However, the gunmen were at varying distances from Zhou Ziwei, and their shooting speeds also varied, which caused the discrepancy between the earlier and later shots.
However, only a freak like Zhou Ziwei could perceive this tiny difference so clearly. Ordinary people can't even see the trajectory of a bullet, so how could they possibly sense such a subtle difference?
107, 108, 109... OK.
After Zhou Ziwei successfully guided 109 bullets into the orbits he controlled, he immediately stopped using the force field of Niu-style Tai Chi to change the bullets' flight direction. He simply moved with his will, like a butterfly flitting among flowers, passing through the gaps between the bullets...
It wasn't until more than five hundred bullets had passed by Zhou Ziwei that he finally heard the first scream he had been waiting for from afar.
The skinny, monkey-like member of the Storm Mercenary Group who had just fired two quick rounds of shots when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his forehead. A round, bloody hole appeared between his eyebrows, and he cried out as he fell backward...
Everyone else was shocked at the sight, but before they could react to what had happened, they suddenly heard a second, a third... and then a chorus of screams.
In the blink of an eye, almost every gunslinger in the Storm Mercenary Group had a bloody hole inexplicably appear on their foreheads. Every single one of them was the same.
In an instant... the gunfire throughout the valley ceased abruptly, leaving only lingering echoes in the air, along with the sounds of bodies falling to the ground, which sounded particularly jarring amidst the reverberation.
"My God... how is this possible... is this guy even human?"
Deep inside the cave, after hearing the alarm outside, Hu Dongming immediately turned on the surveillance video in the valley, and the five leaders of the Storm Mercenary Group happened to witness this earth-shattering scene.
In the video, they saw Zhou Ziwei surrounded by hundreds of people, instantly surrounded by a hail of bullets, yet he remained smiling throughout, standing there without moving an inch. However, the bullets that should have pierced Zhou Ziwei's body inexplicably returned and instead struck the gunmen.
In fact, Zhou Ziwei certainly did move, but both his dodging of bullets and the mysterious circles he drew in the air were extremely fast, far exceeding the limits of human vision.
Humans cannot even see a bullet in flight with the naked eye, yet Zhou Ziwei's movements are many times faster than a bullet, so how could his subtle movements be noticed?
So in the eyes of onlookers, Zhou Ziwei seemed to have been standing still the whole time, as if he hadn't moved an inch.
When the five leaders of the Storm Mercenary Group first heard the alarm and learned that there was only one enemy who had broken into Storm Valley, they didn't pay much attention. But now, seeing that the enemy had wiped out almost half of their Storm Mercenary Group's strength in an instant without even moving, anyone who still thought that a single person could not pose any threat to the Storm Mercenary Group was probably a born idiot.
Without hesitation, Hu Dongming, the leader of the Storm Mercenary Group, grabbed the communicator on the table and shouted at the top of his lungs, "First Battalion, Second Battalion, Third Battalion... Everyone, stop resting immediately and assemble in the square! A powerful enemy has invaded... A powerful enemy has invaded! You must stop this person at all costs... at all costs! We absolutely cannot let him enter Cave Number One... Brothers, I believe in you. You are the elite of the Storm Mercenary Group. As long as you are here, the Storm Mercenary Group will always be the strongest mercenary group..."
A tall, shrewd-looking man beside Hu Dongming finally recovered from his shock and gave Hu a bitter smile. He said, "Commander Hu... although those who died in the square were just insignificant henchmen, perhaps five or six ordinary henchmen wouldn't be worth a single member of the Storm Mercenary Group. But... do you really think that our three battalions of a hundred elite soldiers could stop that devil? My God... he must be a devil. More than a hundred of our men... just like that... all gone."
Hu Dongming put down his communicator, sighed deeply, and said with a wry smile, "How...how can we block it? This guy can actually reflect bullets aimed at him back with perfect accuracy. This...this guy is too terrifying. So...brothers, let's run! With our three elite squads holding them off, I believe we can definitely escape, we definitely can..."
