"Tom, are you alright?" Jason asked as he propped the boy up.

Tommy groaned because he could feel pain all over his body. He shook his head with beads of sweat filled his forehead.

"It’s painful. I don’t want to continue this anymore."

"We’re already this far, are you sure you want to return back?"

Tommy’s body tensed up when he heard the cold tone from Jason. It was their decision to come here. He couldn’t show his weak side.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he collected his thoughts before looking towards Jason with a glare. "I’m wounded and you ask me if I’m alright?"

"He can still be angry, so he’s fine," Jason remarked.

"Hey, are you two alright?" Kanae asked as she approached the two of them.

historical

"Yep."

"No worry, Captain."

Seeing that the two of them responded normally, Kanae no longer paid much attention. She opened her bag and took out first aid kit. "Let’s stop the bleeding first."

"What about Celeste?"

"I already kill her."

The cold tone from Kanae caused shiver to run down on Tommy’s spine. He had the feeling that if something worse happened to him, Kanae wouldn’t hesitate to mutilate the woman and tortured her. Thankfully, he was still alright because he landed on a rather flat place.

He stayed silent as he watched Kanae stopped the bleeding and applied medicine. With Jason helped him to sit, his mind wandered on the woman from before.

"How do you know she’s suspicious?"

Kanae looked towards Tommy. "Not really suspicious, but you can’t really just trust anyone here. Haven’t you already learned that you can’t trust anyone so easily in Black Street?"

"I have," Tommy smiled wryly. "It’s just; she looks similar with my mother. I don’t have the heart to just let her alone."

"She has a superior bag, so I believe that she comes from the top 10 groups," Jason remarked. "Someone who can enter the top ten is surely not ordinary. Even if her group abandons her because she fails to catch up, she won’t be that weak to the point of needing help. Who do you think clean up the fifth and sixth floor?"

It was only now did Tommy realized that the two floors were rather empty. There were rarely any monsters around.

"Do you mean, she’s the one cleaning them up?"

"Who else?" Jason shook his head slightly. "You’re truly the biggest idiot I ever know, Tom."

"If you already guess that much: why did you allow her to follow after us?"

"Because you ask us to trust her," Kanae finished the treatment and stood up. "So we decide to let her come, but once she showed the sign of attack, we won’t show her any mercy."

"I see," Tommy struggled to stand up with Jason’s help.

"Can you climb with that wound?"

"I’ll try my best," Tommy smiled wryly.

The three of them moved slower to climb the rubbles as Jason helped to prop Tommy along the way. Kanae was clearing the way by marking the solid way to go up. Before long, they managed to reach the ninth floor and climbed the stairs.

The moment they opened the door, a harder to believe scene was awaiting them. There were several people around with a large pile of rubbles in front of them. This time, it was apparent that the rubbles were larger than before because it was higher.

Some people were casting them a glance with surprised expression. "So Celeste is finally defeated."

"It should be the time for more people to help out climbing," another one remarked.

Kanae looked toward the pile of rubbles with confusion. Why not a single one of them tried to climb it? Although it was far steeper than before, it was not impossible to climb.

"They’re wounded."

"More people will come later. Oh, they’re going to try again."

Kanae’s gaze returned back to the front. She could see several people were getting ready to run up. This caused her to feel awe. The steep angle should have made it impossible to run, but these people seemed to be more determined than ever to climb them all.

"NOW!"

One person shouted, and three of them ran up. They were going from different direction, heading towards the fifteenth floor, the top of the rubbles. Just when they were halfway through, a gunshot was heard.

BANG!

One of them fell down, rolling down in high speed. The other two ignored the fallen man as they continued their progress to go up. However, one of them slipped and went down while the other one managed to reach higher.

BANG!

He evaded to the side and reached the man on the very top. However, right at that moment, a gun was pointed straight to his forehead.

BANG!

"How idiot," the man snorted. He looked down disdainfully. "Who else wants to try?"

The people down there stayed still as they looked towards the man with rage. Right now, the only road up was blocked by this annoying man. If they tried to climb up, they would be killed for sure.

"Why is he blocking the way?" Kanae asked with a frown.

A nearby man gave her a dry laugh. "The top groups want to earn the vial for themselves. They have been blocking the way from the very first time. It’s very hard for us to bypass them. Right now, there is rarely anyone who manages to get up from here."

"Is there no other way?"

"As you can see, there is only one stair. Unless you can go to fifteenth floor, you won’t be able to reach higher floors."

Kanae’s eyes narrowed. She knew that this man was telling her the truth. It would be very hard for them to get pass that shooter because of their position. There was only one way to go up, which meant that it would be impossible to go up without alarming the man on the top.

It was truly a strategic place for that person to hinder the others from coming up.

"Don’t you think we’re already high enough?" Jason asked with a wry smile.

Kanae shook her head lightly. "I don’t want to stop yet. There should be some other way we can go up."

"Do you think your response is high enough to evade the bullets?"

No, Kanae certainly couldn’t afford to evade all the bullets that were coming towards her. Her reaction speed was not that quick. It would only spell death for her if she did try doing that.

Her eyes landed on the nearby broken window. As she had felt the wind for some time, she could guess that there should be an open window. Upon seeing the window by the side, she walked towards it without hesitation.

Right by the side, there was a fifteenth floor building that was separated by around three meters from this place. It was not impossible to jump across if she ran beforehand. However, the height of the building would surely not enough to cross straight to the fifteenth floor. She would have to face that man directly.

Putting her hand out, she could faintly feel the wind. It was not too hard, but it might feel different outside.

"Rei, please tell me that you’re joking," from behind her, Jason was looking towards the girl with wry expression.

Kanae shook her head. "Don’t you want to check the place? While I’m making my way for us to go up, you can try to search for the source. Tom should be safe in this room."

Due to the person from above, the people here were very supportive with each other. They didn’t try to compete because they have the very same goal: bypassing that man above.

For the time being, this was the safest place in this building. As for the monsters, for whatever reason, they were not going out from the rooms anymore.

Jason sighed. "Rei, be careful."

"Don’t worry so much. I’ll be fine."

With that, Kanae destroyed the other part of the window and sneaked out of the place.