eurekapd Chapter 558 A Little Surprise
Chapter 558 A Little Surprise
Su Tianqing never imagined that the main battle tank that appeared in the gold heist would end up in her mental world.
In order to escape from the robbery scene at full speed, he used magic to overload its engine, speeding continuously for half an hour, which caused the engine to overload and break down. After abandoning the car, he blocked the pursuers at a highway exit. It seems that it was later recovered and repaired by the Hero Association.
"So where did you find this? Didn't I just leave it at the highway exit?"
The golden-haired fox girl sat in the commander's seat, looking at the familiar fox-customized modified thermal imaging and operating interface in front of her, and said to Hyacinth, who was checking ammunition in the gunner's position.
"Hmm?...Oh, you mean the tank?"
Hyacinth, wearing a tank driver's hat, turned around and looked at me. She didn't react for a moment, and after a few seconds, she answered.
She pointed towards the rear of the tank and recounted everything that had just happened.
A sudden drowsiness during lunch led to a brief nap at the table. In a lucid dream, she unexpectedly fell into that familiar, foggy illusion. Everything unfolded so familiarly, but then Hyacinth revealed something that puzzled Heart Moon Fox and Crimson Snow:
"When I fell into the dream, I had a strange feeling, like... umm... it's hard to describe, let me think..."
Hyacinth raised her hand and gestured a few times, trying to grasp that elusive feeling and then express it in words.
"How should I put it...right! It's like when you're lying in class playing on your phone and the teacher suddenly calls on you. You feel all creeped out, like you're under a lot of pressure."
"Your description is quite accurate. You've probably been caught using your phone in class quite a few times," Xin Yuehu said helplessly, secretly wondering if she should tell Xiaoyu about Nan Xiaofeng being caught using his phone in class.
If Xiaoyu knew about this, Nan Xiaofeng might have to say goodbye to his allowance. This fox is indeed a very evil villain.
"By the time I realized what was happening and tried to find where the gaze was, the thick fog immediately dissipated, and then Marigold and I came here. The spot where you were standing is where we landed earlier."
Hyacinth's expression immediately turned fierce, and she hurriedly said:
"That machine gun emplacement at the street corner! It's infuriating! I was explaining the situation to Marigold when we landed, and those guys just opened fire on us without saying a word!"
"Fortunately, there were many bunkers on the street. We managed to get around its line of fire and planned to investigate the situation around us. Then we saw this thing in a 4S store on the roadside."
At this point, Hyacinth patted the gunner's chair beneath her, a smile playing on her lips.
Xin Yuehu crossed her arms over her chest, as if she understood something, and nodded gently.
"I see. No wonder you were laughing so happily when you fired the cannon and blew up that machine gun position, like a villain."
"Ugh! Who's the villain here?! You fox, you're the real villain!"
Hyacinth's cheeks flushed red instantly, and she hurriedly retorted, like a panting kitten.
Not blood sisters, but closer than blood sisters. The golden-haired fox thought to herself with a smile, focusing her attention on the thermal imaging camera attached to the conductor's seat.
It's time to arrange the new round of Hyacinth's education, but before that, we need to get through this current difficulty first. The first thing to do is to find out exactly what Garuda did to my fox Kov.
How did my perfectly fine Foxkov turn into this... Ah, didn't we already say that line at the Fox Gate?
"Marigold, could you please drive the car closer to that machine gun position?"
The golden-haired fox girl withdrew her head from the observation window and spoke to the marigold sitting in the driver's seat, looking out of the car.
"Huh? Alright! That machine gun emplacement that Hyacinth-senpai blew up earlier, right?"
Hearing someone call her, the girl turned around to confirm the command, gave a thumbs-up with great enthusiasm, and pushed the control stick, causing the tank to slowly move forward.
There were only three seats in the tank. When there was no need to stick her head out of the commander's cupola to observe, the golden-haired fox girl naturally didn't need anyone to carry her. Chi Xue was able to sit behind the turret and observe the surrounding situation.
The so-called infantry-tank coordination.
Chi Xue carefully observed the city ravaged by war, while Su Tianqing also used the equipment in the commander's tower to observe the surroundings, trying to pinpoint the location based on her memory of Foxkov.
This should be... the central urban area of Foxkov? It's closer to the mountains, but there are wrecked vehicles and cars scattered everywhere, and you can't see the dark figures that attacked Iris in the Foxgate.
"Chixue, what's the situation outside?" the fox girl asked into the communication headset.
"Everything is normal, at least I haven't found anything unusual," Akashi replied.
The vehicle continued moving forward.
Scattered along the road were bicycles, electric bikes, and other debris, as well as plastic roadblocks and several cars that had been involved in accidents, lying haphazardly in the middle of the road. But none of them could withstand the crushing force of the tank tracks. The tank easily drove to the side of the machine gun emplacement destroyed by grenades, and everyone craned their necks to look at the mess.
The ground in the center of the position was completely ripped up. The crater wasn't very deep, but it was enough to engulf the entire position in destruction.
The power of the large-caliber grenade was truly formidable; a single shot wiped out the entire position formed by sandbags and concrete barriers. The once-roaring heavy machine gun was scattered in pieces around it, making it impossible to tell that the machine gun was still there.
"That was brutal," Su Tianqing complained.
"After taking that shell, if we could still move, we would be the ones running away," Hyacinth said, shrugging as she poked her head out of the gunner's turret and looked at the ruins.
As an infantryman in a combined arms operation, Chi Xue nimbly jumped down from the turret and walked to the edge of the ruins of the position to carefully examine the interior, hoping to find some clues that might have been left behind.
