Cerebrospinal Fluid

Gao Gong was genuinely a little baffled.

After activating the Manual Neural Disruptor, he knew that this thing wasn't particularly safe.

In his previous life, more than one player had used it to lure monsters, only to end up becoming a monster's extra meal.

That was why he had specifically added a frequency-adjustment mode, fearing that he would draw too much aggro and turn himself into Tang Sanzang.

Luckily, he hadn't planned on farming monsters here. Otherwise, he really would have become Tang Sanzang just now.

Whether it was the C+-grade Boiler Elephant or the C+-grade Bombing Eagle, either one could have easily killed him.

Could he have failed to craft his equipment?

Impossible. Hadn't the system panel already said he had succeeded?

Gao Gong deliberately glanced at the panel, especially the quest bar.

Complete three cybernetic modification surgeries (3/3)

That made no sense. If the equipment had failed, how could this class-change quest have been completed?

The monster-luring effect was far too powerful.

Still, at least the road ahead was clear.

"Hey, are you going in or not? If you aren't, I'm going in."

"You, you you—"

The pockmarked man wanted to say something, but his anger surged into his lungs. His eyes rolled back, and he fainted on the spot.

"If you aren't going in, then I'll go in."

Gao Gong shrugged, pressed a button on his collar, and the next moment, his figure gradually began to disappear.

Desert Skin possessed a camouflage ability. Combined with the effects of the Open-Source Virtual Projection, it could basically achieve invisibility.

Especially with all the mechanical bio-beasts lured away, Gao Gong felt that he was unlikely to be discovered.

However, something unexpected happened. After the two dogs were lured away, the two people at the entrance stood there blankly. One kept repeating, "What's going on?" while the other said, "I have to report this to the Great Elder." Yet after turning halfway around, he turned back and repeated the same action as before.

Watching their strange movements, Gao Gong's heart sank.

Something had definitely happened to the Cable Tribe!

In the dungeon of the Cable Tribe, more than two hundred people were crammed together. Every one of them was covered in grime and wounded.

Few were seriously injured, though. It wasn't because the Great Elder was kindhearted, but because, according to those slave traders, injured meat people couldn't be sold for a good price.

Meng Duo struggled over to Huang Yuanli's side. He had originally been left with only one arm and one leg, but now he had lost another half of a leg.

It had been personally chopped off by Zhao Yi, the Great Elder's son.

As the instigator of the uprising, Huang Yuanli was covered in especially numerous whip marks.

Moreover, she had been unconscious since the day before yesterday and couldn't eat anything.

"Use this."

Seeing Meng Duo about to wipe the sweat from Huang Yuanli, an old granny took out a reasonably clean handkerchief and handed it over.

"Thank you."

Meng Duo thanked her softly, then dipped the handkerchief into some pooled water on the floor and carefully began wiping.

For some reason, Huang Yuanli's forehead had been burning hot since yesterday, and her high fever refused to break.

Meng Duo had asked the guards for medicine, only to be spat in the face.

"Granny, are we really going to be eaten?" a little girl who was blind in one eye suddenly asked.

"Don't be silly. No one's going to eat us. No one's going to eat us."

The old granny didn't know how to comfort her granddaughter either. She could only hug her tightly and repeat the same words again and again.

The dungeon was filled with a deathly silence.

Meng Duo held on for a while, but eventually couldn't take it anymore and slipped into a half-conscious sleep.

Before falling asleep, however, he vaguely heard Huang Yuanli, whose eyes were tightly shut, opening and closing her mouth as if she were muttering in a dream.

"Professor, you can't do this. Professor, don't—"

"Something's wrong."

Gao Gong's expression grew increasingly solemn. The Cable Tribe before him gave him an inexplicable sense of dread.

The tribe wasn't large, only about a quarter the size of the Old Metal Recycling Station. Its layout resembled the scavenger settlement outside the oasis, except that the wooden houses had been replaced with metal tents, or tree hollows had been carved out and turned into rooms. The environment was considerably cleaner.

But the place before him was completely empty and utterly silent, nothing like a tribe should be.

Frowning, Gao Gong silently appeared in front of a guard.

The guard wore a foolish grin. He seemed to be chewing something in his mouth—perhaps raw meat. Looking closer, it was his own tongue.

Gao Gong took a deep breath and pulled out a "black earpiece," hanging it over his ear.

Name: Neural Frequency Amplifier

Type: Auxiliary Equipment

Quality: Fine-

Weight: 100 grams

Operating Mode: Neural Manipulation

Auxiliary Module: Neural Enhancement

Notes: A hearing aid at the neural-signal level

Neural Enhancement: Strengthens the generation and transmission of neural signals in the ear, activating ion channels

The moment Gao Gong put on the "earpiece," a piercing noise erupted beside his ear and poured straight into his brain.

"Hsss—"

How could there be such a powerful neural signal?

Gao Gong felt as if he were standing in the corporate district of the Evernight City. Countless sensory simulation signals interwove into a cyber-network, while nerve bundles shot through him like bolts of lightning. His five senses tangled together, ultimately merging the five tributaries into a surging flood. The sensory flood rushed toward him head-on.

"Fuck!"

