Zhou Xuan still put the spent cartridges into his pocket, but at the same time he put them in, he transformed and devoured them, all invisibly.
Seeing that there was no further movement in the house and that the soldiers and police lying in ambush had not been injured or killed, the military and police commander quickly ordered the assault team to go forward to investigate.
A dozen assault team members quickly approached the house and then stormed in from several directions. Zhou Xuan, Hu Shan, and the others watched from a distance, all of them tense and unable to predict what would happen next.
A few minutes later, the soldiers who went in finished their search. Two of them gestured from the window to indicate that it was safe, and then made a gesture as if they had caught someone.
There really was only one person on the other side. The police and soldiers' commanders on this side all had grim faces. One person had killed more than a dozen of them and destroyed a cannon. They had never experienced anything like this before. They had lost face big time.
Especially the soldier in charge, who had a dark face, ordered the captured person to be brought over. About ten minutes later, the assault team returned, with two people dragging one person. The person looked tall, and the body dragging on the ground was quite long.
They dragged the person all the way to the two commanders before throwing him down and turning him over.
Hu Shan and Zhou Xuan followed, but they were still more than ten meters away. In this area, more than a dozen soldiers and more than twenty policemen were on guard with guns.
Zhou Xuan looked at the assassin in the distance. At this moment, the distance was less than 20 meters. His supernatural ability could detect him, but after the supernatural ability reached the assassin's body, he couldn't figure it out. The supernatural ability clearly reached the assassin's body, but all he detected was a white, humanoid mist.
Although his supernatural abilities couldn't detect it, Zhou Xuan immediately became certain that this person was the assassin who had tried to kill King Tuluk Qing that day, because the image Zhou Xuan detected on the mountain opposite the villa was exactly the same as the one he was detecting now.
Zhou Xuan immediately wanted to go forward and see what was going on, after all, there were too many secrets about this assassin that he wanted to know, but there were soldiers and police guarding the area in between, and no one could get through without the commander's permission.
Zhou Xuan turned to Hu Shan and said, "Could you let me go over and take a closer look?"
Yi Xin quickly translated for Hu Shan, who nodded. He was about to go to his friend, the police chief, to plead for him when Zhou Xuan suddenly felt an immense danger. It was as if the thought had suddenly popped into his head, though he couldn't quite put his finger on what the danger was. But he knew that in that instant, he felt the danger of death, an immense and rapid danger of death.
In his panic, Zhou Xuan shouted, "Lie down, all of you lie down!" He then dragged Wei Xiaoyu to his side, tackled her to the ground, and completely covered her with his body.
Hu Shan and the others were startled by Zhou Xuan's loud shouts, not understanding what he meant. Yi Xin, however, understood. She didn't know what was going on, but she knew there was danger. Terrified, she quickly lay down next to Zhou Xuan and yelled at Hu Shan, "Lie down! Lie down!"
Hu Shan and the others then realized what Zhou Xuan meant and quickly dropped to the ground. At that very moment, Zhou Xuan's supernatural ability detected that the white mist-like assassin was moving and pressed a certain part of his body.
The two commanders at the scene also thought the assassin was dead, because the assault team reported that he had been shot dead. After turning him over so that his face was up, the two commanders suddenly saw that the assassin opened his eyes. His eyes were cold and emotionless. The two commanders were stunned for a moment, and then they suddenly saw the assassin's corpse with his eyes open reach out his right hand and press a watch-like object on his left wrist. The object immediately lit up with several red dots, which increased in brightness one by one.
The two commanders and the assault team members also sensed something was wrong. Although they didn't understand what it was, one of the assault team members quickly crouched down to prepare to dismantle it.
The assassin's pale face twisted into a sinister smile as he coldly uttered, "It's no use, it's too late."
The commando was startled, then his expression changed, and he quickly shouted, "Oh no! Spread out! It's a bomb!"
When the last red dot reached the same brightness as the previous ones, the watch-like object instantly exploded, unleashing a raging torrent of flames. The flames, reaching temperatures of over a thousand degrees Celsius, spread rapidly in a 360-degree arc from the point of explosion. Where the heatwave passed, everything in its path was reduced to ashes.
As the endless heatwave rushed towards him, Zhou Xuan, in a moment of desperation, pushed his solar flames to the limit, creating an energy shield about ten feet around his body.
The energy shield enveloped Hu Shan and Yi Xin around him. After the heat wave from the explosion surged in, it continued to spread outwards in other directions, continuing to burn everything.
The moment the heatwave collided with Zhou Xuan's energy shield, Zhou Xuan's vision went black. A mountain of intense heat pressure pressed down, and the energy shield, which was about ten feet long, was instantly shrunk by half. Fortunately, although Zhou Xuan almost fainted, he did not. He knew that if he fainted at this moment, he would be immediately devoured by the heat energy and turned into ashes, and the others would naturally not be spared either.
