Almost at the sa mont the Erald Sparrow spotted the Remnant Beast, the feeding beast also noticed her.
The two briefly locked eyes across the space; the beast abruptly dropped the corpse it was holding, leapt up from the office desk, and lunged straight towards the Erald Sparrow at the doorway.
"Roar!"
The Erald Sparrow's face grew slightly cold, and as she opened and closed her palm, a magic wand appeared. Just as the Remnant Beast charged in front of her, she forcefully swung at its head.
Clang! Boom!
The magic wand struck with force, slamming the Remnant Beast hard onto the ground.
The downed beast imdiately struggled to get up and let out a continuous, threatening growl. However, the Erald Sparrow did not give it the chance to rally. She turned her wand towards its head and unleashed a barrage of Magic Power Beams, turning its skull into a pile of ashes.
After dealing with the Remnant Beast, she swiftly flew to the side of the body that had been discarded earlier, examined the corpse, and confird that this unfortunate Abnormal Strategy Bureau employee had indeed lost his life.
The Remnant Beast that appeared in the office wasn't particularly strong—probably only at the level of an egg. Yet for ordinary people and even magicians, it was a disaster like a natural catastrophe, no wonder such a horrific scene was caused.
Apart from that one employee whose body remained intact, the other victims were left in such a state that not even a complete corpse could be pieced together, which goes to show how atrocious the acts of the Remnant Beast had been.
After searching the office and failing to find any useful information, the Erald Sparrow had no choice but to return to the doorway. She spread her palm over the remains of the Remnant Beast, attempting to recover its Echo.
However, alongside the Erald Sparrow's attempt, the remains of the beast dissipated into a wisp of black smoke under her gaze, leaving behind nothing.
This was a Remnant Beast without an Echo.
It took the Erald Sparrow a few seconds to acknowledge this fact, but even with her eyes bearing witness, she still found it hard to believe this was true.
From her past experience and knowledge, such Remnant Beasts could not possibly exist.
A Remnant Beast without an Echo is virtually equivalent to one without its own source of Magic Power. As a creature purely made of Magic Power, a beast without a Magic Power source fundantally shouldn't be able to survive.
The Magic Power source to a Remnant Beast is what the heart is to humans. A human without a heart cannot sustain life. How then could a Remnant Beast without a Magic Power source exist, let alone hunt and fight with her as it did monts ago?
The Erald Sparrow couldn't understand it.
Still, after a brief mont of confusion, she quickly cast that emotion aside. She knew that now was not the ti to ponder this question.
She was very aware of what her current task was. Rather than researching why the Remnant Beast didn't produce an Echo, investigating the current state of the Abnormal Strategy Bureau was the top priority.
For example, why was there no response from the Abnormal Strategy Bureau when they were attacked by the Remnant Beast? Even if they couldn't fend off the beast, they could have escaped or sought refuge. At the very least, they should have notified the local Magical Girls to co and deal with the Remnant Beast.
The question didn't puzzle the Erald Sparrow for long because, when she took out her phone to inquire with the team in Bai An City, the symbol at the top of the screen provided the answer.
——[No Signal].
The Erald Sparrow wasn't surprised; if anything, she was relieved, for her understanding of the situation had advanced one step further: The signal here had been cut off, and no ssages could get out.
She didn't know if the Abnormal Strategy Bureau in Bai An City had any special ans of external communication, but she assud there probably wasn't any.
Which ant that from the mont the attack began, the Abnormal Strategy Bureau headquarters, situated underground and originally akin to a safe fortress, had beco a massive sealed cage, trapping Abnormal Strategy Bureau employees and Remnant Beasts together.
What exactly was the current state of the Abnormal Strategy Bureau in Bai An City?
Besides this office where soone was killed, where had the other employees gone?
How many people were still alive? Were there other Remnant Beasts here?
The Erald Sparrow needed to first clarify these questions.
She put away the magic wand in her hand, laid the deceased Abnormal Strategy Bureau employee flat on the ground, closed his eyes, and left the office. She continued to search on the first floor of the bureau, but no matter how hard she searched, she could no longer find a room with people in it.
The empty corridors echoed with her solitary footsteps. The bright lights shone directly onto the tiled floor, reflecting a series of glaring white circles. These white dots ford a line that seed to lead endlessly into the distance, as if the space itself had beco an endless maze.
In the perpetual underground space where day and night are indistinguishable, the dead silence seed to even devour ti itself.
The Erald Sparrow began to feel the atmosphere grow stuffy; even though the surrounding environnt was bright and open, it couldn't erase the pervasive sense of unease. Most of the offices were just like the one she had seen earlier, doors wide open, various furnishings scattered about in disarray, with not a living creature in sight.
This was very abnormal.
The Erald Sparrow thought to herself.
Even if the Abnormal Strategy Bureau had been attacked by Remnant Beasts, the interior should not look as strange as it did now.
She could understand why it was so quiet and deserted since most would choose to flee in the face of an attack by Remnant Beasts. In this respect, the employees of the Abnormal Strategy Bureau were no different from ordinary people.
