Chapter 176: Rendezvous

Chapter 176: Chapter 176: Rendezvous

She immediately turned around, staring eagerly at Colonel Grant. Her tone softened. "Colonel Grant, I’ve just come to a profound realization of the danger and my mistake."

Francis Grant had been seething. Luna Dawson’s habit of disobeying orders and acting on her own was simply too dangerous; she needed to be thoroughly reprimanded! But when he saw Luna turn around—covered in blood and dirt, her small face deathly pale—his anger couldn’t help but subside significantly.

He softened his tone. "Next time you make any moves, tell me in advance..."

Mid-sentence, as if suddenly remembering something, Francis’s tone turned stern, his voice full of interrogation. "Why did you block me?!"

Standing to the side, Kyle Keith raised an eyebrow, a flash of curiosity in his eyes. He was clearly quite interested in the answer to that question as well.

"I... I was busy fighting zombies at the time, and you kept annoying me with messages!" Luna retorted with righteous indignation. "If I hadn’t blocked you, I might not have made it back alive!"

Kyle listened silently from the sidelines. It seemed Luna hadn’t voluntarily informed Francis of her movements at all. Realizing this, he breathed an inward sigh of relief.

Francis took a deep breath, a hint of hesitation crossing his brow. He wondered if he was the one in the wrong. Suppressing his conflicted feelings, he said in a deep voice, "Alright, let’s drop this for now and resolve the immediate crisis first."

As they spoke, the SLAM of a car door echoed nearby.

Susan Vaughn walked over holding a pitcher. Beside her was Lauren Grant, a fire-type Superpower User from the Endless Squad. Lauren steadily carried a tray with several clean water glasses.

Susan approached Francis, putting on a gentle smile, and said softly, "Colonel Grant, you’ve been working hard for so long. Have some refreshing tea. I just brewed it; everyone should try some to relieve the fatigue." With that, she offered the people around her a soft, friendly smile.

Luna raised an eyebrow at the sight, noting that the master people-pleaser was at it again. She glanced up at the pitcher in Susan’s hands, her tone filled with undisguised disgust. "What kind of garbage did you brew? Get lost."

"You!"

Susan’s face instantly changed colors, turning from pale to green. She clearly hadn’t expected Luna to be so disrespectful and reject her directly in front of so many people, especially with Kyle standing right there.

Forcing back her grievances, her voice trembled slightly. "This is Captain Kessler’s and my goodwill. How could you say such a thing?!"

Kyle remembered the conflict the two had just had that afternoon. Seeing Luna attack her so bluntly now, he frowned imperceptibly. He quietly assessed Susan, wondering if Luna’s attitude meant she had discovered something.

"I’m quite a picky eater. I don’t accept just any piece of trash." Luna shot Susan an indifferent glance. Completely ignoring the strange looks from the others present, she walked straight toward her.

She had originally planned to eliminate Susan during this outing, but unexpectedly, Kyle was quite attentive to her, constantly arranging people to protect her and making it hard to strike. As soon as she had returned, she had looked everywhere for Susan, afraid that the zombies might have gotten to her first. To her surprise, the woman had been cowering in the car the whole time. She certainly knew how to hide. It seemed she would have to find a good opportunity to feed her to the zombies.

As Luna stepped closer, Susan took a frightened step back, her eyes full of wariness. She hadn’t forgotten how Luna had allowed an Aberrant Beast to scratch her face that evening. This woman was ruthless and completely unpredictable.

Luna’s lips curled into a meaningful smile. Amidst the strange looks from the others, she slowly leaned close to Susan’s ear and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, "I was the one who took the intimate photos of you and that loyal Thunder System hound~"

Upon hearing this, Susan’s eyes widened, and the color drained from her face. She turned in shock to glare at Luna, her eyes filled with disbelief and overwhelming hatred.

"It was you! It was actually you!"

She had always thought some blind passerby had taken those photos. She never imagined that Luna was behind it! This was the woman who had ruined her reputation and destroyed her chances of keeping Ron Rivers under her thumb. It was all her fault!

Susan gritted her teeth, her nails digging so deeply into her palms that the pain made her whole body tremble, yet she continued to glare fiercely at Luna. "It was you! You bitch!"

Luna raised an eyebrow, the smile on her face growing even more unbridled, her tone carrying a hint of provocation. "So what if it was me? Who told you to be so restless? God sees all that we do; isn’t it perfectly normal that you were photographed?"

With that, Luna ignored Susan, who was left trembling and seething in place, and turned to walk straight back to Mrs. Dawson. Her expression was calm, as if nothing had just happened.

The others present were full of questions, looking at each other in confusion, having no idea what was going on between the two women.

Seeing Luna walk away with a smile, Francis took the easy out. He announced to the group, "I’m going back to continue commanding the battle," and turned to leave. From beginning to end, he never accepted the tea Susan had offered.

Kyle’s gaze followed Francis’s retreating figure. His eyes narrowed slightly, a flash of unfathomable light crossing them. He slowly turned back to look at Susan, his tone cold and carrying an undeniable pressure. "Dump all this out. If you still have any superpower left, go into the tent and put all your water into the Abnormal Ability Storage Jar."

This sudden pressure made Susan stiffen and left her breathless. The grievance and anger in her heart were instantly replaced by fear. She hastily lowered her head, her voice as quiet as a mosquito. "Y-Yes... I understand, Captain Kessler."

She deliberately wore a fragile and broken expression, her movements cautious for fear of upsetting Kyle, but the venom in her eyes couldn’t be hidden. From the corner of her eye, she glared resentfully at Luna in the distance, intense unwillingness and hatred surging in her eyes.

She thought, "Luna Dawson! You’ve humiliated and schemed against me time and time again. You ruined my reputation and cut off my escape route. I will never let you off! I will definitely make you pay!"

Luna took in Susan’s reaction completely, a cold smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She had taken the bait. This was exactly the effect she wanted: to make Susan completely resent her and actively seek out trouble with her. Entrapment was a tactic she could certainly put to use. Kensington Base was her home, after all, and she needed a justified reason for her actions.

The brief interlude just now hadn’t affected the group’s will to fight in the slightest.

Rollo gulped down an entire basin of Crystal Core Solution and leapt into the zombie horde. Like a mobile blender, it tore through them as countless whirlwinds howled past, precisely harvesting the zombies’ heads. Little Tiger simultaneously enlarged its size, closely following by Rollo’s side. Its thick paws slammed viciously into the zombies. From time to time, bizarre black holes would appear around it, completely absorbing all the zombies’ superpower attacks. This scene left the people inside the walls gasping in sheer amazement.

Following Francis’s orders, everyone put away their firearms and began fighting entirely with superpowers and cold weapons.