The group was stunned upon hearing this, realizing that Hu Dongming's reason for mobilizing all the Storm Mercenary Group's forces to besiege that terrifying devil was not to annihilate him, but simply to use these living rakes to create an opportunity for their escape.
Normally, these people would definitely disregard Hu Dongming's actions, and might even take this opportunity to attack Hu Dongming's authority as regimental commander.
But after seeing how easily Zhou Ziwei had wiped out more than a hundred ordinary members of the Storm Mercenary Group, no one dared to raise even the slightest objection. After exchanging glances, they immediately nodded, either eagerly or out of resignation...
A muffled rumble rang out, followed by a circular doorway slowly opening in what appeared to be a smooth stone wall. Behind the doorway lay a long passageway, half natural and half man-made...
At this moment, Zhou Ziwei finally eliminated all 109 members of the Storm Mercenary Group who had just attacked him, and not a single bullet flew into the world shrouded by his soul power.
The danger was temporarily averted, and although Zhou Ziwei was very reluctant to give up the incredibly powerful feeling of being bathed in soul power, he could not stay in this wonderful environment indefinitely, lest he needlessly waste too much soul power.
However, as Zhou Ziwei drew all the scattered soul power within a twenty-meter radius around him back into his body and sank it into the vast sea of soul power, he suddenly realized that... in just a few short seconds, while enjoying the thrill of his strength being infinitely expanded under the influence of soul power, he had actually consumed a total of over a thousand units of soul power.
Considering that the total amount of soul power stored in his sea of souls was only a little over three thousand, and he had already consumed about a third of it in just a few seconds... that's too wasteful!
A thousand souls' worth of power... Even if he purified and absorbed all the souls of the more than one hundred people he had just killed, it would only be enough to replenish what he had lost. He had originally planned to refine all of their souls into soul beads, but now that he had consumed so much soul power, he had to temporarily abandon that idea.
Moreover, most of the members of the Storm Mercenary Group were ruthless bandits with countless lives on their hands, and each of them had a strong soul. After they had just died and generated their souls, more than a dozen of them immediately broke free from their initial state of confusion and began to wield their ferocious ghost claws, rushing towards Zhou Ziwei from all directions.
Zhou Ziwei sneered, not even glancing at the evil spirits that had already rushed close. He immediately sank his mind into the sea of his soul and silently began to chant the six-syllable mantra...
Six increasingly vibrant halos suddenly formed in the air as Zhou Ziwei silently chanted, then swept across the sky at an even faster speed than usual. In the blink of an eye, all one hundred and nine souls were transformed into pure energy, which Zhou Ziwei absorbed into his sea of souls.
Two thousand five, three thousand, three thousand five, four thousand...
Normally, according to calculations, the soul power formed after the soul of an adult is purified by the Six-Syllable Mantra is mostly around ten remnant soul energies. Even for people with particularly strong souls, it generally does not exceed twenty.
Based on this calculation, the soul power that the souls of the 109 members of the Storm Mercenary Group could generate after their deaths should not exceed 1,500.
Zhou Ziwei's soul sea originally had a capacity of over 3,500, so it should have no problem accommodating the soul power formed by these souls in one go. That's why Zhou Ziwei was able to recite the Six-Syllable Mantra without any hesitation.
However, to his utter surprise, the speed at which his soul power grew this time was much faster than before, and the amount of growth far exceeded his expectations. In the blink of an eye, the amount of soul power stored in his sea of souls rapidly increased from the original two thousand to over three thousand five, and then broke through the four thousand mark, and it seemed that it would continue to grow.
Damn, why is it always like this... This is a huge problem again.
Feeling his sea of souls gradually approaching its fullness, Zhou Ziwei broke out in a cold sweat in an instant...
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 255: The Little Princess
You must quickly deplete your soul power, otherwise you'll really burst this time!
In his shock, Zhou Ziwei's first thought was of that 360-degree panoramic view he had just experienced... Without a doubt, it was only in that wondrous state that his soul power was consumed most rapidly, even surpassing the power of a soul roar.
So Zhou Ziwei had just withdrawn the soul power he had released outside his body when he released it all out again with a "boom".
