Chapter 828: The Power of the Improved Version
The window is just ahead!
Jumping out from here, while it might cause some injuries, is still better than losing his life! In this deserted town with no zombies, he’s confident he can hide and hold out until reinforcements arrive!
“I underestimated Ling Mo! Luo Ming was right, this guy really would come back… When he was on the Rooftop, he was at a disadvantage, but now he can boldly charge in…”
Zhang Xi’s mind was a mess, especially thinking about the big talk he had just given, making him feel even worse. But as long as he can escape…
“What’s the matter!” The Young Man in Yellow was tense and, hearing Zhang Xi shout, his attention was immediately drawn to the door. Not only that, but he instinctively raised the dagger in his hand, and felt a slight tremor under his feet.
But just then, he heard the sound of the curtains being pulled open…
“Zhang Xi! You bastard!” The Young Man in Yellow quickly turned around, and the moment he saw Zhang Xi’s back, his eyes widened. Simultaneously, a chill ran through his body, and his limbs felt numb. Clearly, Zhang Xi had used him on purpose; the Ambusher wasn’t outside but rather… in here!
He assumed an attack stance and used his Superpower… This behavior looked like a provocation in the Ambusher’s eyes, didn’t it?! Once the Ambusher’s attention was drawn to him, Zhang Xi could safely escape… How cruel!
“Damn it, you want me dead? Ha… easy for you to think that! Why should I die!” The Young Man in Yellow snarled, suddenly clapping his hands together and saying, “Explode!”
Zhang Xi paid no attention; the fact that the intruder dared to kill directly at the door showed they weren’t afraid of them calling for help. Every second delayed now was another moment closer to death… Yet just as his hands grasped the windowsill, the word “explode” left the Young Man in Yellow’s mouth.“No…” Zhang Xi’s pupils constricted, and he immediately felt a wave beneath his palm as the aluminum window frame suddenly exploded, leaving his hand a bloody mess. Several sharp fragments had pierced his palm, and the searing pain caused him to let out a terrible scream.
“Ah!!”
“Explode!”
The Young Man in Yellow didn’t even glance at Zhang Xi; he clapped his hands again, and a soft “click” was heard from the door’s gap. As the door slowly opened, the Young Man in Yellow rushed forward immediately.
“Ah!” Zhang Xi screamed once more. Hearing the abnormal sound from the door, he bit his lip hard and yanked his hand back. With excruciating pain tearing through him, Zhang Xi climbed onto the windowsill. “Fool, you’re dead, you’re not faster than me…”
But just as he looked up, his body suddenly froze…
“Good thing I had set traps at the window and door beforehand… But both these traps need to be triggered by me; they are useless if I can’t see anyone…” The Young Man in Yellow excitedly grabbed the door handle and couldn’t help but glance back at the window as he pulled the door open.
But it was that glance that suddenly stopped him in his tracks.
Outside the window… there was someone!
This person seemed to be floating in the air, with one hand on the wall, looking down at Zhang Xi with a subtle smile on his lips. In contrast, Zhang Xi’s arm was trembling slightly, and a significant amount of blood was flowing down his body, quickly staining the windowsill red.
“Ling Mo…” Zhang Xi stared blankly at the figure before him. He still held a gun in one hand, but his fingers were riddled with blood holes. With broken finger bones and only a thin piece of flesh holding them together, he couldn’t possibly fire the gun. The handgun was merely hanging from his knuckles, the pain ten times worse than before, nearly overwhelming him to the point of fainting.
But he dared not pass out. Even though he knew he was on the brink of death, he still wanted a few more seconds of life… The immense fear of dying made him tremble uncontrollably, his face twitching as he looked at Ling Mo, his eyes filled with madness and despair.
“Ahhh!!!”
He suddenly shouted, lunging with his left hand at Ling Mo: “If I die, you die with me!”
“Are you kidding? Who wants to die with you?” Ling Mo smirked as his gaze on Zhang Xi suddenly turned focused. At the same time, two psychic tentacles shot out. 𝐑
At the brink of death, Zhang Xi’s speed was astonishing. His other arm even reached towards Ling Mo, attempting to grab him. In his mind, no matter how fast Ling Mo’s psychic power was, there’d be no stopping him now…
“Die! Hahaha…” Zhang Xi’s eyes were red, and his left hand had already reached for the ammunition bag strapped to his leg…
“A desperate burst before death, huh… But if the tentacles can’t make it, what about the gaze?”
