In less than a minute, several more Awakened at the "Mind Corridor" level arrived in the Senate area, making the situation even more complex and chaotic.
Meanwhile, inside the Senate, nobles and guards were crying and laughing with the former Chief Executive Be'ulisi, unable to control themselves, as if they were in two different worlds from the outside.
Among them was an anomaly, Gialuolan, the secretary to her father, wearing a gray knee-length skirt.
She was completely unaffected, seemingly overlooked by Be'ulisi.
At this moment, she didn't try to resist this terrifying "Higher Unhearted," or help her father, Yalexanda, escape the effects of his ability. Instead, she restrained her consciousness fluctuations and walked to the side facing Hope Square.
Through the relatively intact glass window, Gialuolan saw several Subhumans writhing and struggling in agony on the balcony outside. Among them, some had eyes that were already bulging, now widened to the point of bursting, while others had blue skin covered in particles, as if resisting something.
Further out, in the area below, many humans had already fallen to the ground.
Some of their bodies were still twitching, but blood was already flowing from the corners of their mouths, and they were breathing more out than in. Some had large pieces of flesh torn away by bullets, with internal organs spilling out, yet they were not dead and groaned in pain. Some had grotesque and terrifying wounds corroded into their skin, while others seemed to be enduring the piercing of countless thick, long needles. Some curled up, their lips white, appearing as if they were freezing to death under the scorching summer sun...
One or two people in such a state would be enough to make ordinary observers uncomfortable, but dozens or hundreds creating such a scene naturally had an even greater impact on the mind.
At that moment, Gialuolan seemed to see the deaths of a large number of citizens, their families plunged into even more miserable circumstances, and countless children without parents, forced to sell themselves into slavery.
At the same time, the nobles were still vacationing in their manors, indulging in banquets, and discussing recruiting foreign drifters to fill the citizen vacancies, to everyone's delight.
Gialuolan closed her eyes.
A figure seemed to appear before her, a young girl who looked exactly like her but with a face full of naivety and immaturity.
This was the last obstacle standing before her as she entered the "Mind Corridor" in that golden elevator.
This was her past self.
Although she had sacrificed her personality as a price to the stars, to the Dao, it didn't mean that no traces remained, or that her past self had completely disappeared.
In a sense, this was still the shadow of her mother.
That deceased lady had played a crucial role in shaping her views and personality during her first ten years, because her father, Gialuolan's maternal grandfather, was a general who had climbed from the bottom to a noble position through military merits, and she didn't move into the Golden Apple District until she was an adult.
Struggling, suffering, giving up, drifting, Gialuolan seemed to have returned to the beginning, to the time when she decided to pay the price, gain power, and run away from home.
…………
"Woo!"
"Woo!"
Amid the piercingly shrill alarm, Cao frowned in the black sedan.
As an experienced Awakened at the "Mind Corridor" level, he almost unhesitatingly focused his attention on the two enemies of the same level.
Because the "Life Angel" necklace could only cause "sudden cardiac arrest" to one target at a time, failing to completely eliminate the hidden danger, Cao switched to another item.
It was a string of brown prayer beads, six in total, held in his left hand.
Cao gently moved a bead, and uttered a few words:
"Auditory Deprivation!"
The bead immediately lit up with a cyan-green glow.
Jiang Baimian and the others suddenly couldn't hear anything.
The alarm that could wake up all sleepers disappeared from their ears.
This… Although she didn't understand what had happened, nor did she hear what the other party was whispering, Jiang Baimian instinctively believed that they had been affected by an Awakened's ability.
Her first reaction was that this belonged to the "Dawn" domain's manipulation of the senses, that the other party could not only make touch more sensitive, but also cause hearing to weaken, approaching deafness.
But in an instant, Jiang Baimian denied this guess, because the other party hadn't used this ability when attacking them before.
This could clearly have prevented the "Old Task Force" from hearing Xiao Chong's whistling very well.
Therefore, Jiang Baimian judged that this ability came from an item. The enemy hadn't used it before for safety reasons, avoiding closing the distance and staying in a more distant place.
And an organized "Mind Corridor" level Awakened shouldn't leave behind items that overlap with their own abilities. Based on this, Jiang Baimian suspected that the other party was using "Bodhi" domain's "Auditory Deprivation."
Of course, she wasn't too sure, because she hadn't encountered enough Awakened abilities and obtained enough corresponding intelligence. She currently only knew that the "Dawn" and "Bodhi" domains could affect hearing, and the latter was told to her by Shang Jianyao.
If it's "Auditory Deprivation," then there's likely to be "Visual Deprivation," "Olfactory Deprivation" next… If that person uses "Olfactory Deprivation" on me, wouldn't I have no weaknesses? "Olfactory Deprivation"… In an instant, Jiang Baimian's mind raced. Taking advantage of the fact that she hadn't fallen asleep yet, she abruptly yanked the steering wheel to the right, causing the jeep to follow the black sedan crookedly.
Her left palm clenched into a fist and struck the car window button.
In the back seat, Shang Jianyao's eyes were dark and uncertain.
He put down the "Berserker" assault rifle, picked up a multi-functional combat knife, and seemed to want to slash himself to create some bloodshed.
