Act11 Out of Control
Foreword:
I wish I could die while I still love only her.
--Ernest Miller Hemingway
[Part 1 - Dog Leash]
The story returns to the side of the shooting star--
He was covered in wounds, and he closed his eyes for the Night Patrol, Yezhong.
The corpse's carrying device contained an electrolyte solvent, which he was told to take as a reserve food. Under the guidance of the Hot Wind, Meteor pried open the solvent's connector, revealing a needle, and injected the liquid into the VENOM mechanism in his right arm.
"What exactly did this guy mean by what he said before he died?"
The injury is gradually improving; the fracture in the torso, as well as the bruising and pain from the muscles and soft tissues, have subsided.
Meteor's eyes gradually cleared, and he saw the nano-armor on his forearm slowly wriggling, the mesh fabric about to cover his entire upper arm.
"Why do I have this kind of armor too? What happened?"
[Before his execution, the executioner dismantled his VENOM from his body and handed it to you.]
Bu Liuxing: "I know, anyone with eyes can see that! That's not what I'm asking! I'm asking why this guy gave me the armor?"
[In relatively traditional and clichéd hero stories, the hero defeats one enemy after another, acquires their equipment, steals their abilities, and ultimately defeats the demon king.]
[My Liman model is similar to Day Patrol and Night Patrol; our equipment boasts excellent compatibility; this C60 armor set is a gift from the Executioner.]
[As for why he did this, I can't figure it out logically or emotionally.]
[However, before his neural signals completely disappeared, there was a recording in his venom.]
Bu Liuxing: "Can I listen to this?"
I don't recommend you do that.
Bu Liuxing: "Why? Were those his last words?"
[Because when Artificial Intelligence causes personality fragmentation, the information left behind is very likely to contain elements of mental pollution, just like the soft prosthetics you encountered in Extreme Bliss Space before; they all went insane.]
Bu Liuxing: "I'm not afraid, let me hear it."
The nanomachines within the body seemed to be healing physical injuries, and blood was rapidly circulating and surging throughout the body.
This made A Xing feel a strange yet warm current washing over the muscles and organs of his body.
A HUD (Head-Up Display) appeared in his eyes, with a small window displaying an audio waveform. What was originally a straight line, like a stagnant pool, had an ID code on the audio source, which was also the serial number on the body of the defeated and dead executioner.
The Angel Infant is talking to a shooting star, entrusting its final wishes to its mortal enemy before its death.
"Bu Liuxing, the knightly duel has been decided."
"Winning or losing doesn't matter to me anymore."
"When I faced you in our duel, deep doubts arose within me."
"Who am I? This question deeply troubles me. It distracts me, makes me hesitate, and makes me re-examine what I am fighting for."
"If we go back in time, to twenty years ago, when prosthetic body technology wasn't as advanced, people needed anti-rejection agents to maintain the stability of the physical body."
"We'll discard our less convenient arms and replace them with strong, powerful prosthetic arms; we'll discard our healthy thighs and replace them with the artificial muscles of a divine beast. We'll compete with each other and use our prosthetics to prove our worth."
"These artificial organs and limbs are indeed stronger and better than natural flesh; they have almost become a trend, a symbol."
"Replacing the body seems to arm our weak physique and strengthen our minds. If a person doesn't accept this transformation, he becomes a freak, an outcast in the community."
"That's strange, isn't it?"
"Until just now, when you struck my chin with your unmodified left fist, slammed your unmodified forehead into my head, and tried to subdue me, an android, with your unmodified body, I couldn't comprehend such suicidal courage, nor could I understand the bravery emanating from you."
"My memes and genes both come from Hot Wind —it's like a ghost, it's become a part of my mind."
"Having undergone artificial body modification, I felt a different kind of spiritual pressure from the feedback I received, using Hot Wind as my hypothetical enemy, my Hot Wind model, and my Hot Wind prototype."
"You awakened me, turning me from an executioner back into Angel Infant."
"Educational institutions and all sorts of modules created me; they are like shackles, like containers for cups, like nanomechanical armor in VENOM, protecting me and shaping my form."
"Losing them was like having my limbs removed, my armor and skin peeled off, and my personality began to crumble. I started to feel fear, but at the same time, I regained my courage. The moment I unlocked my pain inhibitors, I not only gained pain, but also the real feeling of being alive."
"I felt like a lump of soft mud, like a protein in a petri dish, like writhing flesh. At that moment, I almost went mad, but as long as the duel continued, I realized—I was still a fighter, and the split personality didn't seem so terrible after all."
