Act19 Kite
Foreword:
The mind becomes more rigorous, and the appearance becomes more simple.
--Ernest Miller Hemingway
[Part 1: Mentally Vulnerable]
A light shines outside the cage--
To Jiang Xueming, the unnatural swaying and flickering light resembled the head of a venomous snake, slowly approaching the cage.
His breathing slowed, and he maintained absolute calm and rationality as the enemy was about to appear. The rusty cage was divided into red and black, and the light cast his solid shadow, which moved back and forth with the light source.
There was a distinctive odor of fluoride in the air; he remembered that smell—it was the same strange smell of refrigerants commonly found in chemicals.
The light finally reached Xue Ming. Looking through the iron cage, he saw a strangely shaped beast lying outside the cage. Suddenly, it straightened up, and the light source floated along with its suddenly erect body.
Xue Ming looked up--
--That faint glimmer of light came from its head; it was a television.
You heard right, the monster's head is actually a television set, and the light Xue Ming saw is the television's power light.
The Toshiba brand logo is printed on its black plastic frame. The TV head has a thick, long body, like twisted muscle fibers, without any skin protection, and is about two meters long.
The strange smell that Xue Ming detected was coming from this monster.
He caught a glimpse of the viscous liquid oozing from the monster's flesh and pondered—
--It should be artificial blood and artificial meat.
The main component of artificial blood is a milky-white fluorocarbon compound that can transport oxygen in place of red blood cells. He slaughtered soldiers and police in the Shinto City, and could hardly smell the rusty odor of Homo sapiens' red blood.
Their prosthetic system has eliminated red blood cells, and in order to give the VENOM organization a more stable electrification system, their blood has turned white, completely excluding iron.
Speaking of which, is this monster the [Jester]?
Jiang Xueming carefully observed the black screen of the television, but couldn't figure it out.
Everything in Extreme Bliss Space was so unfamiliar to him. The laws of physics in this godforsaken place were different from those in the real world. If Niflheim was the underworld, Extreme Bliss Space was more like an intermediate zone.
People's spiritual essence has not yet left their physical bodies and remains temporarily in this virtual space, never to be reincarnated.
The monster spoke--
"--Hello, Jiang Xueming."
The television screen suddenly lit up, with horizontal lines and static interference, and a familiar and friendly face came into Xue Ming's view.
His signature bald head was back, and Xue Ming Hayabusa the cage, "I am [The Jester]. In Extreme Bliss Space, I am your auditor, your educator, your teacher."
Xue Ming didn't speak; he didn't even move. The television light illuminated part of the room. In this virtual community, there seemed to be other rooms with different functions around him, and in the dim light, he could see some prison windows.
"Aren't you terrified now?" The jester chuckled, threatening with a grin, "My clones are endless, and the Hayabusa cyborgs can be resurrected again and again—while you'll only grow weaker and weaker, becoming nothing more than a fish in my hands!"
Xue Ming remained silent, observing the rust on the cage and staring intently at the noisy enemy through the gaps in the iron plates and steel sheets.
The jester writhed his ugly serpentine body, his expression revealing a morbid and twisted ecstasy.
"I'm going to turn you into my electronic pet! And then savor your beauty to the fullest! Hehehehehe."
It sometimes crawled on the floor, sometimes stood up, and when the strips of flesh tightened, it made a strange sound, like the harsh "plop" sound of oil and organic matter rubbing together when a pulley bites into new leather.
"I love a baby like you who doesn't talk much."
The jester stood close to Jiang Xueming, circling the iron cage as if examining spoils of war or admiring figurines and toys.
"Look at your unreformed flesh and blood; an ugly body will breed an ugly mind."
It spoke rudely and arrogantly, mocking Xue Ming's virtual avatar.
"Aside from the VENOM mechanism on your arm, you're actually a 100% naturally manufactured Homo sapiens? How utterly despicable and vile! Didn't Hayabusa tell you? Being unmodified is equivalent to being naked!!"
Jiang Xueming finally spoke up, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with him. We're definitely not on the same wavelength in terms of personality, so we can't really talk about fashion sense."
The jester was horrified. "You're not afraid of me? Don't you feel even the slightest reverence for my sacred body?!"
"To be honest, when I first saw you, I felt a sense of familiarity," Jiang Xueming said truthfully. "When I was little, I used to squat outside the gate of the richest family in the village and watch 'Magic King' and 'Power Rangers' with their little grandson—it was quite fun."
"You must be bluffing." The jester's tone was somewhat blustering, and it lowered its head, its snake body forming a bow, trying to move away from the cage.
