Several screams rang out at the same time. Before the eighteen fully armed soldiers guarding the place could react, they were hit by at least five or six hidden weapons at the same time.
Those three short men were not only agile, but their skill in throwing hidden weapons was also astonishing. It turned out to be a ninja technique from the island nation. Although their skills were not as terrifying as Blood Shadow's, they should have reached the level of Jonin.
They brought the hidden weapon techniques of ninjutsu to their extreme. Although only three people made a move, they were able to completely seal off every space in the entire hall of more than 30 square meters at the same time, leaving no gaps. This is something that even the fastest gunman cannot do. Even three sharpshooters with submachine guns could not possibly fire bullets to every corner of a room in an instant.
After the eighteen soldiers stationed inside were shot down, the three ninjas immediately threw another black bullet, and a billowing black mist instantly filled the entire room.
Then the three ninjas immediately turned and retreated towards the large hole in the center of the house.
"Since you're here, don't leave."
A cold shout, almost devoid of any emotion, suddenly rang out from a patch of black mist. Then, the black mist rippled violently, and a dark shadow appeared out of nowhere, chasing straight after the three ninjas.
Without turning around, the three ninjas flicked their wrists, sending dozens of points of cold light flying like hailstones towards the pursuing black figure.
"Hmph..." The dark figure snorted coldly, and without even dodging, it pressed forward straight up without changing its posture. Countless beams of light shot down on the dark figure, but they were all deflected immediately, and none of them could hurt it in the slightest.
The three ninjas were terrified and their faces changed. They hurriedly shrank their bodies, like little balls of flesh, and rolled down the large hole in the floor of the room.
Although the three of them were fast and slippery, the figure rushing out from the black mist was even faster and more ruthless. Before the three ninjas could escape, the figure grabbed two of them with lightning speed, one in each hand.
His large hand contained immense power; with just one grab, the two ninja masters from the island nation instantly felt weak all over and could no longer move.
Just as the shadowy figure grabbed one person with each hand, another person suddenly leaped out from the underground cave, let out a low shout, and delivered a powerful punch, as fierce as a mountain, straight towards the shadowy figure's chest.
The dark figure sensed the menacing force of the person emerging from the ground, whose punches were even more vicious and menacing. It immediately shouted, "Well done!" and casually used the two Japanese soldiers it had captured to block in front of it. However, the person who threw the punch did not care about its companions at all and continued to rush forward with its punching momentum unchanged.
With a loud "thud," the punch struck the two ninjas, causing them to scream in pain. The man's punch only slowed down slightly before continuing its relentless assault on the dark figure.
"You're ruthless!" The shadowy figure had originally intended to use the two ninjas he had just captured as a protective shield, but he hadn't expected the other party to be so cold-blooded, completely disregarding the lives of his companions. Therefore, there was no point in him continuing to carry these two ninjas.
"Go—" The dark figure threw down the two prisoners he had captured, then exhaled and clenched his fist, striking hard at the opponent's sneak attack.
The shadowy figure was extremely arrogant. Although he had been caught off guard by this punch, he was confident that he wouldn't be at a disadvantage in terms of strength. In a pure contest of power, he had never lost to anyone in his entire life...
"Boom—" The two fists collided in mid-air. The dark figure stood still without moving, while the person who attacked him was sent flying by the force of the punch, letting out a low groan.
The shadowy figure was secretly pleased with himself and was about to press his advantage and capture the person he had knocked away when he suddenly felt a slight tingling sensation on his right fist. Then... this tingling sensation began to spread rapidly throughout his entire body at an alarming speed.
"Oh no, we've been poisoned."
The shadowy figure felt as if his hands and feet had been petrified, unable to move an inch, and the strength in his body was being drained away like a tidal wave.
The shadowy figure was horrified, finally realizing that the man's fist must have been carrying something like a poisoned needle. When the fists collided, the blood and qi surged, allowing the poisoned needle to easily pierce his skin and flow into his body through the bloodstream.
"What a scheme, what a cunning method... how vicious..." The dark figure swayed slightly, then fell backward and crashed to the ground in frustration.
Just as the two were exchanging blows, six figures leaped out of the ground like lightning, following Venomous Fang. They rushed towards a room on the left side of the hall, grabbing Yang's parents and Yu Xiaoru one by one and dragging them into the large hole in the center of the hall without explanation. The two ninjas injured by the shadowy figures were ignored. Venomous Fang then fired two shots at them with a silenced pistol, blowing their heads off completely, thus relieving their suffering and preventing them from betraying the organization's secrets...
