Chapter 69

A pungent, burnt smell hung like a sticky web over a corner of the D2 Relocation Zone. Only the charred skeletons and wisps of thin, gray smoke remained of a few tents, looking like ugly scars upon the ground. Millelith soldiers moved with brisk efficiency, shovels flying as the kicked-up sand smothered the last stubborn embers, sending up a gray cloud of dust. The air was scorching and choked with ash. A disheveled woman knelt by the scorched earth, tightly clutching a bundle of burnt fabric of indistinguishable color to her chest, her shoulders heaving in silent, violent sobs. Just a few paces away, a boy of about five or six squatted on the ground, a half-melted wooden puppet pinched in his grimy little hand. The puppet's charred face was twisted and deformed, but the boy merely stared blankly at it, his big eyes empty. "Have you sorted it out?" Keqing's crisp, cold voice broke the oppressive, dead silence. Dressed in sharp, practical attire with her long purple hair tied back at the nape of her neck, an Electro Vision flickered faintly at her waist as she surveyed the scene with a deep frown. Several Millelith officers with equally grim expressions followed closely behind her.