Since Jiang Xueming's physical body was not modified, and the VENOM mechanism was remotely controlled by FE204863, it was in a completely isolated state with no internet connection. As the auditor of [Extreme Bliss Space], Jester could not find out the detailed data of Jiang Xueming, this electronic ghost.
In the eyes of the jester, this nameless warrior was covered in "no access" tags, a firewall program disguised as a wake-up service that had locked Jiang Xueming up and imprisoned him. The jester had no other options.
"I have no reason to lie to you." Xue Ming truthfully recounted what he had seen with his own eyes. "I just arrived in this godforsaken place, which seems to be a public online space. Many people engage in mental promiscuity here, and some even urinate and defecate indiscriminately—it's just like the Chinese internet communities back home, except the people in Shinto City are more radical."
"I was just about to log off when you dragged me into a cage and sent me to a tiny room that I can't describe, but is really [wow]."
Jiang Xueming followed the jester in circles. The strange snake spiraled around the cage, and he talked as he circled.
"A TV set floated towards me, with a big rear end and a thick tail. To be honest..."
He gestured to the jester, his expression becoming extremely comical, a forced smile playing on his lips, revealing a simmering sense of pleasure.
"--If it were an ordinary person, their unique aesthetic sense might scare them, but what kind of person do you take me for?"
His gestures began with the action of measuring dimensions with his two Thumb.
"I'm not being modest, but with your appearance, if you were seated in the Madness Butterfly Sect, you'd definitely be at the kids' table."
His Thumb moved closer to his index finger, and he squeezed out a tiny bit of cruelty.
"And you seem to have misunderstood something, Jester."
The monster whose name was called was startled; its face was full of suspicion, and it couldn't believe what it had heard.
Jiang Xueming reached out and smoothed out the exaggerated expression on his face, returning to his cold and aloof demeanor.
He said earnestly and firmly, "You think locking me up is imprisoning me? Do you think I'll be afraid because of this cage? What will you do to me? I'm very curious."
Jiang Xueming knew the special nature of the [Extreme Bliss Space]. He was currently just a ball of spiritual energy, Hayabusa couldn't harm his physical body, which was why he was sent here. As for how to harm him, judging from the [Jester's] behavior, it should be related to a mental attack on his mind.
The jester said viciously, "How dare you!"
Jiang Xueming: "That's true."
Jester: "I'll unlock this cage right away! And then I'll shatter your spirit!"
Jiang Xueming: "Please go ahead."
Jester: "Hey! I've never seen such an arrogant guy!"
Jiang Xueming: "Is it possible that the cage isn't protecting me, but actually protecting you?"
Jester: "You're finished! You're dead!"
Jiang Xueming: "We're like dogs barking at each other through an iron fence; I find it quite awkward."
Jester: "You son of a bitch, you even insult yourself?"
"Whoever breaks down will admit it," Jiang Xueming said, arms crossed, not in a hurry at all.
More juices gushed from the twisted, ugly snake's body. The jester glared at Jiang Xueming, but dared not do anything—even with such a strange DATA appearing in [Extreme Bliss Space], it dared not act rashly.
Jiang Xueming remained calm and composed; he was a very patient fellow.
--His temperament is not what it used to be. If he were twenty-four or twenty-five, the young gunsmith would have immediately tried to break out of prison.
The life of a fisherman turned him into a stubborn rock, but his wife and children changed him, making him more calm and reliable. He was no longer the man who would fly into a rage at the sight of a monster, killing indiscriminately while feeling terrified inside—like a kite with a string, he now possessed more power.
"I'm very curious." Seemingly impatient, the jester tilted his head towards the television and chatted with his prey in the cage. "Where does your confidence come from? I've imprisoned many mental models and tortured them—this soft prosthetic body must be incredibly terrifying and bizarre."
The jester narrowed his eyes, his expression sinister and resentful, and continued,
"It, combined with the Inspiration Pressure of this strange space, can bring to the surface people's deepest, most primal fears."
"But in your eyes, it seems to have failed."
Jiang Xueming crossed his arms and shook his head. "You mean spiritual pressure? There is a little here, but to affect my mind? It's not enough."
"Hiss!" The jester gasped, even changing his form of address. "Just who are you, Your Excellency?"
Jiang Xueming: "Anonymous."
The jester explained in a serious tone—
"--My interrogation chamber contains over three thousand human brains as its physical essence, collectively shaping neural networks to release the Inspiration Pressure. Any ordinary person entering here would have their will quickly crumble—that's the mental attack of over three thousand vengeful spirits! Having suffered such vicious spiritual pressure, you merely dismiss it as unworthy?"
Jiang Xueming stretched out his hand, introducing it with the same seriousness as a jester.
"It killed over three thousand blood-soaked monsters, but I didn't feel any impact; it's still just as effective."
