While Shangguan Bing Xue and Nangong Lingxin were confused about Bai Zemin's actions, Kang Rong felt as if he was a fish out of the sea and placed on a chopping block waiting to be slaughtered.
With the clear defeat of Shan Li, his most trusted and powerful fighter, this man who had been in power for so long without remembering what it meant to fear for his life finally realized that he was not an all-powerful god capable of deciding on his fate.
Before the apocalypse, as chief of the Tinyuan Town police station, Kang Rong always lived a good life. His orders in the small town were basically imperial decree and there was no one who dared to go against him.
When the apocalypse broke out and the world changed, Kang Rong's life did too; however, his base was not affected in the least, and from a certain point of view, he even became stronger. Making use of his intelligence and taking advantage of the fact that his only family was his son Kang Hong, Kang Rong mobilized his well-armed troops to clear a safe zone by himself.
After securing a part of the North Camp and teaming up with the chief of the Linqi Town police station, Kang Rong's power was further stabilized. For him, the apocalypse was nothing but a blessing as although he was not extremely lustful like his son or Shan Li, he was still a man with desires thus the fact that he could enjoy women who in the past would never pay attention to him was a great boost to his ego.
Enjoying beautiful women without forcing them and offering "good deals", deciding who lived and who died, having powerful soul evolvers under his rule even though he was just an ordinary human.... All this was about to disappear before his own eyes.
Worst of all, as he looked at the nearby soul evolvers and the armed troops stationed outside his village, he realized that no matter how many benefits he tried to use, this time he was truly alone.
The soul evolvers and police officers who had been treated well by Kang Rong in the past lowered their heads in embarrassment when they met his anxious gaze. Although they were embarrassed, none of them dared to step forward.
The benefits were good, sure... But one needed to live to enjoy such benefits, and unfortunately or not, no one could defeat the team of three young people in front of them. Even the strongest Shan Li had been easily defeated.
Seconds passed and soon those seconds turned into minutes.
But Bai Zemin still had not killed Shan Li. He hadn't attacked him again either; he simply kept him firmly locked with several blood chains floating a dozen meters in the sky. No one knew what he was thinking and those who believed he intended to torture or humiliate the arrogant Shan Li began to doubt that these were his true intentions.
Of course, the real reason why Bai Zemin still allowed Shan Li to continue breathing and living in this world was not so simple.
Torture? Humiliate? He wasn't interested in wasting time right now.
Approximately five minutes later, Shan Li's mind finally cleared from the blow Bai Zemin inflicted on him; which had caused him quite a bit of internal damage and had shocked his brain, leaving him blank for several minutes.
"BREAK!" The arrogant and embarrassed Shan Li shouted angrily. The Mana inside his body began to boil fiercely and he didn't hold back in the slightest as he once again activated Gravity Manipulation on the blood chains that held him prisoner.
Cracks began to spread across the blood chains, threatening to break at any moment as the gravity weighing down on them pulled them back to solid ground. However, Bai Zemin expended even more Mana to keep them afloat; the only thing he did not do was reinforce the chains.
Soon after, with no further support or supplies, the blood chains finally could not withstand the enormous gravity pressure on them and collapsed into small ruby-like fragments that fell from the sky.
Bai Zemin narrowed his eyes and manipulated the blood so that it lost its hardness, allowing it to return to its natural liquid state. The reason he did this was that while the small fragments of broken blood chains were seemingly harmless, falling from a dozen meters high propelled by a gravity 28 times the Earth's natural gravity, those small fragments of blood chains were no longer so harmless.
"Oh... So that skill can also be used in this manner?" Bai Zemin muttered in a low voice that no one could hear as he looked up. A faint smile formed on his face as he watched Shan Li's downward speed slow down considerably.
"You bastard! What the hell are you muttering?!" Shan Li seemed to have gone mad. When his feet once again made contact with solid ground, he re-activated Gravity Manipulation as his bloodshot eyes stared at the young man in front of him without a shred of apparent rationality.
Just as Shan Li activated Gravity Manipulation, Bai Zemin noticed it as he sensed the movement of mana from the surroundings. Therefore, while thinking that he was really getting used to this new source of power called mana, Bai Zemin activated Blood Manipulation.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
The surrounding blood flowed and gathered in front of him. The liquid hardened faster than the human eye could grasp and a sturdy blood wall formed in front of Bai Zemin.
Bang!
Rumble...
The ground sank once again and the blood wall began to crack at a fast pace. However, Shan Li's face did not show happiness.
"You bastard... Don't tell me you..." Disbelief glittered in his eyes and he unconsciously stopped using his skill as he took a step back.
Splash!
Bai Zemin stopped providing Mana to the blood wall, which caused it to collapse into its liquid state once again. He looked at Shan Li with a faint smile and calmly said, "Then your skill doesn't work unless you have within your range of vision the target you wish to affect. Also, it seems that the distance limit is around 15 meters... Am I wrong?"
When he heard this, Shan Li finally began to feel a twinge of fear... Because he realized, to his horror, that the young man in front of him was studying him. More precisely, he was studying his Gravity Manipulation skill!
