Arknights: The Scarlet Devil of Terra — Chapter 103

Chapter 103: Pincer Attack

“None of these people are the one?” Ch’en Hui-chieh’s brow furrowed.

Flandre Scarlet nodded, her blonde pigtails bobbing lightly. “They don’t have any murderous intent. There is no scent of blood on them at all, so Flandre thinks they shouldn’t be related to this case.”

She casually waved the thick, heavy book in her hands as she spoke. Ch’en glanced over, her stern expression cracking slightly. The little vampire was holding a complete copy of the Great Yan Penal Code.

“Why are you reading that?” Ch’en asked, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

“Just curious!” Flandre beamed, her crimson eyes bright. She explained that since she was coming to help the L.G.D., understanding Yan law was an absolute must.

With the rest of the strike teams still out in the field, the two confirmed that the primary culprit wasn’t hiding among the current batch of detainees. They headed back to the Special Inspection Unit’s main office to wait.

Swire strutted into the room just as they arrived, carefully balancing a small, elegantly boxed cake. “Little Flandre, I brought you dinner!”

Flandre happily accepted the sweet offering, settling into a chair to eat with ravenous enthusiasm.

By the time she finished and wiped her mouth, the dispatch room buzzed with returning personnel. Almost every operator sent out to round up persons of interest had reported back.

The results were bitterly disappointing. None of the new arrivals bore the scent of guilt.

The victim’s closest friend broke down completely, her sobs echoing through the sterile interrogation room. She choked out that her friend hated alcohol and had only sipped juice at the party. Afterward, the victim had declined a shared ride home, claiming she wanted to take a quiet walk to help her digestion. They had parted ways under the neon streetlights.

She never imagined it would be their final goodbye.

“Everyone who attended the party is accounted for.” Ch’en tapped her fingers against her desk, the rhythmic sound sharp in the quiet office. “Is the killer really not among them?”

She paused, her sharp gaze sweeping the room. “What about the unit investigating that couple? Are they not back yet?”

“Reporting to Madam Ch’en,” a nearby operator stood at attention. “Their identities have been verified. Brother Wang and Little Li took a cruiser over to their residence.”

Ch’en’s expression darkened instantly. “This won’t do. If the killer isn’t among the partygoers, the couple is the most likely target. Wang and Li don’t know how dangerous these targets are. If they walk in blind…”

She didn’t finish the thought, immediately waving a hand toward the door. “A squad is coming with me. We’re backing them up.”

Flandre jumped up, her wings twitching. Flandre wants to go too!

Within minutes, an L.G.D. cruiser idled outside. Just as the doors slammed shut, Swire slipped into the back seat, adjusting her tailored jacket.

Ch’en shot the feline a sidelong glance but held her tongue. She barked the couple’s address to the driver, and the sirens wailed to life.

The cruiser screeched to a halt outside a densely populated residential block. Wang and Li’s patrol car sat parked by the curb, empty. A cold knot tightened in the officers’ chests.

“Weapons hot,” Ch’en ordered, her voice dropping to a lethal calm. “The enemies this time are those lunatics from the Cult of Truth. If they resist, you are authorized to shoot to kill.”

The operators racked their slides, knuckles white against polymer grips.

The doors flew open. A riot shield operator took point, moving in a tight, practiced formation up the concrete stairwell. It was the evening rush; tired workers were filtering back into their apartments, the corridors smelling of cheap noodles and exhaust. The sudden influx of heavily armed tactical gear sent civilians scrambling behind locked doors.

They reached the fifth floor. The target’s door was deadbolted shut.

Flandre skipped up the steps, her head tilting as she listened to a frequency no one else could hear. “There are four heartbeats inside. Two are very, very weak. The other two are moving away, toward the back window.”

Ch’en didn’t waste a single breath on a warning. She drew her longsword, drove the tip straight into the locking mechanism, and twisted with brutal force. Metal shrieked and snapped.

The operator beside her kicked the ruined door inward.

The stench of copper hit them immediately. Blood painted the narrow hallway in violent, abstract arcs. Wang and Li lay crumpled on the linoleum, their uniforms soaked dark, their breathing horribly shallow.

“Call an ambulance! Swire, you have the scene.”

Without waiting for a response, Ch’en bolted toward the shattered back window, vaulting through the frame into the damp night air.

Flandre lingered just long enough to inspect the fallen officers, then turned her crimson gaze to Swire.

The feline pointed sharply at the window. “These two aren’t critically hit. They’ll live. I’ll lock down this perimeter. Go cover Ch’en!”

Flandre nodded, a terrifyingly sweet smile blooming on her face, and launched herself out the window.

The Lungmen skyline was a hazy wash of neon and smog, but to Flandre, the fleeing prey glowed like beacons. She caught the slipstream, her crystalline wings catching the city lights as she soared higher.

‘Sister Ch’en, it’s me,’Flandre’s voice chimed directly into the superintendent’s earpiece.’Flandre is in the air. Tracking the targets for you.’

Ch’en sprinted down a narrow alleyway, boots splashing through stagnant puddles. She glanced up, catching a brief flash of Flandre waving cheerfully from the smoggy canopy above.

She gave a curt nod and focused on the hunt.