Zhou Ziwei sped along at breakneck speed, and in just over ten minutes, he flew across the distant high seas to Zhongdu. Looking up at the iconic tower-shaped building symbolizing Zhongdu on the beach not far away, Zhou Ziwei confirmed that he had not gone to the wrong place; this should indeed be Zhongdu City.
With a whoosh, Zhou Ziwei, accompanied by a tornado, rushed down on Allen and several canvas bags full of banknotes, instantly throwing them onto the beach.
As Zhou Ziwei continued ascending into the air, he said to Allen, "This is all I can do to help you. You're one of my favorite stars, and I hope... you'll have the chance to truly play a leading role someday. This sum of money may not be exactly 250 million, but it should be enough for you to invest in and produce a movie. However... it might not be easy for you to take that much money safely, and I have urgent business to attend to, so I can't help you anymore... I think... you should call your country's embassy in China as soon as possible! I think they should be able to help you!"
After saying these words, Zhou Ziwei did not linger. He immediately rode the wind and flew into the air, then hurriedly flew towards the address of the military compound that the old commander had mentioned earlier.
This military district compound is located within the city. It's relatively easy to find during the day, but at night, even with Zhou Ziwei's abnormal eyesight, it's difficult to distinguish which side is the residential area and which side is the territory managed by the military district...
Just as Zhou Ziwei was hesitating whether to call the old man again to confirm the exact location of the military district compound, he suddenly heard a deafening explosion coming from a cluster of low-rise houses not far ahead...
Upon hearing the explosion, Zhou Ziwei felt his heart sink. He had almost let the tornado go out of control, and if the tornado had gone out of control, he would have inevitably become a free fall.
Damn it... they even used explosives.
Zhou Ziwei, his face pale, stared in the direction from which the explosion had come. He rapidly propelled the tornado toward that spot, muttering under his breath, "Damn it, if any of those three are hurt... I, Zhou Ziwei, swear that the person who did this will live in a dark and hopeless hell for all eternity!"
After Zhou Ziwei finished his long oath, he arrived at the place where the explosion had occurred in a flash. He lowered his flight altitude, looked down, and immediately realized that he was right. This place... was indeed a military compound.
The explosion came from a residential area behind the military compound. A gust of wind blew by, and Zhou Ziwei could still smell a pungent gas odor in the smoke rising from the explosion.
Could the gas pipeline explode? That... could be a real problem...
Seeing this, Zhou Ziwei frowned slightly and released his soul power to try and sense if there were any traces of Yu Xiaoru and the other two. However, he soon discovered that dozens of people were fighting fiercely in front of the courtyard. One side consisted of soldiers in military uniforms and some experts in civilian clothes, while the other side was all dressed in old-fashioned black suits. But when they heard the explosion, they all stopped fighting at the same time. Immediately, the military experts among them exclaimed and rushed towards the explosion site.
"No... Xiaoru and the others were targeted because someone wanted to use them to threaten me, so... they definitely won't be in any real danger."
This thought kept swirling in Zhou Ziwei's mind, constantly reminding him that his parents would be alright, and that he needed to stay calm and be careful...
As Zhou Ziwei swept his soul power across the devastation at the site of the explosion, he was horrified to discover a pile of corpses—as many as twenty people. Among them were two dressed as ninjas from Japan. At the point of the explosion, there was a deep crater containing a gas pipe that was still burning after the explosion.
However, Zhou Ziwei still managed to glean some clues from the slightest hints.
Earth Release? I think I'm better at that! Great... You wanted to escape my sight this way? Now you probably won't have the chance!
Volume 3, King of the City, Chapter 485: Earthquake
The explosion caused the area around the house to be filled with smoke, and the gas pipeline there had ruptured, creating a terrifying fire. Explosions could be heard intermittently, and no one dared to approach, let alone jump into the gas pipeline maintenance tunnel to investigate.
However, Zhou Ziwei's soul power scanning range had already reached 240 meters. He quickly discovered the abnormal situation in the maintenance passage by simply scanning it with his soul power in mid-air, and found the traces of the underground passage that had been dug by human hands.
After the explosion, the section of the underground passage near the gas pipeline maintenance passage collapsed within tens of meters. Therefore, even if someone discovers the existence of this underground passage, they will not be able to enter and track it, and they will have no way of knowing which direction it ultimately leads to.