The moment the soul coverage within a radius of almost twenty meters was formed, Zhou Ziwei suddenly felt a chill creep into his heart... There was killing intent!
Just as he sensed that intense killing intent, he discovered that a dense barrage of bullets suddenly appeared within the range of his soul.
The bright yellow bullets seemed to rain down from three directions, entering Zhou Ziwei's soul's range. This time, the bullets were significantly faster and denser than before.
Zhou Ziwei immediately understood. This was a barrage of heavy machine gun fire... and multiple heavy machine guns firing at the same time. Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei's soul sea was already full, and he had to use up the excess soul power to open up a 360-degree all-around perspective again. Otherwise, if he had waited until he discovered the enemy's machine guns firing at him before reacting, the result would have been quite tragic.
Slightly startled, I still moved nimbly, skillfully finding gaps between the countless bullets, like a small fish swimming in a vast ocean, darting east and west, and finding a way out from the dense bullets...
The six enormous halos finally fell silent, and Zhou Ziwei also felt that the soul power in his sea of souls had stopped its upward momentum. Zhou Ziwei secretly breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that he was fortunate to have reacted quickly this time, and that he had only just discovered how much soul coverage consumed soul power, which allowed him to release a large amount of soul power out of his body at the crucial moment. Otherwise, if he had only come to roar once when his sea of souls was almost full, as before, he would not have been able to release such a huge amount of soul power, and he would have been burst open.
Although he had temporarily weathered the crisis and avoided being burst by the power of his soul, Zhou Ziwei was still unable to immediately retract the large amount of soul power he had just released in the face of the overwhelming machine gun fire.
Zhou Ziwei, of course, refused to be passively attacked. So, while dodging the ubiquitous bullets, he frantically displayed his auditory and visual close-range exploration abilities to the extreme.
Because the bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, it wasn't until then that a dense barrage of gunshots, like popping beans, finally reached Zhou Ziwei's ears.
The sound was extremely noisy; to an outsider, it would be impossible to distinguish the number of people.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei's exceptional hearing allowed him to effectively separate these sounds from the noise. Combined with his abnormally strong eyesight, he finally discovered that the numerous bullets that seemed to be raining down on him were being fired from six round holes in the three stone walls.
Without any hesitation, Zhou Ziwei roared as soon as he found the target. He continued to dodge bullets that would be fatal to ordinary people while using the force field of Niu-style Tai Chi to deflect the incoming bullets back and accurately send them back into the stone wall through the six round holes.
Screams rang out... and all six heavy machine guns simultaneously fell silent, the bullets that filled the air vanishing without a trace in an instant.
Zhou Ziwei snorted coldly, quickly drawing back the soul power that surrounded him into his body. At the same time, he unbuttoned his clothes and released all three new-style cross darts hidden at his waist, first inserting them into the six small holes in the rocky wall.
In this short period of time, Zhou Ziwei's soul power was once again greatly depleted. However, after he absorbed all the remaining soul power he had released into his soul sea, he found that he still had more than four thousand units of soul power remaining. His soul sea was not yet full, and he estimated that the capacity of his soul sea had now expanded to at least five thousand units.
But just now, when his soul power exceeded four thousand, he felt as if he was about to burst. How could it be that... in such a short time, it has become so abundant again? Could it be that... using this large-area soul coverage is actually very effective in expanding the capacity of the sea of soul?
Although Zhou Ziwei had just deflected dozens of bullets through those small holes, he couldn't control how many people were actually injured. He also didn't know what was inside the stone wall or how many people were inside, so he sent three new-style cross-shaped darts in. In any case, he wanted to clear the area around the six heavy machine guns first.
If it weren't for the accidental encounter, the full-force fire from the six heavy machine guns could have seriously threatened Zhou Ziwei's safety. Therefore, Zhou Ziwei's first priority was naturally to control anything that posed a death threat to him.
At the same time, Zhou Ziwei quickly ran towards the helicopter in front.
