Chapter 371: The Bulwark’s Second Use

The black fur churning ceaselessly at the window had gone still. No longer writhing.

Wind threaded between the buildings, rattling the paper sheets plastered over the hoarding.

“Is it over?” someone asked in a low voice.

No one had an answer.

The squad leader didn’t respond immediately. His brow remained tightly furrowed.

He was just considering whether to send a team member closer to investigate when the Palmfiend perched on his shoulder let out a rapid, urgent “chitter-chitter.”

The skin of its palm lit up, and a new message appeared.

The squad leader scanned it quickly. His tense shoulders relaxed slightly—then immediately tightened again.

The message also contained the orders Poppy had assigned them.

“It’s from Lady Poppy.”

He lowered his voice, relaying the information to the team around him.

“The fight isn’t over. Lady Poppy says the thing is a coward—it runs the moment things get tough.”

“Her battle punched straight through parts of the underground structure, shifted laterally the whole way, and ultimately broke into a tunnel adjacent to the site.”

“A tunnel?”

“Lady Poppy’s assessment is that it’s a subway tunnel. The ‘Remnant Sovereign’ has been fleeing the entire time, and she’s currently hunting it down.”

The squad leader paused, then continued:

“She wants us to handle the remaining ‘kittens’ in the building first, then follow after her.”

“She’ll leave water-smoke traces for us to track.”

The message ended there.

The support squad members immediately gathered around and began rapidly sorting through the situation.

“‘Remnant Sovereign’ is Lady Poppy’s designation for the core anomaly itself. That fits her usual naming habits—nothing noteworthy there.”

“As for ‘kittens’… considering the anomalous incidents we’ve handled before, that should refer to the companion anomalies spawned by the primary anomaly, or perhaps its offspring. They were left behind by the ‘Remnant Sovereign’ when it fled.”

The squad leader spoke quickly, analyzing in a cool, measured tone.

His finger tapped against the building plans spread across the table, as if pinning those scattered pieces of information firmly to the paper.

“Next: the tunnel.”

Another team member, responsible for intelligence and records, swiftly unfolded a portable map—one pulled from the municipal archives and detailing the underground utility network.

His finger traced across the dense tangle of lines depicting the city’s underground infrastructure, following them one by one until it finally stopped at a specific point.

“Confirmed. The edge of this building’s planned third-level underground zone does indeed sit adjacent to an abandoned old subway spur line.”

“Lady Poppy’s judgment is correct. It’s a subway tunnel.”

“Understood.”

The squad leader nodded.

“Then our mission is clear. First: clear the residual sub-entities from the building. Second: follow the trail and support Lady Poppy.”

He straightened up, his gaze sweeping over every person present.

“All right, that’s about it. This time it looks like we’ll actually have to put in some work. Everyone, prepare to move.”

At his words, the squad members didn’t hesitate. They sprang into action quickly.

Some checked their equipment. Some confirmed communications. Others folded maps and tucked them back into their belt pouches.

But just before stepping out of the site office, the squad leader suddenly called for a halt.

“Wait.”

His expression was grave. Reaching into his coat, he produced a vial that shimmered with a faint cyan glow—a Rank-3 potion. The Bulwark.

“Lady Poppy gave me this beforehand, precisely for a situation like this.”

“The situation inside the building is unclear. She didn’t explicitly forbid its use. If I were going in alone, it might not be much of an issue—but since we’re all going in together, we need to take precautions against the black mist beforehand.”

“Our physiques are hardly ordinary, but this incident involves Rank-3. Direct inhalation could still affect us. So…”

As he spoke, he pulled several test tubes of amber-colored reagent from his belt pouch.

That was Amber Tonic.

A classic Rank-2 potion with stable effects and gentle properties.

Cheap to obtain, its ingredients easy to acquire—it was one of the most basic and common components of a cleanup squad’s standard rations.

Now, in the hands of another Rank-3 figure—Lady Pandora—this potion could even be brewed using certain anomalous materials as substitutes, making it even easier to obtain.

And that wasn’t all.

Judging from the squad’s trading experience in Eden’s Dead City, high-quality Amber Tonic was generally difficult to produce. It required extremely precise control of heat and material purification. The slightest misstep would substantially reduce the potion’s efficacy.

This made high-quality Amber Tonic hard to come by.

At least, that was the case with most potion brewers they’d encountered in the past.

But over the course of this year-plus of cleanup operations, they’d discovered that technical challenges of this sort seemed to pose no problem at all for Lady Pandora.

Take the ones in the squad leader’s hand right now, for example.

The color was pure and translucent, faintly glinting with a deep blue reflection. No impurities, no cloudiness—quality nearly the best he’d ever seen.

And this was just ordinary rations they received. It wasn’t even the limit of that lady’s potion-brewing skill.

Such thoughts flickered through the squad leader’s mind as his hands kept moving.

He produced five portions of Amber Tonic and poured them into a small potion-mixing container.

The container was barely the size of a palm, its inner wall inscribed with fine graduation marks, with a small rotating stirring blade at its base.

Next, he aimed the mouth of The Bulwark at the container and dripped it in slowly.

One drop, two drops…

Half the vial, then the whole thing…

The amber liquid fused with the pale cyan of The Bulwark, rippling faintly within the container.

At the boundary between the two liquids, a ring of murky milky-white first appeared, then slowly dissipated. Ultimately, the mixture settled into a color somewhere between amber and pale cyan.

The squad leader slowly turned the knob at the base of the container. The stirring blade rotated at low speed, mixing the solution thoroughly.

A moment later, he redistributed the mixture into six portions, handing one to each member of the squad, including himself.

“This is ‘Lesser Bulwark’.”

“The Bulwark diluted with Amber Tonic. The effect is weakened, but the potency is likewise reduced to a level we can tolerate. One each. Drink up.”

The team members accepted the potions. Without hesitation, they swallowed them in one go.

The instant the liquid touched their throats, it burned like molten iron.

Then a searing heat rose from the stomach and spread rapidly outward, flooding through every limb and bone.

Someone let out a muffled grunt, their face going pale. Their body instinctively resisted the overwhelming potency of the potion exceeding their tolerance.

Another team member closed their eyes, fine beads of sweat seeping from their temples.

But the discomfort came quickly and faded just as fast.

Within several breaths, everyone had gradually adapted.

The searing heat slowly receded, leaving behind only a faint layer of warmth.

And then, everyone felt the change clearly.

At the edges of their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses, a thin membrane of flesh had quietly grown.

It adhered perfectly to the edges of each organ—undetectable unless one looked very closely.

Breathing remained smooth, but the air seemed to have been filtered a layer, no longer carrying that faint, lingering stench of rot.

This was The Bulwark’s special application.

That membrane, though extremely thin, could block out most invasive toxins and corrosive gases.

With this layer of protection, they no longer needed to fear any toxic black mist that might appear.