Breaking

He had already activated Super-Speed Thinking. In that state, no matter how furious or sorrowful his emotions, they couldn't sway his judgment. The madness born from searing pain and rage had dissipated, leaving only Lin Li, utterly rational.

Barry needed treatment now. He needed Caitlin. Lin Li reached the conclusion with perfect clarity: no matter what, preserving Barry's life was the top priority.

Barry was his hope. He absolutely could not be allowed to die.

In that single instant, Cisco had walked the edge of death and back.

Hearing Lin Li's voice, the paralyzed Cisco snapped awake. His face and back were drenched in sweat. His heart, which had stopped, now began pounding wildly.

He wiped the cold sweat from his face, trembling as he tried the car door several times before failing. When he finally got it open and tried to step out, he collapsed to the ground—his legs too weak to stand.

He looked up at Lin Li's back, a tearful gratitude swelling in his chest.

That unwavering figure standing before him and Barry would be etched into his memory for life.

Lin Li's back seemed as heavy as Mount Tai, bringing Cisco an overwhelming sense of safety. He took a deep breath, suppressed his unease, pulled out his phone, and called Caitlin.

"Hey... Caitlin, bring emergency medical supplies to Jordmay Street. Barry's badly hurt."

Hearing Cisco on the phone.

"You think you can escape the grasp of a god?"

Clyde Mardon burst into manic laughter. With the power to control the weather, in this region already blanketed by pressure clouds and fog, he was a god—and a god was undefeated. So he laughed arrogantly.

But he hadn't read much, and didn't realize that his nemesis was Lin Li.

Arcs of electricity violently burst from Lin Li's eyes. In Super-Speed Thinking, his face was expressionless, save for the silver veins writhing grotesquely across it. His silver pupils reflected a ruthlessness cold to the extreme.

He unleashed Magnetic Field Sense.

Immediately, he sensed Clyde Mardon surrounded by a dense magnetic field, countless magnetic threads tightly encasing him.

The very air around him felt thick.

He was using air pressure to protect himself.

In Super-Speed Thinking, Lin Li calculated everything—the environment, himself, timing, terrain, and human factors—all at once.

He chose the safest, most reliable method.

He stood still, rooted before Barry and Cisco. The blood flowing from his chest was suppressed by his powerful control. The X-shaped wound, the silver veins wildly surging, the fierce arcs in his eyes—all of it gave off an impression of steel-like resolve, cold and unyielding.

Lin Li extended his left hand. With a flick of his finger, silver arcs of electricity coalesced, the current gathering brighter and brighter at his fingertip.

With a crackling hum, he released the current.

The moment it touched the dense air pressure, the electricity spread like a starving beast encountering a feast, rapidly infecting the entire pressure zone, forming a high-voltage cloud layer.

Electrons transferred and flowed. Arcs churned violently within the fog and pressure.

At first, Clyde Mardon only felt a slight anomaly in the surrounding air pressure. It was dense as he controlled it, but part of it was slipping from his grasp.

He didn't know what was happening.

By the time he realized it, a tingling sensation began creeping through his body. He grew alert—it must be that lightning-user outside, pulling some trick.

When the tingling turned into sharp pain, panic seized him. His face twisted in shock. Half of the white fog before him—the pressure fog he controlled—was now flickering with arcs of electricity, and something clearly disastrous was brewing.

He didn't understand.

He quickly retreated, dispersing all the fog and pressure around him.

If he had read more and understood his own abilities, he would have known that he had inadvertently created a vacuum layer—or something close to it.

That instinctive reaction saved his life.

In just a second or two, Lin Li had released a third of his body's electrical energy, rapidly infecting and seizing control of half the pressure fog in front of Clyde Mardon.

Now that half of the fog crackled with electric arcs, tainted and controlled by Lin Li.

He sensed Clyde Mardon retreating. He hadn't expected him to be so alert.

If Lin Li had managed to infect all the pressure fog surrounding Clyde Mardon, he would have been trapped inside it, electrocuted into charcoal by the raging lightning.

Discharge.

Suddenly, the infected electric fog surged. Arcs violently erupted, silver lightning wildly dancing into view.

The thunderclouds churned, arcs clawing through the air.

Seeing this, Clyde Mardon's scalp crawled. Gone was the "I am a god, I am above all" mentality. Now he only felt that the more pressure and fog he had around him, the more the lightning would spread, corrupting his control and slipping from his grasp.

He frantically drove every gas he knew—and didn't know—away from his body.

Everything around him became clear. No more fog shrouded him.

A vacuum layer!

A vacuum layer doesn't conduct electricity—but that doesn't mean current can't pass through. With enough voltage, it can break down the vacuum. That depended on whether Lin Li's electricity was strong enough.

Lin Li didn't know if the current here was enough to pierce the vacuum. If he could keep infecting the fog, all of it would become electric clouds, and Clyde Mardon would be dead for sure.

But Clyde Mardon was clearly terrified now. He created a vacuum layer and started retreating, trying to escape. Once he fled beyond the range of Lin Li's lightning control, no amount of electric clouds would matter.

Now was the perfect time to strike.

Arcs hissed and crackled. Countless bolts of lightning gathered from all directions in the fog before Clyde Mardon, then shot straight toward his chest.

"Boom"

Clyde Mardon watched in terror as the arc of electricity gathered and struck his chest. He didn't react—not because he was numb from the shock, but because it was too fast. He couldn't muster any response. In an instant, the arc formed and slammed into his chest. All he could do was show a look of fear before being hit.

The vacuum layer on Clyde Mardon's chest buckled under the pressure and exploded, sending him flying a great distance.

A ring of shockwaves rippled outward, pushing away the surrounding clouds. Lin Li's thunderclouds were also scattered by the tremor, leaving a thirty-to-forty-meter radius clear and visible, with no more mist to hide them.

The glass in nearby street windows shattered with a crackling din, fragments raining down. Fallen leaves swirled with dust in the air, scaring Cisco so much that he covered his ears and stared wide-eyed in fear at his surroundings. Fortunately, the shockwave wasn't too intense—only a few windows broke and fell, causing no major damage.