Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 636 - 168: Encirclement

"W-what should we do?" Shinkata Misaki was a bit at a loss.

"Chill." Sun Hang shrugged, "If we can't take them by surprise, then we have to attack head-on — even if Chimera 17 knows about your ability, at most it can only come up with some defensive measures against its own weaknesses. It can't directly nullify your abilities."

"So being locked up all these days, did I suffer for nothing?"

"Is that really what you're concerned about?"

"What else... Being locked in a cell, eating, drinking, and everything else in there, not even able to go out for a breath of fresh air, would you like it?" Shinkata Misaki complained.

"Even if your identity is compromised, when you return, you'll still have to stay in the safe house," Sun Hang said.

"Why? I protest!"

"To ensure your safety." Sun Hang glanced at the other two field agents in the car, then established an invisible soundproof barrier between himself and the others and said to Shinkata Misaki, "The inside of the research institute has been thoroughly infiltrated by Chimera 17. Aside from a few of us, anyone could be a puppet of Chimera 17. If you don't want to be inexplicably assassinated by someone you don't know, I suggest you stay in the safe house until the final operation starts."

After speaking, Sun Hang lifted the soundproof barrier.

The two field agents, one driving and the other concentrating on the detector in their hands, had not noticed that the long speech Sun Hang just delivered was completely silent.

"Actually, there's less than 48 hours until the final operation," Yang Qi said consolingly in the communications channel, "You've managed to hold on for so many days, just bear through two more."

"Alright, alright... not like my protest would make a difference." Shinkata Misaki leaned back against the car seat, adopting a resigned, compliant posture.

"Never thought Mr. Yang was good at comforting kids," Sun Hang joked in the communications channel.

"Now's not the time for jokes; you're not out of danger yet," Yang Qi replied seriously. "The temporal anomaly is still pursuing you, right?"

"I'm not sure, probably still chasing us?" Sun Hang looked out through the rear car window. The valley was pitch black, and he couldn't distinguish between the natural shadows and the devouring temporal anomaly.

But from the frequency changes of the detector beeping in the hands of the agent in the back seat, it seemed that the distance between the convoy and the anomaly neither increased nor decreased.

"Wait a second?"

Sun Hang suddenly sensed something wasn't right.

The convoy was traveling at about seventy miles per hour, and yet the anomaly maintained the same speed... Could it mean that the anomaly was herding them rather than trying to overtake?

If the anomaly had moved this fast from the start, the people at the hidden camp would never have had the chance to evacuate and would have already been consumed by it.

"Tell the others in the convoy to slow down a bit." Sun Hang patted the driving field agent and said.

"Huh?" The agent looked bewildered, clearly not understanding Sun Hang's intent.

"I should have the authority to command the entire convoy now, right?" Sun Hang asked again.

"Do... do you have it?" The driving agent was still processing when the order from the higher-ups came through the earpiece — effective immediately, command of the entire evacuation convoy was unconditionally transferred to Hunter Sun Hang.

"Now I do," Yang Qi said to Sun Hang over the communications channel.

"Alright then." Sun Hang picked up the intercom hanging by the dashboard, switched to the convoy's dedicated communications channel, "Attention all vehicles, start gradually slowing down. Reduce speed from seventy to sixty miles per hour over twenty seconds... remember, don't make it too obvious... best create an impression that road conditions necessitated the slowdown. Understood?"

Although the others were confused by Sun Hang's orders, with the command authority in Sun Hang's hands, even if he told them to turn around and charge into the pursuing anomaly, they would have no choice but to comply.

The convoy gradually slowed down. Sun Hang glanced at the dashboard and then turned to the agent in the back holding the detector and asked, "Has the distance between us and the anomaly closed?"

"Uh... when the convoy initially slowed, the distance closed a bit, but now it seems to have returned to neither too far nor too close... huh? How can this be? If we slowed down, shouldn't the anomaly have caught up?"

"You've spotted the issue, haven't you?" Sun Hang said, "The anomaly's true intent might not be to devour us."

"It's a trap! There must be a trap ahead!" The field agent immediately realized, "The valley sides are steep, the cars can't go up, there's only this one way out... If something's blocking us up ahead, we'll be completely trapped here!"

"What should we do?" Shinkata Misaki asked.

She paused as soon as she asked, feeling as if she had asked this exact "What should we do?" not too long ago.

Shinkata Misaki suddenly felt awkward, as if she were a helpless female supporting character in a disaster film, without any ability or initiative, pushing the plot forward with a simple "What should we do"...

No, this won't do... regardless, she was at least an experienced psychic, having participated in more hunts than most people in the convoy...