Ling Mo didn’t dodge. This whole scene happened in an instant. To the Young Man in Yellow, it seemed as though the moment he turned his head, Zhang Xi suddenly erupted. So even if Ling Mo tried to dodge, he wouldn’t have succeeded…
But did he need to dodge?
The answer… was, of course, no!
As Zhang Xi’s gaze met Ling Mo’s, an even stronger wave of fear surged within his mind, quickly overwhelming his spirit. He suddenly felt as if he had fallen into a pit of snakes, with countless venomous snakes crawling all over him, and even one slithering into his mouth… Above his eyeball, a snake was looking at him coldly, then suddenly opened its mouth wide…
“Ah!” The sensation of being devoured bit by bit made Zhang Xi collapse instantly, his actions becoming erratic, and he couldn’t help but let out a scream.
As this brief moment of vulnerability appeared, Ling Mo’s tentacle was already there, piercing through Zhang Xi’s forehead with a “thud.”
Another tentacle grabbed his corpse and flung it back inside with a “bang.”
“This improved version of the ‘eye-popping skill’ can work wonders if used at the right moment… The guy earlier was already in despair and just wanted to take me down with him. So, once he’s hit by the Interference, he’d feel like he’s already dead… And that sensation must be enough to drive someone mad…”
Ling Mo followed by jumping into the room and rubbed his forehead. Over the past three days, thanks to the existence of the master ball, he had been able to precisely assess the total amount of his current psychic power as well as the consumption rates of his various abilities. The psychic power he used for experiments was not wasted but instead stored in the master ball and eventually returned to his mind.
The “eye-popping skill” was naturally included in this assessment. Unlike the tentacles, its consumption wasn’t calculated based on quantity, but rather quality. Performing it with full power consumed about five percent of Ling Mo’s psychic power, which could be converted to roughly a hundred psychic tentacles, or about ten materialized ones.
This marked the first time Ling Mo adjusted his tentacles after condensing his psychic light cluster. Using the energy equivalent of ten psychic tentacles to form one materialized tentacle was the most cost-effective approach, a conclusion he arrived at after hundreds of experiments.
However, psychic power cannot be entirely expended. Ling Mo still needed to control several zombies and mutation beasts, as well as maintain basic protection over his psychic light cluster. Just as physical overexertion can harm the body, overusing psychic power can have similar effects. Although his total psychic power was large, it sometimes felt insufficient. However, with the dual abilities of Devour and recovery, this shortcoming became less noticeable.
A one percent expenditure of psychic power had no effect on Ling Mo, but a five percent depletion would cause him brief, mild dizziness. This symptom, however, would last only a second or two and could almost be ignored.
As he rubbed his forehead, the psychic power he had just expended began to gradually replenish. “This is a result of my long-term absorption of trace viruses. If the consumption is too significant, I can temporarily replenish it from Ye Lian and the others. This way, as long as I manage the usage well, I theoretically won’t face psychic power exhaustion,” Ling Mo thought to himself.
“He… he killed him…” The Young Man in Yellow was petrified with fear. He had witnessed Zhang Xi ready to fight for his life, but then, inexplicably, Zhang Xi screamed in agony, and Ling Mo had bizarrely pierced his head. The blood hole stared back at him, grotesquely vivid, prompting an involuntary scream as he instinctively turned to flee through the door.
Yet as he turned, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. His whole body tensed in panic, but it was too late to change direction… In that face-to-face moment, a sharp pain suddenly shot through his chest. His hands were just coming up, about to clasp together, but he couldn’t force out a single word of “explode.”
“Gurgle…” The Young Man in Yellow’s mouth opened, producing a couple of strange sounds from his throat as he slumped sideways to the ground. As his body fell, the silhouette before him looked up at Ling Mo. Unlike before, her gaze held a complex emotion, as if she was deep in thought or reminiscing about something.
“Ye Lian.” Ling Mo also turned and looked at Ye Lian, calling her name with a smile. Ye Lian was clearly in a different state than usual, and this expression on her face made Ling Mo feel both unfamiliarity and a strange sense of familiarity. At the beginning of his Control over her, Ye Lian had shown this expression before…
“Back then, what she was observing was merely the world she faced after becoming a Zombie… but now what she’s pondering are all the memories she had as a Zombie…”