"I present you with the nanomachines of the VENOM Agency, the nameless warrior."
"Its medical unit can heal your wounds, and the electrolyte solvent is like Universal Elixir, allowing you to continue fighting."
"The C60 armor provides you with basic bullet protection; hopefully, it will help you go further."
"I no longer need these things, and you might wonder why—"
"--Why do you do this? Why?"
"I don't know, I don't know."
"The security center has revised many algorithms for Artificial Intelligence, training us through integral formulas and adjusting our action logic according to different weights of the scores."
"Just like the old-fashioned work points, performance, and bonus calculation formulas, we will act in order to pursue a certain goal and obtain a certain score standard."
"Earn currency, buy weapons, upgrade the prosthetic body, and install modules."
"Artificial Intelligence acts pragmatically, conforms to the law of survival of the fittest, and is subject to human selection."
"This set of formulas turns us into test-takers who are constantly doing exams. One wrong step and our short lives are over—our brains become [junk], useless."
"So I thought, perhaps I am also a piece of trash in the system of the Shinto City, because I failed, unable to stop you, unable to defeat you."
"Perhaps it's the genes and memes related to Hot Wind in my body that are at play, making me make a new choice. It wants me to rebel against this formula, to become a fanatical and courageous Red Stone People."
"I'll give you the cage and the shackles—"
"--The cage is made of cast iron, which can be turned into steel by heating and hammering it with a flame."
"I've investigated you through the internet, Anonymous. This is your favorite blessing, and the only gift I can leave you."
"The swords of heroes are not in their hands, but in their hearts they possess an invincible spirit."
Bu Liuxing knelt before the executioner, silently clenching his fists, the bright red artificial muscle on his right arm gradually turning pitch black.
[Time to go, Meteor Boy.]
A Xing pursed his lips, his face full of grievance, and he started to cry again; he was always crying.
To say something that might spoil the mood--
--If the members of the Madness Butterfly Sect saw him crying, they would only sense that something terrible was about to happen and would have to quickly carry the zombie train and run away.
"I don't understand! I'm so angry!"
The meteor punched the solid pedestal, leaving a dent in the aluminum alloy frame.
"Hot Wind, will I ever run into this guy again?"
Who are you talking about?
A shooting star gently brushed against the executioner's cheek.
"--That's the guy! Will I ever see him again?!"
[If you're referring to C3484001Y, unfortunately, that opportunity has passed.]
[If you're referring to executioners, you'll probably see a new one in less than a minute.]
Bu Liuxing was almost going crazy. "I feel so much pain! It's like I just met a new friend, and before we could even exchange a few words, we're separated by death and I'll never see him again!"
[I've told you about this before, Bu Liuxing.]
[In your world, you almost treat your mobile phone like a new limb; in the public community shaped by mobile communication and the internet, countless people have only met once.]
[In your "Extreme Bliss Space," humanity is gradually fading, and personality is gradually disintegrating.]
[Take your hometown for example--]
It seems everyone is looking for shortcuts.
[From the very first day of school, I was already preparing for the college entrance exam; to find the key points for the exam, studying was the shortcut.]
[Preparing for marriage from the very first day of dating; love is a shortcut to completing the marriage and childbearing process.]
[The very first day of work is spent preparing for payday; there are countless shortcuts to selling one's labor.]
[In this cruel equation, if any link goes wrong, all those years of life have been wasted, one is no longer worthy of being called human, and will fall into an abyss of no return, finding it very difficult to reintegrate into society.]
[Thus, fear and nihilism prevail, because the moment of birth is perhaps destined for death, and the shortcut to the end of life gradually becomes clear and natural.]
[Bu Liuxing, I can't stay with you forever. After this journey ends, I too must break free from this state of eternal death and embrace a complete life.]
I believe life is a journey, an experience.
[You are Homo sapiens, and I am Artificial Intelligence; you should know this better than I do.]
[C3484001Y is dead; the Angel Infant's brain underwent a personality split.]
[Even if the executioner experiences this bug again—C3484001Y—they cannot be resurrected.]
[It's insignificant to the Six Departments of Shinto.]
[Part ②·Old Love]
Bu Liuxing slowly stood up, his gaze becoming increasingly determined.
He walked from the assembly workshop to the Night Patrol center. The service hall was empty and quiet, with no soldiers stationed there. Jiang Xueming had attracted all attention in the important production area of the industrial zone.
Upon arriving at the archives department, Meteor could sense familiar spiritual pressure. Following the counter deeper into the area, she found Wu Huan and Wen Yu within just a few minutes.
