Embers Ad Infinitum

After ending the conversation, Jiang Baimian put away the walkie-talkie and nodded at Shang Jianyao and the others.

She didn’t say anything else and left the room first, returning to the corridor.

Shang Jianyao, Bai Chen, and Long Yuehong filed out and entered their previous tactical formation.

Without Jiang Baimian’s additional instructions, they knew which direction to fire. This was one of the main points during training, something they had long mastered. In other words, there were precedents regarding the way to form a crossfire net in such a tactical formation. They did not need to discuss who was shooting where. There was a corresponding area of responsibility by virtue of the positions they stood in.

Under the flashlight’s yellowish beam of light, Qiao Chu—who was wearing a military exoskeleton—walked in from the corridor’s entrance.

Long Yuehong couldn’t help but feel a little nervous, and his body trembled slightly. This... Qiao Chu acutely discovered this with the comprehensive warning system’s help.

He frowned and slowed down.

Upon seeing this, Jiang Baimian didn’t wait for the other party to enter the designated firing range. She immediately raised her right hand and shouted, "Fire!"

At the same time, she aimed at Qiao Chu’s helmeted head.

If the other party jumped up and dodged the shot, the Ice Moss pistol’s bullets would firmly burrow into his neck—which lacked sufficient protection.

This was the exoskeleton’s weak spot and vital spot.

With a bang, Jiang Baimian pulled the trigger first.

Bai Chen and Shang Jianyao—who were beside her—had been waiting for orders. At this moment, they each raised their weapons and fired at Qiao Chu’s left arm and hip.

They had also reserved space for the target to dodge in their direction. Once Qiao Chu dodged to the Old Task Force’s right—which was his left—Bai Chen’s rifle round had a high chance of hitting the area where his arm and shoulder were uncovered by armor. It was even possible that it would hit his neck. If Qiao Chu chose to roll around, Shang Jianyao’s assault rifle’s short burst would destroy his soft abdomen.

Although Long Yuehong was nervous, he did not completely lack experience. He had already followed his team leader’s orders reflexively and completed the mission without any hesitation.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

He fired a long burst at Qiao Chu’s right arm.

When Jiang Baimian raised her right hand, Qiao Chu reacted. As he raised his right arm—which was holding the silver rifle—he let the metal skeleton cover the area in front of his neck. He placed his left arm across his lower abdomen and also aimed the black metal skeleton at Shang Jianyao and the others.

During this process, he exerted strength with his legs, driving the auxiliary joint and jumping to the corridor on the right.

Right on the heels of that, a clang sounded amidst the scattered sparks, echoing in the extremely quiet underground floor.

Jiang Baimian’s wrist slightly moved as if she was prepared. She predicted Qiao Chu’s dodging trajectory and fired.

At this moment, many white gases spewed out of the holes in the military exoskeleton’s powerpack.

They propelled Qiao Chu diagonally upward, allowing him to accelerate suddenly and avoid Jiang Baimian’s bullets.

With a bang, Qiao Chu propped himself up with one hand on the ceiling. He then rebounded into the right corridor, disappearing from Shang Jianyao and the others’ line of sight.

Bang!

The ceiling Qiao Chu hit fell off and smashed to the ground, shattering into hundreds of pieces.

"What a pity..." Jiang Baimian couldn’t help but sigh.

If not for the military exoskeleton, they could have seriously injured Qiao Chu just now and do whatever they wanted.

...

In the right corridor, Qiao Chu rolled twice. He leaned against the wall and stopped. As he used the comprehensive warning system to monitor his surroundings, he raised his left hand and wiped his chin.

The back of his hand was quickly stained red with blood.

"How can this be..." Qiao Chu looked down with

According to his experience, it would take at least another day for the favorable impression—which came from his charm—to evolve into a warped sense of possessiveness and aggressive ‘admiration.’ Who knew that the four people opposite him would change so quickly?

They weren’t beasts, animals, or Heartless—who only had instincts left—creatures that only wanted to mate and possess. These creatures typically didn’t take long before they went berserk.

As he muttered to himself, Qiao Chu reached out and took out the sky-blue mirror box before opening the lid.

He then looked into the mirror and saw a bloody wound on his beautiful chin. This was the result of being grazed by a bullet.

"How dare they..." Qiao Chu’s pupils dilated, and his tone was filled with unconcealed anger. He took a deep breath and pitifully looked at his reflection before putting away the sky-blue box.

After sealing his wound with a medical bandage, Qiao Chu coldly looked at the corridor where Jiang Baimian and the others were.

He thought for two seconds, gave up on taking immediate revenge, turned around, and walked to the end of the corridor. He didn’t forget that his destination was the underground engine room.

Furthermore, he had also achieved his initial goal by using Shang Jianyao and the others. He had them scout out the Superior Heartless or mutated creature here that could make him lose his charm.

He had always known that many dangerous creatures were in this building. He had previously encountered the Nightmare Horse here.

...

"A military exoskeleton is really difficult to deal with..." Long Yuehong felt rather disappointed when he saw that he couldn’t kill Qiao Chu and prevent others from obtaining him.

