Storming the News Building, Decapitating Jia Xiangying

The doors of the News Building were slammed open by a vehicle, with Wang Qihu—now recovered—at the wheel, lively as ever. He braced a machine gun on the car and opened fire indiscriminately on the lobby.

His vigor and ample ammunition were all thanks to Xu Lingqu, who had led them to rob Sin City's mafia armory first.

And that was thanks to their ace scout Xu Xiqin's intel, which pinpointed the armory's location. She also took the opportunity to correct a previous piece of misinformation.

"Hei Yingzhi was the head of a biker gang, and the mafia boss was a bearded NPC. The two are good friends in the game's setting," Xu Xiqin complained. "Hei Yingzhi got along so well with the mafia boss that he borrowed several of his underlings, which is why I got them confused."

If Hei Yingzhi were still alive, there was no way they'd have captured the armory so easily. Worse, he might have pulled the mafia boss into helping Dolanston Academy, which would've made things truly difficult.

"Good riddance," Jin said. After splurging all the money in the bank vault, he'd regained his freedom. Earlier, he'd had to stay put guarding the vault, afraid that wave after wave of robbers would clean it out—if the money were gone, his skill would be useless.

Now he'd turned the tables and spent it all himself. Any robbers who came would only stare at the empty vault, dumbfounded.

After gearing up and splitting into squads, they launched a full-scale assault on the News Building.

Wang Qihu led the charge to clear the first floor. Under his machine gun's suppression, the two men Jiang You had stationed on the first floor had no choice but to abandon their posts and retreat to the second.

Meanwhile, in the second-floor restroom, Jin and his team had already broken in through the windows. Using the restroom as a starting point, they engaged Dolanston's forces in a fierce gunfight across the floor.

The two retreating Dolanston soldiers quickly regrouped with the four already on that floor. One of them had a plant-manipulation skill, so he covered the area with thorns, and the group lay in ambush, waiting for Moye's forces to come.

But Jin saw it all. He led his team in a frontal assault, striking from behind—a classic 'mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.' Sure enough, the Dolanston students were caught off guard and, panicking, stumbled into their own thorn traps.

Finishing them off then was like catching turtles in a jar.

The Dolanston students could only lament.

Under normal circumstances, with full manpower, Jin would never have been able to break in through the windows so easily. But they were undermanned now.

The News Building had nineteen floors, and Jia Xiangying hadn't stationed many people on the lower floors. She didn't expect them to make big moves, just to cause Moye some trouble and slow their advance to the middle floors.

Jiang You waited alone on the fifteenth floor. He walked into an office where a large hole had been blown in the window—big enough for a person to squeeze through. He crouched down and waited, but no one came through that opening.

Instead, the person he was waiting for appeared behind him.

Xu Xiqin aimed her gun at him. "Any last words?"

Earlier, she'd used that very hole to infiltrate the News Building, stealing Jiang You's belongings and even swiping a few pages of Meteor Anchor Jia Xiangying's scripts, which revealed both their skills. That intel had been crucial in setting up the explosion on Bliwell Huabin Avenue.

Jiang You's massive energy barrier was arguably the most overpowered skill in this map, but in the end, it had only been used to seal off Bliwell Huabin Avenue—failing to stop the explosion while inadvertently cutting off Dolanston's escape route inward.

Though to be fair, when the money fell, almost no one had realized its purpose.

Only Xu Lingqu had instantly understood what Jin intended.

"No last words. I have no skill and no weapon now. I just wanted to see if the phantom thief would come. And here you are," Jiang You said, slowly turning to face Xu Xiqin. "You made another hole somewhere else and slipped in?"

Xu Xiqin raised an eyebrow. Of course—she'd rappelled from the roof and created an opening at the center. A phantom thief never uses the same route twice.

Jiang You chuckled. "Back then, we actually discovered the hole almost immediately. The entire News Building was sealed off and searched, yet we still couldn't catch you. And at the time, we were worried about Xu Lingqu's word-spirit skill. Since nothing important was stolen, we let it go. Who would've thought..."

He suddenly turned again, startling Xu Xiqin into firing, but she missed—because Jiang You wasn't coming for her. Instead, he leapt out through the hole, plunging straight down.

The powder kegs of Dolanston—one after another, such fiery temperaments.

Xu Xiqin stared at the hole, silently musing.

The fighting on the middle floors was fierce, skills flashing throughout the News Building. Even with Jin and Xu Xiqin's pincer attack, Dolanston's students held their ground, stubbornly resisting despite their numerical disadvantage.

Xu Lingqu's earlier assessment had been correct: without the Bliwell Huabin Avenue play, a frontal assault on the News Building would never have succeeded.

Amid the chaotic battle, Shen Shouli slipped through like a drop of water. He wasn't there to join the fight. His target was the top floor—the nineteenth—to find Jia Xiangying.

The moment the door opened, Shen Shouli and Jia Xiangying each had a gun pointed at the other.

Jia Xiangying knew her people were still resisting, but the tide had turned. The sheer disparity in numbers meant Dolanston had no chance of turning this match around.

"Where's Xu Lingqu? She didn't come?" Jia Xiangying wasn't interested in Shen Shouli, only in searching for a glimpse of Xu Lingqu behind him.

Shen Shouli didn't fire either. He simply pulled off his communication earpiece and tossed it to Jia Xiangying.

She didn't come, but she had something to say.

Jia Xiangying put on Moye Military Academy's earpiece.

Normally, once a cadet was eliminated, their earpiece became unusable, and capturing one was unheard of.

First, being captured was too humiliating; no one wanted that. Cadets would rather commit suicide or force a disconnect and take the penalty than be taken alive—and that held true for other academies too.

Moreover, a commander who realized a cadet had been captured would automatically cut that person's channel and periodically have everyone report in—standard procedure.

So Jia Xiangying was genuinely the first person to hear an opposing school's channel through legitimate means.

"Jia Xiangying." The wind howled in Xu Lingqu's voice.

Where was she?

Jia Xiangying remained silent.

"That was a well-fought match," Xu Lingqu continued, unbothered. "Are you still curious about my word-spirit skill?"

"You lied to us," Jia Xiangying said coldly.

"I never lie," Xu Lingqu said. She was on the clock tower a thousand meters away from the News Building, alongside Liu Zheng, to whom she'd handed a sniper rifle to go with her sniper rounds.

"The nineteenth floor of the News Building—Jia Xiangying, die."

As the words left Xu Lingqu's mouth, Liu Zheng pulled the trigger. The sniper round tore through the air, shattered the glass of the nineteenth floor, and struck Jia Xiangying.

Xu Lingqu hadn't lied. Her word-spirit skill was Liu Zheng—the finest gun in her arsenal.

[Moye Military Academy triggers victory condition—Decapitation.]

[Moye Military Academy, victory!]