The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 677: Statues

Gao Yang’s expression darkened. He immediately stopped walking. The others noticed and followed suit.

Ke Yo’s gaze sharpened. Gao Yang had Lie Detection.

There was a moment of strange stillness as she came to a halt too. Then she used Strange Whistle—creating a Strange Realm would take two seconds, which she didn’t have.

Whoosh.

Lithe Snake threw his throwing knife just in time.

He had never once looked away from Ke Yo. He never gave away his trust easily, not even to someone his captain had vouched for. And a moment before, Gao Yang had complimented Ke Yo’s watch in a casual tone.

Lithe Snake realized that Gao Yang had sensed something wrong and was using Lie Detection on Ke Yo. At that moment, Lithe Snake grabbed a throwing knife.

Ke Yo saw a flash of light in the corner of her eye. While she wasn’t a fighter, she was quite quick, and there was enough distance between her and Lithe Snake for her to bend her neck. The throwing knife brushed past her cheek, leaving a deep gash.

That delayed Ke Yo for half a second, which was enough for Gao Yang to teleport to her at an imperceptible speed. Pain followed, shooting through her body and rushing to her head, knocking her out.

Gao Yang quickly took off her watch and threw it away, throwing her onto his shoulder. “We’re being followed! Let’s go!”

“It’s too late.” Qing Ling, their vanguard, stopped.

Gao Yang started and looked up to see an old man in black cotton clothes and shoes standing a hundred meters from them, at the end of the road. He was skinny and had a hunchback. His hands were held behind his back, and there was a blue and red mask of lopsided features on his face.

Yan Liang!

Gao Yang knew nothing about Yan Liang, but his strength was clear from the fact that he would intercept the six of them on his own. Moreover, reinforcements from the Qilin Guild must be on the way.

“I’ll take care of...” Wang Zikai clenched his fists, itching for a fight.

Gao Yang decisively dropped Ke Yo to the ground. “Let’s go.”

He turned on his heels and ran away, so did Qing Ling, Lithe Snake, and Hong Xiaoxiao.

“Huh? Aren’t we gonna fight...”

Wang Zikai was disappointed, but he suppressed the urge to fight and turn to catch up with his companions.

After a few steps, though, Gao Yang came to a stop, face ashen. The others also had a grave look on their faces.

“What now?” Wang Zikai was confused. He saw terror in Gao Yang’s eyes, which was a rare look on his friend.

He looked up to see a tall, thin man standing in the middle of the road, about a hundred meters away from them.

He had brown curls and a fair, gentle-looking face, wearing a dark brown wool coat and holding a black cane with his right hand. The perfect picture of a graceful gentleman.

The familiar face made Gao Yang’s head go blank. Qilin and Yan Liang had surrounded the five of them.

It was Wang Zikai’s first time seeing Qilin. He didn’t know the man; he seemed disgustingly pretentious to him.

It would be better if the man were wearing glasses. Those eyes were too aggressive for the gentlemanly look he projected.

Wang Zikai took a step forward, “Don’t worry, bro. I’ll teach him a lesson...”

“Run!” Gao Yang yelled.

...

Three seconds ago.

Qilin blocked the group of five from a hundred meters away, and without hesitation, he let go of his cane and stared at them, quickly rotating the Black Gold ring on his left forefinger.

The needle hidden in the ring pierced into his finger, injecting him with a small amount of Medicine S.

Medicine S was a new invention created with the energy of Vermilion Bird’s Equivalent Exchange—it was one of the medicines Yan Liang had asked Dr. Jia to develop.

It doubled the user’s abilities for 8 seconds, after which the user would go into 7 days of deep coma.

With Equivalent Exchange, Vermilion Bird could triple someone’s power for 30 to 60 seconds, followed by a coma of 50 to 90 days. To Qilin, Medicine C was a middle ground that suited his purpose better.

Gao Yang didn’t know what Qilin Was doing. He only knew that Qilin wasn’t wearing glasses, and he had rotated his ring.

Although they were still a hundred meters from Qilin, although Qilin’s brain formatting should be limited to ten meters, his illusion to twenty meters, and his psychic dominance to thirty meters, after many a near-death experience, Gao Yang had developed an instinct he couldn’t explain, and it was telling him to run without looking back. Immediately!

“Run!”

Gao Yang grabbed the slowest Hong Xiaoxiao and teleported toward the line of short houses on one side of the street. Lithe Snake and Qing Ling also didn’t wait to rush toward the buildings on the opposite side since they were closer to them.

Wang Zikai alone stayed where he was, suddenly paralyzed by the choice of picking a direction.

Whoosh.

With Hong Xiaoxiao in his arms, Gao Yang teleported to the eaves of the window on the second floor of a building, about to jump and teleported a second time. Qing Ling had jumped onto her Black Gold blade, planning to fly over the short houses. And Lithe Snake was running at full speed up a wall, about to dive into the window on the second floor of a building.

But simultaneously, the five of them froze.

Qilin’s cold green eyes created a freeze frame like a camera, putting everything on hold. With Medicine S injected, he used his psychic dominance skill at full range in an instant: Statues.

His eyes radiated countless powerful psychic rays like invisible flashlights, hitting every lifeform within his sight. Originally, the skill’s effective range was around 80 meters, and the farther something was from him, the less effective the skill was. With Medicine S doubling his power, however, the skill now had an effective range of 160 meters, and Gao Yang and his companions, who were 120 meters from Qilin, were put under a powerful hold.

A second passed.

Gao Yang, who was about to teleport away with Hong Xiaoxiao, Qing Ling, riding on her blade, and Lithe Snake, walking on a wall, froze and fell to the ground like birds getting shot at the same time.

Once he hit the ground, Gao Yang felt physically heavy and mentally dull, lightheaded as if he were drunk. However, the control over him wasn’t absolute like the control Qilin could exert with psychic dominance—he could still resist! He could move!

Qilin’s Statues was a crowd control skill that effectively paralyzed every target within his sight at the cost of his own mobility. If Qilin moved or took any other action, his control over his targets would be lifted. As long as he stayed unmoving, though, the targets would have compromised physical control and mental faculties, thus losing their ability to fight.

Qilin had played support at the cost of going coma for seven days, entrusting Yan Liang to take over the fight. It showed his absolute trust in Yan Liang.

Everything was going according to the two men’s plan.

Not even Azure Dragon and Vermilion Bird knew about it. Qilin, Yan Liang, and Ke Yo were the only ones moving in the dark, all to make sure that the plan worked out without hiccups.

After Gao Yang successfully rescued Ke Yo, Qilin, and Yan Liang secretly tracked them and sent the location to Azure Dragon, having him bring reinforcements.

For the next eight seconds, Gao Yang and his companions would be unable to resist or run away. It would be as easy as flipping his hand for Yan Liang to kill them.