Chapter 255 - 223: Collecting a Debt (2)

Chapter 255: Chapter 223: Collecting a Debt (2)

His intuition was screaming a warning! In the seemingly transparent curtain of rain ahead, every single drop seemed to carry a frenzied killing intent, aimed squarely at his forehead.

’Where is it?!’

Veins bulged on Li Xun’s forehead as he pushed his perception to the breaking point. He tried to distinguish the sound of each individual raindrop hitting the ground, attempting to find the one "anomaly" among countless sources of sound.

Finally! Amidst the endless sound of the downpour, he caught a trace of an extremely dissonant noise.

DRIP... TAP.

’That’s not the sound of rain! It’s the sound of dripping water!’

The sound was incredibly faint, but something was blocking the rain, causing it to drip onto the ground!

’There!’

Li Xun’s pupils contracted violently. A roar had yet to escape his throat, and his gun-wielding arm hadn’t even had time to move an inch.

A ripple abruptly appeared in the curtain of rain a dozen or so meters in front of him...

The instant the ripple spread, every raindrop within a radius of several meters was shattered and atomized, transforming into a dense, white cloud of high-pressure mist! Immediately after, this cloud of mist barreled toward them like an invisible truck!

Then came the sound.

"SCREEE—"

A sharp, grating noise—not human, but like something produced by the bizarre mouthparts of some monster, like the sound of a nail scratching across glass magnified ten thousand times—followed close behind the ripple, enveloping the three men caught in the lead.

Endless shaking and a chaos of light and shadow...

"AHHH!!!"

As a perception-type Superpower User whose hearing was pushed to its absolute limit, Li Xun took the full force of it! For him, it was no different from a flashbang detonating inside his skull!

Blood trickled from Li Xun’s ears, then from the corners of his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. The single blast of noise had caused the Awakened One at the front to bleed from every facial orifice.

Li Xun felt a massive ROAR echo in his mind, followed by dead silence.

His world instantly turned a dark shade of red. It was as if ten thousand flies had suddenly bored into his skull and were ramming against its walls, creating an overwhelming BUZZING sound.

An intense wave of vertigo made him lose his balance instantly; the world spun around him. In his blurred vision, the black pistol in his hand split into four, then eight copies. His arm, along with the guns, spun wildly in every direction.

BANG, BANG, BANG!

He completely broke down in the throes of extreme fear and pain. His gun hand had long gone numb, but he still relied on instinct, frantically pulling the trigger and unleashing a hail of bullets in the direction where he had just sensed something wrong but could now see nothing!

As for his two underlings behind him, their eyes rolled back in their heads, and they fell stiffly into the muddy water, unconscious.

Only the gunman, who was far enough away, remained as clear-headed as an assassin. Although he was suffering from excruciating pain in both ears, his mind was sharp, stimulated by adrenaline.

Gritting his teeth, he forced his rifle steady, locked the crosshairs onto the black figure that had abruptly appeared in the white mist, and pulled the trigger without hesitation!

BANG, BANG, BANG...!

The muzzle constantly spat out dazzling, cross-shaped flashes of fire. The powerful recoil slammed clearly against his chest, confirming for him that the bullets had left the chamber.

But he couldn’t hear the gunshots. There was only a deathly silence, as if the world’s mute button had been pressed.

But that didn’t matter.

’Shooting relies on the eyes, not the ears!’

’Even if that person has such a powerful and bizarre sonic and invisibility Superpower, he has ultimately lost.’

’At this range, no matter how powerful an Awakened One is, even a defense-enhancement type, it’s impossible to block a full-power rifle round with their physical body.’

His mastery of firearms and marksmanship was his stock-in-trade in this cruel, apocalyptic safe haven; it was his religion.

On the strength of this skill, which was extremely rare among common folk, even several Superpower Users, including Li Xun, treated him with a degree of respect...

’Unless... unless it’s one of those monsters the boss controls, the ones that have mutated several times...’

A cold smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth as he silently kept pulling the trigger. ’If it weren’t for those monsters, with a gun in my hands, I’d have already found a chance to take out the boss myself!’

The next second, however, the smile on his face froze.

No spray of blood. No penetration. The figure didn’t even flinch.

Almost in the very instant after he pulled the trigger each time, at the points of impact on the figure’s forehead, chest, and torso, soft, purple halos, like flowing water, pulsed into existence. The light wasn’t dazzling, yet it carried a sense of weight, like a city wall.

The high-speed, spinning bullets plunged into that layer of purple light, like a clay ox sinking into the sea—vanishing without a trace. It was as if they were sinking into some kind of extremely viscous gel.

Although he couldn’t hear a thing, he watched with wide eyes as those bullets, powerful enough to pierce steel plates, had their kinetic energy instantly devoured by the rippling purple light. They were crushed and deformed into lumps of scrap metal, then slid limply to the ground, falling at the man’s feet.

"This... This is impossible..."

The gunman had emptied the entire magazine of his rifle. Finally, a pull of the trigger produced no recoil, only the CLICK and vibration of the bolt locking back on an empty chamber.

In that moment, the "common sense" and "faith" he had been so proud of shattered on the ground along with those fallen bullets.

...

Life Value: [470/630], with a blue-purple border.

A powerful and extremely wealthy Awakened One, who had grown strong by consuming crystals.

Lin Fan opened his mouth, letting the cold rainwater stream in to moisten his dry, cracked, and slightly painful throat.

"This defense... is a little too dedicated..."