Thump! Thump!
Jiang Baimian's heartbeat soared from fifty bpm to one hundred and eighty.
This caused chest tightness, palpitations, difficulty breathing, blurred vision, and weakness to assail her simultaneously.
Unlike Tan Jie, who still managed to muster enough strength to broadcast the enemy's ability characteristics to everyone, Jiang Baimian felt like she would faint at any moment and soon suffer heart failure.
She wasn't too surprised by this; the effect of an ability at a distance of nearly a hundred meters was clearly different from its effect within a dozen meters.
She just hadn't expected that even her genetically modified body would show signs of giving out so quickly.
Gritting her teeth, she took another grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it with her left hand at the fishman wearing the branch crown.
She wanted to interrupt him with the explosion!
At this moment, the area where she, Shang Jianyao, and the remaining fishmen were located was largely blocked by the tech building, rendering the fire support from the rear ineffective, forcing them to rely on themselves.
Even before the grenade was thrown, the tall fishman with the branch crown had begun to move.
His destination was the heavily armored vehicle. His speed wasn't fast, as if he had to concentrate on maintaining the "accelerated heartbeat" effect.
Just then, one of the two remaining fishman guards suddenly leaped out from behind cover, tackled him beside the armored vehicle, and used his own body to shield him completely.
Boom!
The grenade exploded where the tall fishman had been standing, and crimson flames carrying shrapnel swept through a large area.
The fishman who had used his body as a shield felt no pain and immediately entered a dying state.
Vaguely, he seemed to see the homeland often described by his great-grandfather's generation:
The fertile land by the lake, the brightly lit cities, the small but own-able apartment…
Thump! Thump!
Jiang Baimian's racing heartbeat showed no signs of slowing down. She felt like she would faint, or even go into shock, at any moment.
The tall fishman with the branch crown pushed aside the incomplete corpse on top of him and looked towards Jiang Baimian's location with a hateful gaze.
At this moment, Shang Jianyao had seized the opportunity to roll within seven meters of the armored vehicle.
He didn't waste time, found cover, turned his back to the target, opened his mouth, and shouted loudly:
"If you have the guts…"
Before he could finish his sentence, Jiang Baimian couldn't hold on any longer and collapsed behind a discarded flower bed, entering a semi-conscious state—this was another piece of cover she had chosen.
The main purpose of her risking herself and doing so much was to cover Shang Jianyao's entry into the range where he could exert his abilities.
The next second, Shang Jianyao's heartbeat also began to accelerate, thumping as if someone was drumming in his ears.
Enduring the discomfort, he continued to shout:
"Suffocate us to death!"
Combined, it was "If you have the guts, suffocate us to death."
This wasn't "provocation," but "affectation," except that Shang Jianyao was using a softened approach, trying to make the effect last longer and not be easily noticed—if he forcibly made the other party act irrationally, they would soon wake up, and before that, there might not be a good opportunity to attack.
How to specifically use "affectation" still mainly depended on which method was suitable for the current situation.
And in order to make the other party's lighter degree of affectation evolve in the direction he hoped, Shang Jianyao deliberately said such a sentence to induce it.
This was an experience he had summarized from his battle with the fake "Father."
With his heartbeat racing towards the edge of being out of control, the sounds in Shang Jianyao's ears were getting smaller and smaller, as if coming from the horizon.
Suddenly, the sounds of rat-a-tat-tat, bang-bang-bang, and boom-boom-boom drilled into his ears.
His heartbeat had returned to normal at some point.
He gasped for air, only to find that the surrounding air seemed to be extracted by someone from beyond, becoming increasingly thin.
He began to have difficulty breathing.
At the same time, the Redstone Town defense team members at the Aier Supermarket and Sixth Sky Mall defense lines once again had the feeling that the world was being flooded and they couldn't surface.
Long Yuehong, having experience, no longer wasted precious energy on breathing heavily, holding his breath and firing grenades outwards.
However, misfires occurred in many places on the defense line, and the interwoven firepower could no longer suppress the fishmen and mountain monsters not far away.
They pushed out artillery vehicles, temporarily assembled mortars, and picked up individual rocket launchers and grenade launchers, launching attacks on the Redstone Town defense line.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
An unknown number of cannons fired in unison, causing Long Yuehong and others to lie down, afraid to show their heads.
Seizing this opportunity, mountain monsters with bluish skin and sharp teeth carried submachine guns and assault rifles, running like it was flat ground between collapsing buildings towards various places on the defense line.
When the artillery fire paused, Long Yuehong raised his head and put the grenade launcher on the windowsill again.
Under the not-so-bright moonlight, he saw distorted and ferocious faces, bluish skin, black guns, and occasional bursts of blood.
Some mountain monsters fell, but the mountain monsters behind them didn't stop at all, submerging their companions like a tide and continuing to surge towards the Redstone Town defense line.
Long Yuehong had never seen such a scene before, and he was deeply shocked.
