Chapter 730 Causal Vision: Where is the Mastermind?
Before he could recover from Zhang Shenyi's miserable state, an even more unbelievable scene unfolded on the screen.
The spot where Feng Mu's body exploded, the mess of flesh and bone fragments, seemed to have been wiped away by an invisible hand... vanished?!
Then the light and shadow distorted, and Feng Mu, completely unharmed and even with his clothes restored, reappeared, just like a game character reloading a save and being reborn.
"!!!"
The man in the maintenance department suddenly narrowed his pupils to the size of pinpoints, and his mouth opened involuntarily wide enough to fit an egg.
First came extreme astonishment, followed by the ecstatic joy of escaping death.
"Good! Good! Good!"
He was so excited he was incoherent, and he clenched his fist forcefully.
"Not dead! Hahaha! Not dead! Great! We can capture them alive again! The opportunity! The opportunity has returned!"
This regained "hope" filled him with ecstatic joy.
However, the ecstatic smile on his face froze abruptly before it could fully bloom.
He saw the reborn Feng Mu, and without even a second's hesitation, his figure flashed like a ghost, transforming into a blurry black shadow with astonishing speed as he rushed straight towards Zhang Shenyi.
Zhang Shenyi, however, seemed to be stunned and stood frozen in place.
"???"
The man in the maintenance department, whose heart had just settled back into his stomach, instantly felt it leap into his throat again.
No, you hit him! Why aren't you throwing a punch?!
The man in the maintenance department suddenly sensed something was wrong.
He didn't want Zhang Shenyi to kill Feng Mu, but he didn't want Feng Mu to kill Zhang Shenyi even more.
Fortunately, for some reason, Feng Mu let Zhang Shenyi go and brushed past him.
This bizarrely merciful scene made the men in the maintenance department widen their eyes, and a sense of unease suddenly surged within them.
Why didn't Feng Mu kill Zhang Shenyi? What was he planning to do?
If Feng Mu were to kill Zhang Shenyi, he would panic. But if Feng Mu didn't kill Zhang Shenyi, he would panic even more!
As if in response to his terrified questioning, the image on the computer screen suddenly switched to a highway.
From a distance, captured by a drone, a convoy of about ten vehicles, resembling a giant black steel python, sped towards the scene at an astonishing speed, kicking up clouds of dust.
As the camera zoomed in, the man could clearly see that those vehicles were clearly armed prison transport vehicles belonging to the prison system, but each one had undergone outrageous illegal modifications.
On the roof and outside the windows of the car, there were figures wearing ferocious masks, armed with guns, their murderous aura almost emanating from the screen.
The men in the maintenance department had hearts pounding wildly:
"Wait, what's going on? Isn't the Second Prison a prison? Shouldn't it be full of prison guards? But why does this look like it's a terrorist base with some kind of armed group?"
He stared wide-eyed as the winding convoy of cars came to a sudden stop, halting at the edge of the grass beside the road.
"Splash—!!"
The car door was violently pushed open!
Teams of masked prison guards, divided into several groups, quickly split into several tactical teams. Like separate streams, they rushed into the dense grass in different directions, heading towards the various areas of combat.
Among them, there was a five-person team that was incredibly fast.
Their movement was also quite strange; instead of rushing to the nearest and most intense point of engagement, they moved forward at a rapid angle, like a precisely projected arrow.
With a clear goal and a straight path, cutting through the grass, they steadfastly pointed in one direction... as if something in the distance was drawing them in.
What is it?
The man in the maintenance department felt his heart skip a beat.
He stared intently at the five-man squad's advance axis, and a chilling guess uncontrollably surfaced in his mind.
He wasn't sure, or rather, he didn't want to be sure.
But at this moment, the understanding AI Xiaoyou once again demonstrated its thoughtfulness.
On the computer screen, a glaring white dotted line was precisely simulated and drawn.
The line started precisely from that five-person team, and its extension, coincidentally, pointed straight towards... the area of the bungalows where he was located.
"Why...why does it feel like...it's aimed at me?!"
The man in the maintenance department turned deathly pale instantly.
"I...I'm just a spectator! I'm so far away, just looking...how could I be detected?! How did they locate me?!"
