Chapter 869: Chapter 869 First Move

But before he could act, the other officer, perhaps the only one with a shred of sense, grabbed his arm, halting his rash movement. The Commander General, meanwhile, reclined in his seat with an arrogant smirk, convinced the situation would resolve itself in their favor.

Kisha, however, showed no sign of fear. She didn’t even look mildly concerned. With an air of composure, she raised her glass of orange juice and took a slow sip, her eyes locked on the unfolding fight like it was no more than a performance staged for her entertainment.

The three soldiers were clearly skilled, Kisha could admit that, but they had made the mistake of underestimating Tristan. He wasn’t just a bodyguard or a normal secretary anymore. As an awakened ability user, his physical limits had long since surpassed those of any normal human.

Every punch he threw landed with bone-jarring force, each kick sending tremors through the floor. His movements were precise and unrelenting, dodging with agility and countering with brutal efficiency.

Each time his fists connected, his opponents staggered back with grimaces of pain. Their coordinated attack quickly turned into a scramble for defense.

Kisha didn’t flinch. She simply watched, calm, composed, and utterly unmoved, while her protector dismantled their arrogance one strike at a time.

It didn’t take long for the middle-aged officer’s face to turn ashen. His three men lay sprawled on the ground, coughing blood, clutching their stomachs and chests in agony. Meanwhile, Tristan, calm, cool, and completely untouched, walked back to Kisha’s side without a drop of sweat on his brow.

In contrast, the officer’s subordinates looked like they were on the verge of death.

Stunned, the other officer who had been restraining the older officer’s hand let go, speechless. But the older one, clearly rattled after losing his upper hand, hastily raised his gun at Kisha in desperation.

Kisha’s smile twistedly with a glint of darkness, danger, and sinister in them.

“Are you sure you want to go down that path?” Her voice was low, cold, and deliberate, echoing through the room filled only with the sound of labored, pained gasps. It carried the weight of a threat far more lethal than the weapon pointed at her.

“Woman, you should know when to stop.”

“Oh?” Her eyes narrowed. “No—you should know when to stop.”

Without warning, the barrel of the gun dropped to the floor with a heavy clunk, severed cleanly from the grip still trembling in the officer’s hand. He stared in shock, breath catching in his throat. He hadn’t seen her move. He hadn’t even blinked.

Yet now, she held a gleaming dagger in one hand, the cold blade glinting like ice, sharp, and deadly.

His heartbeat spiked as fear seized him. His hand trembled, and the broken remains of the weapon slipped from his grasp.

“I’ll ask you one last time,” Kisha said, voice stripped of all amusement. Now it was cold, flat, merciless. “What’s your decision? Or should I end this here and now?”

The Commander General, realizing the situation was spiraling out of control, and terrified they might not make it out alive, was the first to crack under the pressure.

“We’ll do as you say!” he shouted, hands raised in surrender.

The older officer, once brought in to intimidate or negotiate with Kisha, was now utterly useless. Worse, he had angered her. The Commander General could tell: they were no longer negotiating from a place of strength. They were at her mercy.

He hadn’t anticipated that the man standing behind Kisha would be so powerful, or that someone could slice a gun in half without anyone seeing how. The impossibility of it only deepened his fear.

There was no denying it now. These people were far too dangerous. And their lives… were entirely in Kisha’s hands.

“Good,” Kisha said simply, lowering the dagger in her hand.

Of course, this wasn’t just any weapon—it was a +3 enhanced dagger, so sharp it had sliced through the officer’s gun like it was nothing more than tofu. She’d used it deliberately, not to kill, but to intimidate. To scare. To make the cowardly Commander General bend to her will.

They were already in the belly of the beast. Did they really think she would just let them walk away empty-handed?

No. Kisha needed answers, what they were up to in the Capital, what schemes were unfolding behind the scenes. And more than that, she had unfinished business with the Commander General. In this life, he hadn’t yet committed the sins he did in her past. But she didn’t care. A leopard doesn’t change its spots, and she wasn’t about to give him the chance.

Let him learn now, Kisha is not someone to cross.

“Tristan,” she said coolly, “escort them out. And prepare our warriors. I want these soldiers to show us what they’re capable of. Let’s see if they’re truly worth the resources they’re asking for.”

Tristan stepped forward with a nod, but Kisha held up her hand and leaned in.

“Make sure our people don’t use or reveal their awakened abilities,” she whispered. “Not in front of them.”

Tristan gave a firm nod of understanding and moved to carry out her command. He gathered Fred, Rakan, Rose, Evelyn, and the other captains, then led the Commander General, his officers, and several dozen of their men out of the hall and toward the training grounds.

Tristan decided to bring along the warriors currently undergoing training; this would serve as their live-field practice under supervision, while also doubling as a demonstration. It would be a clear message to the soldiers: they weren’t dealing with soft, naive civilians who could be pushed around just because they wore different uniforms. These warriors were strong, disciplined, and more than capable of defending themselves.

Let the military see for themselves who truly needed protection, and who should be paying for it.

Not long after, the military officers and their soldiers were led out of the base on foot. Their reluctance was obvious; no one wanted to be out in zombie-infested territory without a vehicle. Traveling on foot meant risk, no easy escape if things went south. But Kisha’s people? They looked calm, even indifferent, as if the danger outside was beneath their concern.

In fact, they moved with practiced precision, forming a box formation around the soldiers, making escape impossible.

Each squad was composed of seven warriors, not counting the captain leading them, and each unit was assigned to escort one officer and seven of his soldiers. The Commander General, being the highest-ranking among them, remained grouped with the two senior officers who had accompanied him earlier in Kisha’s office. They were flanked by two full squads and a dozen additional soldiers as they moved deeper into the city.

With every block they passed, the tension among the soldiers grew thicker. Their nerves were fraying, and their unease was growing. In contrast, Kisha’s warriors remained composed, scanning their surroundings with sharp eyes, hands loosely gripping nothing more than sleek daggers, no rifles, no visible guns.

And yet, the soldiers began to wonder if those blades alone were enough to slaughter them all if Kisha willed it.

The Commander General gave a subtle nod to the older officer from earlier, just as Fred and Rose turned their backs on him and his group. It was the signal. Quietly, he instructed his men to surround Fred and Rose’s squad, with the intent to “deal with them” once they were far enough from the others.

It was a bold move. Risky. But the Commander General had already started plotting his defense.

If it came to it, he could claim they were ambushed by a zombie horde, that Fred and Rose’s teams died protecting him and his men. With the right spin, he could even paint them as heroes. He’d had years of experience twisting facts to suit his narrative, and in a city crawling with danger, casualties were expected. Dozens of soldiers dying on a mission wasn’t unusual.

But what he didn’t factor in… was who he was really dealing with.

Kisha’s people weren’t just ordinary people. They were elite, trained under her direct command and hardened by real battles. More importantly, most of them were awakened ability users, their physical limits far beyond those of normal humans. Killing them wouldn’t be as easy as he thought.

Worse for him, these warriors had been nurtured with Spiritual Water and strengthened by Scarlet Honey. They weren’t prey.

They were predators.

They were tougher than wild grass, resilient, battle-hardened, and far from easy targets. The Commander General’s plan might have looked solid on paper, but in reality, it was bound to fail.

The moment Fred and Rose sensed the shift in atmosphere behind them, they turned, fast and sharp, along with their squad, only to be met with the sight of the Commander General and his men pointing guns directly at them. And it wasn’t just happening there.

All across the city, at the same time, the soldiers brought by the Commander General had raised their weapons toward Kisha’s warriors. It was a coordinated assault.

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