Zhou Ziwei had timed it pretty well, estimating that the new cross-shaped darts would be rendered useless by now. That's why he agreed to a ten-second deadline with the enemy. Since they couldn't delay any longer, they might as well go all out!
After this period of delay, Zhou Ziwei's misty soul power in his sea of souls had accumulated to nearly a thousand points. This gave him a slight sense of confidence. When the agreed ten seconds were up, he faced the team on his left that was rapidly charging towards him, with several snipers already firing at him. He roared, "Down you all—!"
The soul roar, imbued with immense soul power, was unleashed simultaneously with Zhou Ziwei's shout. Perhaps due to some change in the soul power within his body after its liquefaction process, Zhou Ziwei, who normally consumed around three hundred soul power per soul roar, now, even using only mist-like soul power, consumed approximately five hundred. Zhou Ziwei had initially thought that the one thousand soul power he had painstakingly accumulated would be enough to support one soul roar, but now it seemed that at most two roars would be enough to deplete his soul power once more.
Volume 2: The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 322: The Power of Despair
The same skill now consumes almost twice as much energy as before, which left Zhou Ziwei quite dumbfounded.
He originally had to use his meager thousand soul power very carefully to have any chance of surviving this crisis, but he didn't expect that as soon as he made a move, a single soul roar reduced his misty soul power reserves by half, which immediately disrupted Zhou Ziwei's plans.
However, to Zhou Ziwei's utter surprise, although the soul power consumed by his soul roar this time had indeed increased by nearly double, the power of the soul roar seemed to have increased several times over.
The Soul Roar could only potentially shatter the opponent's soul when it condensed into a single target and formed a lower line.
If it's used as an area-of-effect attack, then at most it can only stun people within the attack range.
Furthermore, those with strong physical or mental abilities may be less affected.
However, this time, the squad of several hundred people in that area fell down like wheat being harvested under this wave of soul roars, which was not unexpected.
What surprised Zhou Ziwei greatly was that after this wave of soul roars subsided, countless fragments of souls scattered across the sky...
He died and his soul was scattered.
Others couldn't tell whether the fallen militants were dead or alive, but Zhou Ziwei, though more than a thousand meters away, could see clearly with his extraordinary eyes. He truly saw that, within the fluctuations formed by that invisible soul power, although the hundreds of people had intact limbs and no wounds on their bodies, their souls were all shattered like delicate porcelain pieces under the sweep of that soul power.
Even as the last person fell backward, Zhou Ziwei's stern shout still echoed through the mountains and forests.
"All of you fall down... All of you fall down... All of you fall down..."
With a single shout, hundreds of people fell to the ground. Such power terrified everyone who witnessed the scene.
Meanwhile, the group led by Aki was both surprised and delighted. They were surprised that they had dared to oppose such a terrifying, god-like man, but delighted that their leader, Aki, had indeed been prescient, decisively abandoning his weapons and surrendering with his entire group at the last moment, which seemed to have saved their lives.
As for the commander of the other regiment, when he saw Zhou Ziwei slowly turning to look at them through his binoculars, he was so terrified by the undisguised murderous intent in Zhou Ziwei's eyes that he screamed, dropped his weapon, and immediately prostrated himself on the ground, crying out in horror, "We surrender! We surrender too... Please spare us, sir... We surrender too..."
Although the two sides were still quite far apart, the echo of Zhou Ziwei's imposing shout had only just begun to fade away. Everyone around was so shocked that they couldn't speak. Those who were advancing or retreating involuntarily stood still, not daring to move an inch. The entire open space in front of the mountain hollow fell into a deathly silence, making the commander's shout sound particularly jarring.
"We surrender! We all surrender! Please spare our lives, sir..."
The hundreds of men in that group were slightly taken aback when they saw their leader kneel down without any regard for appearances. Then, one after another, they all knelt down in unison, like devout believers worshipping their most sacred deity, kowtowing incessantly and with almost all their might towards Zhou Ziwei.
In fact, many of these people had served under General Bamo for many years, experiencing countless battles and killings, and thought they had long forgotten what fear was.
But now... faced with Zhou Ziwei's terrifying and mysterious power, these emotions that had been buried deep in their hearts for countless years suddenly resurfaced, and as soon as they emerged, they had an unstoppable momentum that completely devoured their will.
Zhou Ziwei touched his nose in surprise. He had been worried that his remaining soul power might not be enough to support him to unleash another version of the soul roar. He was secretly fretting about how to deal with the remaining group of people. But unexpectedly, this roar seemed to have solved all the problems. This was too easy!