He didn't have time to think about how the other side had been able to pinpoint his location so precisely in the chaos of the battlefield.
At that moment, an unprecedented fear overwhelmed him like ice water, instantly bringing him to his senses.
He was too happy just now!
So, the current situation is that Feng Mu wasn't killed, and Zhang Shenyi isn't dead either... So, could the person who's going to be killed next be... himself?!
I was supposed to just be a spectator, enjoying a professional performance up close... how did I end up in mortal danger?!
Where should I go now?
The immense panic suffocated the men in the maintenance department.
No, it seems that the Relief Studio's battle plan didn't include any contingency plan for how the audience could escape if they were attacked. All they had was the premonition that they would blow up the command center.
The man in the maintenance department glanced at the explosives posted on the wall, his scalp tingling, and shouted into the computer:
"Tell me quickly, where should I run to?"
He was imitating Zhang Shenyi's way of asking questions to the AI Xiaoyou.
However, all that answered him was the screen calmly switching battle scenes and the white dotted line pointing in his direction like a leech.
The dotted line visibly shortened, but the AI Xiaoyou did not answer his question.
He was an audience member, just an audience member.
Not in the combat sequence, with no authority, the AI Xiaoyou will not give him any answer.
The white dotted line on the screen pointing here was never meant to be a "warning" for him.
That was purely a countdown to the cleanup process that "Xiao You" initiated autonomously based on battlefield risk assessment!
"bite--"
The man's expression changed drastically, and he turned his head sharply to look in the direction of the sound.
On the surface of the explosive blocks on the wall, the small, dark indicator lights suddenly lit up with a glaring red light and began to flicker.
10,
9,
8,
……
"Holy shit!!! Holy shit!!!"
Extreme fear transformed into the most primal driving force.
He let out a series of incomprehensible, collapsing roars, no longer caring about anything else, and like a wild dog with its tail on fire, he frantically rushed out the door.
Then, at the fastest speed he had ever seen, he used both his hands and feet to climb over the low back wall of the yard, without even choosing a direction, and just kept running headlong.
……..
The 087 prison guard squad was also sprinting, heading straight for a row of unremarkable bungalows at the edge of the bushes.
It wasn't something I observed with my naked eye, nor was it any kind of technological means that detected the anomaly; rather, it was a strange method unique to [Fate].
—Seeing color perception.
Similar to the powerful and unpredictable Six Styles (Shave, Iron Body, Paper Drawing, Moon Walk, Tempest Kick, Finger Pistol), which emphasizes practical combat, the perception of color is also a strange secret technique secretly developed by the [Destiny] Technology Development Bureau.
The difference lies in the fact that seeing color perception does not enhance strength or speed. Its core lies in deeply exploring and sublimating the practitioner's own perception ability, transcending the limitations of the five senses, and touching a deeper level of information flow in the unseen realm.
It can significantly enhance, or even "alienate," the perceptual dimension of the caster.
This is a skill that touches the soul and destiny, with an extremely high threshold for mastery and immense difficulty.
In some ways, it is far more difficult and dangerous than the Six Forms, which focus on the unleashing of physical potential and the application of energy.
The practitioner must possess a certain innate spiritual awareness and a subtle control over their own mental power; the slightest carelessness could result in mental damage and soul fragmentation.
In the vast combat sequence of Destiny, most squad members of A-level or above have successfully mastered at least one or two of the six moves, and it is not uncommon for them to have mastered all six moves.
There are even those with exceptional talent who are able to reach and master the "Final Style," which is even more terrifying than the Six Styles.
However, the perception of color is completely different.
Even within the realm of [Destiny], a place teeming with talented individuals and teeming with monsters, those who can successfully cross the threshold and master this technique are extremely rare.
To some extent, the Six Styles require more arduous practice, perseverance, and precise control over the body and energy, while the perception of color relies purely on talent, an innate affinity for the ethereal "perceptual domain," and a kind of ineffable "comprehension."
Because of its high threshold and difficult learning process, once someone succeeds in learning it and advances their color perception to the first stage, successfully activating and stabilizing the mysterious "sixth sense," the resulting abilities are usually quite astonishing and highly personalized.
It varies greatly from person to person; there are almost no two cases that are exactly the same.