With this helicopter present, there's always the possibility that someone could slip through the net and escape. Even if only one person manages to get away, Zhou Ziwei absolutely cannot allow it.
Zhou Ziwei could have simply used a new type of dart to pierce the stationary helicopter a few times, damaging some important parts or even puncturing the fuel tank, which would have effectively prevented the helicopter from taking off.
However… he was also somewhat envious of the helicopter. After all, he had suffered quite a bit when he went into the mountains. If he could control the helicopter, he wouldn't have to rely on his own two feet to measure the way back step by step when it was time to leave…
Zhou Ziwei stopped when he was less than 20 meters away from the helicopter. He silently released a wisp of his soul power and directly captured a small, relatively simple but essential component in the helicopter's control system. He also took the opportunity to slightly tamper with the data inside.
In this way, unless someone has an astonishing amount of experience and skill in helicopter maintenance and piloting, it's impossible to find this small problem. And even if someone could find that the part is faulty, they wouldn't be able to repair it. The only way to get the helicopter airborne would be to completely replace the small part. But... this isn't an aircraft repair shop. Is it possible to prepare a copy of every single part of the helicopter? Obviously not... So, right now, apart from Zhou Ziwei himself, no one else should be able to get this helicopter airborne.
Just as Zhou Ziwei finished resolving the helicopter issue, the three new-style cross-shaped darts had already wiped out all the members of the Storm Mercenary Group in the three stone chambers.
However, Zhou Ziwei then sensed the situation behind the three stone chambers through the soul power emanating from the three new-style cross darts... Those were the entrances to three other huge caverns besides the main cave where the five Storm Mercenary leaders were located. Each cavern was garrisoned by a large number of Storm Mercenary members. Although Zhou Ziwei had cleared out the three fortified stone chambers, he found that a large number of Storm Mercenary members were rushing out of the cave like a pack of ferocious wolves, clearly wanting to fight Zhou Ziwei to the death.
Zhou Ziwei snorted coldly. He didn't want to be surrounded again. Even with the Soul Cover technique, he wouldn't be shot to death even if there were several times more people surrounding him. However, the problem was that the Soul Cover technique consumed too much soul power. In that strange state, it probably consumed hundreds of soul power every second, which was extremely painful. What was even more troublesome was that once the soul power was excessively consumed, Zhou Ziwei dared not replenish it. His luck had been bad lately. Whenever he recited the Six-Syllable Mantra to absorb some soul power, he would involuntarily absorb some unexpected soul power, almost causing him to explode.
So now Zhou Ziwei is scared. It seems that unless he is in an open space where he can clearly see how many souls are around him, he can't just recite the Six-Syllable Mantra casually.
Countless fierce members of the Storm Mercenary Group rushed out from the depths of the cave, but there was only one exit from the cave, and the width of the exit was only about three meters.
Therefore, at any given time, only about five or six people can pass through side by side.
So Zhou Ziwei simply had three new-style cross-shaped darts guard the exits of the three caves. No matter how many people rushed in, each new-style cross-shaped dart would guard one cave entrance. As soon as someone approached, it would immediately sweep across horizontally. No matter how many people came to the cave entrance, they would all be pierced through the temples by the rapidly slashing new-style cross-shaped darts.
Suddenly, a hole appeared in everyone's head, one side of which was transparent.
One scream after another rang out, and in just over ten seconds, more than thirty people had died under the attack of the three new cross-shaped darts.
The already cramped cave entrance was immediately blocked by the corpses of the dead. The Storm Mercenary Group members who followed behind were not only blocked by the corpses in front of them, but were also terrified by the unpredictable killing intent.
These people were different from the 109 ordinary members of the Storm Mercenary Group who had surrounded Zhou Ziwei earlier. These people were the true core members of the Storm Mercenary Group. Each of them had participated in at least ten missions, and each of them had blood on their hands. They had long since forgotten what fear was.