But is it really that simple?
Zhou Ziwei suddenly thought of the missile that fell from the sky last time... Since General Bamo had already deployed a missile last time, why is he only using some personnel this time? Could General Bamo be a fool? After so many failures, if he still hasn't realized his unusual abilities... Is it possible for someone with such low intelligence to become the leader of a local armed force?
As Zhou Ziwei felt a chill run down his spine, his ears, which had long since become ten times sharper than an ordinary person's, suddenly picked up a series of whistling sounds coming from the sky, growing louder as they approached...
Another missile attack?
Slightly annoyed, Zhou Ziwei looked up in the direction of the howling sound and quickly... he saw tiny black dots suddenly appear on the horizon, then grow larger and larger, and the speed at which those black dots moved naturally increased. In just a moment, they gradually revealed their hideous appearance in Zhou Ziwei's vision...
Japan really does have missiles... and... and damn it, a whole bunch of missiles.
Seeing this, Zhou Ziwei really felt like he was about to go crazy.
It seems that General Bamo really thinks highly of him. This time, not only did he send thousands of soldiers to surround and capture him, but he also launched such a terrifying number of missiles at once to bombard him.
At this point, Zhou Ziwei became even more convinced that General Bamo could not possibly have done this for money... because the cost of ammunition alone was probably far more than tens of millions of dollars. No matter how you looked at it, General Bamo seemed to be making a losing deal.
Of course... if General Bamo, like Zhou Ziwei, could use the Heart of Flame to increase his strength in a certain aspect, then obtaining the Heart of Flame would be worth any price.
However... nearly a hundred missiles attacking the same target at the same time... that's really quite a feat... Back when Saddam Hussein was fighting the Americans to the death with just one Scud missile, missiles were still being launched one by one... and Saddam was backed by an oil-rich country, and it's still the same.
But... General Bamo is clearly just the leader of a local armed group that operates in northern Myanmar and is in a state of near independence. How could he dare to do something so crazy?
Nearly a hundred missiles flew closer and closer, their overwhelming force causing even the most oblivious person to involuntarily raise their head, only to be plunged into a state of utter stunned silence and terror...
Have we been abandoned by the general?
A question inevitably arose in everyone's mind.
Keep in mind that this is a salvo of nearly a hundred missiles. Although the area affected by a single missile is only a few hundred meters, the power generated by the simultaneous detonation of nearly a hundred missiles is probably comparable to that of a small nuclear bomb.
Without a doubt, none of the people here will escape unscathed, and many of the more astute individuals have guessed why General Bamo, knowing full well the terrifying nature of the people they are dealing with, would still send nearly half of his own forces to encircle and subdue them.
He was clearly using these thousand or so people as expendable pawns, his only intention being to use them to wear down or tie down Zhou Ziwei's strength. These missiles, on the other hand, were the real killer move to deal with Zhou Ziwei!
Deep in the mountain hollow, Yelü Huage and the others who had been hiding behind bunkers as instructed by Zhou Ziwei also heard the terrifying sound of hundreds of missiles flying in. They couldn't help but stick their heads out, and then they all screamed in horror, their faces turning ashen.
Despair surged from the heart and soul of everyone at this moment. The feeling of facing what seemed like the end of the world made everyone tremble. This dark emotional energy, like the curtain falling on a grand play, enveloped the entire mountain forest, as thick as a black cloud.
At that moment, Zhou Ziwei felt as if the Heart of Flame he was holding in his palm had been thrown into a furnace, rapidly becoming scorching hot. Even under the protection of his soul power, a faint golden flame still rose from within the Heart of Flame, instantly transforming into a powerful and pure energy that surged wildly into Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls along the path of his soul power…
In the empty sea of souls, the misty soul power that had already been depleted to less than five hundred began to surge and rise like a rising tide.
Eight hundred... one thousand... one thousand five... two thousand...
Zhou Ziwei had never experienced such a surge in soul power before. After a slight pause, a surge of joy welled up in his heart.
It turns out that... human emotions are also a type of energy that is more easily absorbed, and it seems to be the energy that is closest to the power of the soul.
A vague sense of understanding arose in Zhou Ziwei's heart, but at this moment he knew that he could not afford to hesitate any longer.
Hundreds of missiles were about to hit, and although he was confident that he could calmly retreat from the area that would be hit by the missiles before they arrived, he could not ignore the safety of his loved ones and friends. Therefore, he had to intercept these missiles and not let a single one fall to the ground, otherwise he would regret it for the rest of his life.
