Chapter 917: Chapter 917

In the moment when He Ao’s voice fell, everyone present fell into an eerie silence.

But soon, Fren’s voice broke the silence as he lowered his voice and said softly,

"Mr. Mayor, we can’t go to South City; that’s General Corvey’s base of operations, where all his core troops are stationed. The Federal Bureau of Investigation won’t join our war, and with our current strength, going there would be like an egg hitting a rock, certain death."

"I need to see Corvey,"

He Ao looked up at him, closed the briefcase beside him, and spoke calmly, "You don’t have to go, I will."

Hearing this, even the members of the Mayor’s Guard who were rushing over with water slightly changed their expressions, somewhat surprised.

Fren leaned in a little closer, his voice raspy and hurried, "General Corvey is out to get you, Mr. Mayor. You are the last person who should go to South City right now," he paused slightly, "and besides, you’re still carrying such serious injuries. Going to South City is a certain death sentence; those powerful weapons are not something your flesh and blood body can withstand.

"The situation has now completely spiraled out of control, and even General Scott might not support you. The best course of action is to return to the Mayor’s Mansion immediately, take a doctor, and leave," he quickly scanned the people around him, speaking a bit softer, "If it really comes down to it, we can head straight for the airport."

"Have you ever seen a mayor of Yilan City abandon his city?"

He Ao gave him a look and said slowly.

Running away might save his life, but once he ran away, it would mean the death of Lin En’s political career, a complete loss in this struggle.

What Yilan City would face is an even more vehement counterattack.

Fren’s mouth slightly opened, wanting to say something else.

"Has Corvey made his move yet?"

He Ao watched Fren in front of him with a somewhat hazy gaze, his voice aged but undeniably calm.

Fren answered subconsciously.

"Then he is still the general of Yilan City, and I am still the mayor of Yilan City."

He Ao picked up his briefcase, took his brass cane, brushed past Fren, and walked toward the hover warplane that had landed ahead.

"Mr. Lin En, I’ll go with you!"

It was at this moment that Sena, who had been standing behind him, suddenly stepped forward and spoke out loudly.

His voice was so loud that the Federal Bureau of Investigation employees who were gathering to check the bodies on the ground had heard the noise and turned their heads in confusion.

Dropping the bottled water they had retrieved from the attackers’ car onto the ground, the rest of the guard members immediately said.

"We don’t need that many people,"

He Ao looked back at the group, "You all stay here and work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate the identities of these attackers."

Sena opened his mouth, wanting to say more.

"Let me go with you,"

At that moment, Fren spoke up. He looked up at He Ao,

"I’m a C-level Transcendent; I could help in case of any situations. As the mayor, you need someone to fly the hover warplane for you. Besides, I am the captain of the Mayor’s Guard, and it’s my duty to ensure your safety."

He Ao withdrew his gaze to look at Fren, "Then Fren will come with me."

He Ao then looked at Sena and the other guards, who were hesitant to speak, and slowly began, "You continue to straighten up the scene, investigate the source of the attackers, and wait for me to return. These are orders."

Sena wanted to say something but paused slightly upon hearing He Ao’s words and then nodded firmly, "Yes!"

The deputy captain and the other members also replied in unison.

He Ao nodded, picked up his briefcase, and quickly walked to the door of the hover warplane.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation employees standing next to the hover warplane saluted him, and He Ao nodded back.

Then he seemed to remember something, looked back at the bottled water.

The deputy captain of the Mayor’s Guard immediately directed the other members to carry the water onto the hover warplane.

He Ao looked back at these members, nodded at them gently, and then boarded the hover warplane.

Fren followed He Ao onto the hover warplane, quickly taking the pilot’s seat.

Accompanied by the roaring sound of the massive engines starting up, the hover warplane swiftly ascended, disappearing into the night sky.

"Why does Mr. Lin En absolutely have to go to South City? General Corvey has obviously already started to rebel."

Watching the hover warplane gradually disappear into the night sky, Sena was somewhat puzzled.

He had been by He Ao’s side the whole time and had heard everything that He Ao and Fren had said.

"Maybe, Mr. Lin En has his own plan?"

The deputy captain, who stood next to him, also looked at the distant hover warplane’s disappearing tail flame and spoke with a slight sense of perplexity,

"Actually, I can’t think of anything else Mr. Lin En could do apart from leaving Yilan City. The current situation is too adverse for him, and his injuries are so severe."