The suspects knew the slums intimately. They deliberately plunged into crowded night markets and complex side streets, using the dense throngs of civilians as meat shields. If Ch’en had been relying on ground pursuit alone, she would have lost them at the first intersection.

But Flandre’s aerial lock was absolute.

Ch’en ordered Flandre to keep an eye on them but to stay out of sight. Their cover was blown, so they would inevitably run straight to a Cult of Truth stronghold to ground themselves. If the L.G.D. tracked them to the nest, they could burn the entire organization out of the city.

Hearing this, Flandre giggled, pulling higher into the clouds, her presence masking itself perfectly against the night sky.

After a grueling, twisting pursuit, the two cultists finally vanished into an abandoned industrial sector, slipping through the rusted doors of a sprawling manufacturing plant.

Guided by Flandre’s precise coordinates, Ch’en halted in the shadows of a crumbling concrete wall just down the street.

“Are you certain they went inside?” Ch’en whispered into her radio.

“Flandre is sure! They’re all still in there,” the vampire replied, dropping down to perch lightly on a nearby streetlamp.

“Are there others?”

“About seven or eight extra heartbeats.”

“Good. Little Flandre, keep this perimeter locked down. If a single rat tries to scurry out, tell me. I’m calling in the heavy hitters.”

Ch’en pulled out her encrypted terminal and dialed Hoshiguma.

Thirty minutes later, the low hum of engines signaled the arrival of a massive L.G.D. convoy. Several armored transports rolled to a silent halt, disgorging dozens of tactical operators who immediately established a perimeter.

Most of the strike team had no idea why they were here. When Hoshiguma had sounded the alarm, she had ordered a blind deployment—no briefing, no destination logged in the system. The recent string of leaked operations heavily suggested a mole buried deep within the department. Until the rat was purged, high-value raids against the Cult of Truth were strictly need-to-know.

When the operators finally realized they were staring down a Cult of Truth den, the atmosphere shifted. Grips tightened. Jaws set. These were the same lunatics who had slaughtered their comrades in previous skirmishes.

Tonight was about balancing the ledger.

Every exit was swiftly choked off. Ch’en looked up at Flandre.

“They’re clustered in the middle and the back,” Flandre pointed a pale finger toward the rusted roof. “Nobody is in the front.”

Ch’en and Hoshiguma stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind a barricade.

“The front of these old plants is usually an open loading bay for heavy machinery,” Hoshiguma analyzed, her voice a low rumble. “Where Flandre is pointing—that’s the administrative block. Tight corridors. Cramped rooms. If we push them in there, and they’re heavily armed, it’s going to be a meat grinder. We’ll take casualties.”

The towering Oni shifted her grip on her massive triangular shield, Hannya. “I say we set a pocket trap at the rear. We hit the front hard, make a lot of noise, and flush them out the back door right into our guns.”

Ch’en considered it. Her initial instinct had been to seal them inside and systematically clear the rooms. But Hoshiguma was right—cornered Cult of Truth zealots would detonate themselves before surrendering. Luring them into an open kill zone was the smarter play.

“Solid tactic. We run your play.” Ch’en drew her blade, preparing to take the vanguard, but a massive green hand clamped onto her shoulder.

“Leave the breach to me and Hannya,” Hoshiguma grinned, a fierce, predatory glint in her eyes. “You’re the careful one. You handle the ambush.”

Ch’en let out a soft sigh, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. “Fine. The rear is mine. I’ll signal when the net is set.”

Ch’en peeled off with a squad of elites, leaving Flandre and Hoshiguma at the front gates.

In truth, if Ch’en had simply unleashed Flandre, the vampire could have reduced the entire building—and everyone inside—to a fine red mist in seconds. But this wasn’t just about extermination.

First, the L.G.D. needed this win to wash the bitter taste of their previous failures from their mouths. Second, this was a calculated strike to rattle the cage. Ch’en had already coordinated with Swire and Lin Yuhsia; both were currently monitoring internal L.G.D. communications. The moment this raid went live, the mole would panic and try to warn the other cells. When they did, the trap would snap shut on them too.

Patience was the key.

Another agonizing thirty minutes crept by.

Ch’en’s voice finally crackled over the secure channel. ‘Net is set. Go loud.’

Hoshiguma didn’t hesitate. She stepped up to the reinforced steel doors, raised a heavy boot, and kicked.

The metal buckled and tore off its hinges with a deafening crash.

“Lungmen Guard Department, Special Inspection Unit!” Hoshiguma roared, her voice booming through the cavernous warehouse. “We have a confirmed report of illegal hazardous materials on site! Whoever is in charge, step out with your hands up!”

She didn’t immediately declare a homicide raid, using the inspection pretext to sow maximum confusion.

Deep inside the administrative block, a dozen cultists flinched at the echoing crash. They peered through the dusty blinds, watching a wall of riot shields and tactical armor flood their sanctuary.

“Damn it! Didn’t you two swear you weren’t followed!” the cell leader snarled, rounding on the breathless couple who had just arrived.

The cultists scrambled, grabbing whatever weapons they had stashed.

“Boss!” a scout hissed, sprinting back from the rear emergency exit. “The back alley is totally clear! We can make a run for it!”