The jester's expression changed, and he immediately asked, "Does Your Excellency mean that all the hard work I put into creating the spiritual pressure torture instruments in the interrogation room is less valuable than the blood on this hand?"
Immediately afterwards, Xue Ming withdrew the other four fingers, leaving only the index finger, "No, no, no, I meant this finger, not this left hand."
"Enough! Enough! Enough!" The jester's voice was trembling, but its thought model could judge the physical characteristics of Homo sapiens. It was originally an information censorship agency and could judge lies through various physical characteristics.
It could sense that the unassuming man before it was not lying. Every subtle movement, glance, or body language, including the mimicry of its tone in retaliation, was genuine and undeniable.
"Anyone can talk tough," Jiang Xueming reverted to his lazy, nonchalant attitude, switching to energy-saving mode. "Should I continue? I've seen plenty of monsters far more terrifying than you, and they're just heads in my hands."
"Including you—Jester, you are one of the few who can still remain sober and properly leave your name in my expanded <The Great Rift of All Things>, as good material to write as a textbook."
"You can only count as one too."
[Part ② God]
The basilisk retreated in fear, its expression malevolent, seemingly terrified.
But that's the truth. Jiang Xueming didn't lie. To the Madness Butterfly Sect, the names of the Big Sister and the Gunsmith sounded like terrifying Night Demon and Death God, enough to scare the Blood-Bestowed Monster Baby so much that it couldn't sleep. In the past six years, Xue Ming had accumulated over 18,000 kills across his male and female characters. If you spread that out, he had to take down eight enemy targets every day.
Aside from his rest time, this killing god had faced countless ambushes and assassinations. The Madness Butterfly Sect's desperate counterattack was meaningless in the eyes of the Nameless One; they were the most skilled assassins and ambushes in the underworld, and their counter-espionage and counter-assassination capabilities were top-notch.
Regarding the Inspiration Pressure, some cultists have even attempted to use malevolent curses against gunsmiths.
--The most typical evil technique, very similar to Mr. Thumb Mana's soul attack, is to trigger the gunsmith's psychic abilities, turning his numerous killings into a curse that damages the gunsmith's sanity through vengeful spirits.
But how could these ghosts harm a rare killing god among mortals? Perhaps those with weak minds would even feel regret and remorse for the sins they had committed and the lives they had taken.
In Jiang Xueming's view, every time he slaughtered animals, it was a matter of natural retribution. He couldn't even harm living animals, let alone dead ones.
These evil curses took effect time and time again. Over the course of more than two thousand days and nights, many ghosts came to collect their debts. The scenes of their reunions with Xue Ming were bizarre and varied. There was a cult leader who reunited with her in a dream and was immediately terrified. There was also a cannibalistic rich woman who returned as a spirit to pursue her love, once again breaking Jiang Xueming's heart. She turned into a heartbroken, over-aged girl and went back to Helheim.
For Xue Ming, the Inspiration Pressure emanating from the torture chamber of the court jester was no different from eating, drinking, or breathing oxygen. It was even less of a psychological blow than when 9527 angrily poisoned the fish in the pond after failing to get his homework.
Moreover, the jester looked far too weak.
In terms of its elemental composition, the serpent's movement speed is far inferior to that of the Flash Butterfly. It lacks venomous characteristics, fully evolved limbs, claws, and a jaw as a joint for biting and attacking. It lacks dexterous hands to control firearms, and its massive muscular body is approximately 55 centimeters in diameter. According to the strength limits of a typical calamity beast, after successfully strangling and controlling its prey, the force exerted on the prey should be around 1.5 tons. If the physical rules of Extreme Bliss Space were applied according to the real world, that would be the figure.
Compared to the local specialties of the Madness Butterfly Sect, those blood-bearing monsters were all deformed and grotesque, with exposed organs, fleshy golems, and blood-bone towers stitched together. Apart from being a bit smelly, the virtual image that the jester chose for himself was practically a top-tier beauty. In terms of the fashion of Blood-giving Monster, it was considered pure and ascetic.
Even then, the jester was still unwilling to give up and tried to put maximum pressure on its prey in the cage.
"It seems your ignorance makes you fearless."
"Then I must show you my true form."
Jiang Xueming: "Please go ahead."
Dozens of fluorescent spots emerged from the dark shadows.
They are like stars illuminating the darkness, like the hundred eyes of an ancient god.
The jester slowly retreated, and the light from the television gradually merged with the eyes.
The foul-smelling strip of meat returned to its original body, and the entire torture chamber began to exude a heavy, Inspiration Pressure. Xue Ming scanned the area along the cell door on his right, feeling as if the overseers guarding the other inmates had all put down their work and turned their attention to him, this somewhat disobedient newcomer.
