In the Name of Divine Abilities, Part 23

The ground trembled slightly, and the concrete cracked.

Shan Yong emerged from the ground dozens of meters away, showing only his head. "There's someone at the corner a hundred meters ahead!" he shouted. "A physical-type transcendent! I can't handle them!"

Lao Gao shot forward like an arrow, paying no further attention to the armed police who had temporarily lost their ability to fight.

A mental-type transcendent was far more troublesome than those people.

There was only one mental-type transcendent in the Ant Ridge area: Lord Lu of the Mountain. At the thought that his opponent was only a hundred meters away, Lao Gao was both terrified and thrilled.

He was afraid his opponent would run farther away, but thrilled that he had finally seized his chance.

Lord Lu of the Mountain had always been a thorn in Greenwood's side. As long as Lao Gao killed him, the smuggling route through Ant Ridge would be clear once more.

With that achievement, he could rise to become a branch hall master!

Lin Zhiyan and the others heard Shan Yong's shout as well.

"Buy me a minute." Lin Zhiyan's face was a little pale after her mental control had been broken.

"Within ten meters, my mental shock can knock him completely senseless."

She actually needed to be within five meters, but Lin Zhiyan could twist her mental power into a "rod" to extend its effective range.

Every transcendent did their utmost to develop their abilities, making Divine Abilities that were broadly similar perform vastly differently in actual combat.

But her deputy didn't listen. Instead, he hurriedly ordered someone to bring the car around and said, in a manner that was practically coercive, "Team Leader Lin, you have to leave this time."

Anger appeared on Lin Zhiyan's face. "Are you going to stand by and let the frontline fighters die? If you buy me a minute now, we can still turn this around. If I leave, everyone will die."

Her deputy shook his head. "I'll stay behind and buy time. As long as we run in different directions, he won't be able to kill many of us."

As the Lin Family's only remaining heir, her death would be enough to shake the Hall of Martial Virtue.

During the Great Cataclysm twelve years ago, the Lin Family's Martial Marquis and its many descendants had fought to the death without retreating, making the South Sea West Circuit what it was today.

The Lin Family no longer had a Martial Marquis, but Lin Zhiyan's standing was more distinguished than that of any other second-generation heir.

Although this young lady had a strong sense of responsibility, the fact was that her life was different from everyone else's.

Two members of the special task force held her on either side. As a mental-type transcendent, her body had not received much enhancement.

A hundred meters, fifty meters, thirty!

Another mental shock poured into his mind. Prepared for it this time, Lao Gao only faltered for a moment.

Ten meters, one meter!

He rounded the corner. Ten paces away stood a short-haired woman with a cold expression.

Not Lord Lu of the Mountain?

Suddenly, a chill shot straight to his head. Lao Gao's pupils contracted, and his already sunken eyes filled with fear.

Whoosh-smack!

A bullet flew at him and turned to liquid, splattering against his face. Only then came the piercing whistle of it tearing through the air.

In the distance, a dark silhouette appeared against the moon, and the agitated thrum of rotor blades descended upon the battlefield.

A long barrel extended from the cabin, aimed at Lao Gao.

In an instant, an indescribable sense of danger turned to cold and ran the length of his spine.

Lao Gao turned and ran without hesitation.

He raced desperately for a dark alley, squeezing every last trace of strength from his body. His Divine Ability operated at full speed without pause. Within fifty meters, streetlight poles, manhole covers, scattered vehicle wreckage... all began to liquefy to varying degrees.

Lao Gao didn't dare let either his body or his Divine Ability rest for even a second.

His Life Development was already close to forty points, putting him half a step into the second rank and giving him an extremely vague sense of danger.

Generally, by the time he could sense danger, he was already standing at the edge of a sheer cliff.

Lao Gao feared that a tracking bullet would pierce his skull the very next second. He could liquefy bullets, but he couldn't do it indefinitely.

All he could do now was pray that the person aboard the aircraft wasn't the legendary "Lord Lu of the Mountain."

In the dark alley, Shan Yong and the Siamese man waved for him to hurry.

Another bullet flew in. Once again, it turned to liquid and struck Lao Gao in the back, with the gunshot following half a beat later.

A white worm invisible to the naked eye clung to the bullet, becoming a second bullet.

The next second, something strange happened. A sharp pain shot through Lao Gao's temple, and he fell to the ground, unable to control his body.

"No..."

Lao Gao struggled desperately to get up and reached forward with all his might, while his companions stepped out of the alley to help him.

