Time Stop

Jiang Yunlu stared at the back of the figure in front of her. The facial features and body shape were identical; this person was undoubtedly Chu Miaomiao.

However, the aura radiating from her very bones had completely changed. It was that same fleeting temperament she had displayed in front of her and her mother that day.

The old Chu Miaomiao always hunched her shoulders, slouched, and spoke in a soft, timid voice. Whenever something happened, she would habitually shrink back, cowardly and introverted.

But the person standing here right now had a perfectly straight back. Her posture and expression were entirely different.

Her fingers fluttered, spinning the divine brush so fast it left afterimages. The armed bodyguard's gun muzzle was aimed right at Jiang Yunlu.

Chu Miaomiao slightly raised her eyelids.

Her wrist slashed through the empty air.

The tip of the brush dragged out a thin line that flew straight toward the bodyguard's wrist.

Swish!

It didn't even leave time for a blink.

There was no sound of metal clashing, nor the smoke of a fired gun.

Only a soft thud was heard.

The hand holding the pistol, along with half of the forearm, dropped onto the floor tiles.

The severed edge was perfectly smooth.

Two seconds later, blood finally gushed out.

The bodyguard let out a miserable shriek, tightly clutching his severed right arm with his left hand as he fell to his knees.

The pain contorted his face into a hideous grimace.

What the hell is going on?

Only one thought remained in his mind: pick up the gun and shoot all these freaky women to death.

He struggled to crawl forward to reach the severed hand and the gun on the ground.

Chu Miaomiao didn't even give him a second glance.

Her wrist moved again, writing in mid-air.

Horizontal, vertical, curved hook.

A traditional Chinese character for "Dragon" hung suspended in the air.

"Go."

The character lit up with a faint glow, breaking free from the constraints of the air, and transformed into a long, crimson dragon with distinct scales.

It roared with its mouth wide open and lunged straight at the bodyguard.

Raging flames spewed from the dragon's mouth, completely engulfing the man.

The screams came to an abrupt halt.

A pile of black ash scattered on the spot; not even a speck of bone remained.

Xie Yuling swallowed hard and looked over at Jiang Yunlu.

The two exchanged a glance, their faces filled with shock.

So fierce.

They never expected Chu Miaomiao to be this powerful.

Zhou Nianqian slumped onto the ground, his legs shaking uncontrollably.

"Fake... it's all fake! Hallucinations! Magic tricks! You're doing magic tricks!"

He howled at the top of his lungs, his hands clawing wildly at the ground, desperately trying to prove that everything before him was just a holographic projection.

The previous lightning strikes, combined with the invulnerable Xie Yuling, still hadn't completely convinced Zhou Nianqian that extraordinary beings existed in this world.

But drawing a fire-breathing dragon out of thin air?

This completely exceeded the cognitive scope of his nine-year compulsory education.

It was too absurd.

He even pinched his own thigh, wincing in pain.

Yet he still felt that this world was utterly ridiculous.

Chu Miaomiao found him too noisy.

The brush tip fell again, swiftly and elegantly writing the character for "Gun".

There was no unnecessary nonsense.

The strokes morphed and recombined, forming a pitch-black Barrett heavy sniper rifle.

The barrel hovered in mid-air and automatically loaded a round.

It aimed at Zhou Nianqian.

Bang!

A deafening gunshot echoed through the entire space.

The bullet pierced through Zhou Nianqian's abdomen.

The intense impact directly blew his upper body away, slamming it against the wall behind him.

It was a bloody mess.

Zhou Nianqian's dry howling was completely cut off.

He never thought he would die like this. In his dying moments, his past choices flashed before his eyes.

"If only I had taken the money and left, how great that would have been."

Chu Miaomiao retracted her brush. The shaft spun around her fingertips before she gripped it firmly.

The crimson dragon and the Barrett in mid-air turned into specks of light and dissipated into nothingness.

Chu Miaomiao cast a sideways glance at Xie Yuling.

"What are you standing there for? Aren't you going to heal her? If you're too late, she might bleed to death."

Xie Yuling finally snapped back to reality.

However, Chu Miaomiao was exaggerating a bit.

After all, Jiang Yunlu possessed true qi and could suppress the bleeding.