Zhou Ziwei simply used his soul power to scan along the traces of the collapsed underground passage, and soon... he found a group of more than a dozen people crawling rapidly forward underground, less than two hundred meters from the explosion site.
In the middle of this group, three people who had fallen into a coma were tied up with ropes, and a straw mat was placed under them. They were then dragged along the underground passage by the people in front.
When Zhou Ziwei scanned the area with his soul power and immediately confirmed that the three people were his parents and Yu Xiaoru from his previous life, his eyes widened in fury. He let out a low roar, and with a swift turn, he resembled an osprey about to dive into the water to hunt for prey, plunging headfirst straight into the ground.
"Ah... God, what... what is that?!" Several new recruits who were carrying buckets of water to put out the fire suddenly saw something that looked like a human figure fall from the sky and crash headfirst into the ground. They were so frightened that they dropped their buckets and didn't even notice the water spilling all over the ground.
As the man's head was about to slam into the ground, the recruits gasped in horror. Two of the more timid ones even covered their eyes in fear. But the braver recruits who hadn't closed their eyes saw something extraordinary... Just as the humanoid figure fell, a pair of hands, in a strange gesture, plunged into the ground before the head. Then... in their perception, the ground there no longer seemed like hard soil, but rather like a clear lake. Then, they saw a round, spherical object following the mysterious figure that had fallen from the sky "whoosh" into the ground and disappear completely. Where the figure had vanished, the land remained exactly as it had always been, looking no different.
"Gods? Monsters... or ghosts?!"
A daring recruit cried out and rushed to the spot where the figure had just disappeared. He reached out and tentatively touched the ground, but found that the ground there was not like water. It was still hard, only... slightly softer than the surrounding soil.
The recruit rubbed his eyes in confusion, then turned to look at his comrades with a puzzled expression, asking uncertainly, "Did you...did you see someone fall from the sky and then...and then disappear into the ground?"
"Ah... I saw it... So you saw it too... I... I thought I was the only one seeing things..."
Upon hearing this, the new recruits immediately began to chatter amongst themselves, and soon a myth about a pig falling from the sky gradually took shape through their conversation... As for the spherical object accompanying the protagonist, it was called the Buddha's chamber pot. It was said that the Buddha's chamber pot was a rare spatial artifact, a small pot that could hold the water of the Three Rivers and Five Lakes. However, what it contained now was the Buddha's urine... a urine that could bring the dead back to life and heal the wounded.
Zhou Ziwei sank down the mud like a fish, and soon arrived above the underground passage. He swept his soul power over the passage and saw his parents and Yu Xiaoru being dragged through the passage below him. A murderous glint flashed in Zhou Ziwei's eyes, and he suddenly broke through the mud wall of the passage and grabbed Yang's father, who was being dragged at the front.
"Whoosh—" Just as Zhou Ziwei stretched out his arm, he felt a flash of cold light. A gleaming short knife flew out from behind the passage and slashed down at Zhou Ziwei's arm...
"Hmph!" Zhou Ziwei snorted coldly, not even glancing at the weapon that was attacking him, nor bothering to dodge. He let the short knife slash at his arm, while he grabbed Yang's father by the back of his collar and pulled him up with a sudden force... With a "whoosh," he had pulled Yang's father out of the passage and into the thick layer of soil.
As for the short knife, it did strike Zhou Ziwei's arm squarely, but thanks to the alloy armor, it couldn't even harm a hair on Zhou Ziwei's head. It only sparked a burst of dazzling sparks before being bounced far away to the side.
Zhou Ziwei's burrowing skills were already quite impressive. Normally, it wouldn't be difficult for him to take one or two people underground. Now, Zhou Ziwei has combined his use of attribute-free energy with a little wind energy technique to create a space that is neither too big nor too small underground. It would be no problem for him to take five or six people with him at once.
"Whoosh—" After grabbing Yang's father, Zhou Ziwei reached out again to grab Yang's mother. At that moment, a burst of gunfire erupted. Several people pulled the trigger simultaneously, some shooting at Zhou Ziwei's arm, others at the dirt protruding from it. But the result was the same: the bullets were too weak, only managing to create a few sparks on Zhou Ziwei's alloy suit, posing no threat whatsoever.
Overjoyed at successfully rescuing the two people, Zhou Ziwei waved his hand again and made his third move, grabbing at Yu Xiaoru, who was still being dragged forward rapidly in the underground passage.
