Embers Ad Infinitum

At this moment, she was suddenly out of her mind and stoned. She didn’t have the time to think about what had happened and hurriedly released her channeled abilities.

Human Rubberbanding!

The ability she used was officially called ‘Motion Judgment Error,’ but she preferred the term ‘Human Rubberbanding.’ It was a term that was both vivid and filled with imagery. This was because once the target group was affected by this ability, all their movements would be roughly controlled by the Awakened and deviate from their expected trajectories.

This included firing. Therefore, despite the two parties being very close, one party would fail to harm the other even after emptying their magazine.

With a bang, Jiang Baimian’s military exoskeleton fired a grenade.

Under the relatively hasty interference of Human Rubberbanding, it deviated from the target slightly.

Upon seeing this, the woman chose not to be careless. Without thinking about why this was different from the trajectory she had expected, she pounced to the other side.

She was afraid that the grenade would land too close and that the ensuing explosion would engulf her and destroy the bionic artificial intelligence armor on her.

After all, a grenade was different from a bullet. Unless one was extremely unlucky and jumped into a bullet’s line of firing, it could be ignored. But even if a grenade didn’t hit the target directly, it could still deal significant damage as long as it wasn’t too far from the target.

Just as the lady pounced into the air, her pupils suddenly dilated, and her gaze froze.

She saw the grenade—it was heading for the area where she was about to land!

How is that possible? Amidst the lady’s surprise, she couldn’t think too much about it. She hurriedly curled up and reduced her surface contact.

Boom!

The grenade exploded, and the surging flames engulfed the quasi-Chameleon armored figure.

Jiang Baimian wasn’t surprised at all. With the military exoskeleton’s help, she leaped up and closed the distance by dozens of meters.

The reason the other party ‘walked into a trap’ and took the initiative to pounce into the grenade was that she had been affected by Jiang Baimian’s Spatial Hallucination ability.

The grenade did deviate from the target, but the enemy saw an illusion-a ‘projection’ in the opposite direction. This was an application of spatial symmetry. Therefore, she made a wrong judgment.

As an Awakened at the Sea of Origins level, Jiang Baimian could clearly influence a Mind Corridor-level enemy because she had used Chaotic Right Hand before casting Spatial Hallucination.

The Chaotic effect produced by this item wasn’t too effective on Awakened at the Mind Corridor level either. Be it the duration or the extent of the effects, they were clearly inferior. But although Mind Corridor-level Awakened wouldn’t truly enter a state of unconsciousness and go completely crazy because of this, they would still be left a little confused about what was reality or illusion. It was easy to hallucinate, treating the hallucinations as real and carrying out some haphazard actions in response.

Enemies in such a state would naturally be affected more when facing Spatial Hallucination.

In some of the games Shang Jianyao had played, Chaotic Right Hand greatly weakened the enemy’s resistance to illusions. Therefore, Jiang Baimian’s relatively low-level Spatial Hallucination directly triggered a critical strike.

As an item, Chaotic Right Hand’s ability could be used together with Jiang Baimian’s abilities.

In addition, the target’s reaction when facing the grenade caused Jiang Baimian to make another judgment. She had yet to explore the Mind Corridor’s depths, so she could only carry out Electromagnetic Interference and not Matter Interference. Otherwise, in such a situation, it was clearly better to ball up and hope that the bionic artificial intelligence armor’s protection could help her avoid most of the damage if she nudged the grenade a distance before landing.

After the explosion subsided a little, Jiang Baimian used the military exoskeleton’s comprehensive warning system to determine the enemy’s current situation.

A large number of scales on her Chameleon-type artificial intelligence armor peeled off, revealing cracks. Some blood seeped out.

From her perception of human consciousness and bioelectric signals, Jiang Baimian believed that the other party wasn’t fatally injured and was only a little weaker.

Without giving the enemy a chance to catch her breath or another chance to get her ‘drunk,’ Jiang Baimian raised one arm that was covered by the military exoskeleton.

Electricity crackled, but it didn’t come from the electric eel-like biomechanical limb. Instead, it came from the electromagnetic weapon attached to the military exoskeleton.

An instant later, a round wrapped in a large amount of silver-white light flew out and headed straight for the target.

The surroundings lit up a little.

The woman had just recovered from the dizziness brought about by the explosion when she found herself in peril.

She didn’t have the time to use Human Rubberbanding because the electromagnetic round had just left the launcher. No matter how affected Jiang Baimian was, it wouldn’t affect the outcome of the shot.

The woman couldn’t react in that split second at all. She could only watch helplessly as the electromagnetic bullet struck her chest.

Silver-white light erupted as the bullet penetrated the quasi-Chameleon and penetrated the target’s body.