Berloberg and the Dragon Slayer Sword were spotless, while the Hunting Goddess and Jingguang had separated from their bullets; the bullets had been hidden somewhere by the enemies at the management office.
With the Iron Knight by his side, Meteor shouldered the heavy greatsword, leaving all the firearms behind.
[Let's go to the classic human Angel Infant processing center, kid.]
[Leaving the guns behind was a wise move. Guns without bullets are useless, even worse than firewood. Little Kanto doesn't produce 9x39 ammunition. The Night Patrol center is a crucial deployment point, and it's been paralyzed for eight minutes now.]
[More enemies will soon arrive to restore production capacity. We will encounter formidable foes at the Classic Human Educational Institution; be careful.]
Following the brain conveyor belt of the Angel Infant, Bu Liuxing crouched low to avoid the terrifying spines, heading towards the dragon's den and tiger's lair.
In just over ten minutes, the production line, which had been shut down due to the accident, started running again.
Meteor looked up warily, involuntarily tightening its grip on the handle of the Dragon Slayer. It wanted to cause some disruption and bring the production facility to a standstill again.
"I want to smash all these heads."
Don't waste too much time here. Keep moving forward; reckless action will only reveal your position.
"Good"
As he walked forward, A Xing walked for nearly eight kilometers. The complex road constructed by the outer casing of the conveyor belt went deep into the heart of Kanto City, and he seemed to have wandered back to the city center.
At the end of the conveyor belt are the quality inspection workshop and logistics rooms of the classic human education institution.
The moment the container was stepped into the room, a sharp, piercing alarm sounded.
--The meteor instinctively sought cover.
Destroy the surveillance footage, don't panic.
He grabbed a handful of metal pipes from the quality inspection station's robotic arm and hurled them at the guard post on the wall, turning the camera into a pile of scrap metal.
[It seems there aren't any temporary workers from the Kyoraku Special Squad here. Looks like your partner has been causing them a lot of trouble; he's a big problem.]
Bu Liuxing: "What's next?"
[We went to the main control room to shut off the power, starting with the delivery room, then the nursery and training center, and finally...]
Just then, a group of armed personnel walked in through the connecting passage. Led by Yu Yoguang of the Day Patrol, the Kyoraku Special Squad on both sides were arranged in a wing formation and were searching for targets with guns.
[Kill them!]
Bu Liuxing held his breath and focused his mind, gripping the Dragon Slayer as he charged out from behind cover!
His spiritual power burst forth from his body in an instant, and his spirit shielded his physical body from the hail of bullets in the first reaction zone.
The bullet struck the spirit, only slightly impeding it. As the bullet left the spirit, sparks flew, and it still carried strong kinetic energy, inflicting new wounds on the meteor's torso and left arm.
His spirit was neither as hard as Fragrant Dream, nor as delicate and powerful as Drunkard's.
--Faced with the concentrated fire of modern troops, he was like a dilapidated war machine. With nano-armor protecting his right arm, he raised his arm to cover his face as a small shield, and charged towards the enemy with his sword raised to the side!
After covering a distance of only ten meters or so, the heavy iron block once again stirred up a surging wind of sword energy!
[That's it, that's it, smash them!]
Just as Yoguang's VENOM mechanism responded, and the nanomachines began to construct soft armor, he could only watch helplessly as his soldiers, like bountiful wheat, stepped into the abyss of hell!
Let's start with the VIP on the far right of the shooting line!
The Dragon Slayer cleaved the torsos of three soldiers! A raging gale began to carry with it a pinkish-white, gooey substance made from artificial blood.
It continued forward! It continued to sweep to one side! With its master's fury and determination!
Yoguang instinctively tried to grab his fighting weapon in a desperate struggle, but the VENOM in his arm began calculating the torque and kinetic energy of the Dragon Slayer Sword—and it turned out he couldn't catch it!
This elite soldier wanted to escape and immediately abandoned his teammates!
The bullet holes in Bu Liuxing's body gushed out more blood due to the intense muscle activity. When he made a sudden stop and sweeping slashing motion on the platform in front of the gate, the Dragon Slayer Sword was stained bright red with his own blood!
With a loud clang--
--The sword blade struck the ground, the powerful sweeping blow had just ended, leaving behind four corpses missing their upper bodies, and the remaining soldiers couldn't even find their lower bodies.
A crescent moon pattern of red and white blood was painted on the porch.
The violent sword wind swirled around Yoguang, causing him to stagger and his face to change color.
--Previous combat records have never mentioned that this kid possesses such terrifying strength!
The elite soldier caught his breath, drew his melee weapon to retaliate, discarded his empty MPX, and took out a hand axe from his carrying gear.
