Breaking Free

##DONE## Chapter 12: Escape

"Give up, Emma. I'll end your suffering. Trust me."

Zhang Ye looked at the woman before it, who was fortunate enough to awaken telepathy, but unfortunate enough to be tormented by it to the point of being barely human, and said earnestly.

"End my suffering? What can you use to end it?"

"This." Zhang Ye pulled out a pistol, the same kind it used to kill Nick Fury. "Of course, only if you undo the diamondization on yourself, otherwise the bullet won't go through."

"You're dreaming!" Before Zhang Ye could finish, Emma screamed, interrupting its words. Then, roaring, she lunged at Zhang Ye with both hands and feet, like a furious beast or a bloodthirsty demon.

Zhang Ye raised its left hand, and a particle beam instantly converged.

Zhang Ye was prepared for Emma's actions. As Emma moved, Zhang Ye's particle beam was already fully charged, just waiting to be fired.

Pong!

A golden light flashed, and Emma's body suddenly froze in mid-air. Then, in the next moment, its figure was blasted away by a huge repulsive force, even faster than it had been moving forward. It crashed heavily to the ground once more.

"Don't resist. This thing can't hurt you, but it has a strong knockback effect. You can't get through." Zhang Ye waved its hand, revealing the Iron Suit from its sleeve.

"Is that so?" Emma grinned hideously as it lay on the ground. "Then try blocking them for a bit."

As Emma spoke, a soft, ethereal laughter like that of a child suddenly echoed in the tunnel. Then, pale mist billowed out from the darkness.

Seeing this, Zhang Ye couldn't help but take half a step back, but it quickly steadied itself, moving its retreating foot back to its original position.

"Is this what Pietro saw earlier? It's really terrifying, like watching The Grudge or It in VR..." Zhang Ye licked its dry lips, its eyes fixed on the increasingly dense fog.

Sensing a wave of dizziness, Zhang Ye decisively fired several shots at the shadowy figures looming in the mist. The muzzle spat flames, and the figures in the mist shuddered and were shattered by the bullets.

But before Zhang Ye could recover, the scattered phantoms gathered again with the churning of the mist, reforming into human shapes. At the same time, eerie laughter echoed around, as if mocking Zhang Ye's overestimation of its abilities.

"It's useless. This is a power entirely composed of mental energy. It's been inside their bodies since you entered my territory. They are everywhere, and physical attacks cannot defeat them."

Emma was hidden in the mist, and because it was in its diamond form, it was not affected by the surrounding mental energy.

Zhang Ye didn't react much to this, but judging from the sweat on its forehead, it knew that its situation wasn't good.

These mists weren't a display of telepathic power, which meant that Emma's human experiments hadn't succeeded. If these children had truly awakened telepathic talents, it, without any defenses, would have been controlled instantly, unable to even resist.

But in a sense, Emma's experiment wasn't a failure either, because these tragic children were already dead. Their souls and resentment were mixed with the shallow mental energy activated by Emma, and as more and more people died, this energy grew stronger and stronger.

They usually hibernated under the Orphanage, but when someone entered, they would become their 'prey'.

Emma wasn't afraid of this mental energy because it had diamondization and a Helmet for protection, but Zhang Ye was just an ordinary person. Faced with this strange power, it couldn't help but feel nervous.

Zhang Ye fired at several spiritual phantoms again, knowing it was futile, but it had no other choice. It couldn't use the Repulsor Ray's particle beam to attack, because it didn't know if the particle beam could harm these strange things.

Moreover, Emma was watching it from the mist not far away. The Repulsor Ray couldn't fire continuously; it needed a few seconds to recharge after each shot, and those few seconds would be enough for Emma to rush over and tear it apart.

Zhang Ye understood that this was the moment Emma was waiting for.

So, Zhang Ye quickly gave up using the particle beam. It used the charging Repulsor Ray to guard against Emma, who might attack at any moment, while firing back at the mist, trying to stop the mental energy from devouring its mind.

Fortunately, although this power was vast, its method of attacking people was unusually simple.

Like boiling a frog in warm water, it would trap its prey in its 'body', greatly depleting the prey's physical and mental strength over time. When the prey could no longer bear it, it would attack the prey's mental world, turning them into mindless walking corpses.

Zhang Ye quickly calculated the speed at which this power was eroding it. The approaching shadows and whispers made it anxious, but it quickly calmed its emotions.

In fact, Zhang Ye had followed closely behind Pietro after he entered. Logically speaking, they should have been affected for about the same amount of time, but clearly, Pietro was much more affected than it was.

At first, Zhang Ye thought it was because Pietro was a Mutant and it was an ordinary person, so the main target of the power was Pietro, and it was safe because Pietro had blocked most of the firepower.

But now that it thought about it, that didn't seem to be the case. Although Zhang Ye had no experience dealing with supernatural forces in its memory, judging from the most basic rules, these forces should have invaded both of them equally if they were unaffected.

So...

Zhang Ye's eyes lit up, and it suddenly realized the answer: speed!

The biggest difference between it and Pietro was undoubtedly speed. Pietro was a Speedster, and his actions and thinking speed were very fast. His brain collected and processed information much faster than it did, so the corresponding consumption was also greater.

Was this the truth about how these forces attacked? Zhang Ye's lips curled up slightly. "I already know how to deal with these things. As long as I empty my mind, don't think about unnecessary things, and minimize my mental drain, these things can't do anything to me."

Hearing this, Emma was also stunned. It looked at Zhang Ye's face in disbelief. This was the first time Zhang Ye had seen this expression on Emma's face.

"I know what you want to do, but it's useless. I just need to focus on you, and you won't be able to break through to me." Zhang Ye said to Emma warily.

"I must say, you really surprised me. You're very smart, Zhang. I'm almost falling in love with your brain." Emma gave Zhang Ye a deep look, revealing a stiff smile. "But, do you think you've won?"

Emma stretched out its arms, and the shadows in the mist seemed to be attracted to it, gathering around it.

"So what if you slow down your consumption? You're already trapped here. How long can you last? A minute, ten minutes, or half an hour? In the end, you'll still die. Oh no, you won't die—you'll stay and join our family."

"Not that long." Zhang Ye tilted its head and smiled. "I've already caught my last train."

Before the words were finished.

A figure suddenly appeared next to Zhang Ye. The mist behind it exploded only after the figure appeared, as if a silver lightning bolt had torn a gap with brute force. The mist was instantly separated, leaving a passage straight into the darkness.

"What!?" Emma's eyes widened, as if it had realized something.

"Your timing is perfect, Pietro." Without turning around, Zhang Ye knew the identity of the person standing behind it. At this moment, the weight in Zhang Ye's heart was finally lifted.

Pietro didn't answer immediately, but walked straight to Zhang Ye's side and tapped the Helmet on its head with its finger. This Helmet was made of metal that blocked telepathy, and it was thanks to this Helmet that Pietro was able to use its abilities here without hindrance.

"I got the thing. Let's get out of here. I don't want to stay here for another second."

"As you wish."

Without another word, Zhang Ye jumped onto Pietro's back. Their exchange lasted only a few seconds, and by the time Emma recovered from her shock, Zhang Ye was already clinging to Pietro's back, even blowing her a kiss from afar.

"No—"

Emma reached out, as if trying to grab something, or perhaps to stop Zhang Ye and Pietro, but unfortunately, she had barely raised her hand when, in the blink of an eye, the two figures opposite her vanished. It was a speed the naked eye simply couldn't follow.

Gasping for breath, two trails of blood tears streamed down Emma's face. She stared at the empty darkness, where there was no trace of Zhang Ye, as if everything had been an illusion.

"No!!!!"