This blast was far less powerful, enough to knock someone unconscious at most.
The Special Counter-Terrorism operatives and border defense fighters were blown sprawling in disarray. Their life-force development saved them from death, but had temporarily stripped them of their fighting capacity.
Lao Gao swung his blade wildly on the spot, his five senses plunged entirely into chaos.
The battle was locked in stalemate; the slightest unexpected turn could tip the scales of victory to either side.
Deep in the dark alley.
Shan Yong moved like a dark shadow merging with the ground, dragging Siamese Asan as he swiftly crept along. The primary ability of his divine power was earth tunneling, while his personal characteristic was wide-range eavesdropping via physical vibrations.
From the direction of the newsstand, he caught the violent blast, the chaotic gunfire, and Lao Gao's roars.
"There's a psychic superhuman! Yongzi, find them for me!"
"Dammit. Every mission they say they won't put me on the front line, and every time they throw me into danger." Shan Yong cursed under his breath, dumped Siamese Asan into a corner, and dived underground once more to dart forward.
Based on his experience, psychic powers generally fell into three categories: psychic attack, psychic detection, and psychic object manipulation.
Psychic attack was the most dangerous, and its effective range was the shortest. If that kind of superhuman was present, they had to be right nearby.
Aside from the heart of the battlefield, the surrounding buildings were empty. A few hundred meters away, faint footsteps could be heard.
Shan Yong traversed swiftly, soon closing in on the corner at the end of the street. The target seemed to have sensed him; their footsteps suddenly ceased, and he lost his vision as well.
Yet he had already committed the location to memory.
Lin Zhiyan stood at the street corner, looking down coldly at the ground. As the concrete warped, an ugly face broke through the surface.
She did not move. The assistant who had stayed by her side suddenly swelled in size, transforming from his normally frail frame into a two-meter-tall behemoth of knotted, cast-iron muscle.
A fist the size of a clay pot smashed down, scaring Shan Yong into burrowing straight back underground.
Boom!
The ground shuddered slightly as the concrete fractured.
Shan Yong fled dozens of meters before poking his head out from the soil, shouting, "A hundred meters ahead around the corner! There's someone there—a physical superhuman! I can't handle him!"
Lao Gao shot forth like an arrow, ignoring the armed police around him who had temporarily lost their fighting capacity.
A psychic superhuman was far more troublesome than these people.
Speaking of psychic superhumans in the Ant Ridge area, there was only one: Lu Shanjun. The thought of being merely a hundred meters away from him filled Lao Gao with both dread and excitement.
He feared the target would flee, but thrilled at finally seizing the chance.
Lu Shanjun had long been a thorn in Greenwood's side. If he could only kill him, the Ant Ridge smuggling route would once again be unobstructed.
With that merit to his name, he could be promoted to lodge master of the branch!
Lin Zhiyan's group also heard Shan Yong's shout.
"Buy me one minute," Lin Zhiyan said. Her face was slightly pale from having her psychic control broken.
"Within ten meters, my psychic shock can knock him completely unconscious."
In reality, it required five meters, but Lin Zhiyan could condense her psychic power into a "rod," thereby extending its effective range.
Every superhuman strove to develop their abilities to the limit, turning broadly similar divine powers into vastly different assets in actual combat.
Yet her deputy didn't listen. Instead, he urgently had someone bring the car over, his tone practically forcing her hand. "Leader Lin, this time you must leave."
Lin Zhiyan looked furious. "Are you going to leave the front-line fighters to die? Buy me one minute now and we can still turn the tide. If I leave, everyone here is dead!"
Her deputy shook his head. "I will stay behind to buy time. As long as we scatter and run, he won't be able to kill many of us."
As the sole remaining heir of the Lin family, her death would be enough to shake the Hall of Martial Virtue.
During the Cataclysm twelve years ago, the Lin family's Martial Marquis and the scions of the Lin clan fought to the death without retreating, making today's Nanhai West Circuit possible.
Although the Lin family no longer had a Martial Marquis, Lin Zhiyan's standing was more prominent than that of any second-generation heir.
Even if this young lady felt a profound sense of responsibility, the simple truth was that her life was not like the others'.
Two members of the special investigation team gripped her arms from left and right. As a psychic superhuman, her physical body had received little enhancement.
Bzzt!
A frequency tapped into the channel, and a cold, iron-hard voice came through the walkie-talkie.
"This is First Lieutenant Lu Zhao from the Ant Ridge border defense station, service number 456177, responding to provide reinforcement and placing myself under your command."
The voice was not loud, yet like a bolt of thunder from the highest heavens, it instantly pierced through the chaos and despair.
Zhang Like jerked his head up. All the downed fighters who remained conscious looked around, and the assistant's momentum as he braced to charge forward to block the enemy halted abruptly.
