Ding!
Shen Ge raised his hand and flicked his finger. With a crisp sound of collision, Yun’er’s claw reaching for him was deflected. Then he smiled and said, “It’s been a while. Looks like you’ve gotten used to the abilities of a weird person. Why are you alone? Where are Shengnan and Captain Yang?”
Yun’er had originally thought that the person appearing beside the heart would be a weird person, and she never imagined Shen Ge would suddenly show up. So, she had put all her strength into that strike.
When she saw it was Shen Ge, she was overjoyed, but it was too late to pull back her hand. Then, her joy turned into panic. However, she never expected that Shen Ge’s simple flick would easily neutralize her attack, instantly turning her panic into surprise.
Hearing Shen Ge’s question, Yun’er finally snapped back to reality. “They’re outside. After we broke through the door, the heart released a huge amount of weird energy black mist. Director Cheng and Captain Yang couldn’t withstand the erosion from the weird energy black mist. So, I thought I’d use my weird person body to resist the erosion and try to blow it up with a neutralizing-type weird energy bomb.”
“They’re outside?” Shen Ge looked past Yun’er towards the large hole in the fleshy wall not far away.
Yun’er had just nodded when Shen Ge suddenly caught another key piece of information from her sentence: “Wait, neutralizing-type bomb? What neutralizing-type weird energy bomb?”
Beep, beep, beep.
Just then, the urgent beeping of the explosive pack with the blinking red signal light in Yun’er’s arms caught Shen Ge’s attention. “Um, don’t you want to turn this thing off first?”
While Yun’er was agonizing over how to turn off the neutralizing-type weird energy bomb, she saw Shen Ge snatch it from her. Then, with a flash of silver light from his other hand, thwump, thwump, he made several bloody cuts on the “heart” with his butcher knife. Immediately after, rotting blood tentacles extending from his wrist pierced into the gaps made by the butcher knife, widening the wounds.
“Collapse!”
Shen Ge deployed his invisible weird domain, using “Collapse” to directly stuff the neutralizing-type weird energy bomb into the heart through the wounds. Then, he grabbed Yun’er, pushed off the ground with his feet, and sped rapidly towards the hole in the rotting flesh.
“Go find them, and wait for me outside!” Shen Ge “threw” Yun’er out of the room, then turned back, planning to return to the room.
Meanwhile, affected by the weird energy black mist, Yang Yuxin led Cheng Shengnan downwards to evacuate. They originally wanted to get away from the range of the weird energy’s erosion, but they didn’t know Shen Ge had come to save the day, so they ended up missing him.
When Shen Ge brought Yun’er to the corridor and didn’t see anyone using his weird eyes, he had already guessed this. So he planned to have Yun’er go find them while he took the chance to deal with the heart!
Boom!
Just as Shen Ge returned to the room, a huge explosion happened at the “heart”. Before the weirdness could gather weird energy black mist to defend itself, Shen Ge dashed forward in one stride, deployed his invisible weird domain to cast “Collapse”, creating a twisted space, and then slashed into it with his butcher knife.
Shen Ge was very fast, but the “heart’s” healing speed was just as fast. The surrounding weird energy black mist gathered almost instantly, completely enveloping him.
It was clear that the previous Tier 6 weirdness had its weird energy greatly affected because it had raised a large number of weird people and parasitic-type weirdnesses inside it. So, Shen Ge had faced almost no resistance when destroying that heart.
But this time was different. This Tier 6 weirdness had no weird people inside it feeding on its weird energy. This was a genuine Tier 6 weirdness, and the speed and intensity of its weird energy gathering were on a completely different level.
Since reaching Tier 5, Shen Ge had never been “short” on weird energy. But this time, just after one exchange, he felt like he had already consumed one-fifth of his weird energy.
Continuing to struggle against the “heart” like this definitely wouldn’t be good. Shen Ge’s weird energy would be depleted, but the weirdness’s might not necessarily.
While controlling the Red Mist Battle Armor to supply him with red mist weird energy, Shen Ge also hypnotized himself to increase his weird energy intensity to contend with the “heart”.
Ever since the main program of Little Seven left, Shen Ge had to handle these kinds of “little things” himself, though it didn’t really affect his fighting.
“Master, do you miss me?” Just as Shen Ge was lamenting that Little Seven wasn’t here and he had to distract himself with small matters, he heard that familiar voice.
“Little Seven?”
“Master, I’m here.”
“?”
Shen Ge was stunned for a moment upon hearing this and asked subconsciously, “Weren’t you off scouting the spire? How did you get back so fast…? No, it’s just your consciousness that came back. The secondary armor isn’t here.”