Time slowed at that moment.

Click-clack!

Faintly, it seemed the sound of a bolt being worked drifted over.

Beneath the moonlit sky, a burst of fire bloomed.

Bang!

By the time Lao Gao heard the shot, his heart had already been pierced. The bullet had struck it with extraordinary precision.

The heart-stopping shriek of the subsonic bullet echoed in his ears.

Splat!

The next moment, he saw the Siamese man's head burst like an overripe watermelon, exploding into a cloud of blood and shredded flesh.

There was no pause, no resistance.

Scalding brain matter, blood, and flesh plastered Shan Yong's face. He instinctively burrowed into the ground, while a bullet grazed his scalp, leaving a bullet hole and a trace of blood on the ground.

Lao Gao looked back at the sky, and an oncoming bullet pierced his skull.

His opponent gave him no chance at all, not even a chance to look.

The helicopter hovered in the air, its rotors producing a menacing hum.

Bzzt!

A signal joined the channel, and a voice as cold as iron came through the radio.

"This is Lieutenant Lu Zhao of the Ant Ridge Border Station, number 456177. I've come to provide support and await your orders."

The voice wasn't loud, but like a thunderclap from beyond the heavens, it instantly pierced the chaos and despair.

11:05.

The battle was not yet over. The surviving enemies began to flee, racing madly through the dark alleys under cover of night, stumbling and rolling.

From his vantage point above, Lu Zhao could see them clearly. Judging by their movements, they appeared to be ordinary people.

At the very least, their Life Development had not reached twenty points.

Life Development brought an improvement every ten points. At ten points, average physical fitness was comparable to an athlete's; at twenty, every measure reached the human peak; at thirty, they surpassed human limits.

For example, without a load, one could run a hundred meters in eight seconds and maintain that speed for half an hour.

Lu Zhao could run a hundred meters in seven and a half seconds and maintain it for an hour.

Normally, everyone was made of flesh and blood, but once physical fitness was put to the test, the gap became apparent in an instant.

Bang!

Gunshots rang out intermittently in the night sky, accompanied by the low, piercing whistle of bullets tearing through the air. Every shot claimed the life of someone fleeing desperately.

Lu Zhao raised his gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger, killing each fleeing person in absolute calm and silence.

Only when they realized escape was hopeless and dropped to their knees to beg for mercy did Lu Zhao leave a mere handful alive.

As a soldier, he didn't like leaving enemies alive. You never knew what tricks an enemy might still have, especially transcendents with Divine Abilities.

He had to hit them in the head to ensure they were no longer a threat.

"The enemy's effective forces have been eliminated."

Lu Zhao's even voice came through the headsets, reaching the ears of every Special Response member, border soldier, and task force member on the ground.

Silence!

Everyone fell silent. Only the helicopter's hum continued to reverberate through the air.

Chapter 28: My Leader Is Lü Jinshan

Lin Zhiyan gazed at the helicopter overhead. For an instant, she felt as though she had returned to a lecture hall in the Imperial Capital, where she had first witnessed a legend among mental-types.

That year, he had taken the stage with a precision of telekinetic control that no one could comprehend.

Now, his development of mental power had reached an even higher level.

As one of the same type, Lin Zhiyan could clearly see a current of mental power carrying a bullet into the Green Bandit.

The Special Response members were the most astonished.

Everything had happened too quickly for them to observe, but one fact was certain: the most dangerous transcendent had been killed by a single shot from the sniper aboard the helicopter.

The Green Bandit had run as soon as he saw the helicopter. His Divine Ability had still been working as he fled, but it had suddenly failed after one gunshot, and the next shot had killed him.

The whole thing had taken no more than two minutes, with no exchange between them.

"Good!"

Only Zhang Like froze for a moment. Then, his face flushed red, he shouted over the channel, "Hahahaha, a mission like this really does need you, Old Lu! If you'd been here from the start, so many people wouldn't have died."

What counterterrorism forces feared most was urban combat. Even a Special Response squad with an average of twenty points of Life Development could suffer casualties in the complex terrain of street fighting. The power of modern firearms was not something they could withstand with a few dozen points of Life Development.

As for transcendents above fifty points, it was impossible to assign all of them to counterterrorism, much less have them appear in a backwater like the South Sea West Circuit.

That was the difficulty of security operations.

Lu Zhao was a special case. By rights, he shouldn't have been stationed at Ant Ridge either.

The speaker had meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart.