Embers Ad Infinitum

In less than a minute, many Mind Corridor-level Awakened arrived in the vicinity of the Senate, making the situation more complicated and chaotic.

Within the Senate, the nobles and guards were laughing and crying with their former consul, Beulis. They couldn’t control themselves and seemed to be in a separate world from the outside.

One of them was an anomaly: Galoran—who wore a gray knee-length dress and acted as her father’s secretary. She was completely unaffected as if Beulis had ignored her.

At this moment, she didn’t attempt to resist the terrifying Superior Heartless and help her father, Alexander, escape the abilities’ effects. Instead, she restrained her consciousness fluctuations and walked to the area facing Hope Square.

Through the relatively intact glass window, Galoran saw a few Subhumans struggling on the balcony outside with pained expressions. Among them, some had bulging eyes that were about to burst open, and some had green skin covered in granules as if they were resisting something.

Further out, many humans had already fallen to the ground in the area below. Some of their bodies were still twitching, but blood was already flowing out of the corners of their mouths. Some of them were breathing heavily, and some had large patches of flesh and blood shredded away by bullets. Their organs were out, but they had yet to die. They groaned in pain. Some of their bodies had been corroded to reveal exaggerated and hideous wounds while some seemed to be enduring the piercing of countless thick needles. Some curled up, their lips pale. They looked like they were about to freeze to death under the summer sun…

A single person or two in such a state was enough to make an ordinary bystander with ordinary mental fortitude uncomfortable. A scene constituting dozens to a hundred people naturally left an indelible impression on the mind.

At this moment, Galoran seemed to see a large number of citizens die. She saw their families fall into an even more tragic situation, and she saw a large number of children lose their parents and be forced to sell themselves as slaves. At the same time, the nobles were still vacationing in the manors and indulging themselves at banquets. They were also discussing recruiting foreign nomads to replace the vacuum left behind by the citizen loss. It was a joyous occasion.

Galoran closed her eyes, and a figure seemed to appear in front of her. It was a girl who looked identical to her, but her face was young and innocent.

This was the last obstacle before she entered the golden elevator to enter the Mind Corridor. This was the past her.

Although she had already sacrificed her personality to the stars and the Dao as a price, this didn’t mean that there were no traces left. It didn’t mean that the past her had completely disappeared.

In a sense, this was her mother’s shadow.

The madam—who had died many years ago—played a crucial role in shaping her views and personality over the past decade. She was a lady who truly pitied lower-class citizens because her father—Galoran’s grandfather—was a general who relied on military exploits to climb from the bottom to become a noble. She only moved into the Golden Apple Zone when she reached adulthood.

After struggling, suffering, giving up, and drifting, Galoran seemed to have returned to the past—back when she decided to pay the price, obtain her abilities, and run away from home.

…

“Woo!”

“Woo!”

Amidst the loud and ear-piercing alarm, Khal—who was sitting in the black car—frowned. As an experienced Mind Corridor-level Awakened, he almost didn’t hesitate to focus his attention on his two adversaries at the same level.

As the Life Angel necklace could only cause one target to suffer Cardiac Arrest at a time, it couldn’t completely eliminate the latent dangers. Therefore, Khal switched to another item—it was a string of brown prayer beads in his left hand, a total of six.

Khal gently plucked a bead and spat out some words. “Auditory Deprivation!”

The bead then lit up with a green glow.

Jiang Baimian and the others suddenly couldn’t hear anything. The alarm that was enough to wake up all the asleep vanished from their ears.

This… Although she didn’t understand what had happened or hear what the other party was whispering, Jiang Baimian instinctively believed that she had been affected by an Awakened ability. Her first reaction was that this was a control of her senses through the Dawn domain. Not only could the other party make her senses sharp, but he could also make her hearing deteriorate, almost making her deaf.

But in the blink of an eye, Jiang Baimian denied this guess because the other party had never used this ability when attacking them even though this could clearly prevent the Old Task Force from hearing Xiaochong’s whistling.

Therefore, Jiang Baimian determined that this ability came from an item. The enemy had never used it before, so for safety reasons, he didn’t close the distance and hid relatively far away.

A Mind Corridor-level Awakened from an organization probably wouldn’t use items that overlapped with their abilities. Due to this, Jiang Baimian suspected that the other party was using the Subhuti domain’s Auditory Deprivation.

Of course, she didn’t dare to be dead sure because the Awakened abilities she had encountered and the corresponding information she had obtained weren’t enough. At present, she only knew that the Dawn domain and Subhuti domain could affect one’s hearing. Shang Jianyao had been the one who had informed her of the latter.

If it’s Auditory Deprivation, there might very well be Visual Deprivation and Olfactory Deprivation next… If that person uses Smell Deprivation on me, won’t they have any weaknesses? Smell Deprivation… Jiang Baimian’s thoughts raced. While she was still awake, she suddenly swiveled the wheel with her right hand and made the jeep diagonally follow the black car.

Her left palm clenched into a fist and punched the window button.