But today… they were truly afraid. They weren't afraid of the enemy's ferocity, but now they hadn't even seen what the enemy looked like. They only vaguely saw a flash of lightning at the cave entrance. They didn't hear any gunshots or weapon sounds, and their comrades fell down one by one inexplicably. This unseen danger was far more terrifying, creating a sense of pressure on their already somewhat numb nerves…
"No—we can't just die like this, in such a muddled way! Contact the commander... tell him to rescue us..."
After their initial vigor was tempered by the shadow of death, someone finally couldn't help but scream wildly, grabbing their captain and yelling at him desperately.
Seeing his men fall one by one for no apparent reason, the captain felt as if his heart had been plunged into an icy abyss. He had almost given up hope of survival. He tossed his walkie-talkie to one of his bloodshot-eyed men, gave a bitter laugh, and said, "It's no use... The leaders must have already escaped. We... have been abandoned."
"What...we've been abandoned."
Several members of the Storm Mercenary Group, who were on the verge of losing their minds, grabbed the walkie-talkie and frantically called out for a long time, but received no response. They all went crazy in an instant.
"What do we do... what do we do? We don't want to die..." A member of the Storm Mercenary Group unconsciously retreated deeper into the cave while shouting incoherently. Then, he suddenly noticed several small figures trembling in a corner, and he was slightly taken aback. Then, he exclaimed with joy, "Quick... catch these brats... maybe... maybe that terrifying killing god outside is after these brats... our hope of survival rests entirely on these brats."
The other members of the Storm Mercenary Group, who were also wandering around aimlessly like headless flies, were overjoyed upon hearing this. They had no idea how they had suddenly attracted such a terrifying attack, or who had come to kill so many of their brothers and even caused the five leaders of their Storm Mercenary Group to escape.
They don't seem to have done anything too heinous recently, nor have they undertaken any other major missions. It's really hard to understand how they could have provoked such a terrifying enemy.
If we have to say they did something heinous... then it was a little over a month ago when, on their way back from a mission, they plundered a relatively wealthy village and killed more than half of the village's hundred-plus residents, while the rest were kidnapped.
Three boys and one girl were deemed to be of good quality by the leader and could be trained as reserve members of the Storm Mercenary Group. The other dozens of prisoners naturally became tools they needed to train these four new members.
These children are still young, and training them to be agile and have superb marksmanship is not something that can be done in a year or two. What they need to be trained first is to have a cold and ruthless heart.
Only by directly subjecting them to the most cruel and brutal stimulation with real human lives can they be brainwashed and turned into ruthless zombies in the face of bloody reality.
After more than half a month of training, the three little boys had almost all become ruthless little devils. Even when facing their fellow villagers, they would not hesitate to raise their knives and viciously stab them in the chest.
For a steamed bun, they would even kill their own parents and brothers with their own hands... and this is precisely the training method that the Storm Mercenary Group has maintained for many years. However, that little girl... although she has undergone this period of training, she still has not seen any progress. Originally, a child who looks like she is soft-hearted and soft-hearted and is completely unable to become a qualified mercenary, her only fate is death.
The problem is that the little girl is just too beautiful and too cute, and... she seems to be a princess of some tribe. As a result, even these vicious guys find it hard to be cruel to her. Moreover, the chieftain seems to be very interested in the little girl, which is why he has been delaying killing her.
Now, suddenly faced with such a terrible blow, these members of the Storm Mercenary Group suddenly remembered... could it be because of that little princess...? They had no idea what kind of hellish tribe the little girl was talking about, and a princess from a tribe that was almost like primitive people was not a remarkable status for outlaws like them.
After all, let alone a tribal princess, even a princess from a small country, if someone is willing to pay enough money, they would still dare to capture her, play with her, and then kill her.
But now it seems that if this attack was indeed launched to rescue the little princess, then it is enough to prove that the little princess's identity must be extraordinary. But that's not the most important thing... The most important thing is... Now that the little princess is still in their hands, does that mean they have a golden ticket to get out of death?
After exchanging glances, the members of the Storm Mercenary Group immediately stepped forward, grabbed all four children, and choked them. They then shouted at the top of their lungs towards the outside of the cave: "The hostages are in our hands... If you don't want to collect the princess's body, stop right now!"