Chapter 91: The Shift in Identity

A thunderous blast rolled across the center of the battlefield. The acrid stench of gunpowder still lingered, while a pillar of blazing fire shot skyward.

Tanya covered her mouth in shock. The scene before her shattered everything she had ever believed possible. She could not imagine the consequences of unleashing heavy weapons in a city.

She had only ever seen such extravagant, effects-burning spectacle in war reports on television. War had seemed so far removed from them that she had almost mistaken the world for a place of peace.

In truth, the two menacing vehicles had not collided at all; one had been struck squarely by a rocket launcher fired without warning. Only the jeep’s sudden swerve had spared it from crashing into the truck. There were indeed fanatics on the scene whose intelligence was plainly lacking, and they showed no hesitation whatsoever.

They had completely ignored the truck’s conspicuous warning markings. If their target had truly been inside, the impact could easily have triggered an explosion—an outcome few would have wanted to witness. In fact, they seemed to care more about the condition of the target, which was all too human, and all too real.

If some uncanny trick had caused the car to veer off course, Tanya might still have accepted it. But this method of attack was enough to shake her understanding to the core.

A city supposedly devoted to peace had somehow obtained rocket launchers meant for war. Surely it had to be fake.

Tanya was not some naive young girl ignorant of the world. If the weapons before her had merely been pistols or something less destructive, she could have accepted that. After all, every matter has its dark side, and the adult world has never been defined by simple notions of good and evil.

Everyone remained remarkably calm at the sight before them. Some who were too poor at hiding their emotions even looked pleased, delighted to see one fewer competitor. As for the loss of life, that was indeed no rare thing; perhaps they had already grown numb to it.

“Impressive,” Chu Ning said, unable to help admiring the hunters before him. At last, they were not the same bewildered newcomers as before. Though the group was uneven in quality, there were indeed some who could be called professionals.

“Hey, you! This is no time to praise the enemy. Don’t forget your goal is to rescue the people inside the factory. The stronger the opponent, the harder the mission becomes.”

Tanya struck him down without mercy. She truly could not stand the look on Chu Ning’s face, as though he were savoring the strength of his opponents. That sort of twisted expression was one she usually only saw in villains.

Deep down, she did not want to become a villain herself, and so she was especially sensitive to such things. Perhaps because humans had defined them as evil, she found it difficult to accept what she was.

“Are our very existence and being truly a mistake?” Tanya had once asked that question in confusion. She had even made private contact with humans before, only for it to become a nightmare she could never escape. She had told no one about it.

She buried it deep in her heart, a memory Tanya never wished to touch again.

Chu Ning’s answer, however, had left her speechless. He told her not to mind what others thought, especially the judgments made between different races. Because of competition, such evaluations were inherently unfair.

In a sense, judging everything by the values formed in the past was a completely wrong decision. Chu Ning, at least, clearly understood that she had not accepted her present identity and still clung to the fantasies of the past.

He did not mock her for that. To abandon one’s former self entirely was no easy thing. Even now, Chu Ning had not fully managed to accept himself; otherwise, there would never have been another self within him.