In the backseat, Shang Jianyao’s eyes flickered. He put down the Berserker assault rifle and picked up a multi-purpose bayonet as if he wanted to cut himself and create a bloody smell. At the same time, he also took out the small speaker and slung the Death rocket launcher over his body.

Although Bai Chen and Long Yuehong had lost their hearing, they had already woken up where the jeep was originally. At the same time, they relied on the military exoskeleton to straighten their bodies.

Amidst a jarring screech, the jeep changed directions and crazily rushed to the side of the black car.

Upon seeing that the distance between the two parties was already very short, it was clearly too late for Khal to swerve the car to complete a dodge. Hence, he made a prompt decision and stretched out his left palm to pull the door open.

With a whoosh, the door was pushed open by an invisible force. Khal then floated out, tumbling into the air like a hydrogen balloon.

Bang!

The jeep—which was equipped with thick steel plates—crashed into the black car’s side and pushed it to the roadside.

The impact was weaker than Khal had expected because Jiang Baimian stepped on the brakes at the last moment.

She’s still not ruthless enough and doesn’t have the resolve to perish together… Khal—who was ebbing about in midair—laughed inwardly and heaved a sigh of relief. What he was most afraid of just now was that his car would blow up from the collision—he couldn’t avoid the aftershocks anymore.

Amidst the impact, Avia—who was indeed wearing a bathrobe—was sitting in an armchair in the classic-looking villa’s bathhouse lobby.

The previous alarm had woken her up with a start, and now, she was finally awake. She then realized that she couldn’t hear anything.

Back when gunshots and explosions came from the Senate, Avia was worried that she would be attacked. She wasn’t surprised at all and stuffed her left hand into her bathrobe’s pocket.

The next second, she closed her eyes again.

She fell asleep again.

Unable to stay in midair for long, Khal—who had drifted to the top of the black car—made everyone in the vicinity fall asleep again!

After depriving the corresponding targets’ hearing, he could boldly make them fall asleep. He could’ve ‘deprived’ them of their sense of hearing while making them ‘fall asleep.’ But due to the ear-piercing alarm, the targets’ sleep would be light before their sense of hearing was completely deprived. It would be very easy for them to wake up—it was equivalent to wasting his ability for no reason and required a follow-up cast. Therefore, he decided to eliminate the external influence first before using Forced Sleep. This was to conserve energy and prevent any accidents.

Furthermore, this wasn’t something that was easy to complete for him. He was still floating in midair back then, and his focus was on ‘controlling matter.’

Such a choice had pros and cons. The worst con was to give Jiang Baimian time to turn the car around so that the jeep could hit the sedan.

Upon seeing Bai Chen, Long Yuehong, and the others collapse bit by bit and slide to the ground with a soft metallic clang and seeing that the eyes of Kanna and the old lady in the black beanie remained closed, Khal didn’t delay. He switched Forced Sleep to Real Dreamscape.

He had just realized that October Xue couldn’t wake up on her own in Real Dreamscape. She could somehow escape the influence of Forced Sleep.

In order to eliminate this latent danger, Real Dreamscape was a better choice.

Right on the heels of that, Khal spun another prayer bead in his left hand and said in a deep voice, “Olfactory Deprivation!”

As the green light spread, Khal failed to smell anything. He had used Olfactory Deprivation on himself to carry out the subsequent massacre!

As for the feces, piss, and blood in the dream, he didn’t consider them. This was because as long as he didn’t influence the dream, he wouldn’t know what had happened or have the corresponding physiological reactions.

This item named Six Senses Beads was Khal’s favorite and most precious item. He usually tried his best not to use it because it could effectively enhance Forced Sleep and Real Dreamscape’s resistance to interference. It could eliminate his price to the greatest extent.

The Dawn domain’s effects on the senses could only be magnified and weakened. There was no such thing as deprivation.

The Six Senses Beads wasn’t something Khal obtained when exploring certain rooms in the Mind Corridor himself. It was something he obtained from a colleague in the organization.

This was also one of the reasons why Mind Corridor-level powerhouses still had to band together and join an organization. After all, the items they obtained during their explorations might not have a beneficial effect in their hands. Sometimes, they didn’t dare to use them because of the conflict with their price. They could only reserve them for suicide. In an organization, there were many Awakened at the corresponding level. They could exchange items with each other to enhance the efficiency of using such items.

In addition, Khal also suspected that the original owner of the Six Senses Beads had likely entered the New World. His argument was: This item was a little too powerful.

Apart from its range of influence that was limited by the fundamentals of such items—it didn’t exceed 80 meters—its other aspects exceeded the norm. As far as Khal knew, after entering the Mind Corridor, the three abilities would improve to a certain extent at different stages. Different people would make different choices.

For example, when it came to Auditory Deprivation, some people would choose to affect all targets within their range, while some would choose to fuse with abilities like Visual Deprivation and Olfactory Deprivation. However, the Six Senses Beads came equipped with both.

It had to be known that when an aura solidified into an item, there would be a clear decline in effects.

After adequately protecting himself, Khal cast his gaze at the classic-looking villa at 14 Round Hill Street. He raised his right hand—which was holding the Life Angel necklace—again in an attempt to lock onto Avia.