Within an unfinished apartment building wrapped in green construction safety nets.
This apartment was a flagship project by Yukinoshita Construction, Chiba's renowned contractor, as their ambitious entry into Tokyo's construction industry. The main structure and interior walls were already 80% complete.
However, due to unsavoury business manoeuvring among construction firms, the project had been temporarily suspended for undisclosed reasons.
Sharon Holygrail had exploited this hiatus to commandeer one of the interior rooms as her temporary base.
Leaning against the corner wall, Sharon removed the clothes stolen from a nearby residence and treated her wounds with white gauze and medication. Exhausted both physically and mentally, she then opened a nearby medicine case.
Click.
The case revealed twenty test tubes containing various coloured liquids.
She methodically consumed each differently-hued potion. As the concoctions entered her system, her gunshot wounds began visibly healing.
These vials contained an assortment of extremely potent Alchemic Potions specially formulated by Demon Hunter captains – some for wound recovery, others for stamina restoration, and several for removing abnormal mental states.
Soon, apart from her still somewhat pale complexion, Sharon's wounds wrapped in white gauze had already healed, and even her stamina had recovered by 80%.
The cost was a 50% depletion of medicinal reserves, and the special gauze wrapped around her body had turned from white to greyish-white.
"Heh, not bad for the pharmacists in the organisation to produce something with this kind of efficacy!"
Sharon flexed her arm, estimating that she had largely regained her combat capabilities.
She took a deep breath, exhaled a turbid sigh, leaned against the wall, and looked up at the ceiling as she reviewed the recent events:
"That man... is definitely no ordinary person..."
Recalling the seemingly very youthful, student-like police officer she had encountered at the villa earlier, Sharon felt resentment but also noticed something peculiar about him.
"Despite having no prior contact, he could use Demon Incantations. And that utterly unreasonable ability to predict."
Sharon recalled the process of their earlier confrontation.
Setting aside the bizarre fact that he immediately understood how to use Demon Incantations upon contact, his actions alone were illogical when the Mist Eye was deployed—continuously firing shots towards his companion's direction to force them out of the Mist Eye's range.
She was certain the intel on the Mist Eye hadn't been leaked, so how did Luo Shu know its effective range?
And after entering the villa, Luo Shu, who had originally intended to pass through the living room, suddenly turned back and headed for the shoe cabinet at the entrance, where he found the hidden Demon Incantation.
This behaviour alone was inexplicably strange.
"It's almost as if he could see the future..."
A sorcerer with the ability to foresee the future? Though unbelievable, given the circumstances, Sharon could only make this preliminary judgement.
"Heh, of all things, it had to be the ability least susceptible to preemptive strikes..."
Sharon was brimming with resentment now. A mission to retrieve an Abyss Artefact had ended in such a disastrous loss.
Most importantly, her best defensive Abyss Artefact had been taken, and there was probably a ticking time bomb hidden within her soul.
Under these circumstances, it would be strange if Sharon didn't want Luo Shu dead.
However, the problem was that she strongly suspected Luo Shu's ability was precognition. Even if it was unclear how far into the future he could see, such an ability inherently made him extremely difficult to assassinate.
Thinking of Luo Shu's ability reminded Sharon of another person who had thoroughly disgusted her—Natsuki Minamiya, that Witch reeking of an indescribable stench:
"Time and space manipulators are truly repulsive."
But if she had to name the most repulsive, Sharon felt it was Natsuki Minamiya, given she was openly a Witch who had contracted with demons.
If not for her notorious reputation in the industry, Sharon might have suspected Natsuki was a high-ranking member of Truth Astronomy.
"Beep—!"
Sharon turned her head towards the specially designed phone beside her, which had just emitted a sound.
Without hesitation, she picked it up and opened it to find a text message.
The content was brief, but the information made her pupils contract.
["SDS dispatched, retreat immediately!"]
"SDS? That newly established Special Defence Section in Japan?"
Seeing the message from her collaborator, Sharon's expression instantly changed: "Damn it!!"
She quickly gathered all the items at the scene and used a chemical agent to erase any traces left on the ground.
Immediately after, she changed into the custom bulletproof nun's habit stored at the hideout, secured her headscarf, and retrieved a 9mm micro submachine gun along with three magazines from another room.
Having completed these preparations, Sharon pressed her ear against the wall. With her enhanced hearing, she detected the faint vibrations of moving footsteps.
"Stairwell direction, 15 people... is this an SDS strike team?"
In an instant, Sharon realised she was surrounded and gritted her teeth in silent fury:
"It's those mad dogs' people?"
She should have guessed earlier. Only two operatives were sent to retrieve Abyss Artefacts, and those operatives were young sorcerers with extraordinary abilities.
Such arrangements were typically made by official special departments within governments, specifically tasked with handling Abyss Artefacts.
Only these artefact-handling experts would dispatch such minimal personnel for such operations.
As a member of the covert Demon Hunter organisation, Sharon rarely clashed with official special departments.
After all, what made these government agencies feared by underground organisations was their rabid tendency for retaliation.
If losses occurred due to unpredictable Abyss Artefacts, these mad dogs might let it slide. But once human involvement was confirmed, killing one of theirs meant provoking the entire department.
And as government entities, they had no shortage of bizarre and terrifying Abyss Artefacts at their disposal.
Provoking them meant facing endless waves of Abyss Artefacts and the full might of national-level forces.
"But this makes no sense... I'm the one who suffered losses here?"
Sharon looked momentarily bewildered upon realising the SDS had targeted her.
She knew she'd taken heavy losses in her encounter with the SDS, but judging by their current mobilisation, the situation seemed different from what she understood.
Suddenly, Sharon considered a possibility she'd previously overlooked:
"Could that man... have falsified his report to the department?"
Normally, if Luo Shu had reported truthfully after their confrontation, the Level 3 Abyss Artefact 'Holy Shroud', the Demon Incantation, and the Level 2 Abyss Artefact 'Mist Eye' likely wouldn't have remained in his possession.
So the possibility existed that he'd falsified his report to keep the artefacts for himself.
More crucially, during their fight, he'd actually spoken in the demon tongue, used a Demon Incantation, and controlled her body.
This clearly indicated something far more serious!
As everyone knew, demon-related techniques and Abyss Artefacts were typically the exclusive domain of Truth Astronomy.
Could that man actually be a Truth Astronomy mole planted within the SDS?
Was he now using the SDS's resources to silence her by falsifying reports?
In that moment, Sharon felt she'd pierced through layers of deception to glimpse the core truth.
"That bastard!!"
Never having suffered such a massive setback, Sharon was nearly mad with rage!
The cruel irony was that even if she reported this to the SDS, they'd dismiss it as slander.
"You bastard, I'll remember this."
Sharon, her face grim as she raised her gun, concealed the reagent tube within her nun's habit and immediately prepared to break through the encirclement.
Revenge was a matter for the future. The immediate priority was to escape the siege and survive!!