He paused a moment, then looked down and continued, "But maybe Mr. Lin En could perform another miracle? After all, when we came back, no one thought Mr. Lin En could take care of these attackers by himself."

"But that’s a regular army, an entire division’s worth, and Mr. Corvey himself is a very powerful Transcendent."

Sena opened his mouth slightly, looking at his deputy with a sense of bewilderment, "Can Mr. Lin En really come back alive from Mr. Corvey?"

The deputy shook his head,

"We’ve done what we could do, and even if Mr. Lin En left Yilan City, escaping the current danger, that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be targeted for assassination.

"It’s said that his uncooperative attitude has thoroughly enraged those major consortia; he might have a hard time avoiding assassination by those consortia."

Sena slowly opened his mouth, his voice somewhat lowered, "Mr. Lin En is a good man."

"Yes, he is a good man, who here doesn’t know he’s a good man?"

The deputy looked around at the night and the people walking through it, then stretched out his hand, gently patted Sena’s shoulder, "Otherwise, I wouldn’t have voted for him initially, but that’s the way the world is."

His voice grew lower, "What we can do is to give our utmost to defend our duties, to honor everything he has done for this city. That’s the meaning of our return."

Sena opened his mouth, not sure what to say, and lowered his head in the silent night.

"But speaking of which, maybe we really can’t return to the Mayor’s Mansion."

The deputy retracted his hand, turned slowly, and looked towards the potholes in the middle of the street, where the attackers had once buried landmines.

Sena turned around, puzzled, and looked at his deputy.

"The mayor’s movement routes, including emergency evacuation routes, are top secret,"

the deputy team leader said with a touch of emotion as he looked at the attackers lying on the ground. "I only received the evacuation route map when it was time for an urgent evacuation."

Sena was somewhat coming to his senses.

"Collect clues seriously,"

the deputy team leader lowered his head and walked towards a person who seemed to be a commander from the Federal Bureau of Investigation not far ahead, his voice echoing slowly in the night, "He trusts us by asking us to gather clues and evidence; for all we know, what we collect could help him when he gets back."

His voice paused slightly and grew quieter, "When he gets back."

The speeding hover warplane weaved through the neon lights of the city.

The weather today wasn’t very good; the night sky was somewhat dim, with the whistling wind rushing past the windows.

This police hover warplane resembled an oversized mouse in shape, with many streamlined designs for wind resistance.

The interior decoration of the warplane was rather simple, somewhat like a bus, with four rows of seats bisected by an aisle.

The first row was for the pilot and co-pilot, while the three rows behind were passenger seats.

Fren set the driving mode to automatic and held the joystick, glancing downwards at the electronic rearview mirror on the console.

That moment, the rearview mirror displayed the entire inside of the warplane.

Bottles of water that the Mayor’s Guard had brought onto the plane were placed in the aisle between the seats in the third row, while an elderly man, covered in blood, sat in the fourth row.

Fren watched the elderly man pull out a small medical kit from under the seat, find a metal tweezer inside, then reach out and start pulling bullet fragments from his bloody wounds one by one, tearing off pieces of clothing that were stuck to his body.

Simply watching this scene, as a battle-hardened warrior who had been through countless fights, Fren could almost feel a phantom pain on the surface of his skin, with goosebumps crawling up his back.

Yet, the elderly man sitting in the last row seemed to feel nothing, calmly extracting the bullet fragments from his flesh.

Besides the whistling wind, the only other sounds in the hover warplane were the crisp clinks of the fragments as they hit the floor.

The old man was fast; in a flash, he had removed most of the bullet fragments from his body, then took out a hemostatic spray from the medical kit and sprayed it on the wounds that started bleeding afresh.

looking at the pool of blood and bullet fragments in the rearview mirror, Fren spoke slowly, "Do you want to slow down? Perhaps take a moment to rest?"

"No need, fastest pace, go,"

He Ao replied while spraying the hemostatic, his voice slow and hoarse, "Delay brings change."

The reason he had been willing to wait at the site for a while, besides resting to recover his strength, was that he had faintly heard the sound of an approaching hover warplane.

For this, he had confirmed with the deputy team leader whether Fren was on his way.

His attack location was in the north-central part of Yilan City; the roads to the South City Command Center were very complex, involving many streets.