So, enveloped in that thick, almost imperceptible sense of despair, Zhou Ziwei suddenly leaped into the air, his feet landing on a force field imperceptible to the naked eye. His figure shot up like lightning, soaring into the sky and flying towards the dense swarm of missiles.
Although Zhou Ziwei has always tried his best to keep a low profile and not want others to discover too many of his secrets, especially his ability which is far beyond the comprehension of ordinary people.
But at this moment when the lives of countless people hung by a thread, Zhou Ziwei could no longer care about any of that. All he knew now was that he absolutely could not let Liu Xiaofei, Li Yifeng, and the others die in front of him.
As for whether his secret would be exposed, Zhou Ziwei naturally no longer considered that at this point.
After all, there were just too many missiles coming this time. If Zhou Ziwei wanted to stand on the ground and calmly shoot down all the missiles one by one with the Soul Pearl, just like last time, it would be absolutely too late. So... he had to fly into the sky... and start intercepting them from the air, from a greater distance.
So what if it's a missile? If I can shoot one down, I can shoot a hundred, a thousand.
"Whoa—" The moment Zhou Ziwei took flight, the hundreds of people in the mountains who were in deep despair couldn't help but open their mouths wide and scream in alarm.
Oh my god... what did I just see? He... he actually flew! He really flew... is he... is he still human?
Superman? A god? Or...?
Of all the people, perhaps only Chief Aji was the quickest to accept this fact, after all, he had long since decided in his heart that Zhou Ziwei was the legendary sword immortal.
Since he is a sword immortal, it is not surprising that he can fly.
His only question was... weren't sword immortals supposed to fly on swords? How... how could this sword immortal fly without even using a sword?
Stepping into the force field space to fly would undoubtedly consume an extremely terrifying amount of soul power. If Zhou Ziwei hadn't just absorbed a large amount of despair power through the Heart of Flame and quickly converted it into his soul power, then the misty soul power in his body would probably have been exhausted before he even reached high altitude.
At this moment, Zhou Ziwei completely disregarded the soul power he had painstakingly accumulated. The instant he took off, he adjusted his flight speed to the maximum. Under the expectant gazes of countless people below, he had already covered a distance of several thousand meters in the blink of an eye, and suddenly met the dense swarm of missiles that resembled a beehive.
As the two sides drew closer, Zhou Ziwei raised his hands, and more than ten high-quality soul beads, each as small as a grain of rice, were propelled by his soul power and flew at near the speed of light to meet the dozen or so missiles at the forefront.
"Puff, puff, puff..." Almost without any suspense, every missile that looked ferocious and terrifying immediately turned into a cloud of metal powder and disintegrated rapidly in mid-air upon contact with the strange soul bead, then fell down from the sky like rain.
However, while this method is very effective, it also consumes a terrifying amount of Zhou Ziwei's soul power.
Because the decomposition rays released after the Soul Pearl exploded could not only decompose physical matter, but even soul power would be instantly decomposed and wiped out under such incredibly powerful decomposition rays.
In order to achieve the speed required to send the Soul Beads out, Zhou Ziwei wrapped a considerable amount of soul power around each Soul Bead. As a result, after Zhou Ziwei successfully decomposed more than a dozen missiles, due to the consumption from the explosion of the Soul Beads, coupled with the rapid consumption from maintaining flight through the force field, his already slightly accumulated soul power was rapidly depleted by more than half, and he was once again in dire need of it.
It seems that Zhou Ziwei seriously miscalculated the issue of soul power consumption. After all, he only had the experience of disintegrating a missile while standing on the ground once before, but he did not expect that when facing hundreds of missiles, the situation would change far beyond what he had experienced before.
The remaining misty soul power was not even enough to allow Zhou Ziwei to fly safely back to the ground... However... of the hundreds of missiles, only a dozen or so had been broken down, while the remaining seventy or eighty missiles flew completely to Zhou Ziwei's front in that instant.
In addition... Zhou Ziwei had forgotten in his haste that the Soul Pearl he carried was actually insufficient to disintegrate all of the nearly one hundred missiles in front of him.
After all, each of these missiles is at least four or five meters long, and a soul bead condensed from a single soul simply cannot break them down. And where would he possibly find so many high-quality soul beads...?
The situation was extremely critical... Zhou Ziwei's eyes instantly turned bloodshot.