This was not the first time he had sighed with emotion and marveled at a military exoskeleton’s skeleton.

Bai Chen also lightly sighed as if she felt very regretful.

Jiang Baimian nodded and looked at the corner. "Let’s go that way."

This was diagonally opposite Qiao Chu’s location.

"Aren’t we going to chase after him?" Long Yuehong asked in surprise.

Shang Jianyao smiled at him. "Are you trying to test how strange his Awakened abilities are?"

It was very difficult to maintain a distance in a building with many walls if one chased after a target without entering the Awakened’s range of influence.

Even Jiang Baimian’s ability to sense electric signals was greatly weakened in such an environment.

"That’s true." Long Yuehong thought of Shang Jianyao’s Inference Clowning and gave up the idea of chasing after Qiao Chu without hesitation.

Jiang Baimian tersely acknowledged it. "Our goal is to circle to the stairwell as soon as possible and return to the first floor."

She quickly explained, "Qiao Chu’s goal is to find the underground engine room and restore the power supply to this building. He will then go to the power grid center and reconnect the power to the entire city ruin.

"This also means that he will definitely leave the underground floor in the short term. He will then leave this building and head to that laboratory. Since we know this, we should be able to think of a way to snipe Qiao Chu—be it in the elevator lobby, stairwell, or high spots where we can monitor the surroundings.

"There’s no need for us to stay in places with complicated terrain, numerous obstacles, and strange Heartless."

Bai Chen, Shang Jianyao, and Long Yuehong had no objections to this. They immediately held their weapons and turned to the right aisle.

In the dark environment—where only their flashlights flickered—Long Yuehong guarded his surroundings and carefully walked forward as he asked, "Team Leader, what do you think Qiao Chu’s Awakened abilities are?"

"I was just about to talk about that." Jiang Baimian nodded slightly.

Getting to the bottom of this problem as soon as possible could effectively help them avoid half the danger they would face when they encountered Qiao Chu.

"Bewitchment?" Bai Chen raised the most obvious possibility.

Shang Jianyao added, "Make others crazily in love with drawing?"

He remembered the time when he was about to f*ck Qiao Chu in the jeep. However, he was dismissed by the other party with a piece of paper, a pen, and a rhetorical question.

"No." Shang Jianyao immediately denied his theory. "It should be the ability to create a hobby or ignite passion..."

"You have experience in this regard, so you call the shots." Jiang Baimian didn’t argue with Shang Jianyao and said, "When he wanted to kill Long Yuehong, we seemed to become abnormally depressed and didn’t want to do anything."

"Causing depression? This is the third Awakened ability... What price does he pay? That bewitchment is terrifyingly powerful." Long Yuehong suddenly came to a realization after saying that. "Why can we discuss Qiao Chu’s bewitchment so naturally? Wait, why did I want to kill him and make him into a specimen collection?"

Shang Jianyao glanced at Long Yuehong. "You’re sick."

"Isn’t it all because of you..." Long Yuehong suddenly paused. "Did your Inference Clowning lose its effects?"

Jiang Baimian nodded thoughtfully. "It seems like we have already escaped Qiao Chu’s bewitchment range and are no longer affected by him. The premise of our previous ‘inference’ was that we liked Qiao Chu. Without this condition, the conclusion will naturally fail."

Bai Chen thought for a moment and said, "Then, should we still stop Qiao Chu?"

"Of course!" Jiang Baimian replied firmly. "I’ve always been a very petty person. He put us in such a dangerous situation and even ate our energy bars, compressed biscuits, and military canned food. We definitely have to exact revenge!"

Why does that sound so familiar... Long Yuehong subconsciously replied, "But..."

Although he also hated Qiao Chu, Long Yuehong felt that there was no need to stay and take the risk. It was better to leave as soon as possible.

Jiang Baimian glanced at him and Shang Jianyao before tersely acknowledging his idea. "The main reason is that we have to stay here for a while to see if there will be any changes after the entire city ruins regain power. Heh heh, or if we don’t allow the power to be restored.

"We can’t rashly return along our original route. In that case, why don’t we wait for Qiao Chu in the meantime? It won’t be a waste of time." After saying that, she suddenly asked, "Have you ever seen squirming flesh that exudes an extremely terrifying aura, an old woman in a beanie, or a baby skeleton wrapped in swaddling clothes?"

"No." Long Yuehong, Bai Chen, and Shang Jianyao shook their heads in unison.

"Me neither." Jiang Baimian nodded. "So where did the illusion created by the Superior Heartless come from? There has to be a source, right? Considering their low-level intelligence."

Shang Jianyao immediately replied, "Maybe the Superior Heartless has seen squirming flesh, an old woman in a beanie, and a baby skeleton wrapped in swaddling clothes—in which she sensed an extremely terrifying aura."

He paused at this point, and his voice instantly became rather gloomy. "She might’ve even heard the old woman say, ‘You guys... disturbed... Xiaochong...'"

Under the flashlight’s illumination, Shang Jianyao’s face flickered.