But if things were really that simple, the bureau should not be presenting the current scene.
The two biggest inconsistencies were: the building was too well-preserved, and there were not enough corpses.
It wasn't that the Erald Sparrow wished any curse upon the bureau; rather, factually, the Remnant Beast she had disposed of must have wreaked havoc within the Abnormal Strategy Bureau for quite so ti.
The office where the Remnant Beast was located was hundreds of ters away from the bureau's main hall. Over such a long distance, the Remnant Beast would not have refrained from destruction and slaughter.
A Remnant Beast, innately filled with brutal instincts, usually operates on the logic of killing any living creature in sight and destroying everything around when there's nothing to kill.
Even the Remnant Beasts that had previously appeared in Fangting City, transford by the cultists of Black Ash Dawn, were unable to restrain their innate nature as Remnant Beasts, and their behavior logic would beco completely beast-like.
It made no sense for such a life form to have advanced several hundred ters without completely suppressing its instincts and refraining from all destruction.
Could it really just be that this particular Remnant Beast was too special?
Erald Sparrow pondered thus, but she still couldn't convince herself.
If at the beginning the situation had rely strayed from Erald Sparrow's expectations, now it had exceeded her imagination, and the whole picture started to beco enigmatic and elusive.
With many doubts and confusions, which weren't unraveled during the investigation, Erald Sparrow eventually stepped out of the office area and returned to the first-floor lobby of the Abnormal Strategy Bureau.
As when she had arrived, the lobby was still deserted, with rows of lights embedded in the gigantic spherical ceiling, the white light far brighter than that of the office area corridors.
Looking at the glass turnstiles leading in all directions around the lobby, and imagining the usual bustling scenes, Erald Sparrow paused for a mont, then shook her head.
She decided to check out the other floors.
Erald Sparrow walked into the elevator beside the lobby and, after observing briefly inside the elevator car, she noticed that the elevator only went downwards. The top floor was designated as [-1F], and the other floors followed in descending order. Considering this was an underground building, such a layout wasn't surprising, and Erald Sparrow didn't give it much thought before pressing the button for [-2F].
Soon enough, the elevator doors slowly closed, and a breeze blew within the car as it descended with rumbling noises, then stopped after a short period, displaying the information for [-2F].
The lack of any mishap along the way actually surprised Erald Sparrow.
Watching the elevator doors open slowly without expression, Erald Sparrow stepped out from the elevator door to take a good look around this so-called second basent floor, trying to grasp the general outline at first glance.
However, when she clearly saw the surrounding furnishings, her brain buzzed with confusion.
For what she saw was not a second underground floor at all. Before her eyes was still the brightly lit first underground floor lobby.
Had the elevator not moved?
With that doubt in mind, Erald Sparrow turned back into the elevator car and looked up at the screen above, but the screen that had displayed [-2F] in her mory had changed, now showing [-1F].
Had she pressed the wrong button? Misread it?
Erald Sparrow raised her head, trying to find the button from her mory, and only then realized how naive her previous thought had been.
Indeed, not only the previously seen [-2F] button was missing, but she couldn't find any other number at all.
[-1F]
[-1F]
[-1F]
[-1F]
[-1F]
All the buttons that t her eyes bore the sa number.
A series of buttons for the first basent floor were densely packed on the control panel, and the only number she could find throughout the whole elevator car was this one, as if mocking her silently.
Standing there, she stared blankly at the control panel for a while, silent. Then Erald Sparrow took a step, leaped out of the elevator, and ran towards the staircase entrance nearby.
She used great force to pull open the door to the stairwell, throwing it aside, and was faced with a staircase that led to both the upper and lower levels. Erald Sparrow didn't hesitate, running straight downstairs. When she arrived at the next level's landing, she forcefully pulled open the door to the stairwell and burst into the space outside.
— It was the lobby.
The unchanging lobby of the Abnormal Strategy Bureau's first floor.
The empty hall, the blazing white light, the buzzing sound of electric currents—all were exactly the sa as the space she had been in earlier, without any alteration.
Erald Sparrow, expressionless, continued to run.
This ti, her target was the main door to the lobby—the glass turnstile she had passed through when she entered.
After passing through the turnstile, the white corridor she encountered was still the sa one she had traversed earlier, as if she had finally arrived at a brand-new space. However, Erald Sparrow's mood didn't improve; she kept running forward without any expression.
She had a growing feeling that things wouldn't be so simple.
Indeed, they weren't. After retracing her steps, returning to what should have been her initial area, the view before her eyes was nothing like she had expected.
What she saw was still that glass turnstile.
A frosted glass door that let faint light shine through its haziness, yet obscured what lay behind it. It looked exactly the sa as the one she had seen before.
Erald Sparrow gazed steadily for a mont, not showing any signs of panic, just kept moving forward. After passing through the glass turnstile, she raised her head, looking once more at the space behind the door.
Of course, this ti, the sight before her eyes didn't surprise her either.
Here, still, was the lobby of the Abnormal Strategy Bureau.
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