Chapter 293: Brain Speed

As a dual senior operative of the Special Affairs Bureau and the GOC, Zhao Zijing had inherited the rigorous, earnest style of both organizations, and would never pull stunts like Li Sheng did, idly playing ghost to scare people for fun.

Like hanging a red dress on transparent fishing line in the middle of a residential street at night, or burning useless exam papers by a fire basin at a crossroads at midnight.

Li Sheng pushed up the information-integration glasses on the bridge of his nose and carefully examined the already-dead Sonic Kid.

Because this 【Anchor Link】 was a routine mission, Sonic Kid's corpse had not been transmitted back to the real world, but remained where it was.

"The enchanted ring on his hand is still here, undamaged. That proves the thing's attack method isn't simple physical or magical."

Li Sheng lifted Sonic Kid's arm; on his left thumb was worn a standard-issue obsidian ring of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Special Incidents Division.

That ring was a rare item, priced at two thousand, able to block one external attack.

It could both defend against damage and provide early warning — considered the Special Incidents Division's flagship product.

"Sonic Kid's true cause of death was bioelectric disruption."

Li Sheng ran a focused scan of the inside of Sonic Kid's skull, narrowed his eyes, and said: "His brain has been cooked through."

Baiji Bear said in astonishment: "What do you mean — an external current killed him in an instant?"

"No, to be precise, the bioelectric system Sonic Kid used to keep his own body running, for some reason, collapsed on itself in an instant. From brain to whole body, no time to react at all — cardiac arrest, brain shutdown, dead on the spot."

Li Sheng pulled several sheets of 【Suicide Note】 paper from his backpack, drew on them one after another, and every single result showed that he himself would die in this conference room.

"Tough."

Li Sheng scratched his head. 【Suicide Note】 carried a certain prescience; the fact that every drawing showed the same outcome fully proved how dangerous this crisis was.

Roughly equivalent to having to do high-intensity surfing, hot takes, and wild rants across different social platforms every day, while constantly guarding your own household registration book.

Fu Ding Hua Long thought for a moment, turned his head, and asked Zhao Zijing: "We've got over a dozen players on site — is there any way to remove the source of danger, or shield us from it?"

Zhao Zijing shook her head slowly and firmly. "No. That thing cannot be killed. Only by knowing it can you perceive it."

The vocabulary she used was quite absolute, yet Li Sheng's eyes lit up.

Zhao Zijing knew the specific information about that thing, could see that thing, and could speak directly with Li Sheng and the others right in front of that thing.

"There are three possibilities. One, it doesn't understand human speech,

Two, it simply doesn't care what humans say,

Three, it wants you to keep talking with the others, to get you to reveal more information, so that more people can 'see it.'"

Li Sheng spoke rapidly to Zhao Zijing: "Which possibility is it?"

"I'm not sure."

Zhao Zijing shook her head, her face pale, struggling to keep her gaze locked on the table in front of her — as if some terrible monster were crouched on the ceiling — "But one thing is certain: if we keep stalling, it will kill every one of us — the low ambient temperature is only surface-level."

As they talked, the room's temperature plummeted, already dropping from twenty degrees down to seven or eight, and still steadily sinking.

"Understood."

Li Sheng decisively pulled out an electric blanket and an offline phone, and stuffed them into Huiyu's arms.

"What's going on? What's going on?"

Huiyu had originally been off in a daze; after hearing Li Sheng mention something about "bioelectric disruption," she completely lost the thread, her ears full of nothing but the static hiss of a TV with no signal.

"Go play on your phone for a bit."

Li Sheng waved a hand. The invisible, formless entity lurking in the room was even more bizarre than the conceptual lifeform Entropy-Eating Cloud he'd physically run into last time at the Killing Ground — it actually killed based on "degree of knowledge."

Although, given Huiyu's little walnut brain, the hope of her keeping up with Li Sheng's train of thought was especially slim.

But to be safe, it was still better to toss her an offline phone loaded with short videos, let her hide under the electric blanket and entertain herself, and not get mixed up in this kind of brain-taxing business.