At the same time, he also grabbed the small speaker for later use, and slung the "Death" individual combat rocket launcher over his shoulder.
Where the jeep had been, Bai Chen and Long Yuehong, although they had lost their hearing, had both woken up and straightened their bodies with the help of the military exoskeleton device.
Amid the screeching sound of tires, the jeep completed its turn, violently rushing towards the side of the black sedan.
Seeing that the distance between the two sides was very short, it was clear that Cao wouldn't have time to maneuver the car and evade.
He made a decisive decision, and stretched out his left palm to pull the inner handle of the car door.
With a sudden gust of wind, the car door was pushed open by an invisible force.
Cao followed, floating out like a hydrogen balloon, trembling and swaying into the air.
Bang!
The jeep, fitted with thick steel plates, slammed into the side door of the black sedan, denting it inward and pushing it a bit to the side of the road.
The effect of this collision was worse than Cao had expected, because Jiang Baimian had slammed on the brakes at the last moment.
She's still not ruthless enough, doesn't have the determination to die together… Cao smiled to himself, slightly relieved, as he floated up and down in mid-air.
What he had been most afraid of was that his car would be blown up—he wouldn't have had time to avoid the aftershocks.
Amid the sound of the collision, Avia, indeed wearing a bathrobe, was sitting on a single sofa in the bathroom lounge of the classical villa.
The earlier alarm had startled her from her sleep, and she had finally woken up.
Then she realized that she couldn't hear anything.
When gunshots and explosions came from the Senate area earlier, Avia had been worried that she would be attacked. At this moment, she wasn't surprised at all, and directly inserted her left hand into the pocket of her bathrobe.
The next second, she closed her eyes again.
She had fallen asleep again.
Unable to stay in mid-air for long, Cao, who had floated down to the top of the black sedan, once again put everyone within range into a state of sleep!
After depriving the corresponding targets of their hearing, he could confidently put them to sleep.
——He could have put Kang Na, Jiang Baimian, Shang Jianyao, and others to "sleep" while "depriving hearing," but because of the piercing alarm, the targets' state of sleep would be very poor before the hearing was completely deprived, and they would easily wake up, which was roughly equivalent to wasting his ability once, requiring a follow-up to make up for it. Therefore, he decided to eliminate external influences first, and then "force sleep" to save energy and guard against accidents.
Moreover, it wasn't that easy for him to accomplish this. At that time, he was still floating in mid-air, and his focus was on "manipulating matter."
This choice had good aspects and bad influences. The worst thing was that it gave Jiang Baimian time to steer, allowing the jeep to hit the sedan.
Seeing Bai Chen, Long Yuehong, and the others gradually slumped down, sliding to the ground, making small metallic clanging sounds, seeing Kang Na and the old lady wearing the black knitted cap ultimately fail to open their eyes, Cao didn't delay. He changed "forced sleep" to "true dream."
He had just discovered that Xue Shiyue hadn't been able to wake up on her own in "true dream," while in the "forced sleep" state, she had somehow broken free from the corresponding influence.
To eliminate this hidden danger, "true dream" was a better choice.
Immediately afterwards, Cao turned another bead on his left hand, and said in a low voice:
"Olfactory Deprivation!"
As the cyan-green light spread, Cao couldn't smell any odors.
This time, he used "Olfactory Deprivation" on himself, in order to go on a killing spree next!
As for the shit, urine, and blood in the dream, he didn't consider them, because as long as he didn't influence the dream, he wouldn't know what was happening, and wouldn't produce the corresponding physiological reactions.
This item, called "Six Senses Bead," was Cao's favorite and most cherished item. He usually avoided using it as much as possible, because it could effectively enhance the anti-interference ability of "forced sleep" and "true dream," and minimize the cost.
——The "Dawn" domain's influence on the senses only had amplification and reduction, not deprivation.
The "Six Senses Bead" wasn't a reward Cao got from exploring certain rooms in the "Mind Corridor." Instead, he had exchanged it from a colleague within the organization.
This was also one reason why experts at the "Mind Corridor" level still needed to band together and join organizations. After all, the items harvested during exploration might not achieve an effect of one plus one greater than two, or even equal to two, in their own hands. Sometimes, because of conflicts with the cost, they didn't dare to use them at all, and could only keep them for suicide. But in an organization, with more Awakened at the corresponding level, they could exchange items with each other to improve the efficiency of item utilization.
In addition, Cao also suspected that the original owner of the "Six Senses Bead" had most likely entered the New World.
His argument was:
This item was a bit too powerful.
Apart from being limited in its range of influence by the nature of similar items, not exceeding eighty meters at most, all other aspects exceeded the specifications:
As far as Cao knew, after entering the "Mind Corridor," all three abilities would have a certain expansion at different stages, and different people would make different choices.
For example, in "Auditory Deprivation," some people chose to affect all targets within range, while others chose to integrate abilities such as "Visual Deprivation" and "Olfactory Deprivation."
And the "Six Senses Bead" possessed both aspects.
It should be known that there would be another round of significant attenuation when the aura solidified onto the item.
After preparing his defenses, Cao refocused his gaze on the classical villa at 14 Round Hill Street.
He raised his right hand holding the "Life Angel" necklace again, trying to lock onto Avia.