Some can "hear" the whispers of fate, some can "smell" the scent of crisis, some can "touch" the folds of space, and so on.
However, based on the accumulated data and key characteristics of their capabilities over a long period, the research institutions within [Destiny] have broadly categorized them into six main types:
Pure Sensation Category:
Extreme enhancement of a certain basic sense, such as vision to microscopically perceive energy flow, hearing to capture whispers from kilometers away, and smell to distinguish and track the "pheromones" of a specific individual, etc.
Range class:
Centered on itself, it forms a spherical perception field with no blind spots, and all movements within the field, even the slightest changes in airflow, are clearly understood.
Distance class:
By sacrificing breadth of range, perception is extended to an extreme extent, like a probe, capable of traversing vast distances to lock onto specific targets or areas for "remote sensing."
Prediction-based:
It can vaguely predict the target's movement trend or energy changes in the next very short period of time (usually a few seconds), and is used for practical evasion and counterattack, with excellent results.
Perspective type:
It's not simply about seeing through walls, but rather about being able to "see through" energy barriers, visual camouflage, and even the internal structure of some matter to a certain extent, getting straight to the core.
Special class:
The rarest and most peculiar category cannot be simply categorized into the above five types. Their abilities and effects often involve more abstract and bizarre aspects such as cause and effect, emotions, and fate.
At that moment, among the speeding 087 squad, there happened to be a member—Zhao Zhibao—who had successfully mastered this rare secret technique.
Moreover, it is the rarest and most unpredictable special category within the larger category.
Zhao Zhibao is not particularly tall or muscular within the team; he is rather thin and doesn't talk much, appearing rather taciturn.
The main features are arms that reach past the knees and naturally asymmetrical eyes, with the left eye slightly larger than the right.
His ability to perceive color is called "causal vision," a name he gave himself.
When he activates his color perception, a pale golden light, like a data stream, flashes rapidly in the depths of his pupils, which are of different sizes.
This allowed him to vaguely "see" two faint "lines" wrapped around the head of the living being.
Zhao Zhibao called the two lines he saw the "Lines of Cause and Effect in Life and Death".
One is the "life line," brimming with vitality and hope, its color warm and lustrous, like tender buds in early spring; the other is the "death line," entwined with death and the end, its color dull and somber, like withered vines.
These two lines do not arise out of thin air; they connect to the person with whom the target's life and death are most closely related by "cause and effect."
In other words, he can see whose presence recently led to an increase in the target's survival probability (life line), and whose presence has dominated or greatly influenced the target's eventual death (death line).
This is not a precise prophecy of fate, but rather a probability visualization based on existing causal entanglements. The specific interpretation, like divination and fortune telling, requires one's own judgment.
At this moment, while speeding along, Zhao Zhibao quietly activated his secret technique. In his distorted vision, the battlefield presented a completely different scene.
The members representing the Relief Studio all had their lifelines, without exception, tightly connected to Feng Mu.
The logic behind this cause and effect is simple: under the current circumstances, whether these attackers can survive, their chances of survival, are no longer in their own hands, but firmly in Feng Mu's hands.
Feng Mu's will and his next move will directly determine whether these people's fate continues or comes to an abrupt end.
What caught Zhao Zhibao's attention even more was the death line above their heads.
The arrows were not pointed at Feng Mu, who was nearby and posed the greatest threat, or at the approaching prison guard convoy, but rather at one of the houses in the row of bungalows just beyond the edge of the bushes.
There are two possible interpretations:
One possibility is that all the members of these problem-solving workshops will eventually die at the hands of the people in that bungalow;
Another possibility is that their deaths, in the final analysis, were caused by the person in the bungalow.
The correct answer is obvious.
A glint of wisdom flashed in Zhao Zhibao's large and small eyes as he reminded Chen Ya:
"Captain, there's a big fish in a bungalow 2.1km away at the 11 o'clock position!"
Chen Ya, who was at the forefront, originally aimed to rush straight to the center of the battlefield and defeat the most enemies as quickly as possible.
Upon hearing this, he paused for a fraction of a second and asked, "How big is the fish?"
Zhao Zhibao's words were concise and to the point:
"He carries more weight than all these enemies combined; he is very likely the mastermind behind this attack!"
(End of this chapter)
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