NIKKE, When the Milky Way Blossoms

Honglian is in a good mood tonight.

Tonight, Honglian is in a bad mood again.

The thought of being able to chat with her deceased comrades again through Phoenix made the white-haired old woman feel that even the crescent moon in the sky seemed more playful than usual.

However, when Honglian finally found the commander and saw the burns on his left cheek, her joy immediately vanished, replaced by long-lost dissatisfaction and regret.

I knew so...

She should have kidnapped him and run away!

"Answer me, all of you! Where did the wound on the young master's cheek come from?!"

Under the moonlight, the faint glow enveloped Honglian's white hair, and her cold, frosty eyes exuded a suffocating aura.

That was an honor reserved for warriors who had crawled out of piles of corpses.

"Diesel, I need an explanation."

Faced with Honglian's questioning, Diesel, who was in a daze, hadn't even had time to organize her thoughts when her teammates standing next to her instinctively raised their guns in a defensive posture.

Among them, the loudest-voiced Lorf was the first to speak.

"who……"

Swah——

In just a moment!

A scarlet longsword was already poised at the tall woman's throat, moving so fast that none of the women present, including Niki, were able to react.

"Silence, lest you disturb the young master's peaceful sleep."

Honglian's fierce, demonic eyes clashed with Lorf's menacing wolfish gaze, startling the latter into a moment of stunned silence, causing her to forget the question she was about to utter.

Swish.

Seeing that no one moved, the swordsman silently put away his beloved sword and turned his gaze to Diesel, who was pursing his lips.

"The commander's wound..."

The train conductor, her eyes flashing with apology, looked down at the ground. She instinctively clutched her chest and whispered:

"...It's all my fault."

……

Only Diesel and Honglian among those present had personally experienced the pain and despair of watching their loved ones die.

Therefore, after Diesel told Honglian in detail about how the lieutenant avenged her, the white-haired old woman who had transformed into Shura returned to her drunken state.

She took the wine flask from her waist and, no longer stingy with the fine wine inside, began to gulp it down her throat.

The past has long since faded away. Honglian has been constantly admonishing herself that time will allow everything she has experienced to settle down until it is finally buried and covered by the sands of time.

Unfortunately, pretending to be confused is still pretending to be confused. Even if you deceive yourself for decades, the things that happened in the past will not be changed by idealism.

Gumbling—

Struggling to swallow the last mouthful of wine from the pot, Honglian, sitting cross-legged on the ground, shook her head and mumbled:

"This matter... you have remembered it well, young master."

Back during the MMR Affiliated High School exhibition match, Diesel had already explained to everyone the background of his becoming Niki. Honglian remembered clearly that Yinhua was there, Marian was there, and she was there too.

No one could have imagined that this experience, which should have been heard, would be secretly remembered by the young master, who would then find an opportunity to put it into action.

The price of revenge was enduring a few seconds of thermite grenade fire.

Holding the wine jug upside down, Honglian, tipsy, stared at the single drop of wine lingering on the rim, pondered for a moment, and then suddenly laughed:

"Young master is truly a remarkable person."

……

……

the next morning,

When the sleepy-eyed "Miao Ren" sat up from the ground, he saw Hong Lian sitting cross-legged in front of him, wiping her beloved knife with her head down.

Lieutenant Phoenix suddenly recalled a line of poetry etched into his soul.

—"Sharpening knives, ready to slaughter pigs and sheep."

Fortunately, Honglian's words easily brought someone back to reality.

"Did you sleep well last night, young master?"

"Ah."

He responded with a natural "yes," but then, feeling his answer was somewhat cold, the lieutenant quickly added:

With so many people guarding the area, and you here too, it would be hard for me not to feel safe.

As the two were exchanging a few words, they noticed that the commander had gotten up and that Lapi and the others had quickly packed their luggage and handed the commander a compressed food that had been preheated over a wood fire.

Despite being on a military campaign, Phoenix didn't linger because of Honglian's arrival.

The man wolfed down a compressed biscuit while pulling a wet wipe from his bag and haphazardly wiping his face, as if he were washing it.

Subsequently, Mihara and others who were on guard duty also returned one after another after receiving communication from Lhapi.

"I'm going to the far north this time, and I need to maintain communication with the Ark during the mission. Are you sure you want to come?"

In a room on an abandoned floor, Phoenix, stroking his stubble as usual, said to Honglian:

"Besides me, only Lhapi's microphone was fully open in the squadron, which could capture ambient sounds."

I'm alright; I can take off my headset when I stay overnight and use excuses like washing up or having a meal to get out of it.

As for Lhapi... have you communicated with her yet?

If you were close to her, what you said should have already reached the Ark's intelligence department.

"Would that put you in a difficult position, young master?"

Honglian had never cared about Fangzhou's attitude. Therefore, she was even less concerned about whether Fangzhou could hear her words from below.

The white-haired old woman was only concerned about whether her actions would cause trouble for Phoenix.

"Embarrassed?"

To everyone's surprise, the lieutenant seemed quite puzzled by Honglian's question.

He worried that Honglian would be very averse to contacting Fangzhou, after all, Fangzhou had stabbed the Goddess Force in the back several times back then.

"What's in my way?" the man asked, puzzled.

Seeing this, Honglian, quite surprised, raised an eyebrow curiously and replied:

"If the people in charge of the Ark find out that you have been in close contact with me, are you not afraid that you will be plotted against by villains in the future?"

"ark?"

Lieutenant Phoenix, draped in a transparent dragon robe and with a halo emanating from the back of his head, nodded without hesitation upon hearing Honglian's answer.

"What's the point of the bird?"

Chapter 233 Heading North

A single sentence was enough to convince a pilgrim to willingly join the group.

This result greatly confirms what Mihara, Marianne, and others thought—that someone is not trustworthy when it comes to seducing the opposite sex.

The company was supposed to consist of twelve Nikkis, but the lieutenant insisted on bringing Anise along, resulting in an odd number of thirteen Nikkis when they arrived on the ground.

That wasn't enough. Who would have thought that in the early hours of the next day, another pilgrim appeared out of nowhere and offered to accompany the lieutenant, forcibly increasing the already overstaffed squadron to fourteen men.

What's this?

What kind of commander can expand their forces after going to the ground?

While silently observing Niki, who was named "Red Lotus," Lapi was troubled by this, pondering how to write a perfect combat report after returning to the Ark.

……

"arrive."

After eliminating no fewer than forty or fifty Lechers along the way, Phoenix finally led his team to the starting point of the Lecher migration.

—The boundary line between partition K-08 and partition K-01.

On the road, cars riddled with holes and some completely disintegrated were scattered on the concrete surface. In addition, there were also a lot of tree fragments, weeds and soil mixed in.

Looking around, the entire road resembles a conveyor belt beneath a crusher, fragmented and with nowhere to step.

"Does this need to be tracked?"

After witnessing the traces left by the Lechner migration, Phoenix kicked the rearview mirror of his car with a speechless expression and said:

"You can see everything clearly from the air in a helicopter, and you expect me to walk to the far north? The idiots who made the decision are just talking nonsense without any sense of the consequences."

Since she hadn't deliberately muted her microphone, every word of the lieutenant's profanity reached Sheffield's ears.