Her Tentacles 89

Chapter 89: Long Time No See

The giant octopus broke through the waves, moving forward in the night.

From afar, as it headed toward the Nancheng port, Shu Yao, who was on its head, saw the bright port, which was engulfed in flames.

It even dyed the sky a line of ominous red—

This was completely different from what Shu Yao had imagined, that after the [Lighthouse] had given up on invading this world, the seaport should have returned to a state of being filled with the lights of thousands of homes, peaceful and serene.

…Why?

The octopus, which had also noticed the abnormality here, also stopped at a predicted distance. After sensing the aura over there, it used the night and the black mist to hide its figure and said to her:

【It’s the ‘Martyrs,’ Yaoyao.】

It was her carelessness.

Lin Ran thought, she had been so focused on beating up the [Lighthouse] before, and the followers who had been summoned back to the [Abyss] were not all of them, so much so that she had neglected that there were still a few fish that had slipped through the net and were still on shore.

And they had even caused such a big commotion.

Shu Yao thought for a moment and also understood the reason.

If the [Martyrs] under the control of the [Lighthouse]’s will were originally puppets and had not developed a free will, then now that they were free from control, they were left with only evil in their instincts. Even if they had obtained freedom, besides following the original path, they couldn’t find any other answer for a while.

Or perhaps it was because the [Lighthouse] had collapsed, and the [Monarch Slayer] had not taken over the will of the abyss to give them new instructions, so now they were selecting a new king from within.

Shu Yao thought so, and let Lin Ran temporarily put away her overly conspicuous main body, and decided to go back to the shore of Nancheng with her to have a look.

…

In order to facilitate observation and action, the woman, who had changed back into her black combat suit, waded through the seawater and was sent ashore by the waves.

Her light-colored long hair was tied up in a ponytail as usual.

But this ponytail was thick in some places and thin in others. At first glance, one could even see a few small braids woven among the fluffy hair that had been combed up. Even the hair tie had been carefully selected, and was a chocolate color that was most suitable for autumn.

If it weren’t for her protest before, perhaps a small, blooming daisy of the right season could have been pinned in her hair.

Shu Yao’s steps were light and silent. Using the cover of the night, she easily avoided some familiar sentry posts and the cruising exploration of technological weapons.

On her right arm, a small black and red octopus brought out the communicator and mobile phone that had been left in her room before, and whose signals had been blocked, from under its soft abdomen.

Returning to this city full of human aura, her mobile phone was still silent, but the communicator was constantly vibrating. Soon, a new call came in.

“Shu Yao?”

The special department had tracked her location and signal at the first opportunity.

“Mmm,” Shu Yao recognized that this was the voice of her direct superior. She casually found an excuse to gloss over her previous sudden disappearance. “I accidentally fell asleep at home. I just woke up and was here at the port.”

“May I ask what the situation is now? Is it the commotion caused by those [Martyrs]?”

The leader fell silent.

He thought of the emergency meeting that the higher-ups had held not long ago, to discuss and observe the sudden recovery of the moon phase.

The members who had been locked in the special area had all sent out clear messages, conveying the good news of the [Lighthouse]’s consciousness leaving.

Just as things were about to take a turn for the better, one after another, jellyfish in the city suddenly revealed their original forms in the night, saying that they would continue to carry out the will of the [Lighthouse] and occupy this city.

The higher-ups were split into two factions.

One was the radical faction, who felt that those special members were completely controlled by the [Lighthouse], and should be eliminated along with them and the moon.

The other faction had obtained information through some technical means and believed that the words of the special members were credible, but that these [Martyrs] had launched this major attack for other reasons.

In short, Nancheng could only barely dispatch those ordinary members to various places to put out fires, but the effect was not very good.

Shu Yao’s call was shared by the leader in the conference room.

Her superior briefly described the situation, and then asked her to prove her current state of consciousness, and asked if she had been held hostage by the [Martyrs] when she made this call.

“They can’t control me—”

“It was the same before, and it’s the same now.”

Shu Yao said so, and let the little octopus on her body change its color slightly, and then she walked out from her hiding place and stood under the cruising drone, in the camera.

“Besides, I can feel that the will of the [Lighthouse] has completely disappeared. This current farce is probably just a conflict stirred up by the [Martyrs].”

She then asked, “May I ask if there are any missions I need to carry out?”

The leader asked her to wait for a moment, and then the other end of the phone fell into a long silence.