Xue Ming braced himself, feeling the pressure, and glared angrily, saying, "This is getting interesting!"
As flesh and blood merged into one, the jester's voice became deep and powerful.
"Day after day, year after year, we live on this planet, Original Seed."
Like the serpent's form, these dazzling stars are also television sets, except that when they gather together, they transform into the veins and limbs of a pale behemoth.
"Born, reproduce, think, die."
"The self-organization of electrical currents, the evolution of the nervous system."
"The abominable things you face are gods with a hundred eyes, a hundred mouths, and a hundred faces."
It finally emerged from the darkness, its writhing flesh smooth and powerful, like a serpent god with one tail and eight heads.
It stood upright, and dozens of faces squeezed out from the pale segments and strips of flesh. They were all different models and Hayabusa that evolved after the personality of Instructor TOM was split apart. Their personalities constituted the true form of the jester.
The television sets, which had been square and angular, became rounded and were embedded in the neck of the huge and cuddly fleshy monster, turning into clear black and white eyes.
As they gazed upon Xue Ming, they poured all their consciousness into the nameless warrior.
The jester was about to speak.
"I"
Xue Ming immediately interrupted.
"Then what?"
The jester's hundred mouths all asked in unison.
"And then what?"
Jiang Xueming: "Is it over? Phase two? It's over? That's it?"
The jester didn't answer, because he didn't know how to explain it.
Jiang Xueming pressed on, "You called all the units from the other cells, or whatever you call clones or duplicates, and combined them all together to create this current form? And that's it?"
"No." The jester wanted to say something more, but Xue Ming stopped him.
"So? What did those riddles mean?" Jiang Xueming was very honest and didn't stand on ceremony at all. "Were you trying to say that your transformation process merged with that Mother Earth thing? Be more straightforward next time, my brain isn't so sharp."
Jester: "Wait a minute."
Jiang Xueming: "Hmm. Shouldn't we open the cage now? Let's have a proper fight?"
At this point, it seems awkward to say anything.
The jester roared in astonishment and anger.
"To see someone as strong as me? You are so arrogant and rude?!"
As the roar released wind pressure and sound waves, Xue Ming immediately plugged his ears. Accompanied by intense tinnitus, his brain began to spin. Like a shooting star, he turned his head and opened his mouth wide to protect his ears and brain, trying to absorb the impact of the sound waves into his head cavity.
Once the jester calms down...
Jiang Xueming seemed like a completely different person.
"I'm going to kill you, little cutie."
As soon as those words were spoken, the eight-headed serpent god with a hundred eyes and a hundred faces felt a chill run down his spine.
Its muscles suddenly contracted as it felt a strong mental attack. The Inspiration Pressure emanating from the nameless man was very strange; it was like a cold blade that, after piercing the exposed body tissue, turned into a scalding hot bullet.
In order to detect the user's mental state, it has an immeasurable number of electronic neural sensing units, including organs that can sense spiritual energy and spiritual pressure. At that moment, almost half of the jester's eyeballs trembled and cracked due to the intense spiritual pressure wave, bursting out electric sparks, as if the program had been attacked by a virus, and bursting out clusters of low-level code from the dark pupils.
Jiang Xueming's eyes were locked on it--
It heard the devil's whispers, meticulously listing its sins.
"I know what you are."
"You can decide how people live, you control their aesthetics, you deprive them of their free will, and you reshape their personalities."
"You let them use electronic drugs, become addicted to cyber prostitutes, you tell children how to shoot a gun, you are a mentor, a public opinion leader, a top salesman."
"You turn office workers into soldiers at minimal cost, then send them to me to be chopped into mincemeat."
"You show no remorse. In this torture chamber, there seem to be other mental models waiting to be transformed by you, turned into your puppets."
"You're eloquent, but to deal with the weak, you need to expose your ugly and terrifying physical form to intimidate and manipulate their minds."
You call this advanced? Is this science?
I don't think so, and I don't want to argue with you.
"This is your territory, and I am unarmed. You treat me like an electronic pet, locking me in an iron cage."
"But I'm telling you, I will kill you, whether you're in Extreme Bliss Space or in the real world."
For a fleeting moment, due to the intense fluctuations in psionic energy causing a data overflow, Xue Ming's eyes turned blood red.
Why don't you guess what methods I'll use to dismember you?
"Slice open your 26-meter-tall body, and smash your eight heads."
"There are many instruments of torture here, all made of the finest materials. Which one should we choose?"
Why aren't you saying anything?
Not far away, the jester deliberately avoided the burning gaze of the creature in the cage; the spiritual pressure almost pierced it. It finally heard Jiang Xueming's mocking second half of his sentence.
"God?"