Rui observed as the teams prepared for the operation, the sheer amount of gear that they had access to made the standard gear that the Martial Union offered look like toys in comparison.
Granted, Martial Artists didn't need a wealth of tools and devices as much as ordinary humans did.
But even Neira was equipped with a much more sophisticated combat uniform with visibly greater functionality than his own, making him look humble in turn.
Soon it was time for the operation to commence. Neira and Rui were supposed to be dispatched separately from the agents, and would infiltrate the area and hide in a particular spot until the operation begun.
The reason for this was that it was quite likely that the ring likely had scouts conducting surveillance, Neira and Rui had a much likelier chance of running into hostile Martial Artists as long as they didn't appear with the main raid force. They would join the main force once the latter had infiltrated the area.
"Alright, the operation has commenced." Special agent Barnard told Neira and Rui. "Execute phase one immediately."
The two of them nodded and entered a stationed supply carriage in the dispatch facility immediately. This horse-drawn carriage would take them to the center of the district and a staged 'breakdown' of the carriage would occur, stranding them in the center.
An hour after they were dispatched, and the breakdown occurred, Neira pressed a button on one of the devices she had. She nodded to Rui, indicating she had completed their role. Now, they would wait for the main raid force to come.
The carriage was a supply carriage and had no windows, so Rui couldn't even look outside to inspect the surroundings, furthermore, conversing was against protocol as well. Although the chances were slim, it could jeopardize the mission, there did exist techniques that could allow Martial Artists to listen in on conversations from a great distance away.
The two of them had already activated their sensory techniques. Neira narrowed her eyes as she perceived the infrared radiation influx and deciphered it to be able to perceive heat signatures of across the entire area. While Rui closed his eyes and mapped out the topography of the area via Seismic Sensing.
They both sensed an equal distribution of people across the entire area, and it was hard to say where the base was.
Then Neira's eyes narrowed, she glanced at Rui and mouthed the word 'children' to Rui, before taking her device and punching in some more buttons. Rui realized she must have sensed captive children in the area at some point. This was the confirmation that all the intel they had on the situation was accurate. Neira had relayed the information to the main raid team, and the two of the Martial Artists would coordinate with the raid team through already established plans and courses of actions.
Soon, the time had come.
Rui could feel the atmosphere growing more and more tense. Part of it was because of himself, of course. This mission wasn't just another mission, the personal importance it had to him made him takt this much more seriously than he ever would any other mission with the remuneration that this mission had.
Rui perceived the automatic carriages that the main raid team was supposed to use, from a great distance away via his Seismic Mapping. He opened his eyes, briefly nodding to Neira and showed four fingers to Neira, earning a nod of understanding from her.
They were four minutes away. The main raid would commence the moment they arrived. Rui's Seismic Mapping had a much greater range than Neira's Thermal Eye, he was in charge of keeping an eye on the activation of Apprentice-level techniques and the arrival of the main raid force.
Soon, motorized vehicles could be heard, Rui could feel them circling the target areas and one-by-one, they all got out.
The actual infiltration of the main raid force wasn't supposed to be a covert operation. They came in from the front, surrounded the area with a great number of men and vehicles.
They quickly brought explosives that they rigged to the front doors of their target infiltration locations.
The second the explosives went off, Neira and Rui jumped out of the carriage and immediately infiltrated the area along with the main raid force. They ignored ordinary men, the trained professionals of the Kandrian Bureau of Investigation were more than enough to handle the low-lives, and they were armed with all kinds of weapons, including muskets!
Instead, they focused their senses on anything resembling a Martial Apprentice. A hostile Martial Apprentice likely would not know that there were two Martial Artists within the raid force. After all, the two of them had been careful not to use any Apprentice-level techniques.
As they kept a sharp eye open for Martial Artists, Rui could sense that the rest of the operation was going well, the raid force had yet to suffer a single casualty as they swiftly brought down the traffickers with projectiles and hand-held weapons.
Every once in a while, Rui and Neira ran into a musket wielding trafficker who shot projectiles at them, but it was hopeless. Martial Apprentices possessed heightened superhuman kinetic vision and reflexes, by the time their human opponents managed to pull the trigger, Neira and Rui were already long out of the way of the projectiles. Human movements appeared in slow-motion to them, they didn't even need Apprentice-level maneuvering techniques to avoid the projectiles.
Both Neira and Rui froze as the latter sensed one particular individual in the center of the targeted area began giving out intense seismic radiation that no human ought to be able to produce!
They exchanged glances, nodding at each other.
('Martial Apprentice.') Rui thought to himself, as he steeled his gaze. They both sprinted away as Neira punched some buttons on her device to indicate that they had located their target and were in pursuit.
The true mission had begun.