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Chapter 144 - 143: Supreme Rule Abilities

The invisible oppressive feeling instantly made Lu Lixin feel suffocated.

This way of casually avoiding strong robbery, she was witnessing it for the first time.

For a moment, Lu Lixin even thought the other party was going to attack, yet he just swiftly passed by her, always maintaining a distance of three to four meters.

"Could it be... you also want to join this ultimate showdown between abilities?" she asked with a feigned joy, while also preparing to surround herself with nerve toxin.

Chen Xuan didn’t pay any attention to her.

Strong robbery involves physical contact attacks, quite useful for ambushing some inexperienced ability users, but once experienced a few times, this method becomes difficult to succeed.

As for the ability to alter gases... it’s not a lie, because this can be confirmed with a scanning gun. Whether it’s changing gases by sight or only by touching them, Chen Xuan wasn’t sure. So he never intended to approach the opponent, and the reason for stepping onto the stage and moving to a position behind Lu Lixin was because from this angle, he could see the entire shooting hall.

Now, whether it be the security guards at the door or those assisting her in controlling the audience, they all entered his vision together with Lu Lixin.

He counted, a total of nine people.

Now they were all within his sight.

Chen Xuan activated the Divine Eye Technique again, making all the surrounding movements completely stagnate, then selected the nine people as fusion targets simultaneously—effectively avoiding startling her, preventing her accomplices from also having the means to detonate balloons.

Before taking the stage, he had already adjusted his abilities to Celestial Mist Skill, Divine Eye Technique, Decomposition and Re-Fusion, and Seed of Flesh and Blood.

With Level 9 Seed of Flesh and Blood, he didn’t need to pay any price to activate Decomposition and Re-Fusion!

The moment he locked them, the necessary consumption also emerged in his mind.

About two and a half of himself.

Time seemed to stand still, Chen Xuan watched himself slowly stretch out his hand, spread his five fingers in front, and then clenched tightly into a fist!

The level of Seed of Flesh and Blood instantly dropped to Level 6.

Fusion also happened at that moment—

It didn’t require contact or hit; once the price was paid, the effect would immediately be realized. This was the strong rule ability Chen Xuan spoke of, once it could run, it was as inviolable as natural law.

"Ahhhh!"

The first to scream were not Lu Lixin, but the contestants and audience on stage. The stage managers who were staring at them suddenly melted in an instant, only to see this person quickly collapse toward the ground, internal organs surging out, merging with the floor. What was spine-chilling was that no blood flowed out from this person, and the exposed organs continued to beat slowly.

This nightmare-like scene instantly turned everyone’s faces ashen.

That internet celebrity contestant even fell sitting on the ground.

What on earth... happened?

Why... did my vision... get lower?

Lu Lixin stared blankly at the crowd screaming, pushing, rolling down from the stage, scrambling and crawling into the audience area, as if there were something extremely horrifying there.

Damn it... These fools dared to ignore my orders... and flee the stage area on their own. How can the program continue like this?

They need a profound lesson.

Let half of the corrosive balloons overhead burst...

Wait... where is my hand? Why can’t I find... the remote?

Lu Lixin felt her consciousness growing more and more blurred, as if her brain was soaking into an oil barrel, slowly separating from her body.

No, it’s that weird person...

I’ve been hit by his ability!

Quick... snap out of it!

But her increasingly dissipating thoughts did not reinvigorate with the shout in her heart, she vaguely felt: the sluggishness of consciousness was not the effect of the ability, but her own rapid regression... as if returning from humanity to some primitive, low-energy creature...

This was also the last thought left in her mind.

Chen Xuan saw Lu Lixin merging with a broken mannequin next to her feet, her intestines and heart-lung hanging on the mannequin’s arm, almost without protection, breaking at the slightest touch. And her head happened to stay at the part of the mannequin missing a head, but not entirely, only leaving the tongue and half a brain, the rest all drilled into the mannequin.

Even he found it somewhat horrifying.

As for those security guards at the door, they directly fused with the door into one.

Facing this overly shocking scene, fear crushed the last shred of reason among the audience, they no longer cared whether these balloons overhead would explode, nor how many people the toxic gas inside could kill, they just wanted to escape this hall as quickly and as far as possible!

Chen Xuan walked directly towards the backstage without looking back.

Entering the corridor covered by the curtain, after confirming that there were no cameras around, he took out the barcode scanner to activate his return ability. Instantly teleporting back to the store, he then used the recall function for guests to also bring Lin Qing over.

"That move you used just now... is it the same ability you fused with the grasshopper before?" The latter seemed similarly shocked, after all, fusing with a living person is indeed much more impactful than a grasshopper.

Chen Xuan nodded.

"I thought you were going to use the Thousand Thoughts Sword against them." Lin Qing gave him a concerned look, "What did you give up as the price? An appendix?"

"It’s a long story, but I didn’t pay any price."

"You’re not lying to me, are you?" She reached out to check him, "Let me give you an examination."

