a blast like this.’

Still, a search and rescue operation was necessary.

By now, he had walked out of the blast zone. He glanced at Chaoming, still circling high in the sky. It seemed to be heading his way because of the explosion, so he gave it a hand signal to continue its mission.

Chaoming let out a cry and continued the pursuit.

At the same time, an image, a mix of clear and blurry patches, appeared on his Realm Token. He could vaguely make out the target, who seemed to be trying to assess the situation. After a final glance upward, the person continued to flee.

The person couldn’t see Chen Chuan, but they could deduce his condition from Chaoming’s movements.

Chen Chuan’s gaze fixed ahead. His figure blurred as he shot forward in pursuit.

After a short while, the Realm Token’s feed cleared up a bit, and a message came in from the rear. The team he’d left behind had obviously been alerted by the explosion and was anxiously asking for a status update.

He sent a reply, telling them he was fine and that all team members should stick to the plan. Then, he spoke to An Shield. “An Shield, have city security come up, clear the rubble, and get any survivors to medical.”

“Understood, An Shield. However, I must remind you, Manager Chen, that scans indicate the residents in this area are predominantly non-citizens. They are not eligible for Central City’s medical services.”

“List the relevant individuals as having assisted in this operation,” Chen Chuan said calmly. “Charge their medical expenses to the operation’s budget.”

“Understood, An Shield.”

By now, the target seemed to have confirmed that Chen Chuan was unharmed in the explosion, because they picked up their pace and continued to flee.

This person was clearly very familiar with the local terrain and residences. They weaved back and forth through the alleyways, sometimes cutting straight through homes and vanishing from sight for several moments at a time. This created numerous obstacles for Chaoming’s aerial surveillance and Chen Chuan’s pursuit.

Furthermore, this residential area was filled with pedestrians, unauthorized structures, and countless obstacles, preventing him from moving at top speed. His target, on the other hand, showed no such restraint. It was only thanks to Chaoming’s significant advantage in the air that they hadn’t shaken him yet.

‘But if this person keeps circling this area, they won’t be able to leverage this advantage for much longer,’ Chen Chuan considered. ‘Not once my backup arrives and the encirclement is in place.’

Chen Chuan stared at the figure on his Realm Token. Despite the many obstacles, he had An Shield providing various analyses and advance warnings, allowing him to choose the most rational and optimized route. As a result, he slowly began to close the distance.

He just needed to shrink the distance between them to within five hundred meters. At that range, his Spiritual Power could reach the person, and they would have no chance of shaking him off.

At that moment, he suddenly saw the person press their hand against a nearby building.

The small, strange gesture could have been a signal or perhaps a trigger for something. It immediately brought to mind the earlier explosion.

He considered it for a moment. ‘It could be a bluff, or there could really be a problem there.’

But the cause of the first explosion was still unknown. If his presence was the trigger, that wasn’t a scenario he wanted to test. He immediately decided to take a detour. Although it might let the target gain some distance, it wouldn’t be hard to catch up again later.

After that, he saw the target periodically touch the buildings on either side in the same manner, clearly trying to use this tactic to slow him down.

While he couldn’t spot anything unusual from a distance, An Shield could provide him with a preliminary analysis. If there was a significant probability of explosives, he would avoid the area. If the probability was low, he ignored it and pressed on.

Seeing that this method was no longer effective at hindering Chen Chuan, the target stopped using it. By this point, the person had also run out of the large residential district and onto a main street.

But they didn’t linger or use the open street to pick up speed. Instead, they quickly crossed it and darted into a cluster of high-rises on the other side.

Chen Chuan looked ahead. If this were anywhere else, he would have already had combat creatures and security personnel set up roadblocks at possible exits and on the main streets to block the target’s path.

But this was Hongsheng District, the area in Central City with the worst, most outdated, and most dilapidated security infrastructure. So, none of that was an option. Even the local city security, being the worst-paid, were dragging their feet and still hadn’t arrived. They couldn’t be relied upon.

That left continuous tracking as his only option.

Just as he emerged from the residential area onto the main street, he sensed something. He tilted his head, dodging a bullet.

He then swatted his hand a few times, knocking away the subsequent bullets. Looking up, he could see a sniper on a high-rise across the street. Their marksmanship was impeccable; every shot was aimed directly at his face.

‘This means the person I’m chasing planned their escape route long in advance, even setting up an ambush here. I’ll need to be careful up ahead,’ he thought.

In the span of a thought, he casually caught an incoming bullet, then flicked his wrist and threw it straight back.

The sniper was clearly a Fighter who had taken a Stimulating Potion, which was the only reason they could barely track Chen Chuan’s movements and fire several highly accurate shots based on instinct. That same battlefield-honed instinct now screamed danger, and the sniper immediately tried to dodge to the side.

But they were only three or four hundred meters apart. The returned bullet was traveling even faster than when it was fired. It drilled squarely into the sniper’s forehead. Their entire body snapped back, the back of their skull exploding in a gory hole. The bullet’s momentum didn’t stop there, blasting a shallow crater into the concrete wall behind them.

After casually dispatching the sniper, Chen Chuan continued along the target’s escape path. But this time, after only a few hundred meters, he saw the person turn a street corner and vanish, not to be seen again.

Just two or three seconds later, he arrived at the spot. A quick glance revealed an entrance to an abandoned waterway below.

He looked down into the hole but had no intention of following.

‘Based on their previous actions, this is someone who calculates for every contingency,’ he reasoned. ‘If I were them, I would have planted explosives down there to ensure my retreat.’

‘With good luck, it could bury me alive. With bad luck, it would still block my path.’

If that were the case, then under normal circumstances, the target would indeed have made a successful escape.

However…

An image flickered to life before his eyes, displaying a dense network of sewer tunnels with his current position clearly marked.

With An Shield’s information resources backing him, he had powerful support.

Moreover, the terrain here was much more open, so he no longer had to suppress his speed as he had before. After a single glance at the map, he accelerated abruptly, bolting forward along the route indicated by An Shield.

Another two or three seconds later, his mind sensed a powerful aura below ground.

The owner of this aura also seemed to detect something and immediately retracted their Domain. But while a Domain could be retracted, the momentary psychic contact couldn’t be broken. They had no choice but to run faster.

But the target could feel that no matter where they went, Chen Chuan was always right above them, impossible to shake.

So, after a brief pause, the target suddenly changed direction, taking a different path and instantly increasing the distance between them.

Chen Chuan immediately felt the change. The target’s turn must have been a descent deeper underground, as that was the only way to create such a sudden gap.

‘Normal sewers don’t run that deep. That person must have taken a path leading to the Lower City District.’

‘The Lower City District, huh…’

He tapped his Realm Token, and a holographic map of this section of the Lower City District’s pathways appeared before him.

He had been to this area before while rescuing Fang Zhixin, so he had already surveyed it once. The data was recently updated and was extremely detailed, including various side tunnels and artificially dug paths.

After studying it for a few moments, he instantly made a decision.