-----
One hundred meters, fifty meters, thirty!
Another wave of psychic shock poured into Lao Gao's head. Having prepared himself this time, his frame merely wavered for a split second.
Ten meters, one meter!
He burst around the corner. Ten paces away stood a cold-featured, short-haired woman.
Not Lu Shanjun?
Suddenly, a chill shot straight to Lao Gao's brain. His pupils contracted, filling his already sunken eye sockets with terror.
Swish—smack!
A bullet struck, turning to liquid as it splattered against his face, followed only then by the sharp, air-rending screech.
A subsonic bullet!
In the distance, a dark silhouette appeared against the disk of the moon, and the turbulent thrum of rotor blades descended upon the battlefield.
A slender rifle barrel extended from the cabin, taking aim at Lao Gao.
In an instant, an indescribable sense of crisis turned into a cold dread running the length of his spine.
Without hesitation, Lao Gao turned and ran.
He sprinted toward the dark alley with all his might, squeezing out every last shred of power in his body. His divine power operated at full throttle without ceasing; within fifty meters, lampposts, manhole covers, scattered vehicle wreckage... all began to liquefy to varying degrees.
Neither his body nor his divine power dared rest for a single second.
His life-force development was near forty points, meaning he practically had half a foot into the second rank, giving him an extremely faint perception of danger.
Usually, by the time he could sense it, he was essentially standing on the brink of an abyss.
Lao Gao feared that in the very next second, a tracking bullet would pierce his skull. He could liquefy bullets, but not indefinitely.
Right now, he could only pray that the person in the aircraft wasn't the legendary "Lu Shanjun."
Inside the dark alley, Shan Yong and the Siamese waved at him to hurry.
Another bullet flew in. This time as well, it turned to liquid and struck Lao Gao's back, the report of the gunshot lagging half a beat behind.
A white bug invisible to the naked eye clung to the bullet tip, turning into a second projectile.
The next second, something bizarre occurred. A sharp pain stabbed Lao Gao's temple, and his body pitched forward out of control, crashing to the ground.
"No..."
Lao Gao struggled desperately to get up, reaching his hand forward as far as he could, while his companions stepped out of the alley to assist him.
Time slowed down at this moment.
Click!
Faintly, the sound of a bolt cycling seemed to drift through the air.
Beneath the moonlit sky, a spark of muzzle fire bloomed.
Bang!
By the time Lao Gao heard the gunshot, his heart had already been pierced through; the bullet had struck his heart with pinpoint precision.
In his ears echoed the terrifying screech of the subsonic bullet.
Pfft!
The next instant, he saw the Siamese's head burst like a ripe watermelon, shattering into a spray of bloody mist and minced flesh.
No pause, no resistance.
Shan Yong's face was splattered with scalding brains and flesh. By instinct, he burrowed into the earth, just as a bullet grazed his scalp and struck the ground, leaving behind a bullet hole and a smear of blood.
Lao Gao turned his head toward the sky, only for a head-on bullet to punch through his skull.
The shooter gave him no chance whatsoever—not even the chance to look up.
The helicopter hovered in midair, its rotors emitting an intimidating drone.
11:05.
The battle was not yet over. The surviving enemies began to scatter, frantically sprinting, tripping, and tumbling through the dark alleys under the cover of night.
Looking down from above, Lu Zhao could see with absolute clarity; judging by their movements, they were likely all ordinary men.
At the very least, their life-force development had not reached twenty points.
Life-force development progressed with every ten points: at ten points of life force, a person's average physical conditioning matched that of an athlete; at twenty points, all metrics reached the human peak; and at thirty points, human limits were broken.
For example, unencumbered, one could sprint one hundred meters in eight seconds and maintain that pace for half an hour.
Lu Zhao could run one hundred meters in seven and a half seconds, and sustain it for an hour.
In ordinary moments everyone seemed like mortal flesh and blood, but once physical conditioning was put to the test, the disparity widened instantly.
Bang!
Gunfire rang intermittently through the night sky, accompanied by the low screech of bullets tearing the air; every shot claimed another fleeing life.
Lu Zhao raised his rifle, aimed, and pulled the trigger, methodically and silently picking off each fleeing figure with absolute calm.
Only when they realized flight was futile and dropped to their knees begging for mercy did Lu Zhao spare a mere handful of survivors.
As a soldier, he disliked leaving enemies alive; you never knew what hidden cards the foe might hold, especially against superhumans possessing divine powers.
Only a shot to the head could ensure that an enemy was no longer a threat.
"Effective enemy combatants eliminated."
Lu Zhao's unruffled voice came through the earpieces, ringing clear in the ears of every Special Counter-Terrorism operative, border defense fighter, and member of the special investigation team on the ground.
Silence.
Everyone remained silent; only the drone of the helicopter echoed continuously through the air.
Chapter 27