The world was collapsing.
Broken houses, wounded people, dust, smoke, and scorching air mixed together with screams and the hissing of burst pipes, forming a cruel scene of disaster.
Caesar's senses gradually returned. The buzzing in his ears faded bit by bit, and the chaotic room came into view.
"What happened!"
Caesar saw Leonard shouting with his mouth wide open, looking completely lost. His voice came through faintly, as if muffled by the noise.
"It's an attack! The Nighthawks' headquarters was bombed!"
Caesar shouted back, pushing himself off the ground. "Get out of here, quickly!"
He grabbed Leonard, yelling a few times before the latter finally snapped out of it. Leonard turned to pull Klein and Gereira up. Supporting each other, the four of them stumbled out of the damaged, crooked hotel.
They climbed down the half-collapsed stairs, crossed the debris-strewn lobby, and pushed open the shattered main door.
Outside, the street was in chaos. Carriages were overturned, the road had caved in, and broken water pipes were spraying water everywhere. The windows of the opposite building were blown out, and passersby lay on the ground, crying out and clutching their wounds.
Caesar turned toward the building next to the hotel—the Enmat Harbor Nighthawks headquarters.
The two-story Fishing Club was gone.
It looked as if a giant had taken a huge bite out of the middle of the building. Rubble and debris were scattered all around, the floor completely blown away. Only two half-broken walls on either side still stood, proof that a building had once existed there.
"Oh my god…"
Leonard muttered beside him, his voice trembling.
Amid the ruins, bodies lay twisted and mangled. Several figures were rushing through the wreckage, trying to move stones and concrete to rescue those trapped beneath. Caesar immediately noticed the one leading them—it was Captain Edward Crawford.
His overcoat was torn to pieces, his left arm gone from the wrist down, yet he was still trying to lift a concrete slab with his remaining hand. His fingers were cut, blood smearing across the concrete and leaving clear red handprints.
"Let's go help him."
Seeing Edward's condition, Caesar sighed in his heart. Whatever grudges existed could wait—right now, they were all Nighthawks, and they had to help each other.
The others didn't hesitate. They rushed forward and joined the rescue. When Edward saw them, something flickered in his eyes, but there was no time for talk. Everyone worked desperately. Every second lost meant another chance of survival slipping away.
The injured and the dead were quickly separated.
Ms. Daly came up from underground, a cut on her forehead bleeding down her face. She held a green wreath in her hands. Standing in the middle of the wounded, she raised it, and a faint green light spread out from it.
The groaning injured were bathed in that light, and their faces gradually relaxed, as if some of their pain had been taken away.
Daly's brows loosened a little, but when her gaze fell on the corpses nearby, her expression darkened again.
"Captain, five are severely injured, seven are dead, and the rest… can't be found."
A lightly wounded Nighthawk came to report, his eyes full of sorrow.
Edward closed his eyes slightly at those words.
"Can't be found" really meant that they had been too close to the explosion's center—their bodies completely gone.
"Captain Edward, Ms. Daly, what exactly happened?"
Caesar and the others walked over, their faces grim.
"Our members were controlled."
Daly shook her head, recounting what had happened. At that time, those team members had self-detonated, and their carriages were filled with explosives. If Edward hadn't used a Sealed Artifact—sacrificing his left hand to block part of the explosion—the casualties would have been even worse.
"…All of this might be connected to the murderer we're investigating. When the attack started, those controlled members said: 'Ms. M sends her regards.'"
Ms. M?
Caesar, who had been calm until now, felt his heart tremble violently.
He remembered.
Sirius's letter—it was written to Ms. M. It was Ms. M who had ordered Sirius and his group to control the original Caesar, which led to his death and his own arrival in this world.
Could it be that Ms. M's true body was in Enmat Harbor, and she was the one behind all this?
"From that title, she should be a divine messenger of the Aurora Order," Daly said coldly, her eyes misty with hatred. "Those damned lunatics…"
Caesar's thoughts were a mess. He barely heard Daly's words. He forced himself to steady his breathing. "Then what should we do next? Continue to pursue—"
Before he could finish, his expression suddenly changed.
Without warning, he looked sharply in one direction, as if something invisible was pulling him. The sudden movement startled everyone.
"Caesar, what's wrong?" Daly asked quickly.
Caesar's face turned pale. His pupils shrank as he stared toward the distant port. At some point, the sky there had turned blood-red.
The Secrets Suppliant characteristic in his body was going wild, warning him of something terrifying—something that could lead to a disaster.
"Over there!"
He pointed, his hand trembling. "I can feel a dangerous power gathering. It's connected to the True Creator! If we don't stop it, it'll erupt into a catastrophe!"
"The port area? Isn't that where they went to investigate?" Daly said, shocked. "Is Ms. M behind this?"
"Whoever it is!"
Caesar shouted. The alarm bells in his head were deafening. "If we don't move now, it'll be too late!"
He looked around—dead bodies, wounded people, the few still standing. Could they really stop something like that?
"Can you find the exact location?"
Edward's hoarse voice came from behind. His coat was torn, his body covered in dust, but his eyes were still sharp.
Caesar took a deep breath. "I can."
"Good." Edward nodded. "Then wait for me to go down and get something. After that, we go together."
His tone was calm, but a hidden power built beneath it, like a volcano about to erupt. He straightened his torn coat and stood tall once again.
"Since the Aurora Order has sent their regards," Edward said coldly, "we, the Nighthawks of Enmat Harbor, won't be impolite. We'll return the favor—a hundredfold."