The silence lasted only for a tenth of a second.
In the next instant, Brute Bull's roar, like the toll of a great bell, exploded within the massive warehouse!
"We've got rats!!!"
The guards who had been playing cards were like startled beasts. They instantly flipped the table, grabbed the automatic rifles leaning against the wall, clicked off the safeties, and aimed their dark muzzles in perfect unison at the shelf where Ling Feng and Shi Lei were hiding!
It's over!
Shi Lei's heart sank to the bottom of his stomach. Every muscle in his body tensed, bracing for the storm of bullets.
However, the expected gunfire never came.
Because at the exact same moment Brute Bull roared, Ling Feng moved.
He didn't retreat. Instead, he darted out from behind the shelf. In one hand, he had already palmed a small, black, unremarkable sphere—one of his specially modified "silent flashbangs."
He didn't even throw it.
An invisible telekinetic force enveloped the sphere, sending it on a bizarre trajectory that was faster and more precise than a bullet. It curved around the obstacles in front of it and landed, perfectly, at the feet of the guards!
The guards' index fingers had just touched their triggers.
The next second, an infrasound wave—inaudible to the human ear but directly affecting the brain's vestibular system and auditory nerves—erupted!
"Ugh...!"
The ferocious expressions on the guards' faces instantly twisted into extreme pain and confusion. They felt the world spin violently, their stomachs churned, and a powerful wave of dizziness and nausea made it impossible for them to even stand, let alone fire their weapons.
One after another, they dropped their guns and fell to their knees, gagging and retching in agony.
In an instant, four armed enemies were completely incapacitated!
Shi Lei watched, dumbfounded. But before he could applaud this miraculous move, a hurricane-like gust of wind, thick with the stench of blood, rushed towards him!
It was Brute Bull!
The infrasound wave was devastating to the ordinary guards, but for a monster like Brute Bull, whose physical conditioning was far beyond that of a normal person, it was merely a mild ringing in his ears and a source of irritation.
He paid no attention to his fallen men. His colossal body, like an out-of-control heavy tank, charged towards Ling Feng and Shi Lei with unstoppable momentum! The giant axe in his hand cut a deadly, cold arc through the light!
"Feng! Watch out!" Shi Lei's eyes were wide with fury. Without a second thought, he picked up a nearby iron crate full of spare parts and, with all his might, hurled it at Brute Bull's flank with a roar!
He knew he was no match for Brute Bull, but he had to buy Ling Feng even a single second of time!
Brute Bull didn't even glance at the flying crate. He just slammed into it with his shoulder!
BANG!
The iron crate, filled with hundreds of kilograms of parts, shattered like it was made of paper. Countless components scattered across the floor with a clatter!
And Brute Bull's charge didn't slow in the slightest!
But that casual collision, however effortless, had caused his body to pause for a fraction of a second.
And that was the moment Ling Feng was waiting for!
From the instant Brute Bull began his charge, Ling Feng's entire spiritual energy had already locked onto another target.
It wasn't Brute Bull himself—he knew that with his current telekinetic strength, trying to take on a monster made of steel and muscle was like throwing an egg at a stone.
His target was a crate on the shelf next to Brute Bull, its lid open, revealing the highest-purity, military-grade energy lattices!
"—Break for me!!"
A terrifying light erupted from Ling Feng's eyes! His spiritual energy, focused into a cone, stabbed like an invisible drill into one of the fist-sized energy lattices exposed to the air!
VMMMM—!!!
The seemingly stable energy lattice, its delicate internal energy balance, was instantly shattered by the brutal, external impact of Ling Feng's spiritual energy!
An intensely blinding, pure white light exploded from the lattice!
It was followed by a violent, pure energy shockwave that swept outwards from the lattice as its epicenter!
The first to be hit was Brute Bull, who was closest to it!
His massive body was struck as if by a colossal, invisible hammer. The savage look on his face instantly turned to one of extreme pain and shock. The violent energy current coursed over his skin, drilling into his muscles and nerves, causing his entire body to convulse violently!
"Arrrggghhhhh—!!!"
Brute Bull let out the most agonizing roar of his life. His muscles, which he prided himself on, so tough that they could deflect bullets, were being fried from the inside out by the close-range energy blast, sending up puffs of black smoke.
His massive body could no longer support him. He crashed to his knees and then collapsed completely, losing consciousness like a fallen mountain of flesh.
The entire warehouse fell into a dead silence.
All that remained was the chain reaction triggered by the detonated energy lattice—a piercing alarm that blared across the night sky!
"Quick! We're out of time!" Ling Feng's face was also pale; that last move had drained almost all of his spiritual energy.
Shi Lei snapped out of his shock. He glanced at Ling Feng, who looked like a demon god, then at the unconscious Brute Bull on the floor, and swallowed hard.
Without another word, he rushed to the nearest shelf and grabbed a crate of intact energy lattices. Meanwhile, Ling Feng, with a simple application of his telekinesis, effortlessly retrieved two more crates from a higher shelf.
"Let's go!"
They felt no greed, quickly retreating the way they came with their spoils.
In the final moment before leaving Warehouse A, Ling Feng looked back at the shelves, which had become extremely unstable due to the exploding lattice, a cold glint in his eyes.
He reached out his hand and made a grasping motion towards another section of lattice storage.
A pulse of spiritual energy was sent out again.
He didn't detonate them, he just... disrupted the structural balance points of a few key shelves.
The two slipped out of the hole in the wall and disappeared into the night.
And behind them, inside Warehouse A, a domino-like chain reaction began.
Row after row of giant shelves, their structures compromised, began to slowly tilt and then crash down, sending thousands upon thousands of energy lattices smashing to the floor like garbage.
Impacts, fractures, short circuits...
The most spectacular fireworks display, composed of energy and wealth, was about to put on a magnificent show in the heart of the Rust Belt.