Xie Yuling hurried over to Jiang Yunlu's side and used a Rejuvenation Talisman to heal her.

While healing, she studied the completely transformed Chu Miaomiao.

Before Xie Yuling could even finish her thoughts, her divine sense network captured a strange fluctuation.

It was too fast.

An afterimage brushed past her shoulder, kicking up a gust of wind.

A figure bypassed Xie Yuling.

In the next second, he appeared right in front of Chu Miaomiao.

The person was already face-to-face with her.

"I'll be taking this brush!"

Li Huan's voice echoed in the empty factory, his tone filled with an arrogant certainty of success.

Hadn't this guy already run away?!

In reality, he hadn't. Li Huan had merely been secretly observing from the other side.

Because he noticed a problem: there was no one else in the factory. If this was the Yanhuang Awakening organization, they wouldn't be this careless.

So, he chose to observe from a corner.

Until Chu Miaomiao appeared holding the divine brush.

For someone in the business of licking blood from the tip of a knife, intuition was more reliable than a bulletproof vest. The power of that brush made one covet it even from a distance.

A good item.

It would be best if he could use it after snatching it; that would definitely take his career to the next level. Even if he couldn't use it, he could sell it for a good price and spend the rest of his life sunbathing in Hawaii.

Taking advantage of the exact moment everyone let their guard down, he decisively made his move.

Li Huan dared to snatch food from the tiger's mouth at a time like this, and it wasn't just out of foolish bravery.

Why did Li Huan know about Yanhuang Awakening? Because he also had abilities, and he knew what kind of organization they were.

But people always had to hide something.

A trump card was only a trump card if it was kept hidden.

The grass on the graves of those who had seen him use his ability had already grown and withered several times.

And his ability was called Time Stop.

This ability seemed very powerful and terrifying.

In reality, it was full of flaws.

Because his time stop would also stop his heart. If time stopped for one second, his heart would stop for one second simultaneously.

Medically speaking, an ordinary person's heart can stop beating for four to five minutes before irreversible brain damage occurs.

But that assumes the person is lying perfectly still.

During high-intensity exercise, if the heart suddenly stops beating? That's just asking for a death wish.

The longer this skill was dragged out, the more severe the backlash. Using it once might equate to losing several days of his lifespan.

For this brush, Li Huan was risking it all this time.

Activating Time Stop four consecutive times, the throbbing pain from his heart twisted his facial features, and cold sweat dripped constantly from his forehead.

Through consecutive uses of time stop, Li Huan had already rushed to Chu Miaomiao's face.

He forcibly cut into the center of the battlefield, thrusting himself right up to Chu Miaomiao.

The dark muzzle of his gun was pressed directly against her forehead.

The metallic touch from the gun was real and lethal.

The safety had already been flicked off.

His index finger decisively squeezed the trigger.

The mechanical sound of the chambered bullet was crisp and pleasant. This was his professional ethic: ignore who the opponent was, just pull the trigger.

The moment the bullet was fired, Chu Miaomiao's expression didn't change at all.

A similar gleam of light protected her.

Li Huan had already reached out to snatch the divine brush from her hand.

Firing the gun and grabbing the brush happened simultaneously.

However, the bullet ricocheted, shooting straight toward Li Huan's shoulder.

Although Li Huan's reaction was fast, he was still a bit too slow, and his shoulder was pierced by the rebounding bullet.

Meanwhile, his other hand, which was trying to take the brush, was pinned down by a cat's paw.

Looking up, an orange cat as tall as an adult human was standing on its hind legs. Its front paws, stained with blood, were pressing firmly onto Li Huan's hand.

Expressionless, Chu Miaomiao pulled back the divine brush and viciously plunged it into Li Huan's neck.

Li Huan's eyes widened. Activating his time-stop ability, he violently threw himself backward.

But in the next second, the divine brush lodged in his neck vanished, reappearing in Chu Miaomiao's hand.

Blood gushed wildly from his severed carotid artery.

No matter how absolute his control over time, Li Huan could not stop the blood from draining from his own body.

The most he could achieve was to halt the pumping of his heart, slowing the fatal hemorrhage just a fraction.