Arknights: I'm Pretty Strong With Minecraft — Chapter 86

Chapter 86: Kal’tsit: I am a Stand User

Wei Yenwu stood in absolute silence before the towering glass curtain wall of his office. The sprawling, neon-lit expanse of Lungmen flickered across the reflection in his deep-set eyes. He had just terminated a highly sensitive transmission, the residual heat of the communication terminal still pressing against his fingertips.

“Everything is for Lungmen. This was a last resort.”

He murmured the words to the empty room, a hollow justification meant as much for the ghosts of his past as for his own conscience.

Wei Yenwu lowered the terminal, his voice dropping into a gravelly whisper.

“Do not worry about what lies behind you. I will personally remain here, watching over all of you.”

Beyond the reinforced glass, the massive mobile city-state—the crowning achievement into which he had poured half his life’s blood—crawled slowly through the suffocating night. His gaze swept over the glaring commercial districts, drifted past the towering exhaust chimneys of the industrial zones, and finally settled on the suffocating darkness of the slums.

“May Lungmen remain peaceful, tranquil, and prosperous. Forever.”

The moment he set the device down, a piercing emergency alert shattered the quiet of his sanctuary.

Wei Yenwu frowned, a sharp crease forming between his brows, and pressed the receiver.

“Report.” His tone remained perfectly measured, yet the fingers gripping the edge of his mahogany desk tightened instinctively.

A frantic voice spilled from the speaker. Wei Yenwu listened, his frown deepening into a severe scowl. When a specific name cut through the static, a rare flicker of raw disbelief broke his composure.

“Wait. Repeat that.”

He paused, digesting the impossible intelligence.

“The Black Cloaks and the Reunion Movement forces… were all eradicated by Ivan alone?”

He spoke the sentence aloud, testing the weight of the words to ensure he had not hallucinated the report. A heavy silence stretched across the line before Wei Yenwu let out a long, heavy exhale.

“No. That level of combat efficiency defies logic.”

His manicured fingernail tapped a slow, rhythmic cadence against the polished wood.

“Rhodes Island has truly leashed a monster.”

Outside the window, the first pale sliver of dawn began to bleed through the oppressive night sky. Wei Yenwu turned his back on the city and approached his private liquor cabinet. He poured a measure of strong, aged spirits, the amber liquid swirling sluggishly against the crystal glass.

“The entire board has been upended.”

He took a slow, deliberate sip. The burn of the alcohol brought a complex, calculating smile to his lips.

“But chaos is not necessarily a disadvantage.”

He turned back to the sprawling metropolis. The faint, wailing chorus of sirens drifted up from the distant slums, a grim lullaby for the fallen.

“At the very least, with him prowling the streets, the Reunion Movement will be forced to retreat into the shadows. It is merely a question of…”

The unspoken concern dissolved into the quiet air. Wei Yenwu drained his glass, a cold shadow of apprehension lingering in his eyes. Such a violently uncontrollable variable walking his streets—whether this Ivan was a blessing sent by the heavens or a curse meant to burn his city to ash, remained to be seen.

Today, Lungmen was destined to bleed.

Dust and ash choked the air of the ruined sector. Crownslayer dug her fingers violently into the casing of her earpiece, her knuckles turning bone-white.

“Status! What is happening on your end?”

Static hissed back at her. Then, a wet, choking gasp.

“Commander… save me…”

“Hello? Answer me!” She roared into the dead comms, her voice cracking with desperation.

In the shadow of a collapsed concrete pillar, a young Reunion Movement soldier was curled into a tight, trembling ball. He pressed himself into the jagged rubble, desperately trying to merge with the debris.

He mumbled the same broken phrase over and over, a dying prayer to an empty sky. “I want to go back… I want to go back to Ursus…”

“Pull yourself together!”

Crownslayer lunged forward, grabbing the boy by his collar and hauling him upward to force eye contact.

“Listen to me, do not give up! There are other surviving units in the sector. As long as we link up with them, we can…”

“Link up?!”

The soldier jerked his head up. Tears cut clean tracks through the thick grime and blood smeared across his face.

“We cannot possibly win! Those shadows… those absolute monsters… We never should have come to Lungmen! They are all dead! I am next! They are coming for me!”

Before his hysterical wails could fade, a series of sickening, wet thuds echoed through the ruins.

It was as if an invisible scythe had swept through the perimeter. The remaining Reunion scouts, who had been maintaining strict cover and vigilance, simply collapsed. They fell without a single cry, their life force snuffed out in the blink of an eye.

“What is it this time?!”

Crownslayer crossed her twin blades in front of her chest, her frantic gaze sweeping across the desolate, blood-stained concrete.

“Damn it all!”

She did not hesitate. Tapping into her Originium Arts, she exhaled sharply. A massive surge of dense, grayish-white smoke billowed from her lips, expanding violently to swallow the entire street and reducing visibility to absolute zero.

She darted through her own smoke screen, her footsteps completely silent.

‘Where are you? Where are the attacks coming from?’

The air above her displaced with a violent rush.