There was no other way; it seemed he had no choice but to try using his liquid soul power. Damn it… otherwise, all his hard work absorbing and refining over these past few days would have been for nothing, given that he possessed over 50,000 units of soul power but couldn't use it. Seeing the dense swarm of missiles approaching at his level, and about to pass him again, heading towards his lover and friends in the mountain hollow, Zhou Ziwei finally unleashed his full power…
Volume 2, The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 323: Stop!
In the blink of an eye, the liquid soul power immediately replaced the misty soul power and took control of Zhou Ziwei's body.
However, this was only the beginning. Driven by Zhou Ziwei's soul consciousness, countless liquid soul forces, as if they were free, began to emerge from every pore of Zhou Ziwei's body at this moment, radiating outwards in a 360-degree arc around him, covering every corner within a 60-meter radius of him.
Soul Coverage – This was Zhou Ziwei's first bold attempt at using liquid soul power to achieve soul coverage. He actually mobilized nearly half the power of that small pool of soul spring within his sea of souls, roughly twenty drops of liquid soul power, to finally complete the soul coverage.
The moment his body was regained control by the liquid soul power, that painful yet pleasurable feeling returned to Zhou Ziwei's body once again, causing him to grit his teeth and reveal a bleak smile.
The missiles were already flying at terrifying speeds. At this moment, if Zhou Ziwei were to be slightly distracted, countless missiles would have whizzed past him and crashed heavily onto the target.
However, the moment the soul coverage was completed, within a circular space with a radius of sixty meters, Zhou Ziwei felt as if he were an omniscient and omnipotent god, easily controlling everything around him.
Zhou Ziwei didn't waste any more of his Soul Pearls to smash the missiles one by one. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but he didn't have that many Soul Pearls to use, and he also didn't have that much time to complete the task one by one.
Suddenly, Zhou Ziwei recalled how he had used his liquid soul power to entangle the Heart of Flame and effortlessly carried it through the air. With a sudden thought, he immediately used the orange rays of liquid soul power that spewed from his body to bind the missiles that had entered the space.
Because this spherical space, spanning sixty meters in radius, was already filled with the liquid soul power released by Zhou Ziwei, Zhou Ziwei only needed to flicker his soul consciousness slightly to complete this step immediately. He managed to ensure that none of the remaining eighty-two missiles escaped, as they were all firmly bound by Zhou Ziwei's liquid soul power.
However, the missiles traveling at almost four times the speed of sound were naturally no match for the Heart of Flame, which weighed no more than two kilograms. When Zhou Ziwei finally managed to bind all eighty-two missiles by using the advantage of his soul coverage, the powerful force immediately pulled Zhou Ziwei's body out of control, causing him to be ejected backwards in the direction of the missiles' flight, shooting towards the depression in the mountain forest...
High in the air, beads of cold sweat kept seeping from Zhou Ziwei's forehead, but before they could condense into drops, they were instantly evaporated by the strong winds that kept rushing past him.
Zhou Ziwei's expression was solemn. He felt the immense pressure from the missiles, yet his soul felt heavy.
If he is powerless to change the situation, then in a second, his body will be propelled by the eighty-two missiles, crashing heavily onto the ground at four times the speed of sound, and then turning into nothingness at the center of the missile explosions.
Zhou Ziwei smiled faintly. As he took a deep breath, a large amount of soul power suddenly erupted once again. At the same time, his hands frantically drew one ripple-like circle after another in the air as if they were cramping. However, Zhou Ziwei's speed was extremely fast. If someone were to look closely at him, they would only see his hands as if they had turned into a blurry light and shadow, and they would not be able to see any real image at all.
At such a high speed, in less than a fraction of a second, Zhou Ziwei had already drawn hundreds of circles of various sizes. These hundreds of circles were grouped into sets of eight, connected together to form a new circle, and then evenly distributed throughout Zhou Ziwei's 60-meter-circle spherical space.
Thus, within this interconnected and interdependent conception of countless circles, Zhou Ziwei's control over the entire sixty-meter radius suddenly increased exponentially.
"Stop!" As the ground drew closer, Zhou Ziwei could even see the horrified eyes of Liu Xiaofei, Li Yifeng, and the Yelü brothers staring intently at him from the mountain hollow. Waves of despair surged forth like a torrent, flowing wildly through the Heart of Flame and transforming into strands of soul power that entered Zhou Ziwei's body.
Zhou Ziwei suddenly roared in his heart, and in an instant, he once again unleashed a large amount of liquid soul power from the pores of his body, supporting his control over this sixty-meter radius space to rise to the highest level he could currently achieve.