With no other choice, Chen Xuan had to tell her about acquiring the new ability, though he concealed the internal conflict of the ability, merely presenting it as an extra reward from the upgrade of Decomposition and Re-Fusion.

Two items in an Excel sheet fighting with each other is indeed hard to explain.

"I see, you should’ve said so earlier." Lin Qing finally relaxed, "By the way, there’s good news. While waiting in the corner, I dismantled a safety signal light on the wall and hacked into the surveillance system of the recording hall through its communication line. I can’t interfere with the videos taken by the audience’s phones, but at least the TV station won’t be able to retrieve tonight’s surveillance records."

Chen Xuan nodded, making a cup of coffee for both of them to calm their nerves.

"Has Jiang City’s security really deteriorated to this extent?" he frowned and asked.

The guy named Lu Lixin was clearly serious. Her ability was no joke, and if her goal was murder from the start rather than promoting her so-called supremacy of ability users, then it would have been hard for over a thousand people in the recording hall to escape death.

"Actually, it wasn’t that bad before, mostly petty thefts and such, discussed more online than causing real impact. The most severe incident was probably the mall explosion case, but due to lack of real evidence, it couldn’t be nailed down." Lin Qing said while sipping coffee, "However, after today’s incident, the situation should become entirely different."

Chen Xuan fell silent.

The spread of erosion would trigger many to awaken abilities, a fact known from the very start.

Now he had to accept such a price.

...

"Honglian, Baihu, over here!"

Zhang Yingzi waved at the TV station entrance.

"Coming!" Wang Baihu hurriedly walked over, "How did you arrive so quickly? I thought Honglian and I were the first ones from the team to get here."

They were patrolling by routine when they got news of an ability user’s crime. In order to get here quickly, Honglian nearly floored the gas pedal, recklessly running numerous red lights, causing Wang Baihu sitting in the passenger seat to almost throw up his dinner.

"I rented an apartment nearby, ran straight over." She shook her head, "Unfortunately, still a step too late."

"I heard over the channel that the situation has been resolved?" The trio conversed about the event while moving towards the scene.

"Well... in the midst of misfortune, only ten people died, one seriously injured."

"Ten, ten people dead!?" Wang Baihu was astonished, how could this be considered lucky? A double-digit casualty, that’s quite an explosion of a situation even nationwide!

"Don’t fret, nine of them are criminals." Zhang Yingzi added.

"Uh—" He was instantly choked, "Come on, say that all in one go!"

Honglian couldn’t help but lift the corners of her mouth, but soon reverted to a neutral expression. After working with the new colleagues for a few months, she found them quite competent and serious about their work, making them trustworthy high-quality partners. However, she still found it hard to consider Zhang Yingzi as a friend, as she was brought in by the new superior... whereas the higher-ups directly booted her original leader, Wan Chongshan, to parachute Xiao Canong in.

"How did they die?"

"I haven’t grasped the specifics yet, but undoubtedly it was due to some kind of ability."

"Are the witnesses at the scene all controlled?" Honglian saw that a police line had been set up at the recording hall entrance, with the red and blue lights of two police cars flashing incessantly.

Since the news of ability users became public, the Dimensional Limit Mechanism actively responded, setting up ability testing points in various locations, cooperating with local governments to provide them with ability consultation services, among others... this unexpected incident served as a fine example. A massive number of alarm calls were dialed by the scene’s audience, and the dispatch center not only alerted the nearby police station but also forwarded the relevant information to the agency office.

Hence, the execution team was able to arrive in the shortest time possible.

"I inquired with the police, and it’s not very ideal." Zhang Yingzi replied, "Just as the first police car arrived, the audience was fleeing, making it impossible for just one officer and two auxiliary cops to stop so many people. I received the notification two minutes ago, and the TV station’s surveillance also got messed up, seemingly subjected to technical hacking, with all of today’s records overwritten, so we have no idea how many people actually escaped."

"You mean it was hacked?" Wang Baihu raised his head in surprise, glancing at a surveillance camera affixed to a streetlight not far away, "Isn’t the surveillance here a closed-circuit system?"

"No, to allow leadership to access and view at any time, they set up a remote access system." Zhang Yingzi shrugged, not finding it strange, "This isn’t peculiar to TV stations; excluding locations requiring strict confidentiality, what leader wouldn’t want to lie on a hotel sofa and check if employees are slacking off with a finger movement? If not for legal prohibitions, you’d probably even find cameras growing out of restrooms."

Honglian and Wang Baihu both diverted their gaze.

As workers, isn’t restroom phone time with pay only right and proper!

"By the way, although we’re saying ten dead, it’s not entirely accurate." Zhang Yingzi continued, "Because the state of those nine individuals is somewhat peculiar."

"Peculiar?" The two were momentarily stunned, "What do you mean?"

"You’ll know when you see it." She suddenly shifted her tone, no longer as light and lively as before, "I must forewarn you, best be mentally prepared; the scene in the recording hall isn’t very pretty."