This time... whether they were stunned by Zhou Ziwei's two previous actions or knew that no matter how much they struggled and resisted, it would be useless, they didn't put up any resistance or attack against Zhou Ziwei. They just let Zhou Ziwei grab Yu Xiaoru's body and drag her into the mud...
"What a vicious fellow!"
Zhou Ziwei knew perfectly well why these guys were being so generous. He had already used his soul power to scan Yu Xiaoru and saw that a black water sac had been tied to her body. The sac was filled with an explosive and corrosive liquid. Zhou Ziwei had no doubt that if he were to tear the sac, even a single drop of the liquid would quickly turn him and Yu Xiaoru into a puddle of pus, or cause a massive explosion. Zhou Ziwei was a chemical and weapons expert, and from the properties of the black liquid, he guessed that it was a highly toxic poison and a very strong explosive. While it was temporarily safe in the sealed sac, it would likely explode immediately upon contact with air.
Inside the water sac, there was a pinhole-type trigger switch. This thing seemed to be remotely controlled. Even if Zhou Ziwei was careful not to puncture the poison sac on Yu Xiaoru's body, as long as someone pressed the remote control lightly, the poison sac on Yu Xiaoru's body would still rupture immediately. And if the black liquid came into contact with even a trace of air after the poison sac ruptured... it would be extremely poisonous.
However, Zhou Ziwei knew perfectly well that Yu Xiaoru was carrying something even more terrifying than a time bomb, but he didn't hesitate at all. He grabbed Yu Xiaoru's collar and lifted her up as well.
Just as Xiaoru's body was lifted into the air, about to be pulled into the mud by Zhou Ziwei's retracted arm, Duya raised his head and viciously pressed the red switch of a small, lighter-like remote control in his hand...
With a "pop," the water sac on Yu Xiaoru's body burst open, spilling out a large portion of the black liquid. However, Venomous Fang's timing was perfect; the water sac must have ruptured after most of Yu Xiaoru's body had been dragged into the space above the underground passage. Therefore, most of the black venom should have splattered out in that space, inevitably covering the bodies of the people above.
An explosion... If there is even a tiny bit of air in that space, it will immediately cause a powerful explosion. Even if there is no air at all, as long as this black liquid splashes onto a person's body, it will instantly corrode that person into a skeleton.
Yellow Spring Water... This newly developed poison combined with liquid explosives is a terrifying thing. Poison Fang has personally witnessed the power of this thing, and has seen the horrific scene of a living person being corroded by this thing until his whole body was rotten and there was not an ounce of flesh left. He has also seen just a dozen grams of Yellow Spring Water explode and blow a living person to pieces, leaving him with broken arms and legs.
It should have been successful by now!
Although he didn't see the Yellow Spring water gushing out of the water sac, Venomous Fang heard a slight popping sound. That must have been the sound of the water sac bursting. But... there was no loud explosion afterwards, probably because there was no air in the space above! That's really strange. How can these people survive without air? Did the guy who rescued them carry an oxygen tank?
But it doesn't matter. Even if there's no air above and the Yellow Spring Water doesn't explode, its toxicity is far more terrifying than its explosive power. And in that situation, the exploding Yellow Spring Water couldn't possibly have escaped splashing onto that person, so...
Just as Venomous Fang was considering whether he and his men should retreat first or dig upwards to see if the people above had all turned into a pile of bones, he suddenly saw a dark object appear in the air... The dark object looked like a sticky clump, like a spherical reptile, and it crawled out from the ceiling of the underground passage. Then... it quickly split apart, and in the blink of an eye, a large black sphere transformed into more than a dozen small spheres, each smaller than a ping-pong ball, and then flew towards the heads of the dozen or so people lying in the underground passage.
Under the overhead light, Venomous Fang clearly saw that the black sphere, which seemed to have its own life and was slowly flying through the air, was actually a viscous black liquid. After considering a possibility, he suddenly felt a bone-chilling cold from head to toe.
"Yellow Spring Water... This is Yellow Spring Water!" Venomous Fang cried out in horror, then desperately retreated. However, he was now in the middle of a dozen people, with people in front of him and behind him. The passage was very narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass at a time. In his haste to escape, how could Venomous Fang possibly get away? Moreover, the black liquid, which looked like it was flying slowly, was actually not slow at all. In the blink of an eye, it had reached the top of his head and landed on Venomous Fang's forehead with a "splat," just like a spit from the air.