For some reason-or perhaps it was a hidden effect of some item-Jiang Baimian’s attack didn’t hit a vital spot. The electromagnetic bullet passed through the enemy’s left chest, tearing out with smeared blood.

The intense pain made the woman curl up her body and indiscriminately use Drunkard Transformation.

Almost at the same time, Jiang Baimian exerted Chaos and Spatial Hallucination again.

The woman jumped up and realized that she had ‘lost’ her weapon. She then looked down at her injuries and felt her life rapidly draining away.

Having lost her weapon, she decisively gave up when she saw that she couldn’t eliminate the enemy in a short period of time. She clasped her wound and ran into the distance.

She planned on receiving treatment and stabilizing her injuries before making a comeback.

Upon seeing this, Jiang Baimian hesitated for a moment and stopped Spatial Hallucination and Chaos created by the item to allow the enemy to escape.

She originally wanted to throw the other party into a never-ending loop.

Ceningmis, in the main city area, beside a small square.

Shang Jianyao looked at the hazy tower in the distance and asked Genava, “Can you see it?”

“Yes,” Genava replied without hesitation.

“Do you find it familiar?” Shang Jianyao asked.

“No.” Genava had already completed the analysis and comparison.

Shang Jianyao sighed with emotion. “It seems like the New World has such a tall tower. I’ve seen it at Yama Tiger’s place and on the cruise ship.”

“I heard you mention that this seems to be a landmark of the New World.” Genava ‘came to a realization.’ “That’s the root of the problem, so much so that the New World’s landmark building overlaps to a certain extent with Ceningmis, allowing us to see it several kilometers away?”

“That’s right.” Shang Jianyao—who had one hand paralyzed-couldn’t punch his right fist into his left palm. He then wistfully and calmly looked in the direction of the hazy tower and rationally said, “Let’s go.”

Genava didn’t object.

The two of them sped up and ran back, but they didn’t follow their original route. Instead, they circled around a little to avoid encountering the Eighth Research Institute.

When they were about to leave the dark area enveloped by the fog, Shang Jianyao stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Genava asked as he braked, not adding the word ‘now.’

Shang Jianyao smiled. “The strengthening of the vortex seems to have stopped; it didn’t spread out any further. Yes, it’s even calming down bit by bit.”

Genava analyzed the situation for a few seconds and said, “The Eighth Research Institute’s quarantine measures are showing its effects?”

Although he and Shang Jianyao had yet to discover what quarantine measures the Eighth Research Institute had taken, they could only guess in this direction in the current situation.

“What if it’s a restriction of some existence in the New World?” Shang Jianyao retorted.

Genava couldn’t rule out this possibility and could only sigh with emotion. “Fortunately, it didn’t spread. Otherwise, we could only consider the nuke.”

The Old Task Force’s bottom line was that they couldn’t let the Heartless disease erupt in the Ashlands again.

Shang Jianyao didn’t answer Genava and praised him in an incongruous manner, “The night is long; the Arbiter of Fate blesses thee!”

Genava took nearly two seconds to understand why the fellow said that.

This exploration indicated that there was indeed a large amount of the Heartless virus in Ceningmis. The closer one was to the vortex, the easier it was to be infected. Yet, Shang Jianyao remained alive and kicking even now.

Apart from the Arbiter of Fate’s protection, there was no other reason.

Uh, it might also be Subhuti’s protection, Master Zhuang’s protection, and Eidolon Nun’s protection…

“Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to retain the Awakened.” Long Yuehong shook his slightly heavy head and sighed at Jiang Baimian-who was approaching him-as he walked toward Bai Chen.

“How do I retain her?” Jiang Baimian laughed. “As long as she’s not dead or unconscious, we will be affected by her abilities. It’s much more difficult to knock her out accurately than kill her.”

The sparse forest-an open environmentwasn’t suitable for her to release anesthetic gas. Furthermore, the enemy kept a sufficient distance from her until she was affected by the song. Only then did she enter a 100-meter radius.

Bai Chen then said, “It’s better for her to be dead than to let her escape.”

“Yes, yes, yes. I think so too.” Long Yuehong indicated that he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have any delusions of capturing a Mind Corridor-level Awakened alive and obtaining valuable information from her.

It was a little coincidental that the Old Task Force had previously captured the Eighth Research Institute’s commissioner, Khal, by striking him unconscious. If not for Kanna, if not for the premeditated plan, and if not for the various factors, how could the Old Task Force have the opportunity to anesthetize the other party?

Jiang Baimian smiled. “It wasn’t impossible to kill her if I really tried our best back then, but I gave up.”

She looked at the traces of blood on the ground and calmly said, “If she dies, how are we to follow the clues after Hey and Old Ge return?”