A tremendous, crushing force slammed into her from above. Crownslayer did not even have time to register the blur of motion before she was driven face-first into the shattered pavement, the impact driving the breath from her lungs.

“There is a wolf’s scent.”

A slightly hoarse, deadpan girl’s voice whispered directly into her ear. Hot breath brushed against the sensitive skin of her neck.

Projekt Red straddled her back, pinning her limbs with terrifying, casual strength. The assassin’s nose twitched as she inhaled deeply.

“Red smells it. But… it is fake.”

“Let go of me!”

Crownslayer thrashed wildly, bucking her hips and twisting her shoulders, but the weight bearing down on her felt like solid iron.

“If you struggle any more.”

Red’s tone remained entirely flat, devoid of malice, yet carrying a lethal promise.

“I will snap your bones so you cannot move.”

Having delivered the warning, Red leaned down further, her tongue slipping out to drag across Lyudmila’s dirt-streaked cheek.

A frigid, authoritative voice sliced through the swirling smoke, instantly freezing Red’s bizarre behavior.

“Cease learning such strange habits from Ivan.”

The thick fog parted. Kal’tsit stepped into the clearing, her pristine white lab coat a stark, almost offensive contrast to the blood-soaked, dilapidated ruins surrounding them. Her posture was perfectly straight, her hands resting casually in her pockets.

Her deep, emerald gaze settled on the pinned Lupo.

Red obediently loosened her grip, though she kept her weight firmly planted to maintain the suppression.

Kaltsit studied the girl on the ground, her voice dropping to a softer, measured cadence.

“The color of your hair… it is exactly like Ilya’s.”

The name acted as a brutal skeleton key, violently tearing open the most agonizing vault deep within Lyudmila’s mind.

Her body went entirely rigid. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of shock and churning, venomous grief.

“It is… you…” The words were forced out from between her grinding teeth, trembling with sheer disbelief.

In a fraction of a second, that tremor ignited into a towering, volcanic rage. She shrieked, the sound tearing up from the darkest depths of her soul.

“It is you!”

“Lyudmila.”

Kal’tsit pronounced her true name with absolute precision, her expression unchanging.

“Ilya’s daughter.”

“Shut your mouth!”

Lyudmila thrashed, her voice cracking. “You have no right to speak that name! You have no right!”

Hot tears spilled over her lashes, mixing with the ash and dried blood on her cheeks, leaving jagged, messy streaks.

“It is all because of you! Everything is because of you! Everyone died… Father died!”

“You cold-blooded traitor!”

She screamed until her throat bled, every syllable dripping with years of festering hatred and solitary agony.

“I will kill you! Finally… I have finally found you! I will do it myself! I will tear you to pieces!”

“Red. Step back.”

Kal’tsit’s command was quiet, yet absolute.

“Give her the opportunity.”

Red silently vaulted off the girl, landing lightly a few paces away.

Lyudmila scrambled to her feet. She straightened her posture, her twin blades drawing cold, deadly arcs in the dim moonlight. A suffocating wave of killing intent radiated from her, chilling the surrounding air.

Kaltsit did not retreat. Instead, she took a single, deliberate step forward. Her deep green eyes resembled ancient, stagnant wells, reflecting absolutely no emotion.

“If you truly believe that ending my life will quell the rage burning inside you, then proceed.”

Kal’tsit held her gaze. “However, Lyudmila, understand this. Once you choose this path—seeking your own liberation by taking the lives of others—your own life will forever be coveted by the blades of your enemies.”

“Do not lecture me! I am going to kill you! I will end you right now!”

Reason had completely abandoned Lyudmila, consumed entirely by the inferno of her vengeance. She launched herself forward like a bolt of dark lightning. Her twin daggers screamed as they sliced through the air, thrusting directly toward the vital arteries in Kal’tsit’s neck.

“Red, stand down.”

Kal’tsit merely tilted her head a fraction of an inch, allowing the lethal strike to whistle past her ear. She spoke a single word into the empty air.

“Mon3tr.”

The space beside her violently twisted. A low, guttural roar tore through the fabric of reality, a sound so unnatural it made the very soul tremble.

A colossal, crystalline skeletal construct materialized out of thin air.

Its massive, jagged bone claws swept forward, precisely intercepting every single one of Lyudmila’s frenzied slashes.

Steel clashed against hardened bone, erupting in a blinding shower of sparks. The sheer kinetic recoil of the impact sent Lyudmila skidding backward across the broken asphalt.

She barely managed to keep her footing, her chest heaving as she stared in absolute horror at the towering, jagged beast radiating a sickly, eerie green luminescence.

“What… what kind of monster is that?!” Her voice was completely distorted by terror.

Kal’tsit paused. She stood in silence for a brief moment, her eyes narrowing slightly in thought.

‘What was it that Ivan… said back then?’

She seemed to be recalling a specific memory—one that was equally exasperating and faintly amusing.

Then, maintaining her perfectly flat, clinical tone, Kal’tsit repeated what she considered to be a thoroughly absurd statement.

“I am a Stand user.”

She raised a slender hand, pointing gracefully toward the snarling, towering form of Mon3tr.

“And this is my Stand.”