Chapter 250

Xuanyuan Qing's hand on the tuner was bloodied, the bronze-colored liquid seeping from it winding along the lines.

Xu Jianhua's incomplete holographic image flickered, the neon light shining through his illusory body.

His knuckle-less right hand reached out tremblingly, wanting to gesture something, but only leaving behind a few broken sign language symbols.

The next second, this phantom was completely swallowed.

Zhou Weihong's projection solidified, ink-like viscous data streams seeping from the folds of his white lab coat.

On that withered old face, the missing earlobe area glowed with a chilling blue light.

"Welcome to the glutton's stomach." Zhou Weihong's voice no longer had electronic static, terrifyingly clear.

He lifted his hand gently.

Twenty puppets emerged from the shadows, their movements uniform.

They had donkey meat burger-shaped interfaces embedded in their temples, flickering with faint blue light, and the dark red mark of the "Observer" in the depths of their pupils.

"This is a hug specially prepared for Xiaochuan."

The sound of footsteps was as dense as a drumbeat.

The puppets moved with astonishing speed, hands clawed, fingers stiff, lunging straight at Xu Chen.

Lin Yu stomped on the ground, his white hair instantly surging into a wall.

Gold-black energy gushed from his fingertips.

But the moment that energy touched the air, it became viscous and sluggish, as if trapped in a quagmire.

"Huh?" Veins bulged on Lin Yu's forehead, and the skin on the back of his hands began to crack inch by inch.

The Void energy was forcibly blunted in this space, its original power to tear through space-time becoming sluggish.

"Idiot." Zhou Weihong lifted his withered palm, his sleeves sliding down to reveal arms covered in bulging veins, those veins eerily like electronic circuits, "This is my brain-domain resonance field; any energy not synchronized with the brain-domain lock will be weakened by at least seventy percent."

Xuanyuan Qing flicked her wrist, and the silver bell chain lashed out.

The bronze surface sprayed tiny blue sparks, whipping the neck of the nearest puppet.

Metal hit flesh, producing only a dull thud, leaving a shallow red mark.

The puppet didn't even pause, mechanically turning its head, its hollow gaze locking onto her vital points.

"Watch out!"

Before Lin Yu's warning was finished, the puppet had already reached Xuanyuan Qing, hand blade slashing down!

She hurriedly dodged sideways, narrowly avoiding the shoulder, but collided with the knee raised by another puppet.

"Ugh!" Sharp pain came from her chest, and Xuanyuan Qing retreated several steps, her back hitting the cold wall heavily.

Five puppets surrounded Lin Yu.

They were slender, actually half a head taller than Lin Yu, their tactical suits stained with the grease of donkey meat burgers.

Their attacks were ruthless, yet carried an eerie tacit understanding, their attack lines tricky, sealing off all angles of evasion.

Lin Yu managed to condense the gold-black energy into a long whip, lashing at the face of the nearest puppet.

The puppet didn't dodge or evade, letting the energy whip lash across its face.

Flesh split, revealing the metal skeleton underneath, blue blood splashing out.

But the next second, the broken facial tissue began to squirm and repair, and new skin quickly covered the cold-glinting metal skeleton.

"Cyborg?" Lin Yu's temples throbbed.

Scenes from the laboratory corridor twenty years ago flashed through his mind.

What was soaking in the glass culture pods was exactly this kind of metal skeleton.

Xu Jianhua's knuckle-less hand was injecting blue reagent into a semi-finished body.

"A gift from your old friend." Zhou Weihong snapped his fingers.

Three puppets suddenly tore open their tactical suits, revealing familiar clone numbers—037, 042, 051.

All were experimental subjects from the same batch as Lin Yu, and according to the files, they should have all sacrificed themselves in the Zero Machine explosion.

"Modification complete, reused. Resource recycling; didn't Xu Jianhua teach you this principle?" Zhou Weihong's scalpel rotated gently, the blade carving a complex equation into the air, the numbers condensing into ink lines and floating.

Xu Chen couldn't care less about the battle.

Sharp pain suddenly came from the tattoo on his back, as if a red-hot branding iron had been embedded into his flesh.

His school uniform was quickly soaked with cold sweat, sticking to his skin and bringing waves of burning pain.

Even more terrifying, waves of chaotic negative emotions and data fragments flooded his mind:

Wrists tied with leather belts, struggling until flesh and blood were blurred...

Cold needles piercing the temples, scalding medicine poured into the brain marrow...

Under the dim light of the ceiling, the desire to survive and despair intertwined into a nightmare from which he couldn't escape...

These weren't his memories at all!

They were the last remaining memory fragments of those puppets before they were completely controlled!

Fear, pain, despair... through the "receiver" tattoo on his back, they washed over his nerves like a flood.

"Ah—" Xu Chen clutched his head with both hands and knelt down in pain.

Clear blue light emerged on the back of his school uniform, the lines of the receiver tattoo fully activated, turning into a miniature signal conversion station, continuously transmitting the pain he was enduring.

Zhou Weihong nodded with satisfaction: "Receiver activated. Worthy of being Xu Jianhua's seed, the genetic compatibility is truly good. Once you absorb these garbage emotions, you'll be able to receive higher-level signals."

Xuanyuan Qing was forced into a corner by three puppets, the silver bell fragments remaining on her wrist already few.

A flash of inspiration crossed her mind, and she remembered the brief chaos the 4200-hertz frequency had caused to the puppets earlier.

Risk it!

She lunged toward the dust-covered old-fashioned tuner not far away.

"Don't let her touch that!" Zhou Weihong's expression changed slightly, and five of the puppets besieging Lin Yu immediately split into three, turning toward Xuanyuan Qing.

Too late.

Xuanyuan Qing's palm slammed onto the tuner, simultaneously pressing the last few silver bell fragments against the metal casing of the machine!

Bronze and metal rubbed together, exploding with sharp electric sparks!

The tuning knob rotated frantically under the corrosion of blood, the needle finally trembling and stopping at 4200 hertz!

"Sss—"

Piercing high-frequency noise mixed with the sound of metal scraping sprayed from inside the tuner, instantly filling the entire laboratory!

The air even rippled visibly, and data streams twisted violently in the noise.

"Ahhh!" Two puppets immediately clutched their heads and screamed, sparks spraying from the interfaces on their temples, their bodies convulsing violently out of control.

The other three puppets turned around, lunging at their companions with stiff movements, fists and feet flying, the scene chaotic for a while!

"Fuck your shitty primitive method!" Zhou Weihong's projection flickered a few times, more blue code overflowing from the missing part of his left ear, "You think this can destroy my brain-domain control?"

His finger pointed sharply at the void, and a console projection appeared out of thin air.

The old man's ten fingers flew, quickly adjusting parameters to stabilize the frequency of the brain-domain lock.

The puppets that had just been killing each other gradually calmed down, restoring that lifeless mechanical feel.

"Negative emotions are the best nourishment for the brain-domain lock; the more you struggle, the stronger I become." Zhou Weihong sneered, pointing at Xu Chen curled up on the ground, "Look, the kid's receiver is continuously converting his fear into my energy."

Indeed.

Xu Chen curled up on the ground, the blue light on the back of his school uniform shining brightly, outlining a complex pattern like a circuit board.