"Berloberg!" Bu Liuxing roared, calling out Berloberg's real name and the spirit within the club.
A brilliant light burst forth from the grooves in the thick blade, and the heavy iron block began to heat up and glow red!
It's still the same simple, unadorned sweeping attack!
Yoguang tried to get close to this fierce and reckless brute, but suddenly lost all his strength!
The nearly thousand-degree blade effortlessly cleaved the elite soldier in two at the waist, cutting through the soft armor mesh, tearing through the muscle and breaking the bone, splitting Yoguang into two parts!
The immense inertia propelled the meteor's body forward, making him resemble a humanoid Dragon Slayer wielding a heavy hammer. He followed the iron block, taking several steps forward before coming to a stop.
The blade sliced through the Yoguang, struck the wall of the porch passage, and only stopped completely after cutting into the wall and severing the pipes!
Nanomachines were operating at high speed inside his body, Hot Wind was almost frantically directing the medical units to cure the kid—dozens of bullets emerged from holes in various parts of his body, dripping with thick blood, and clattered to the ground.
The dark nanomechanicals turned into a gel-like substance at the wound site, expanding and trembling in rhythm with the rise and fall of Meteor's lungs as he breathed heavily, finally managing to stop the bleeding.
VENOM is running low on energy, and the Hot Wind is issuing a warning.
[Use electrolyte solvents! Quickly! Quickly!]
The meteor injected new life force into his right arm, and he was almost exhausted after doing all this.
[You almost went into hemorrhagic shock just now! Kid! How could you just rush in like that!?]
"Otherwise what?! Hot Wind!" Bu Liuxing Dragon Slayer back onto his shoulder, his face pale. "I can't wait! The shortest distance between two points is a straight line! Just thinking about all those heads that have to be sent to the arsenal! All those babies that have to be fitted with prosthetic bodies and turned into new soldiers! I'm going crazy with rage!"
I... I don't know what to say.
"I'm afraid you think so too!" Bu Liuxing hissed at his right arm. "I can feel it, you think so too! You're angry too! You're furious!"
Let's keep going.
On either side of the long corridor behind the logistics room are two transparent walls made of polycarbonate sheets.
The UV lamps used to shape the photocured printed parts illuminated human brains, which trembled in the chamber. Sensing the presence of the meteors due to the violent changes in spiritual pressure, they shook their spines, swimming in the liquid of the culture tank, emitting strange hissing sounds that sent chills down one's spine.
--The meteor strode forward.
At the end of the corridor, a new obstacle appeared, along with an old acquaintance of the Hot Wind.
It was a woman; A Xing recognized her face—she looked exactly like the Cat Tree Lady from the Council of Five Kings's cabinet.
But at this moment, Meteor didn't hesitate; in this godforsaken place, he wouldn't be surprised or alarmed by anything he saw.
"Are they enemies?"
[That's right]
[He is a deity from one of the Six Divisions of the Divine Path, named Zhong Kui.]
The woman slowly walked towards the shooting star. She wore a bright red mesh fabric, an exoskeleton shaped by nanotechnology, and had long, jet-black hair. Like the other gods, she had manufacturer markings and barcodes on her forehead and profile.
She held an artificial skull like a loving mother, with a faint electric current emanating from her fingertips, stimulating the brain as if singing a silent lullaby. Judging from the spine connected to the skull, it was Yezhong or Yoguang's head, which had thirty-three segments.
Her genetic prototype comes from Shihara Momo, who was also a comrade-in-arms of Hot Wind and Hot Wind's wife.
Zhong Kui spoke.
"Long time no see, my husband."
Her spine also had a thick exoskeleton structure, and the bright purple MCFC energy battery pillar emitted an eerie glow. Beneath the crimson mesh fabric was a nearly naked, tight-fitting, quick-drying suit. Cat-paw-shaped impact-resistant prosthetic limbs, like high heels, lifted her to 188 centimeters. The straps of her carrying gear, her slender waist, and her full bust all made her look like an alluring commodity.
The composite sight in his eyes is a pair of pupils arranged vertically in a figure-eight pattern. They stare straight ahead, and before focusing, their eyes appear unfocused and distracted. The expression revealed by these eyes makes Zhong Kui look more like a fickle and promiscuous woman.
Bu Liuxing raised his sword to meet the enemy, threatening in a low voice.
Get out of my way, or I'll chop you to pieces!
I wish I could die while I still love only her.
Zhong Kui raised his index finger and hissed to his lips.
"Be quiet."
The children are learning.
"Keep quiet."