Zhou Xuan gritted his teeth, closed his lips, and exerted his supernatural power again to support the energy shield. Under the endless pressure, the energy shield shrank by another foot or two.
Hu Shan and Yi Xin were alright; they had both thrown themselves to Zhou Xuan's sides and remained within the energy shield's circle, not yet engulfed by the blazing heatwave. The other four, however, had two people with their hands outside the shield and two with their feet outside. The heatwave was forcing Zhou Xuan's energy circle to shrink; as the shield contracted, those people felt no pain, and their hands and feet outside the shield turned to ashes.
The raging heatwave came and went quickly. The flames rolled for about 150 meters, starting from the center point and burning into a large circle with a diameter of 300 meters. Everything in the circle, including plants and people, turned to ashes, and the stones became like molten stone.
Inside the circle, there was only Zhou Xuan's energy shield, a circle about three meters in diameter. This small area was completely intact, like an oasis in the desert.
The moment the pressure eased, Zhou Xuan coughed up a mouthful of blood, which sprayed all over Wei Xiaoyu's face, startling her greatly. She hurriedly supported Zhou Xuan and kept calling out to him.
Hu Shan and Yi Xin stood up, looking around blankly. The horrific scene left them stunned. Two of their companions had lost their hands and feet, and the loss of their limbs had happened in an instant, melting away at an extremely high temperature. They felt no pain at all. Only after the heat subsided did the four realize that they had become crippled. Because of the high temperature melting, their wounds were not only burns, but also completely sealed blood vessels.
The four of them were stunned for a moment before they shouted.
Three hundred meters away, the police and soldiers who had survived the ordeal stared blankly at the tragic scene, at a loss for what to do.
After Zhou Xuan helped Wei Xiaoyu up, he coughed up a few mouthfuls of blood and then tried his best to use the last bit of his supernatural power to recover. He couldn't fully recover yet, but he could stabilize his injuries and use the Nine Star Pearl to absorb energy to heal them when they got back.
After calming himself down, Zhou Xuan said in a low voice, "Hu Shan, quickly find a car. Let's leave this place."
Yi Xin translated for Hu Shan, who then quickly ran to the back and drove over in a van. Two of his four companions had injured hands and two had injured feet, so they couldn't be relied on. Yi Xin was the only woman left, and she was terrified, so she couldn't be relied on either.
Zhou Xuan was clearly seriously injured again, and Wei Xiaoyu would definitely not abandon him. After Hu Shan drove over, he stopped the car and quickly got out. He first carried the two people who had lost their legs into the car, and the two people who had lost their hands got into the car on their own. Wei Xiaoyu and Yi Xin helped Zhou Xuan into the car.
Hu Shan said no more and immediately started the car and drove back quickly. The police and soldiers were also leaderless and scattered. In their panic, they did not notice Hu Shan and his group. They just quickly reported and searched.
Hu Shan took the shortest route and drove directly back to the Prince's Mansion. When Prince Tuluk's inner court saw the group in such a state, he was startled and quickly asked what had happened.
Hu Shan then explained the whole story to Prince Tuluk. Of course, Hu Shan wasn't entirely sure why they had survived, but he knew it was definitely related to Zhou Xuan. However, he didn't know exactly what the reason was, but he still vaguely hinted at it to Prince Tuluk.
The medical staff of the Prince's Mansion quickly carried the four injured people to be treated. When they tried to carry Zhou Xuan to be treated as well, Zhou Xuan refused in a low voice and then said to Tuluk, "Your Highness, my injuries are not serious. I just need to go back to my room to rest for the night."
Wei Xiaoyu understood Zhou Xuan's meaning: he wanted a doctor to treat him, which was far inferior to his own healing abilities. After Zhou Xuan refused, she helped him back to his room.
After the two left, Prince Tuluk stared thoughtfully at the figures of Zhou Xuan and the other person, leaving only him, Hu Shan, and Yi Xin in the room.
Prince Tuluk said to Yi Xin, "Yi, you can go and rest now. Your task is to serve Mr. Zhou and Miss Wei well at all times."
Yi Xin immediately understood, got up and said goodbye, then went back to her room to rest.
With only the two of them left, Prince Tuluk whispered to Hu Shan, "Tell me, what exactly happened?"
Hu Shan pondered for a moment before telling Tuluk his doubts. However, he wasn't doubting Zhou Xuan's friend or foe, but rather his abilities. He estimated that their survival today was entirely due to Zhou Xuan, but he didn't know how Zhou Xuan had managed it.
Volume 1, Chapter 493
Chapter 493
Prince Tuluk narrowed his eyes, feeling increasingly intrigued by Zhou Xuan, and also increasingly convinced that recruiting Zhou Xuan into his ranks was an extremely wise decision.
Tuluk also agreed with Hu Shan's assessment. Zhou Xuan was a hidden master, which perfectly matched their guesses about the mysterious hermit masters in the East.