Because of Shu Yao’s performance during the ‘Red Moon period,’ she was able to be unaffected under that red moon, under the gaze of the [Lighthouse], and to risk her life for this city. The members of the special department had all seen it.

In the end.

They chose to believe her.

The communicator showed several dangerous areas that were currently under severe attack. Her superior said, “Five hundred meters to the north, there is an unmanned vehicle equipped with your combat weapons. If you need anything else, just ask.”

Shu Yao thought for a moment. “Is the flower fish okay?”

The other side was a little surprised, and then replied, “He’s very safe.”

That was fine then.

Shu Yao nodded. “Then I have no other questions.”

…

She looked at the location of the huge red dot that was specially marked on the map, and at the same time, she approached the vehicle that was equipped with her equipment. As she walked, she thought about the area she should support first.

But then she saw a somewhat familiar address—

It seemed to be one of the mountain villas owned by the Situ family.

She clicked on the additional information for this area, and immediately, rolling, semi-transparent text appeared on the screen, and at the same time, an AI voice read it out:

“Special military control area A3, under the command of Colonel Ye. Currently, nearly a thousand southern special forces candidates are undergoing military selection…”

No wonder Situ Jin had said she was temporarily safe before.

Perhaps it was because the communicator’s channels were similar, that when she was checking the situation in this area, she had actually accessed the live footage of the scene.

Countless rockets shot out in the night sky with flashing firelight, fiercely hitting two huge jellyfish in the sky. Their bodies immediately teetered in mid-air.

At the same time.

The camera switched, presenting the situation from many angles.

In a fleeting scene, Shu Yao even caught a glimpse of a particularly dazzling silver figure. With a flick of its long fishtail, it condensed the several water columns released from the high-pressure water guns around it, and directly trapped a jellyfish that was releasing electric light.

Noticing the drone passing by.

Her tail moved, and she stirred up a very light splash of water. By the time the splash had disappeared, she had already hidden behind an ordinary human figure.

Shu Yao, who saw Situ Jin here: “…”

Very good.

As expected, it was an area she didn’t need to worry about.

For some reason, she felt as if she had been choked by dog food. When Shu Yao switched to the reddest area, she was still a little dazed.

Until her fingertips kept enlarging the danger zone, from the city, to the streets, to the several surrounded communities—

That the name Star River Community suddenly stood out.

She paused for a moment, entered the destination on the unmanned navigation, and at the same time, she subconsciously went to click on the video footage of the scene.

The small, harmless, and cute bright yellow octopus, which had been lingering on her wrist, seemed to sense her thoughts. Its tentacles moved restlessly, as if it wanted to do something.

Shu Yao immediately raised her hand and touched its head, and also squeezed one of its tentacles.

【It’s okay,】 she said. 【Leave the matters of the abyss to you, and leave the matters of humans to me.】

The abyss was the little octopus’s hometown, and the alien god that was stationed there was not something Shu Yao could defeat. But in Nancheng, it was different.

Human matters should be solved by humans.

She temporarily did not want to expose Lin Ran to the sight of those people in the special department.

The little octopus raised its head and looked at her for a while.

Thinking that the two of them were now, after all, skin to skin, even if something happened that Shu Yao couldn’t handle, she would have plenty of ways to help her. So she quickly became quiet again, and even turned over and extended a few more tentacles to wrap around her fingers.

…

It was in this slightly itchy movement that Shu Yao saw the familiar face on the communicator.

A black curtain seemed to hang from the sky, completely surrounding a large area, and enclosing all the buildings on that street into a part of a maze.

Facing those firelights, the hanging curtain flickered between illusion and reality, wasting a lot of the human side’s ammunition, yet it remained completely unscathed.

Very occasionally, a part of another jellyfish’s body would appear behind the curtain, and it would extend its stinging tentacles to pull the lured prey in—

As if it had sensed the gaze of these few drones.

The edge of the curtain suddenly lifted a corner.

A woman with one hand in her pocket appeared in it. Her black, neat short hair, and a particularly dazzling earring on her left earlobe, contrasted with her lazy expression, making her the most special existence in this area.

Whether it was because she had come from under this sky, or because she was the only human standing there leisurely at this moment.

She curled her lips and looked straight at this special department’s drone:

“I remember there’s an old acquaintance of mine among you.”

“It’s been so long. Why haven’t I seen her?”

A very provocative expression, mixed with that long-unseen human face, made her look unrestrained and arrogant.

For a moment, Shu Yao couldn’t even tell if the one speaking was [Styx] or the Lin Jingshu in her memory.