The thought of fleeing flashed in his mind and he was about to execute it when the calm and indifferent voice of his enemy stopped him in his tracks.
"If I were you I wouldn't move from where you are standing right now..."
Shan Li felt something on his neck as he tried to take a step anteriorly.
"Or your head might accidentally fall off." Bai Zemin said with a smile as he narrowed his eyes.
The wind whipped past the battlefield and the moonlight strangely reflected some objects that were extremely difficult to see with the naked eye, let alone in the middle of the night.
"Threads?" Nangong Lingxin was taken aback.
All over the battlefield, there were at least a hundred silk-thin threads that had been placed in different parts. Each soul evolver had one of these crimson thin threads around their necks and the rest of the threads surrounded the armed troops and even though the threads were fewer, they were placed in such a way that if someone had the ability to move them with the mind, these threads would cut horizontally across the waist of all the armed men and cut them in two.
Shangguan Bing Xue sighed and shook her head. She really had to admit that Bai Zemin was simply too smart, and even when faced with people clearly weaker than him he did not hesitate to prepare any countermeasures to ensure his own safety.
Maybe... Maybe he really can dominate all the country. For the first time, such a thought appeared in her mind and her eyes became a bit complex as she looked at his back.
"Although I am not as good as I would like, these threads were created by me using the blood of the killed ones." Bai Zemin calmly explained as one of the threads flew towards him and wrapped around his index finger, "In Japan, there is a moth called Eumeta japonica. This insect can produce an incredibly strong thread. These threads are based on that same insect... Only that its toughness was boosted by me to heights that even I cannot estimate at this point."
"You... You were doing all this in the middle of our fight?" Shan Li looked at him dumbfounded, finally realizing that the 20-year-old in front of him was more cunning than the old government foxes he had seen in the past.
Bai Zemin chuckled and said calmly, "It's just that you're too weak. That's why I had time to play around with my skill."
He continued, "Your Gravity Manipulation skill not only allows you to affect a certain area or target within your line of sight within a certain range, but you can also apply it on yourself, right? I saw it while you were floating slowly from the sky earlier. Also, if I'm not mistaken, it's possible that since the gravity on you weakens a certain number of times, then your movement speed probably also becomes especially high, isn't it?"
Shan Li's face turned as pale as a sheet and he finally realized something... From the very beginning he had no hope to win... From the beginning of the battle, the young man in front of him was just studying his skill and never took him seriously.
"Seeing your reaction, I guess I got it right." Bai Zemin smiled slightly and waved his hand casually, "It was precisely for this theory that I prepared these threads. No matter where you run, you would run into at least one thread and I would only need to control it to cut you to pieces. Not bad, right?"
The soul evolvers were so scared that they almost peed their pants as they looked at Bai Zemin in terror. What kind of monster with human skin was this?! Not only he was insanely strong, but he was also intelligent and seemed to be planning several steps ahead of his enemy!
"Why..." Shan Li was unwilling.
"Mmm..." Bai Zemin thought for a moment before deciding to answer, "Nangong Lingxin told me about your skill before. From then on, I decided that your Gravity Manipulation skill would be my 5th external active skill. However, before killing you I needed to know how the skill worked and its limits. After all, I can only learn a single more external skill for now and the skill scroll probably won't explain in too much detail the use of the skill. I have to be cautious, don't you think? But this is enough... Your Gravity Manipulation skill will be my 5th and final active external skill!"
A couple of days ago, when Bai Zemin killed Wang Zedong and Dai Yun, these two strangely dropped two skill scrolls that looked very much like their own active ones. Then, an idea popped into Bai Zemin's mind and while he didn't know what the specific skills of these two people were, he decided to ask Lilith about it.
The question he asked her at that time was: If a human evolves a skill from First Order to Second Order and, by fate, is killed by another human, is it possible that they would always drop a skill scroll of the weakened version of the evolved skill?
Lilith's answer at that time left him incredibly satisfied.
Shan Li sighed and shook his head, causing the thin thread clinging to his neck to tighten and blood began to flow out. He seemed oblivious to this and looked at Kang Rong, who was kneeling on the ground, looking like someone defeated by life, "Chief Kang, I'm sorry. But as you can see... This enemy is beyond my current capability..."
Kang Rong did not reply. He just looked at the ground as if he was stunned, like a lifeless ghost.
Seeing this, Shan Li sighed again before looking at Bai Zemin with a sincere expression, "Chief Kang's forces will probably fall into your hands tonight... I won't ask you to let me live, but I hope you can let my family go."
Bai Zemin narrowed his eyes and the smile on his face turned slightly cold as he said, "When you send assassins to kill people just for your insecurity, do you care about the family of these victims? Em? Today, if it wasn't for my group having the strength to protect ourselves, an innocent 10-year-old girl could have died because of your selfishness... Do you think you have the right to ask for anything?"
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
With a single thought, blood threads flew through the sky and several dozen of them surrounded Shan Li's body.
"Ugh..." Shan Li's face contorted slightly as blood began to pour out all over his body as the blood threads were too thin and hard, so his skin and flesh were being cut at the contact.
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Thanks a lot to all those who use their Golden Tickets to vote for BW <3