Calamity Magnetic Pulse

Watching their companion get taken out right in front of them, the Kalleva members, no matter how slow their reactions were, finally snapped to their senses. The few closest to the girl didn't even have time to draw their guns; they instinctively grabbed their machetes and hacked toward her.

At a time like this, they no longer cared that she was the woman their boss had taken a fancy to. After all, even their boss was currently in a state of unknown life or death.

However, the Kalleva members—the largest gang in the settlement—were usually invincible, and their specialty, street brawling, had now become nothing more than a backdrop for the girl.

Facing the seven or eight gleaming machetes coming at her all at once, Irin didn't show the slightest panic. Dark red light flowed in her eyes, and her senses, enhanced by the Corrupt Calamity, allowed her to re-enter the "time-stop" state she had experienced when facing the Kobolds in the dungeon.

Irin could clearly see the attack trajectory of every gang member. While dodging perfectly, she drew the dagger she had hidden beneath her black dress and strapped to her thigh, then precisely delivered it into the vital point of each enemy.

Four gang members launched their attacks from four different directions simultaneously. In particular, the one behind her was about to land a machete strike on her back, causing Brian to instinctively shout "Look out!" in an attempt to warn her.

But her enhanced senses meant the girl had already detected the whistling wind behind her.

Irin calculated the timing and ducked, causing the machete from behind to slice through empty air without a doubt. By then, it was the girl's turn; with a 180-degree sweeping kick, she sent the gang members from three directions crashing backward. As for the last one in front, before he could even swing his blade, Irin had already stepped in and plunged her dagger into his heart.

Watching the man's expression of pain and unwillingness, the girl let out a cold snort, then mercilessly lifted her slender high heel and kicked the corpse over.

The group not far away in the Haisha Bar, including the owner Brian, were completely stunned.

This pretty little girl, whom they had dismissed as a rich kid with a screw loose, was now dancing like a black butterfly amidst the gang's siege, performing a feast of combat for them.

However, while fists are fast within seven steps, beyond seven steps...

"Crap!" Brian shouted in his heart. He had been so engrossed in watching the girl unilaterally crush the fight that he, along with many others in the Haisha Bar, still had their guns in their holsters.

By the time Brian realized he needed to draw his gun and join the fray, it was too late.

The Kalleva gang members opposite had already disengaged the safeties and chambered their rounds. The members who had engaged in close-quarters combat with Irin hadn't died in vain; at the very least, they had stalled for time, giving the gang members in the rear a chance to open fire.

"Die!!"

With roars filled with hatred and madness, the remaining five or six Kalleva members aimed their dark gun barrels at the girl, ready to pull the triggers.

In that instant, only one thought remained in Brian's mind.

It's over.

Even if the girl was incredibly skilled, she couldn't be faster than bullets. She was being targeted by four or five handguns and even a submachine gun, and aside from the pile of gang corpses on the ground, there was no cover whatsoever.

And most crucially.

The girl was currently still standing with her back to the gunmen, back to the barrels that were about to spit fire and turn her into a sieve.

At such a life-or-death moment, the girl actually cast her gaze toward a spot outside the battlefield?

Yes.

Because that was exactly the direction Irin had come from.

Standing there was a young man watching the battle.

Liao Ji read the look in Irin's eyes as she glanced at him at that moment. The girl was conveying something along the lines of:

"I'm done, your turn!", "Don't you dare drop the ball after bragging so much!", "My life is in your hands!!", "If you have some ultimate move, use it now, or I'm going to die!!", "Hey, hey!!!"

"Dimples!!!"

Something to that effect.

It was clear that Irin had chosen the most arrogant way to fight, which showed that the girl had trusted him from the very beginning, believing that when the gang members turned to unsportsmanlike tactics and drew their guns, he would have the ability to at least protect her.

Since that was the case.

Then he certainly couldn't let Irin down.

Accompanied by a "buzzing" sound, leaping electric arcs began to condense at Liao Ji's fingertips, and the magnetic field centered on the young man underwent a violent change.

The fine sand on the ground near his feet began to vibrate at a high frequency.

The thin layer of dust on the bar tables and chairs hovered a few millimeters in unison.

Liao Ji's hair also became fluffy, as if an updraft were blowing from below. All the flickering lights in the bar around him sparked from the ceiling tubes in that instant and then went completely dark.

The extinguished neon lights seemed to further accentuate the transparent ring of light, shimmering with the brilliance of daylight, that was condensing in the young man's hand amidst the dim environment.

The whole process seemed long, but in reality, it happened in the blink of an eye.

At the same time the Kalleva gang members pulled their triggers, the electric ring in Liao Ji's palm erupted. The ring expanded at a speed visible to the naked eye until it enveloped the entire Haisha Bar.

Hum!

Following [Holy Healing], this was the second protagonist skill Liao Ji had inherited from the previous timeline. It was the S-rank control skill of the top-tier six-star Calamity-level Corrupted "Zero," a mechanical maid from the Archer class—[Calamity Magnetic Pulse].

Of course, this was only the lowest Lv1 form; as his level increased, it would evolve into [Super Calamity Magnetic Pulse] and so on.

The high-frequency pulse ring swept across everything in the bar.

The electromagnetic ripple didn't violently blow everything to smithereens like a massive explosion; it was more like a tidal wave occurring on a microscopic level.

All the Kalleva gang members felt an electric current pass through their bodies, and immediately afterward, it was as if someone had taken a heavy hammer and struck them hard in their mental consciousness.

Those with weaker physical constitutions passed out on the spot with their eyes rolling back. Those who could barely recover from the daze of the pulse were also swaying, feeling as if their vision had been turned upside down.

Forget about aiming; they could barely even keep their balance to stand still.

Except for Irin, no one else knew exactly what had just happened.

Especially the members of Kalleva.

Where were the gunshots?

Where was the sound of them pulling their triggers!?

Their muddled brains subconsciously commanded their fingers to pull the triggers, but all that came back was a "click" sound, as if the guns had jammed; other than the triggers moving, nothing else happened at all.

Ho-how could this be!

It wasn't just their standard firearms; even that one submachine gun imported from the Mechanical Alliance, which had an intelligent chip plugin attached to the body to increase power and accuracy—a weapon that had never once suffered a misfire—now seemed...

Completely paralyzed!?

A burnt smell was even wafting from the spot where the chip was installed on the gun body.

A normal electromagnetic pulse only worked on electronic components, but under the mutated influence of Corrupt Calamity abilities, no matter the material of the weapon, as long as it was deemed a target for destruction by Liao Ji's Calamity Magnetic Pulse and fell within the skill's range, it could be completely disarmed and destroyed.

Of course, it didn't stop there.

If it were merely a simple disarming and control ability, it wouldn't have been enough for Liao Ji to treat Calamity Magnetic Pulse as a skill extracted and copied from Zero.

In the game, Zero's Calamity Magnetic Pulse had another powerful effect.

While disarming and controlling enemies, it also applied a super-strong attribute-boosting buff to the user.

In short.

It didn't just destroy weapons; it plundered the surrounding energy to achieve the effect of destroying those weapons, then temporarily reclaimed that energy and fed it back into the user.

And so.

One second, the gang members of Kalleva hadn't yet recovered from the malfunction of their firearms and their mental confusion.

The next second, that Daylight Halo which had been the source of it all suddenly reappeared, and it was no longer purely white, but streaked with hints of dark red, beginning to retract at high speed like a returning fishing net, finally shrinking back to the starting point of the burst ring.

And that point was none other than Liao Ji.