"There are some humanoid things over here. Are they the ones you saw last time?" Chi Xue turned around and said in the direction of the tank, as if she had discovered something.
Su Tianqing quickly jumped out of the commander's tower, and Hyacinth also said, "Let me see too," and jumped out of the gunner's tower. Even the driver, Marigold, lifted the driver's hatch and climbed out of the vehicle. The four of them gathered at the edge of the completely destroyed position and looked into the ruins.
Around the machine gun, several dark humanoid figures lay on the ground, showing no signs of activity. This immediately reminded Su Tianqing of the Shadow Legion that had besieged Iris and her group in the Gate of Fox Virtue.
If that's the case, the shadows I saw today were far more formidable than those monsters that only knew how to charge. That heavy machine gun barrage almost took half my life, but luckily I was a cut above the rest.
These shadowy figures also appear much more sophisticated than those monstrous creatures:
The black armor and helmet, the mask covering the face so that the face could not be seen, two sets of wreckage were blown beyond recognition by that cannon, but there was no blood or anything like that, only magical particles drifting in the wind.
"Wow... look at that one over there, he's practically inhuman, tsk tsk tsk..."
Hyacinth pursed her lips and clicked her tongue, then couldn't help but glance back at the menacing main cannon on the tank turret, instantly feeling a surge of security.
Thanks to this tank that somehow ended up in the 4S store, otherwise it would have been really difficult for our four infantrymen with light weapons to take down the machine gun position.
"They are something like 'family retinues'."
Chi Xue, being knowledgeable and experienced, walked over to one of the shadowy humanoid figures, bent down to observe it, and offered her analysis.
"You fought Jormungandr, do you remember those strange witches it summoned? These shadows are similar in nature to those things, except this is not the real world, but just a dream with distorted rules. Garuda can only summon these inferior shadows."
"Hmm...so, they're actually humanoid monsters?" Marigold asked curiously, and Heart Moon Fox and Crimson Snow nodded in agreement with her idea.
Hyacinth, emboldened, stepped forward and kicked the armored shadow lying next to the heavy machine gun. Suddenly, she heard something fall to the ground with a thud.
"Clatter".
The metal object bounced off the ground with a loud, muffled sound, startling the four people who immediately jumped away.
"Oh no! A grenade!" "Why did you have to kick it?!" "Whoa!"
Fox pounced and fell to the ground, clutching its head and tail. Chi Xue swiftly pressed down the stunned Marigold, while Hyacinth bounced two or three meters away like a spring, instantly moving away from the mysterious rolling object. Each of them clutched their heads, preparing to face the explosive impact.
...A dozen seconds passed, and nothing happened.
Hyacinth was the first to get up from the ground, muttering, "Why didn't that thing explode?" as she boldly approached the remains of the Shadow Monster and looked at the round metal sphere stuck in the crevice.
Upon hearing that the object wasn't a grenade, the girls crowded around again, their four heads huddled together, scrutinizing the sphere closely.
"Hey, your ear is blocking my view."
"Oh dear, I'm sorry."
Su Tianqing tucked in her fox ears, examined them for a while, and said curiously:
"What's this? Why don't you pick it up and take a look? It's a hyacinth."
"I always felt it wasn't a good thing, but if you put it that way..."
"Just pick it up and take a look; there's no danger."
"Then don't hide behind the sandbags!"
Hyacinth reached out and picked up the metal sphere, examining it from all angles for a while before her gaze settled on the display screen on the sphere's surface.
Instead of any terrifying text like an explosion countdown, the screen displayed a string of strange, unintelligible arrow symbols:
"↑↓→←↑……?"
The four looked at each other, none of them knowing what this thing was.
"...Is this some kind of secret code? Or some kind of encryption method?" Hyacinth tilted her head.
"I don't know..."
Heart Moon Fox scratched its ears in confusion, mentally cursing Garuda's ancestors... if it had any.
Garuda! What on earth are you up to in my mind?! Why is this strange thing appearing in the city of Foxkov?
Just as Hyacinth was about to put it in her pocket and keep it as an important clue, a loud bang suddenly came from the sky, startling everyone, who all looked up in surprise—
Four fiery trails, like shooting stars, streaked across the sky, turned overhead, and plummeted straight down.
"Oh no!" "I told you that wasn't normal! Throw it away!" "Throw it far away! Don't blow up the car!"
Startled, Hyacinth threw herself forcefully towards the distant square and scrambled back to the tank gunner's position.
As the sphere was launched, the four streaks of light changed direction and plummeted towards the plaza where the sphere landed.
"BOOM!!"
After a brief jet deceleration, four massive objects crashed into the center of the plaza, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Cough, cough! Cough... What is that? Hyacinth, what did you just do?" Heart Moon Fox coughed a few times, flicked its tail to clear away the dust, and said loudly.
"I didn't do anything! I just thought I'd put it in my pocket maybe it would come in handy later, and then suddenly those four shooting stars appeared in the sky!"
A flurry of chatter erupted inside the tank, but before they could reach a conclusion, Chi Xue suddenly rushed to the hatch and shouted loudly to the three people inside:
"This isn't the time for that! Look, something seems to be moving in the square!"
"!!??"
Upon hearing these words, which sounded like a horror story, the makeshift three-person car crew all craned their necks to look.
From the four objects deeply embedded in the ground like cannonballs... four dark figures clad in armor slowly rose, their cloaks billowing behind them. They simultaneously raised their futuristic-looking rifles, pointing them toward the tank.
—Fire! Bullets rained down!