I'll Use Fire to Teach Him a Lesson

Captain Lin held an electromagnetic pulse gun, firing precise shots to cut off Lu Chen's escape routes.

Behind him, ten elite soldiers quickly took formation, creating a crossfire.

The air seemed to freeze as everyone's eyes focused on the tense situation, ready to erupt at the slightest touch.

Lu Chen held his dad, raising an eyebrow slightly as his lips curled into a contemptuous smile.

"Want to try? With just those few guns of yours?" Lu Chen's tone was as flippant as ever, as though Captain Lin before him were no more than a few unarmed ants.

Yet he had already activated [Full-Area Scan], rapidly analyzing the situation before him.

Bang!

A deafening gunshot shattered the silence. Electromagnetic pulse rounds tore through the air with a piercing shriek, precisely cutting off all of Lu Chen's escape routes.

Lu Chen's pupils contracted sharply, and his body jolted as he held his dad, but his reaction was astonishingly quick.

Instead of retreating, he charged forward!

Lu Chen instantly copied one of the soldiers' D-rank [Metal Affinity] talent and elevated it to SSS rank.

With a wave of both hands, he rapidly gathered a mass of metal fragments into a sturdy barrier in front of himself and his dad.

The bullets struck the metal barrier with a series of clinks and clangs, but failed to penetrate it at all.

"Hmph, you think a few bullets can stop me?" Lu Chen sneered coldly, turning his gaze to Xiao Lu beside him.

Seeing this, Xiao Lu quickly activated SSS-rank [Life Link]. A faint light radiated from her fingertips, linking the bodies of everyone nearby.

Captain Lin's attack struck Lu Chen's metal barrier in an instant, like a bolt of lightning.

But the force of the attack did not stop there. Instead, [Life Link] synchronized it with the two soldiers beside him.

The two soldiers took a double impact. They spat blood on the spot and collapsed to the ground, clutching their chests.

Captain Lin's pupils contracted sharply, and a flash of shock crossed his eyes. "You... you actually have a sharing mechanism?!"

Lu Chen sneered and waved his hand, unleashing SSS-rank [Flame Manipulation].

A scorching fire dragon flew from his hand, sweeping through the entire corridor in an instant.

Flames soared into the air. The surrounding walls, floor, and even the air itself seemed to catch fire, and the corridor was instantly filled with the smell of burning.

Captain Lin had come prepared. He quickly activated the [Energy Barrier] device hanging from his waist, forming a pale blue screen of light in front of him that barely held back the first wave of flames.

What he did not realize, however, was that Lu Chen's attack had only just begun.

Just as Captain Lin thought he had dealt with the crisis, a burst of high-frequency sound waves suddenly came from within the flames.

It was the B-rank [Sonic Oscillation] talent Lu Chen had copied earlier.

The sound waves penetrated the energy barrier and shattered Captain Lin's eardrums, instantly throwing him off balance and leaving him swaying on his feet.

"How is that possible..." Captain Lin's voice trembled slightly. He clapped both hands over his ears, but still could not suppress the piercing high-frequency sound waves.

Lu Chen seized the opportunity and kicked the electromagnetic pulse gun in Captain Lin's hand in two. "Next time we meet, stay out of my way," he warned in a low voice. Then, carrying his father, he leaped into a drainage pipe and vanished into the darkness.

Captain Lin fell to his knees, clutching his bleeding ears, his eyes filled with shock and rage.

He muttered, "Lu Chen... just you wait!" Captain Lin clutched his ears as blood streamed from them, his features twisted together. How did he still look anything like an elite special forces soldier?

He stared fixedly in the direction Lu Chen had disappeared, as though he meant to bore a hole through the wall with his gaze.

"That guy... he's not human at all!" His hoarse voice was full of unwillingness and fear.

The soldiers behind him were already scared stiff. Like puppets with their strings cut, they stood rooted to the spot, not daring to move.

A burnt smell hung in the air, left behind when the energy barrier was scorched by [Flame Manipulation].

A few with weaker nerves had even collapsed to the ground, an indescribable stench of urine rising from their crotches.

"C-Captain, what do we do now?" one soldier asked fearfully, his voice trembling like a leaf in the autumn wind.

Captain Lin jerked his head up, the rage in his eyes almost ready to erupt.

He grabbed the soldier by the collar and snarled, "What do we do? Chase him! Even if you have to dig three feet into the ground, find that monster for me! And... destroy all the surveillance footage from here. No one is to breathe a word about what happened today!"

With that, he shoved the soldier away and staggered to his feet, his voice as hoarse as a broken bellows. "Pass down the order: put the whole city under martial law. Don't let so much as a fly escape! And contact Professor Zhao immediately. Tell him... the test subject has gone out of control!" Having said that, he viciously spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the ground. Its scarlet color seemed to foretell an even crueler storm on the horizon...