Yuri's small face was also etched with worry.
Yet after hearing all this, Cloud's expression shifted into a cold, excited smile.
"Not go back?"
He slowly rose and walked to the cabin window, gazing down at the familiar city of sin that had appeared in his line of sight.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Golden Battle God flames ignited in his eyes!
"My friends are still there, waiting for me."
"My territory is still there too."
"Geese Howard... good."
"If you're so eager to die, then I'll come back and send you off personally!"
The smoke from KOF 94 had yet to fully clear.
And in South Town's underworld, an even bloodier, even more brutal war for the throne was about to begin!
...
"Ladies and gentlemen, the aircraft has begun its descent. We will soon arrive at our destination—South Town International Airport. The outside temperature is 25 degrees Celsius, and the weather is clear. We wish you a pleasant journey."
Accompanied by the sweet announcement, Robert's Gulfstream G650 private jet descended like an elegant silver swan onto the runway.
Inside the cabin—luxurious leather sofas, bottles of Romanée-Conti, and impeccably dressed private flight attendants with professional smiles—everything showcased the understated elegance of "money power."
"Ah, the lives of the rich are just so dull and tedious." Cloud took a sip of wine worth over a thousand dollars and sighed in mock world-weariness.
Beside him, Yuri pressed against the window like a child on her first flight, watching South Town grow closer, her small face radiating the joy of "coming home."
On the other side, Mai Shiranui wasn't so relaxed.
Her striking almond eyes gazed at the distant city—that familiar urban jungle of steel—while her elegant brows furrowed tightly.
"Something's wrong..." she murmured.
"What is it, Mai?" Cloud set down his wine glass.
"South Town has changed." Mai's voice was unprecedentedly grave. "I can feel it... it's become unfamiliar, oppressive."
As a top-tier kunoichi, Mai's perception far exceeded ordinary people. She could keenly sense the flow of a city's "qi."
The South Town of before, while chaotic, dirty, and rife with crime, had possessed a "qi" that was tumultuous yet full of vitality—like a boiling pot of stew with everything thrown in.
There was the violent qi from gang wars, the greedy qi of gamblers, and also the everyday smoke of ordinary citizens struggling to survive.
But now...
"South Town right now..." Mai chose her words carefully, trying to describe the eerie sensation, "...is like a massive, strictly managed prison. All voices have been suppressed, all chaos smoothed over."
"On the surface, it might look cleaner and more orderly than before, but at its core, there's a suffocating... deathly stillness."
"Oh?"
Hearing this, Cloud also set aside his joking attitude.
He slowly closed his eyes, combining his Spirit with Mind's Eye. His perception spread outward like an invisible radar, sweeping over the distant city!
The next second, he "saw" it.
In his perception, all of South Town was enveloped by an enormous, invisible "spider web."
This web consisted of countless fine threads representing "surveillance" and "control."
They spread to every corner of the city—from the peak of Geese Tower to the filthiest sewers. Nowhere was untouched.
On streets and in alleys, seemingly ordinary newspaper vendors, shoeshine kids, even housewives hanging laundry on balconies—all had faint traces of energy from this great web clinging to them.
They were all "eyes" of the network!
The street brawls and gang wars that had once been everywhere were now almost nonexistent.
In their place was a hair-raising "order" born of high-pressure rule.
Every citizen's face wore a look of numbness and fear, as if a Sword of Damocles hung invisibly above their heads.
And the center of this web, the source where all threads converged, was that cloud-piercing tower that loomed over everything like a dark monarch—Geese Tower!
There, Cloud sensed a massive, solid, terrifyingly abyssal presence.
Geese Howard!
"Well, well..." Cloud slowly opened his eyes and exhaled.
"Seems like Geese has grown considerably stronger while we were away. He's turned all of South Town into his personal Absolute Domain."
Though this wasn't a true Absolute Domain in the technical sense, this level of terrifying control over an entire city demonstrated just how powerful and fearsome Geese had become.
He was, in every sense, the King of South Town!
"Then... then what do we do?" Yuri also sensed the heavy atmosphere and asked nervously. "Should we just storm Geese Tower and beat him up?"
"Don't be rash." Cloud shook his head. "The Geese we're dealing with now probably isn't the same one we encountered before. Plus, fighting him in South Town would mean drowning in a people's war. Our every move is probably being monitored."
"Then should we sneak in?" Mai suggested.
"Exactly." Cloud snapped his fingers. "Our first priority is finding Terry and Andy, the local NPCs, linking up with them, and getting a clear picture of South Town's current situation. So, we need to pull off a stealth assassination... er, I mean, a low-key return."
...
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