Breaking

He had already activated Super-Speed Thinking. Within Super-Speed Thinking, no matter how furious or grief-stricken he was, his emotions could not affect his judgment. The madness born of excruciating pain and rage had faded away, leaving only an utterly rational Lin Li.

Barry needed treatment. He needed Caitlin. He reached the extremely rational conclusion that, no matter what, preserving Barry's life came first.

Barry was his hope. Nothing could happen to him.

In that brief instant, Cisco had walked through death and back.

Hearing Lin Li's voice, he finally snapped out of his terror. His face and back were drenched, and his heart, which had nearly stopped, began pounding wildly again.

He wiped the cold sweat from his face. Trembling with fear, he failed several times to open the car door. When he finally did and tried to step outside, he immediately collapsed to the ground. His legs were too weak to support him.

He tilted his head up and looked at Lin Li's back, overwhelmed by the urge to cry.

He would remember for the rest of his life that figure standing resolutely before him and Barry.

Lin Li's back seemed as imposing as Mount Tai, giving Cisco an immense sense of security. He took a deep breath, suppressed the unease in his heart, pulled out his phone, and called Caitlin.

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

Hearing Cisco make the call—

"Do you think you can escape the control of a god?"

Clyde Mardon burst into crazed laughter. With the godlike power to control the weather, in this area already filled with pressure clouds and mist, he was a god. And gods could not be defeated. That was why he laughed so arrogantly.

But he had not read much, so he did not understand that Lin Li was his nemesis.

Electric arcs burst violently in Lin Li's eyes. In Super-Speed Thinking, his face was expressionless. Only the silver veins on his face writhed grotesquely, while his silver pupils reflected an utterly ruthless chill.

He unleashed Magnetic Field Sense.

He immediately sensed that the magnetic field around Clyde Mardon was exceptionally dense, with countless magnetic lines packed tightly around him.

Even the air around him felt viscous.

He was using atmospheric pressure to protect himself.

In his state of Super-Speed Thinking, Lin Li calculated everything at every moment—the environment, himself, timing, terrain, and every possible advantage.

He chose the most reliable, safest method.

He remained where he was, standing before Barry and Cisco. The blood flowing from his chest was restrained by his powerful control. The X-shaped wound, the veins coursing wildly with silver light, and the fierce arcs in his eyes gave him the unyielding, cold, merciless presence of an iron city wall.

Lin Li extended his left hand. With a flick of his index finger, silver electric arcs gathered, and the current at his fingertip grew brighter and brighter.

With a crackling hiss, he released the current.

The instant it touched the dense atmospheric pressure, the current became like a starving beast finding a feast, rapidly spreading throughout the entire pressure-filled area. The whole region formed a high-pressure cloud layer.

Electrons transmitted and flowed as electric arcs roiled violently through the clouded pressure.

At first, Clyde Mardon only felt that the pressure around him was a little strange. It had been under his control and densely packed, but part of it had suddenly slipped out of his control.

He did not know what was happening.

By the time he reacted, his body had begun to tingle. He immediately became alert. It had to be that lightning user outside, pulling some trick.

When he felt the stabbing pain, terror filled him, and his expression changed in shock. Half of the white mist before him—the pressure mist he controlled—was now flickering with surging arcs of electricity. Something extremely bad seemed to be happening.

He did not understand.

He rapidly retreated, dispersing all the white mist and atmospheric pressure around himself.

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

That instinctive reaction saved his life.

In only one or two seconds, Lin Li released one-third of the electrical energy in his body, rapidly infecting and taking control of half the pressure clouds before Clyde Mardon.

That half of the pressure clouds now flashed with electric light and arcs, having been infected and controlled by Lin Li.

He sensed Clyde Mardon retreating and had not expected him to be so alert.

If Lin Li had infected all the pressure clouds surrounding Clyde Mardon, then Clyde Mardon would undoubtedly have been reduced to charcoal by the violent lightning within them.

Discharge.

Suddenly, the electric clouds infected by Lin Li surged. Electric arcs erupted violently, silver bolts dancing wildly and visibly through the air.

Thunderclouds churned, and electric arcs bared their fangs and claws.

Seeing this, Clyde Mardon's scalp went numb. He no longer had that lofty mindset of being a god. Now he only felt that the greater the atmospheric pressure and the more clouds around him, the more wildly the lightning could spread, causing the pressure he controlled to go out of control.

He frantically controlled every kind of gas he knew of and did not know of, forcing it away from his body.

Everything around him became clear, with no more clouds or mist concealing him.

A vacuum layer!

A vacuum layer was nonconductive. That did not mean current could not pass through it; if the voltage was high enough, it could be broken down by an electric current. That depended on whether the electricity Lin Li generated was sufficient.

Lin Li did not know whether this amount of current was enough to break through the vacuum layer. If he continued spreading electricity this way, all the clouds and mist would be infected and turned into electric clouds. At that point, Clyde Mardon would certainly die.

But Clyde Mardon was clearly afraid now. As he created the vacuum layer, he retreated to flee. Once he escaped the range of lightning Lin Li could control, no matter how many electric clouds there were, they would be useless against him.

Now was the best time to attack.

Electric arcs crackled and hissed as countless arcs gathered from the clouds above, below, left, and right, directly before Clyde Mardon's chest.

Boom!

Clyde Mardon watched in terror as the electric arcs gathered and struck his chest. He did not react—not because he had been shocked senseless, but because it was too fast. He had no time to react. In an instant, the arcs gathered and struck his chest. He could only show a terrified expression as he was hit.

The vacuum layer before Clyde Mardon's chest was compressed and exploded, blasting him far away.

A ring of shockwaves spread outward, scattering the surrounding clouds and mist. Lin Li's thunderclouds were also dispersed by the impact. The area within thirty or forty meters became clearly visible, no longer hidden by clouds or mist.

The window glass along the surrounding streets shattered with a series of crackling pops. Fallen leaves and dust were swept into the air, and Cisco covered his ears, his eyes wide with fear as he looked around. Fortunately, the shockwave was not particularly powerful. Only a small number of windows shattered and fell, causing no major damage.