But he didn't freeze because of this; some kind of fear drove him to fire grenades.
In the booming explosion, Bai Chen and Han Wanghuo calmly aimed at the artillerymen in the rear and the leaders in the assault team, taking a life with one shot.
Soon, the artillery fire erupted again, coordinating with the gunfire of the attackers, causing the increasingly oxygen-deprived defenders to lie down again.
They opened their mouths, trying to breathe in more oxygen, but it didn't work. Some people had already started gagging, and others were getting dizzier and dizzier.
At the parking lot behind the tech building, the tall fishman with the branch crown and his last guard each held a submachine gun, firing at the place where Shang Jianyao was hiding while splitting off one person to approach the flower bed where Jiang Baimian was unconscious, intending to kill her directly, lest she wake up and use "accelerated heartbeat" again.
Similarly, the two Redstone Town defense team members who were unconscious at the edge of the parking lot also had to be dealt with together to eliminate future troubles, after all, they were wearing exoskeletons, and once they woke up, they would be enough to turn the tide of the battle.
- The tall fishman with the branch crown had been in a hurry to deal with other enemies just now and interrupted his ability before the target developed heart failure.
Of course, this was just an idea of theirs, not urgent, because "suffocation" would not see that you had fallen into a coma and not have any effect. As long as the time lasted long enough, people in a coma would also die from lack of oxygen.
At this time, Shang Jianyao, hiding behind cover, was not flustered.
Holding his breath, he put down his tactical backpack calmly and took out the small blue-bottomed, black-faced speaker amidst the artillery fire. Then he placed it in a pile of stones in the corner and simply protected it.
After adjusting the order of the music, Shang Jianyao abandoned his assault rifle, unzipped his clothes, took out a grenade from his gun belt, and pulled the pin.
With his back to the enemy, he calculated the distance with great interest and threw the grenade backwards as if casually.
The sound of an explosion rang out immediately, forcing the tall fishman and his guard to evade to a certain extent.
At this time, Shang Jianyao quickly took off his blue jacket and threw it horizontally.
Accompanying this jacket was the sound of gunfire from the small speaker.
Rat-a-tat-tat, the jacket was pierced by several bullets.
Seizing this opportunity, Shang Jianyao closely followed behind, drew out his "Joint 202" and jumped out horizontally.
What first caught his eye was an ordinary fishman, squatting there, holding a submachine gun, with the gills below his ears and on both sides of his neck constantly twitching.
Bang!
The two "Joint 202s" in Shang Jianyao's hand fired simultaneously.
The fishman's eyes froze, and his skull was directly blown off, red and white splattering everywhere.
With a thud, Shang Jianyao fell to the ground and rolled continuously, hiding behind a pile of concrete.
- This was the fortification previously built by the fishman guards.
The fishman with the branch crown, seeing this, gave up using the submachine gun, maintained the "suffocation" effect, and quickly walked into the heavily armored vehicle.
The roar of the engine then rang out, and this heavy and sturdy vehicle ran wildly, trying to rush out of the parking lot and join the main force.
With only one person left, the fishman with the branch crown figured out one thing:
That was not to entangle with these humans who had already entered a state of "suffocation", and quickly return to the gunner's position to receive a new round of protection.
This was not only because he cherished his life and did not stand under dangerous walls, but also for the sake of the overall situation - now was a great opportunity for the joint fishman and mountain monster team to break through the Redstone Town defense line, and his side must not fall behind.
Anyway, as long as he maintained the current situation, the few people who killed his many guards would eventually suffocate to death.
With a buzz, the armored vehicle approached Shang Jianyao, about to pass him and head towards the exit.
Just at this moment, the fishman with the branch crown suddenly had a hot flash in his brain and felt that he couldn't just let the enemies here go.
Without thinking, he turned the steering wheel, causing the vehicle to rush towards Shang Jianyao, trying to kill him by running him over repeatedly.
"Affectation"! (Jiao Qing Zhi Ren)
In the situation where Shang Jianyao had only used his ability slightly before, the fishman with the branch crown didn't treat him as an Awakened.
Therefore, he gave up on gentle guidance and directly made him unusually affected after he entered the range.
However, that fishman with the branch crown seemed to have a certain resistance to this and didn't directly stop the car, choosing to have a man's duel with Shang Jianyao.
He still sat firmly in the safe bulletproof vehicle and increased the force of stepping on the accelerator.
In the sound of the turbocharger, the armored vehicle was like a runaway wild horse, rushing towards Shang Jianyao.
At this time, the small speaker on the other side no longer played the sounds of gunfire recorded in Yuye Grass City, it played a piece of music in order.
The striking sound of the Suona instantly soared, and a magnificent melody echoed, making people feel excited.
*Xiao Dao Hui* Overture.
Note 1: Composed by Mr. Shang Yi in 1959, the overture to the national dance drama *Xiao Dao Hui* ("The Little Knives Society").