Regarding the matter of awakening lightning abilities after transformation

"I understand." These four simple words were not immediately clear to Su Wanxi.

I hope she understands the danger of this operation...

"Remember the tactical plan I mentioned before. If you have any questions, you can ask now." Picking up the weapon case she had prepared earlier, Su Wanxi looked around and paused briefly on each member.

"If not, begin the operation."

......

She heard the soft popping of bubbles, and the shackles binding the space began to loosen. Passing through the gaps in reality, Su Wanxi opened her eyes in the darkness.

My eyes wandered around, and all I could see was cracked earth and withered weeds; not a single patch of green could be found.

Gripping the weapon case tightly, Su Wanxi did not immediately activate the gravity field, but instead leaned against the old wall and carefully observed the environment.

There was no sun in the sky, only a hazy moon hanging in the clouds, and the air was murky and damp, as if covered in dust.

Everywhere there were ruins and broken billboards, half-inserted into the ground, their metal frames oxidized and rusted, turning an eerie blood red under the silvery light.

Despite the extremely harsh environment, Su Wanxi felt a continuous sense of comfort, as if this was the place where awakened beings should be.

Drawing her Beretta 92F from her waist, the girl moved slowly in the shadows. Because gravity was greatly reduced, the black soles of her boots made no sound when they touched the sand.

Holding her breath, a faint gravitational field surrounded her... After walking about thirty or forty meters, Su Wanxi raised her white swan neck and looked up.

Surrounded by tall buildings, launching a signal flare from this location would be unwise, as members would have their view blocked by the high-rises if they were even a little further away.

With a light touch of her toes, the girl climbed up the dilapidated fence and window sills. Compared to taking the stairs, this method was more time-saving and relatively safer—the stairwells were narrow, making it difficult to gain an advantage with firearms, and it was also inconvenient to escape if she was downwind.

“...I...Sister Xi.” Stepping on the air conditioner unit exposed to the silvery sunlight, Su Wanxi felt as if a voice flashed through her mind. Returning along the same path, the voice became clearer and clearer.

"Sister Xi, Sister Xi, can you hear me? Hello? Hello?" The mental communication connection was established, and Qin Kexin's voice instantly rang out.

"I can hear you. Please report your location immediately." Su Wanxi's movement was almost a straight line from bottom to top, so being able to receive Qin Kexin's communication channel at this location meant that the other party was at roughly the same altitude as her.

"I'm... um... in a building." Qin Kexin poked her head out of the window and looked around, her tone slightly hesitant.

Su Wanxi: "Can you see the moon?"

Qin Kexin: "Sure, sure!"

Demanding that the other party maintain the connection, Su Wanxi carried the weapon case and moved towards a nearby building.

"Sister Xi...I'm here." The voice didn't come from her mind, but from a window not far to her right. Su Wanxi crouched low, stepped onto the windowsill, and jumped in.

"Great, Sister Xi is actually so close to me." Qin Kexin was carrying a backpack full of weapons and holding a black Glock pistol.

Su Wanxi straightened up and breathed a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Qin Kexin and she were both lucky; meeting each other in the crack at the first moment was the best possible outcome.

Qin Kexin's "mental communication" can greatly speed up the search, while Su Wanxi's "gravity manipulation" can not only enhance the team's mobility, but also provide a considerable boost to frontal combat.

"Are you injured?"

"No, I've been staying in my room..." Qin Kexin shook her head, and to prove that she was healthy, she turned around in front of Su Wanxi.

......

The man leaned against the sofa, the bleeding from his knee beginning to slow as it was bandaged.

"Mr. Song... I'll take you to the hospital now." Gu Cheng frowned and reached out her arm to help the other man leave.

"Thank you, you don't need to worry about me for now... We've already arranged for people to come over..." Song Shiyan waved his hand, indicating that Gu Cheng didn't need to be nervous. The moment Liao Xiuran escaped, he activated the office building's alarm system, and there should be quite a few members of the Hermit Bureau on their way there now.