Before the "flood" could hit him, Gao Gong abruptly tore off the amplifier and covered his mouth with his other hand. A sound like running water came from his left ear. It wasn't water, but blood.

The sound beside his ear was louder on one side and softer on the other. It was intermittent tinnitus.

Gao Gong finally understood why those mechanical bio-beasts had chased the headless dog as if they were insane.

The Manual Neural Disruptor was merely the bait. On a level invisible to the naked eye, there had to be something making them extremely uneasy.

Planetary civilizations didn't have red potions like "nanorepair agents" or "cell regeneration injections." Once they lost blood, they could only endure it slowly or undergo repair surgery directly.

Gao Gong waited for a moment. After confirming that his ear had stopped bleeding, he set the "Neural Frequency Amplifier" to its lowest mode and hung it over his other ear.

This time was much better. There was still noise at the neural level, but it wasn't very loud. Listening carefully, the noise wasn't even harsh. Instead, it sounded like raindrops—except that tens of millions of raindrops had been layered together and released at once.

Using the neural noise to search, Gao Gong quickly discovered two secret passages in the Cable Tribe's settlement: one underground passage and one mountain passage.

The neural noise was clearly much stronger in the direction of the mountain passage.

Following the principle of tackling the easy part first, Gao Gong climbed down into the underground passage.

Calling it an underground passage was a bit of a stretch. It was actually a manhole leading to the city's sewers. The manhole cover had vanished, replaced by a large stone blocking the sewer entrance.

The moment he moved the stone aside, a huge swarm of brightly colored butterflies flew out.

They raised butterflies in the sewers?

He climbed down the rusted ladder, and a foul stench rushed straight into his nose.

The smell resembled vegetables that had rotted for who knew how many years.

Gao Gong also discovered an awkward situation.

It seemed that, affected by the neural noise, his "skin" had begun changing on its own as well. One moment it turned into a mosaic, and the next it became television static.

The picture quality was straight out of an adult video. Even the "Effect Generator" couldn't cover it up.

Gao Gong shook his head, pinched the "button" on his collar, and switched off the "Open-Source Virtual Projection." He then drew Red Unicorn with his other hand and cautiously moved forward.

It was worth noting that planetary civilizations had likewise failed to develop "subspace storage technology." Equipment had to be carried by hand, at most being delivered by drone airdrop. Forget casually pulling a weapon out of the equipment slot—it was completely impossible.

That was why Gao Gong had brought only Red Unicorn on this trip. His sniper rifle and monster-hunting weapon were both back in Gasoline Town.

Gao Gong slowly advanced. In the empty sewer, only his footsteps remained.

Gao Gong's Perception was now at 14 points, roughly three times that of an ordinary person. With his perception, he soon sensed a large number of breaths.

Following the direction of the sewer system, he also heard footsteps.

They noticed me this quickly? Are there cameras?

Gao Gong switched his right eye to infrared mode and quickly found several concealed heat sources.

Blades flashed repeatedly. After a series of explosive cracks, the footsteps on the other side soon became chaotic.

There was naturally more than one underground tunnel. This meant the enemies had begun to split up.

Gao Gong flung out his right hand and caught hold of a piece of rebar overhead. Kicking off with one foot and then the other, he vanished into the tunnel before they arrived.

"Where is he?"

"He seems to be over here."

The newcomers' voices gradually grew more chaotic. Hidden in the darkness, Gao Gong's vision suddenly blurred. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a horrifying sight.

Four or five "living people" with their skulls removed and their brains bobbing up and down emerged from the darkness. They carried crude handmade firearms and wore strange, ferocious expressions. Their mouths hung open, with a viscous substance stretching between their upper and lower lips.

Gao Gong inexplicably felt a surge of anger. The anger was so intense that his mind was almost drowned by hatred.

In the darkness, the tip of a blade descended from above, piercing through the brain and all the way down into the lower body.

Gao Gong pulled out the blade, then swung it backhanded and cleaved apart the handmade firearm in the hands of the person beside him. With his other hand, he clamped it over the gun muzzle.

As bullets exploded out of the barrel, Red Unicorn swept sideways and then cleaved downward, chopping the enemy into chunks of flesh.

Brains sprayed, blood splattered, and red-and-white matter bloomed everywhere.

Just as Gao Gong hacked the last brain monster to death, an intense itch came from the top of his head.

He reached up and pulled off a clump of "tofu brain."

Gao Gong stared blankly at the scene. He instinctively reached for his left ear, only to find that the "Neural Frequency Amplifier" was gone. In its place was an ear.

His own ear!

An illusion?

Yes, it had to be an illusion!

Yet when Gao Gong turned and looked at the reflection on the wall, he discovered that the other brain monsters had vanished.

There was only one real brain monster.

The reflection smiled at him, blood flowing from all five features.

The corner of Gao Gong's eye twitched violently as he looked at Red Unicorn in his hand.

The blade was gleaming and clean, showing no sign that it had cut anyone.

When Gao Gong raised his head again, he found that the four walls were beginning to squeeze out pink "large intestines."

A fine trickle of water flowed down from above.

The water was clean and transparent.

Gao Gong knew what it was.

Cerebrospinal fluid.