"Ah—" Venomous Fang immediately let out a shrill scream, then felt the skin on his head and face rapidly dissolving under the corrosive black liquid. In the blink of an eye, all the organic matter was vaporized and liquefied, turning into a yellow liquid with a strong stench...
This pain continued until his brain was completely disintegrated, at which point it gradually stopped. Or rather, it wasn't that the pain stopped, but rather that his life had ended.
Because the poisonous fang was dripped onto his forehead by the Yellow Spring Water, he was freed relatively quickly, at least much luckier than his companions whose hands and feet were stained with the Yellow Spring Water. When a person watches helplessly as their limbs are gradually broken down and dissolved, the psychological terror is more likely to cause a complete breakdown.
That was an absolutely indiscriminate and terrifying torture that affected both the body and the mind.
Zhou Ziwei sneered. If he didn't have the soul power that could see through everything, he might have fallen into the insidious schemes of these guys. However, when he used his soul power to scan Yu Xiaoru's back and saw the strange water bag, even if he couldn't recognize what it was, he knew with his toes that it was definitely not a good thing.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei had already mastered the use of water energy. So, as he reached out and grabbed Yu Xiaoru's body, he released a wisp of water energy, completely controlling the black liquid in the water sac.
Under Zhou Ziwei's control of water energy, this mass of black liquid was like a well-behaved little pet, allowing Zhou Ziwei to manipulate it without any problems whatsoever.
Although the Yellow Spring Water would explode as soon as it touched the air, Zhou Ziwei also had a strong control over wind energy. Therefore, before the water sac was controlled by the venomous fang and exploded, he first controlled the surrounding air to turn into a wisp of wind and temporarily avoid Yu Xiaoru's side. In this way, even if all the black liquid flowed out of the water sac, there was no need to worry about it exploding.
After Zhou Ziwei detected the toxicity of the black liquid, he was secretly furious. He knew that if he hadn't mastered the secrets of water and wind energy, even if he had rescued his parents and the other two, he might have perished here when the water sac burst.
Zhou Ziwei felt a lingering fear and felt an intense hatred for the people who had kidnapped his parents and Yu Xiaoru. Since he couldn't keep the black liquid with him anyway, he sent it down the underground passage under his control. He then applied a small amount to each person, and to inflict more pain on them, he didn't even activate the black liquid's explosive properties, allowing these dozen or so people to slowly and painfully die from its strong corrosive properties...
However, just as Zhou Ziwei was about to send the black liquid down, Xiao Xin, who had been following him around like a little shadow, curiously took a small clump of the liquid, saying that he wanted to store it inside his body and use it as a weapon... This... is a powerful liquid bomb...
After Zhou Ziwei dealt with the enemies in the underground passage, he immediately moved, preparing to climb out of the ground with the three people he was protecting. However, at that moment, a strong tremor suddenly came from deep underground, and then... Zhou Ziwei felt as if the entire earth had turned into a crazy roller coaster, shaking violently. With this violent shaking, Zhou Ziwei felt the ground around him making a series of "crackling" sounds, and then a powerful pressure began to squeeze into him and the three people he was protecting from all directions...
An earthquake? Damn it... How could an earthquake happen at this time...?
Zhou Ziwei's expression changed drastically in horror. If he were alone underground, he could use his alloy suit to resist the pressure from the earth on all sides and crawl out to the surface. However, he was with three people: two of them were his parents from his previous life, and the third was a woman who loved him deeply. None of them were people Zhou Ziwei could easily abandon. Now, the earth was shaking violently, and the pressure became stronger the closer they got to the surface. Zhou Ziwei had no chance of bringing these three people out alive... Just as Zhou Ziwei hesitated for a moment, he felt the ground below loosen, and then, under the increasingly powerful pressure from above, he was forced to squeeze deeper into the earth...
Volume 3, King of the City, Chapter 486: Fighting to the Death—Seeking Survival
With a muffled boom, Zhou Ziwei gritted his teeth and used attribute-less energy to form a huge spherical protective layer, shielding Yang's parents and Yu Xiaoru in the middle. This was a method of using attribute-less energy that he had suddenly realized in the critical moment. It was to release the attribute-less energy without changing its nature. This energy could actually form a powerful energy protective layer. Under the control of Zhou Ziwei's soul consciousness, it could be formed into various shapes at will and could resist impacts from all kinds of physical or energy sources.
Pure, attribute-free energy, which is energy of any attribute, can resist energy of different attributes and can also manifest energy properties of different attributes.