"Why would that guy...?"

"Gu Cheng... your current ability level is C-?"

The girl nodded: "Yes... those were test results from a month ago."

"Cough cough..." Song Shiyan began to cough violently, and the wound on his leg reopened due to the movement.

"What brings you here now..." Su Wanxi had reported Gu Cheng's situation to him, and Song Shiyan had personally approved the proposal to exclude Gu Cheng from the rift.

"I would like to apply for the right to use various weapons." The enemy chose this particular moment to assassinate the branch chief of the Hermit Bureau. Even if Gu Cheng was stupid, he could guess that this rift was somewhat unusual.

Song Shiyan took out a metal medal from his pocket. The silver medal was engraved with a flying dragon in the same shape as the black card: "Show this to them, and you can choose any weapon that the logistics department can provide."

But what if that man suddenly returned...? Gu Cheng accepted the medal, her light brown eyes filled with struggle.

"Don't worry about me... The two bullets you hit him earlier were enough to give him a hard time. That guy values ​​his life more than anything." Song Shiyan guessed what Gu Cheng was thinking and gently patted the girl with his arm.

"I hope you can enter the rift and tell Captain Su to be careful of other Awakened Ones. This rift is part of the Parchment Plan..." The enemy is in the dark, while we are in the light. If Gu Cheng can pass the intelligence to Su Wanxi before the enemy takes action, the Parchment Plan may not be able to succeed.

Parchment...that's...There was no time to ask any more questions. Gu Cheng stood up and nodded to Song Shiyan.

Chapter 126 Hesitation (Section 128)

Gu Cheng sat in the passenger seat of the car, one hand supporting her cheek, her eyes downcast, with a dark green travel bag beside her left leg.

Colt Pythons, Type 95 rifles, stacks of Magnum armor and 5.8mm bullets... and several pieces of plastic explosives...

“Gu Cheng, I remember Song Shiyan’s original words were ‘I hope you can enter the rift.’” Gu Chengyan’s voice echoed in his mind, deep and calm.

"Hmm..." Gu Cheng seemed to have thought of something, and gently clenched her fist.

“So you are actually still in an ‘unstable’ state and have no obligation to deal with the cracks…” Gu Chengyan whispered, as if he were simply stating a fact.

"You...don't want to?" Gu Cheng pressed her forehead against the window, her thin lips slightly pursed. This body originally belonged to Gu Chengyan, so it was understandable that she was unwilling to take this risk.

Gu Chengyan: "Yes, I think giving up now is indeed a good choice."

"..." Gu Cheng raised her neck and stared quietly at the roof of the car.

"I want to help her..." Her fair and slender fingers stretched out and then bent in front of her eyes, and the veins could be vaguely seen through her skin.

“You can forcibly control this body. If you really don’t want to, then replace me now.” Gu Cheng paused, then added.

"If it were me... I would definitely go to the rift..." After saying that, the girl sat up straight and waited for what she would say next.

After a long silence, Gu Chengyan said nothing, and Gu Cheng never lost control of her body.

Was this tacit approval...? Gu Cheng sighed softly, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," a faint reply echoed in my mind.

......

Su Wanxi turned on her flashlight and aimed the beam at the humanoid monster on the ground.

Thick blood covered his cheeks, his eyes were grayish-white and sunken into their sockets, his nose was almost worn flat, and his gaping mouth, split to the back of his cheek, had two rows of sharp white teeth inside.

His sleeves were torn into pieces and hung on his body. His muscles were bruised, and his lower abdomen was exposed by a gunshot wound, with dark internal organs scattered all over the ground.

The zombie's chest was firmly pinned down by a black combat boot, and looking up, one could see its slender and graceful calves.

Confirming that the other party was still active, Su Wanxi frowned slightly and increased the intensity of her abilities.

"Ugh..." A hissing sound like phlegm coming from its throat, the zombie tried its best to stand up, but was squeezed down hard by gravity.