Dachun, you're not like the others. jpg

The other players in the conference room, hearing the conversation between Li Sheng and Zhao Zijing, also caught on.

The situation had now become a textbook Catch-22: to deal with the unknown monster, you had to understand it. But the more you understood, the closer you came to death.

A one-track mind hitting a wall at both ends, basically.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Doolin Gray burst out cursing, suddenly thinking of something.

Both could see that thing — Zhao Zijing didn't die, but Sonic Kid did.

This wasn't a horror movie, with no rule that the Black guy has to die first. The only possible reason was that Sonic Kid knew more information than Zhao Zijing, so he died first.

Wait—

Doolin Gray's face changed drastically; without hesitation he drew an old-fashioned revolver from his waist and put a bullet into his own temple.

Bang!

The bullet struck his skull dead center; the top of Doolin Gray's head was blown half off, the splattered brain matter suddenly froze midair, then retraced its path and fell back into Doolin Gray's skull.

【Item Name: Resurrection Repair Gun】

【Type: Firearm】

【Quality: Fine】

【Attack Power: Low】

【Special Effect: Resurrection. Upon hitting a target, it first deals normal destructive effect, then produces double healing effect. Deals quadruple damage to undead creatures】

【Cost: 50 Sanity points】

【Cooldown: 24 hours】

【Note: Holds seven bullets total; after all are spent, requires 24 hours to regenerate】

【Note: Cures infection, one bullet per use】

Doolin Gray's strange act of shooting himself and then healing at the speed of light left people baffled.

But the quickest-thinking players immediately caught on, their faces changing as abruptly as Doolin Gray's.

The difference between Zhao Zijing and Sonic Kid was that the former was a dual senior operative of the Special Affairs Bureau and the GOC, while the latter belonged to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Special Incidents Division.

A stronghold of the Special Incidents Division somewhere in the Killing Ground had been attacked by some unknown entity half a month ago, with heavy casualties.

The bizarre rumors about this incident have been spreading like wildfire on the player forums, allegedly the work of some kind of Divine Abomination on the same level as the Worm Lord.

Every player who thought of the term "Divine Abomination," Li Cheng included, immediately saw darkness before their eyes.

The meeting room ceiling, which had been empty a moment ago, suddenly produced a mud-like shadow out of thin air.

It clung tightly to the ceiling, extending tentacle after tentacle, suspended over the head of every person present.

The faster and smarter a player's mind, the more clearly they could see the monster's true form — and the closer they came to their end and death.

When Doolin Gray shot himself in the head, it was also to forcibly interrupt his own thought process, to make his thinking stop.

Unfortunately, it was futile.

It's like telling someone not to imagine an elephant — but the physiological structure of the human brain decides that a person's will cannot control the spontaneous generation of thought, and they will still uncontrollably imagine an elephant.

Fu Ding Hua Long felt every hair on his body stand on end. He shut his eyes tightly, and finally understood why Zhao Zijing had reacted that way.

As information about temperature, shape, and smell flooded in, Fu Ding Hua Long, who had shut his eyes and blocked his ears, still felt the outline of that mud-like shadow growing clearer and clearer in his mind. Affecting reality along with it, the formless shadow tentacles gradually coiled around his neck.

The players with the fastest minds also wore the same expression of despair as Zhao Zijing on their faces.

And those players whose minds were slightly slower, through other people's reactions, passively came into contact with part of the information, so they too could see that shadow.

In this atmosphere of despair, probably only Hui Yu, curled up in an electric blanket wearing Bluetooth earbuds and cheerfully scrolling through short videos, had completely shielded himself from all influence.

"Mr. Pi Fu,"

Zhao Zijing, whose neck had been wrapped twice by the shadow tentacles, took a deep breath and asked with difficulty, "Do you have any ideas?"

"Ideas?"

Li Cheng, whose neck had similarly been wrapped several times, thought for a moment. "The smarter you are, the faster you see the Divine Abomination. I achieved a fine result of 2.7 seconds in the speed challenge of seeing the Divine Abomination. Why don't you give it a try too."