Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Lin Shen's illusion perception ability allows him to vaguely sense the body heat inside the building—

In a corner of the lobby on the first floor, there were a dozen or so faint heat signals, probably from customers and staff who hadn't managed to escape and were huddled behind the bar, too afraid to move.

There were also a few scattered individuals on the second and third floors who were too frightened by the gunshots to come out of their private rooms.

These people are ordinary people and have nothing to do with the awakened ones that Zhou Zhengqing is hunting, but the outer encirclement shows no intention of evacuating them.

Lin Shen reached out and pressed his hand on the communicator behind his ear, but stopped just as his fingertips touched the switch.

The signal bar in the upper right corner of the screen is empty—it's not that the signal is bad, it's that it's completely blocked, and you can't even make an emergency call.

He took out his phone and glanced at it; it also showed "No Service," with all communication bands cut off.

These people came with a sure-fire mentality, having even blocked their escape routes.

He instinctively wanted to message Xu Suyuan for help.

Xu Suyuan's ability to travel through the void allows her to traverse dozens of kilometers in an instant. If she receives the message, she can come to provide support.

But the moment his fingertips touched the communicator, he realized—the signal was blocked, and messages couldn't be sent at all.

Even if it's sent out, it's useless. Xu Suyuan is in Lieyang Province. It would take at least three hours for her to get here. By the time she arrives, it will be too late.

He's all alone now.

The enemy had 284 fully armed soldiers, with submachine guns, grenades, mortars, armored vehicles, drones, and more heavy weapons than he had ever seen in any operation.

He only has a pistol and the [Illusion Weaving] ability; charging in head-on would be suicide.

But the resonance deep within his soul continued to pulsate, urging him to hurry over.

He closed his eyes and focused his mind on the direction of that resonance—on the sixth floor of the Emperor's Club, in his office, two forces that were in sync with him were slowly weakening.

The icy blue energy fluctuation had weakened by nearly 30% compared to ten minutes ago, and the lake blue one was also decreasing, albeit at a slower pace.

This means that the energy of the two companions is being rapidly depleted.

Lin Shen gritted his teeth and took out a portable workstation from his backpack—a modified military-grade laptop with a matte black casing and shock-absorbing strips on the corners.

He leaned his computer against the low wall behind the trash can, squatted down, and his fingers flew across the keyboard, trying to hack into the nearby surveillance system to at least figure out the enemy's troop deployment and command chain.

The moment the screen lit up, he realized things were worse than he had imagined.

All cameras were cut off – directly shut down by executive order.

He saw an emergency notice issued by the Zhaoming City Public Security Bureau ten minutes earlier in the system backend: "Due to emergency maintenance of gas pipelines, all monitoring equipment along Zhaoming Avenue, Zhongshan Road, and Renmin Road will be temporarily shut down. The restoration time will be announced separately."

The notice was signed by the Technical Section of the Zhaoming City Public Security Bureau and bore an electronic seal. It covered all the streets surrounding the Emperor's Club, even cutting off traffic cameras and private surveillance cameras in shops.

He was all too familiar with this tactic. Before each roundup of Awakened Ones in Lieyang Province, the authorities would use various pretexts to cut off surveillance and communications, all in order to cover up the truth afterward.

Gas pipeline maintenance, signal malfunction—these are all pre-prepared excuses. Once the matter is over, they'll just issue a random announcement to cover it up.

He took a deep breath, suppressed his anxiety, and his brain started working at lightning speed.

A direct confrontation is definitely not an option.

Two hundred and eighty-four enemies, with more than a dozen machine guns, as well as mortars and grenades. He, an illusionist, couldn't last more than ten seconds in a head-on confrontation.

But if you can't fight head-on, you can only outsmart them—first figure out the enemy's command chain, find out where the command center is, then use illusions to disrupt the command system, create chaos, and take advantage of the confusion to bring your two companions out.

The problem is that time is running out.

The outer encirclement has been formed, and judging from the deployment of troops, a general offensive could begin at any time.

He must find a breakthrough before the final offensive.

Lin Shen retrieved the portable workstation and restarted [Illusion Weaving].

This time, he didn't simply hide his existence; instead, he actively fabricated a false identity.

He disguised himself as a patrolman from the Zhaoming City Public Security Brigade, the kind of ordinary security guard responsible for setting up a perimeter cordon. He wore a black combat uniform, a bulletproof helmet, and a walkie-talkie on his chest, patrolling the streets with a serious expression.

The illusion enveloped his entire body, leaving no flaws in his appearance or demeanor.

He even gave this fake identity a fictitious number and call sign, so he could give a few answers if anyone questioned him.

After completing his disguise, he straightened up, no longer hiding, and swaggered along the street toward the temporary command vehicle.

He encountered two patrol teams of security guards on the way, who simply nodded at him and no one suspected anything.

This put his mind at ease—illusion weaving was still very effective against ordinary people, and it wouldn't be exposed unless he encountered someone with a mental perception ability.

The temporary command vehicle was parked at the corner of the intersection 500 meters away from the Dihao. It was a modified van painted in the blue and white colors of the Zhaoming City Public Security Bureau, with five or six antennas on the roof and four armed guards standing around it.

The guards were dressed in full combat gear, with the words "Special Operations" printed on their bulletproof vests. Their submachine guns were equipped with red dot sights, and their eyes scanned the surroundings warily. They were on a completely different level from the ordinary security guards on the perimeter.

Lin Shen did not get too close.

These four guards were too vigilant. His illusions could fool ordinary people, but they couldn't fool special agents who had received professional counter-surveillance training.

Under the cover of darkness, he circled around to the back of the command vehicle, using a row of half-person-high trash cans as cover. He crouched behind the trash cans, shrinking his body into the shadows, and listened intently to the sounds inside the vehicle.

The command vehicle was well soundproofed, but there was a crack in the window, and the conversation inside could be faintly heard, barely audible.

------

Inside the command vehicle, Zhou Zhengqing sat in a folding chair, the laptop screen in front of him displaying the energy fluctuation values ​​inside the Emperor Club.

Two curves slowly moved across the screen—one pale blue representing ice-type ability users, and the other lake blue representing water-type ability users. Both curves were slowly descending, but at a much slower rate than he had anticipated.

"Not bad mental energy reserves," Zhou Zhengqing muttered to himself, his eyes fixed on the data changes on the screen.

"After seven consecutive battles and killing more than twenty people, their mental strength is still over 60%. The quality of these two samples is even higher than that of the ones from Lieyang Province."