Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Shen Qinghou read his last words but did not reply.

He put his left hand behind his back and made a fist gesture to Su Wan—his thumb hooked around his four fingers and he clenched it tightly.

This was the signal he and Lin Shen had agreed upon: prepare to break through.

Yue Sheng raised his right hand.

Members of the Sharp Blade Squad appeared simultaneously from each floor, and beams of tactical flashlights lit up from both ends of the corridors on the third, fourth, and fifth floors, illuminating the entrance to Room 402 as bright as day.

The infrared aiming dots fell densely on the zither in front of Shen Qinghou, on every arc of the strings, and on the wall behind him, forming a continuous line of red dots.

Su Wan crouched behind Shen Qinghou and saw the red dots that had suddenly appeared on the wall.

The red dots swayed slightly on the wall in front of her, and three of them landed right above her head, casting three dark red halos on the white wall.

Her fingers gripped the hem of Shen Qinghou's coat tightly, her nails digging into the flesh of her palm through the fabric.

Han Qiming gave Yue Sheng the order: "Seal off the building. Keep Shen Qinghou and Lin Shen alive if possible."

At the same second, Shen Qinghou glanced down at Su Wan.

His eyes narrowed slightly in the bright light of the tactical flashlight, her face reflected in his pupils.

He mouthed to her: Lie down, don't look up.

Su Wan loosened the hem of his coat, leaned against the wall, and covered her head with her hands.

Her forehead pressed against the cold floor tiles, and the movement caused the wound on the sole of her foot to reopen, blood seeping from the edge of the gauze, leaving a thin red line running down her ankle.

She bit her lip and didn't make a sound.

At the same instant.

Shen Qinghou's fingers pressed on the strings.

The Sharp Blade team member pulled the trigger.

Before the bullet exploded from the barrel, Lin Shen activated his illusion from the third-floor storage room.

The silver-white seed deep within their consciousness suddenly shone with a blinding light, and their mental power surged forth like a burst dam, instantly covering the visual nerves of the team members with blades on the field.

The doorway to room 402 in everyone's field of vision shifted half a meter to the right—the door frame, bloodstains, and the figure holding a zither were all moved onto the wall.

Seven rifles fired simultaneously, and all the bullets struck the walls and door frames.

Broken bricks and wood chips flew everywhere, a bowl-sized hole was blasted into the door frame, and large sections of plaster peeled off the wall, revealing the reddish-brown bricks underneath.

But not a single shot hit Shen Qinghou and Su Wan.

Shen Qinghou played three consecutive low-frequency sound waves.

The first strike was fired downwards along the stairwell.

The sound waves swept through the air, producing a low, rumbling roar like thunder. The air pressure in the entire stairwell suddenly increased, causing people's eardrums to bulge outwards.

The bulletproof shield raised by the front-line members of the Sharp Blade team was hit head-on. The shield surface trembled violently and made a dull, bell-like sound. The member holding the shield felt numbness in both arms, his hands split open, and he was thrown back two steps by the impact, his back hitting his teammate behind him.

The second sound wave swept along the ground towards the third-floor landing.

Two team members who were crouching behind the railing of the landing were thrown over. One of them slammed his back against the wall, expelling all the air from his lungs and letting out a short, muffled groan.

The other man fell to his side, his rifle flying out of his hand, bouncing twice on the steps, the barrel hitting a concrete ridge and leaving a white mark.

The third sound wave struck the light tube on the ceiling of the stairwell precisely.

The building's lighting shattered instantly, and shards of glass rained down, gleaming coldly in the darkness, striking everyone's helmets and shoulders with a series of crackling sounds.

The moment the stairwell plunged into darkness, Lin Shen added a second layer of illusion.

In the eyes of the Sharp Blade team members in the lobby on the first floor, thick white smoke suddenly billowed out of the stairwell. The smoke surged and spread upwards, as if it were a solid entity, climbing up the handrail.

Six blurry, moving figures appeared simultaneously on the infrared sight, rushing upstairs from different directions at extremely high speeds, each movement leaving a trailing afterimage.

Yue Sheng roared the order from the darkness: "Switch to infrared! Target location: fourth floor. Block the stairwell with fire!"

The members of the Sharp Blade team simultaneously lifted the infrared lenses on their helmets, and their gun muzzles pointed uniformly towards the fourth floor.

The shadowy figures in the smoke were still visible in infrared vision. The six figures moved constantly at an extremely fast speed, but left no physical traces.

The lead soldier fired two shots; the bullets passed through the afterimage and hit the wall, scattering a cloud of broken bricks. The afterimage did not dissipate and continued to rush forward.

Lin Shen squeezed half of his body out from the crack in the storeroom door, the blade of the folding knife in his hand resting against his wrist.

He freed his other hand, took out his phone, and quickly typed a few words on the screen to send a message to Shen Qinghou: "Storeroom, flush down, I'll hold them off from behind."

Shen Qinghou placed the zither horizontally in front of him, bent down and pulled Su Wan up from the ground. He supported her knees with one hand and her back with the other, carrying her on his back.

The moment Su Wan's weight pressed down on him, the wound on his shoulder blade, grazed by bullet shrapnel, was torn open, and warm blood flowed down his back, soaking the back of his coat.

He frowned slightly, but didn't make a sound. He bent his knees slightly to steady himself.

He held the violin horizontally in front of him, with the body of the violin against the outside of Su Wan's thigh, his fingers pressing on the lowest-pitched string, and took his first step toward the stairwell.

Yue Sheng heard footsteps on the third-floor landing.

After losing his hearing, Shen Qinghou couldn't control the weight of his steps. Every step he took on the steps carried the weight of his entire body, causing the cement steps to tremble slightly.

Yue Sheng raised his hand, spread his five fingers, and gestured to the team members behind him to surround him.

Four team members crept along the wall toward the storage room, their gun barrels moving slowly in the darkness, the red light of the infrared sights sweeping across the wall inch by inch.

Lin Shen pressed himself against the door of the storage room and heard the faint sound of tactical boots rubbing against the cement floor getting closer and closer.

He didn't move.

As the muzzle of the first team member's gun passed the edge of the storage room doorway, he reached out from behind the door, spread his fingers, and placed them on the side of the team member's helmet. Mental energy surged from his fingertips, directly injecting into the opponent's nervous system.

The team member's vision suddenly changed.

He saw Shen Qinghou lean out from the fourth-floor stairwell, his zither lying in front of him, his fingers plucking the strings, while Su Wan behind him tightly hugged his neck.

The teammate suddenly raised his gun and pulled the trigger, and all the bullets hit the wall behind his teammate.

A piece of broken brick hit his teammate's helmet. The teammate whirled around, grabbed his gun barrel, and yelled, "Are you crazy?!"

Lin Shen had already slipped out through the crack in the door on the other side of the storage room and was moving along the wall towards the second floor.

He heard the shouts of two teammates confirming each other and the clanging of guns behind him, but he didn't turn around.