Moments later, its head exploded like a watermelon, and even the blood could not escape gravity, flowing into the ground along the wreckage. Su Wanxi lifted her calf and slowly turned her head.

Qin Kexin held a black pistol and looked around warily.

"Let's go... This monster's resistance to abilities is only slightly lower than that of weak rift monsters." The giant spider Gu Cheng encountered when he first joined the Hermit Bureau was a weak rift monster, and the ordinary monsters here all have similar ability resistances...

"Wait." Glancing around, Su Wanxi saw something flash before her eyes and waved to Qin Kexin, signaling her to stop.

"Hmm?" The latter had just put on her backpack and looked at Su Wanxi with a puzzled expression.

With delicate, fair fingertips gently stirred the sand, and the object gradually revealed its full form: it was a metal cartridge case with a brass-like luster.

This is... he held his thumb and forefinger against both ends to measure slightly, and his jet-black pupils dilated slightly.

5.56x45 standard rifle cartridge cases... Someone has fired here. Zhang Yizhe is the only person in the team who uses this type of ammunition, but his ammunition is obtained through "projection and manifestation" and cannot be preserved for long.

"Qin Kexin, did you hear any gunshots after you entered the crevice?"

Qin Kexin scratched her head and thought for a while: "No."

Upon receiving the reply, Su Wanxi frowned slightly and subconsciously tightened her grip on the pistol.

She had looked up and estimated the building's height; their current location was only six or seven stories lower than the room where they had met before, roughly twenty or thirty meters. In reality, there was no noise pollution in the crack; if someone fired a gun, it would definitely be heard at such a short distance.

Awakened beings have extremely sharp senses, and even with a silencer installed, they shouldn't be able to... Su Wanxi rubbed her eyelids, her long eyelashes lightly touching her fingertips.

"Has anyone entered the communication channel?" Qin Kexin had recorded everyone's "accounts" on the night of the banquet, and anyone within 100 meters would be automatically connected to her communication channel.

“No, Sister Xi is the first one…” Qin Kexin obediently shook her head.

An ominous premonition gripped her mind, and Su Wanxi expanded the range of the gravity field to five meters around her.

If no one was detected on the communication channel... then only two possibilities remain.

First, the shooter wasn't recorded by Qin Kexin's abilities, so they wouldn't have entered the channel. Second, the shooter had been in the area before Qin Kexin entered the rift. Either one or the other indicates that an outsider intervened in this rift.

"Once everyone has arrived, you will set up two communication channels. One main channel will include all members of the Hermit Bureau, and the other secondary channel will only include me, yourself, and Zhou Li."

"Why...okay?" Qin Kexin asked, a little puzzled, but held back from asking.

Su Wanxi's expression stiffened as she pulled out a magazine and counted the bullets one by one: "I suspect outsiders have interfered with this rift. Be careful of everyone except me and Uncle Zhou..."

"Everyone?"

"Including Qi Bei..." After putting the magazine back into the pistol, Su Wanxi felt that the surrounding environment had met the standards.

She took a short-barreled signal gun from the weapons case, aimed it at the sky, and fired.

A blue flare, a symbol of safety, suddenly exploded, and a ball of azure flame rose and rolled in the dark night.

A few seconds later, signal flares rose simultaneously from the one o'clock and nine o'clock positions, both sending up uniform yellow smoke.

......

"Ah Li~" Qin Kexin saw the person coming and jumped to Zhou Li's side in a few steps.

"It's good that you're not injured... Captain Su." Zhou Li patted Qin Kexin's head to calm her down a bit.

"Some people haven't arrived yet, please wait a little longer."

Zhou Li, Qi Bei, and Zhang Yizhe met up beforehand; the signal flare from the one o'clock position was fired by them. Now only Mu Taofang and Xu Bai remain...

The three-person channel connected, and Su Wanxi conveyed her views to Zhou Li. After listening, the latter gave her a deep look and then nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Captain Su…” After a moment, a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses appeared before everyone. He was covered in blood, and his clothes were torn to shreds.