Long Zhan's attack wasn't some special technique, but it was as explosive as a bomb.
Fast, fierce and devastating.
He first powered off the ground with his rear leg, transferring the force from his leg to his waist as he lunged forward. Then, while turning sideways, he focused his strength on the right side of his back, slamming head-on into the black man's chest.
This entire sequence wasn't some instinctive move or some mystical secret art.
Instead, it was a traditional Chinese martial arts technique known as the "Iron Mountain Lean" that used the body as a weapon to instantly unleash all of its strength, delivering a devastating attack.
An ordinary person using the Iron Mountain Lean could send a similarly sized opponent flying two or three meters.
Long Zhan stood 1.94 meters tall and weighed a staggering 204 pounds. This charged Iron Mountain Lean was like the charge of a rhinoceros in heat.
The burly black man, over 1.8 meters tall, had just refocused his attention on Long Zhan, when he felt a massive force hit him.
Before he knew what hit him, he found himself soaring through the air!Long Zhan drifted further and further away from his vision as a massive pain struck his back, followed by a booming crash into the modular wall of the assessment field.
Propelled by the residual force of the impact, his body flew another four-plus meters.
Finally, after toppling several modular setups in succession, he landed flat on his butt with a thud, his chest heaving, gasping for air, his vision darkening as he passed out.
"Fuck, this monsterous freak, is he part locomotive? Because he sure as hell hits like a train."
Those were the burly black man’s final words before he lost consciousness.
Having instantly neutralized the burly black man with his attack, Long Zhan followed through by diving to the ground and raising his gun toward the woman on the sofa.
Armed with a lethal weapon and displaying clear intent to attack, she met the criteria for lethal force. Long Zhan pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Two bullets shot out in quick succession.
One hit the woman's upper chest, while the other precisely hit her in the head.
Deliberately allowing the woman to grab the gun in order to fulfill the criteria for the use of lethal force, then knocking the man flying to control him, and then taking out the distant woman while falling.
Handling both male and female targets in under two seconds, that was Long Zhan's plan!
In his eyes, a flawless and impeccable plan of action.
On the elevated walkway, Chief Instructor Malcolm, Special Training Instructor Adam, Bravo Team Captain Jason, and Deputy Captain Ray, these four veterans with 10+ or even 20+ years of special operations experience, stared at the trail of devastation left by the burly black man's flight.
They exchanged glances, momentarily at a loss for words.
The uproar in the assessment field was too massive, even the trainees who'd finished early and were in the resting area came rushing out, attracted by the noise.
"What? What's going on? Are we under attack?"
Gazing at the wrecked assessment area and the unconscious stuntman whose fate was unknown, the clueless trainees were utterly baffled.
They couldn't fathom what could've trashed the Killing House to this extent.
Jason and the others who were standing on the walkway above, along with the recently arrived trainees, were all dumbfounded by the scene. The woman that had just been shot was even more shell-shocked.
Her right hand weakly held the pistol, her gaze fixed blankly on Long Zhan, as if she were petrified.
In that moment, she perfectly embodied what it meant to truly be shocked.
If even a muscular 160-plus-pound man had been sent flying, she couldn't imagine how traumatized she would be if it were her, both physically and mentally.
From that moment on, an uncontrollable thought etched itself into her mind.Any future training or assessments involving Long Zhan, she had to stay away from. No matter the subsidy they offered, she couldn't risk her life like this again.
She didn't want to earn money she couldn't spend, or spend it while confined to a hospital bed.
And in this instant when everyone was stunned into silence, the entire Killing House as quiet as a grave, Long Zhan fired again, shattering the hush.
The woman, who had "forgotten to die" after her headshot, took another paint round to the face.
It was only then that she snapped back to reality. A headshot means collapse and play dead, not sit there with your mouth wide open.
She promptly tilted sideways and flopped onto the sofa as a "corpse."
Then came the comical twist.
The first armed man that had been killed, lured by the earlier commotion from the flying black man, had "resurrected" to spectate like everyone else.
Seeing the hostage get a follow-up shot, he feared Long Zhan might notice he was still "alive" and come rhino-charge him too.
He yelped "Ah!" and "died" again.
He yelled loudly on purpose, as if he was worried that Long Zhan wouldn't hear him.
The guy's acting was top-notch, definitely earning his pay as a stuntman. Right now however, the brightest spotlight wasn't on him.
The absolute star of tonight’s show, Long Zhan, was already handling the aftermath.
He stood up, dashed to the burly black man and checked his vitals, confirming he was just unconscious with minor injuries. Afterwards, he hoisted him over his shoulder, and jogged back into the training room.
Only then did he raise his hand and shout, "Clear!"
Hearing Long Zhan's "clear" against the backdrop of what looked like a bombed area, made the walkway crowd's expressions become strange.
The assessment area was indeed clear now, some might even say excessively so.
Not only were the three stuntmen all either devastated physically or psychologically, but even the off-field ones got clipped by falling modules, sustaining varying degrees of injury.
The most frustrated out of all of them however, was Malcolm.
Long Zhan had finished with the second scenario, so logically, it was time to transition to the third scenario. But staring at the chaos Long Zhan had wrought, he opened his mouth yet uttered nothing.With the second scenario ending like this, he didn't know how to proceed.
Originally, the second scenario was supposed to be a flawless no-win loop. Prioritize the woman or the man, and it ends in failure, seamlessly feeding into the third dialogue scenario.
As Clay had put it, no matter what, they would find something to criticize you for.
But now?
Long Zhan hadn't followed the script they had set at all. He'd leveraged his godly Tier-0 abilities to take out both the man and the woman.It would’ve been fine if he had just killed them all, but Long Zhan’s micromanagement was as outstanding as ever.
The burly black man, unarmed, showing no hostile intent, merely disrupting the situation, was subdued via knockout.
This was fully compliant with special operations rules.
The woman started unarmed and with no hostile intent, but then she secretly reached for a gun, instantly becoming a hostile target.Long Zhan shot her without hesitation, also in line with all operational guidelines.
In other words...
Long Zhan's second scenario was the only perfect pass among all the trainees.
And the third scenario, which required a second-scenario failure to emerge, was left stuck in limbo, unable to materialize.
How were they supposed to continue now?
Chief Instructor Malcolm was at a loss, turning his gaze to Special Training Instructor Adam for guidance.
Though Adam had designed the assessment, he'd never anticipated anyone passing the second scenario so flawlessly. He had no backup plan prepared.
Facing Malcolm's plea for help, he could only offer a wry smile, shrug, and spread his hands, "Sir, Gibran handled it beautifully, didn't he? I think there's no need for further testing.
“Of course, you are the highest commanding officer here, the final decision rests with you."
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