Compared to taking a car to South City, a direct line through the air taken by the hover warplane was obviously much faster and would involve fewer potential problems.

Sharpening the axe will not hinder the cutting of wood; hence, He Ao could afford to wait a few more minutes for the hover warplane.

Once on the warplane, speed was the priority.

Fren nodded lightly, switched the hover warplane to manual mode, took back his gaze to look forward, and sped up.

Meanwhile, during their conversation, He Ao at the back had not paused his actions at all; he quickly tidied away the hemostatic spray, stretched out his hand, and picked up the bottled water stacked up front.

He unscrewed the cap and poured water into his hand from above, beginning to clean the wound and the bloodstains around it, especially those near his cheeks and palms.

Some wounds began bleeding again as he scrubbed them, but his movements didn’t stop for a moment.

After cleaning his wounds all over again, He Ao reached out for the hemostatic spray while glancing at his reflection in the window.

The wounds on his face were the least of them; now the bloodstains were mostly washed out, revealing the sharp contours of his reflection.

After another spray of the hemostatic, He Ao took out bandages from the medical kit and wrapped them around the more obvious still-bleeding wounds.

These bandages were not only to stop the bleeding but also to prevent blood from oozing out.

While wrapping one hand with the bandage, He Ao also opened the briefcase he brought up, took out an invisible earpiece from the small box that held bracelets, and put it on his ear.

Once he finished with the bandages, he smoothly took out a shirt from the briefcase.

This briefcase contained a complete set of clothes, ranging from underwear to jackets and ties.

The white shirt was pulled onto his muscular torso, and the neatly wrapped bandages halted any bleeding from the body.

After buttoning up the shirt neatly, He Ao took out a gray suit and put it on, then while looking at his reflection in the car window, he tied his tie.

Lastly, he took out a strong stain-removing spray from the briefcase and sprayed it on his hair, which was clumped with blood.

The spray dissolved some of the blood and grease, so He Ao found some tissues in the medical box to dry his hair, then he took out hair wax and a comb to slick back and fix his hair using the car window for guidance.

A neatly dressed elder with black hair mixed with streaks of white, appearing dignified yet kind, emerged in the window’s reflection.

In fact, Lin En’s hair had turned mostly white a long time ago; this head of black hair was dyed.

The black strands gave off the impression of youth and vigor, making his supporters believe he was full of energy, capable of handling everything.

Just then, the Floating Warplane began to slow down.

Fren looked ahead, "We’re approaching..."

Suddenly, the bright flashing light cut off Fren’s words as a host of Blazing Angel Mechs, spewing flames, emerged from the darkness, their bright light illuminating the night.

The massive barrels of their cannons slowly raised, aiming at the Floating Warplane in the sky.

And behind these Seraphim Mechs, a dense mass of Dragon Cavalry Fighters lit up their lamps like a tidal wave.

The entire sky seemed to turn into a tumultuous dark sea in an instant, with the massive Mechs emerging like mountainous waves and the small Hover Warplane like a lonely boat afloat amid them.

Watching all this, Fren’s hand holding the joystick trembled slightly; at that moment, he didn’t even dare to control the Flying Warplane to land.

In the silent darkness, aged fingers slowly pressed the interior hatch’s open button.

Fren turned to look at the elder standing before the hatch; he wanted to say something, but the overwhelming sensation of being close to death stifled his voice, tensing the muscles so he could make no sound.

The crisp mechanical noise accompanied the Hover Warplane’s sliding door as it slowly opened, allowing the cold night air to blast into the cabin and flutter the elder’s hair.

In an instant, it seemed like all eyes of the night were fixated on the elderly person.

A man in a gray suit, holding a brass cane, and standing tall and straight appeared behind the narrow hatch.

He was so small compared to the massive Mechs around him, like an insignificant ant on a solitary boat, yet his posture was so erect, like an invisible mountain standing tall amidst the clouds.

He stood among the towering Mechs spitting flames into the clouds, amidst the undulating darkness, watching the endless mass of war machines aiming their cannons at him, his tone calm and natural,

"I am Lin En, your Mayor. Have the Commander of South City come to see me."

The elder’s tranquil voice traveled into the pitch-black night, slipping between the fiery jets and rippling into the deepest darkness.

A roar of light streaked across the sky, sounding the prelude to an approaching storm.