Little Seven replied, “Master, I am artificial intelligence, not a ‘person.’ Strictly speaking, there’s no such thing as transferring ‘consciousness’ for me. My computational capacity is more than enough for me to simultaneously control eight or ten units of weird energy mech armor. It’s just that there’s very dense weird energy black mist near the spire, requiring me to increase the secondary armor’s computation and control. I just seemed to detect your lament, so I activated this program.”
“I see. How’s the situation at the spire?” Shen Ge asked.
Little Seven said, “It’s very complicated, but not as urgent as the situation on your end. Based on weird energy intensity detection, this ‘heart’ has entered a high-speed healing mode. Although the neutralizing-type weird energy bomb can distort its weird energy gathering, it cannot completely destroy the core.”
Even though a weirdness’s “heart” doesn’t have a core per se, Little Seven divided the heart into several parts based on data analysis like size and intensity, with the “core” being the central, most critical part.
“Based on the information provided by the master, it is determined that only if your weird energy intensity is 1.3 times higher than the opponent’s can you potentially ignore the weird energy distortion reaction and prevent it from healing.”
“Starting to increase the supply of red mist weird energy now—”
“10%”
“50%”
“100%”
“…”
Little Seven continuously supplied the weird energy from the Red Mist Battle Armor into Shen Ge’s body. Shen Ge no longer needed to focus on these small tasks and could concentrate entirely on amplifying his weird energy.
Instantly, the entire room created a massive distortion vortex due to the collision of the two powerful streams of weird energy. The flesh walls of the whole room were torn apart. Shen Ge, wearing the full-body Red Mist Battle Armor, was also subjected to erosion, but fortunately, the armor’s defensive capabilities were high enough; this level wasn’t enough to tear it yet.
But this “safety” wouldn’t last long. Because Little Seven was continuously supplying weird energy to Shen Ge, it meant the Red Mist Battle Armor’s energy was constantly being consumed. Once the energy ran out, the defense system would collapse too.
Just as Shen Ge decided to go all out and convert all his weird energy for amplification, a strange pfft pfft sound suddenly started.
The disgusting rotting flesh and fat on the surrounding rotting flesh walls simultaneously exploded. With each explosion, large amounts of muddy flesh slurry surged from all sides of the room towards the heart’s position.
Seeing this muddy flesh slurry rushing towards him, Shen Ge leaped high into the air. Little Seven immediately cooperated by extending rotting blood tentacles to suck onto the ceiling, keeping Shen Ge away from the ground.
“Master, I’m detecting very high weird energy intensity and corrosiveness in this muddy flesh slurry. Its erosive strength far exceeds the weirdness’s gastric acid. I recommend staying as far away as possible,” Little Seven warned.
Shen Ge could tell at a glance that this muddy flesh slurry wouldn’t be easy to deal with. But this situation lasted less than 30 seconds before the ceiling also started to burst with slurry. The entire room seemed about to be submerged.
“Does this thing want to escape? Or force me out this way?” There was no way Shen Ge could deplete the weird energy black mist the heart used for defense in a short time, but he had a feeling that being buried by this muddy flesh slurry would be a very bad thing.
Just as Shen Ge was thinking about how to deal with the heart, the large heart hanging from the center of the ceiling suddenly detached and fell into the muddy flesh slurry.
“Seriously? It can do that?” Shen Ge was shocked. If high-tier weirdnesses could relocate their hearts at will, what chance did humanity have?
Entering the body to destroy the heart was Shen Ge’s most common and effective method against high-tier weirdnesses. Now that even this method wasn’t working, it wasn’t like he could go find a butcher knife on the level of a ship-splitting sword and have a face-to-face hack-and-slash with a giant weirdness, right?
The “heart” was relocated very quickly. Almost the moment it merged into the muddy flesh slurry, a vortex of weird energy appeared in the slurry, and the heart was directly transferred to a lower level.
“You think you’re the only one who can go through walls?” Shen Ge increased his weird energy consumption and cast “Collapse” on the area below. An invisible force parted the muddy flesh slurry, creating a strong distortion vortex.
But before Shen Ge could jump down, weird energy black mist appeared within the distortion vortex, instantly filling it and preventing Shen Ge from jumping.
Just then, the entire room began to shake violently. The ceiling and floor started collapsing continuously, as if the whole building was coming down!
Shen Ge had no time to think. He had Little Seven use the rotting blood armor to swing him out of the room. At the same time, he condensed invisible barriers on the hole in the rotting flesh wall and the “door” to prevent the muddy flesh slurry from surging out.
Shen Ge was still in his enhanced state from weird energy amplification. His weird energy intensity was close to Tier 6. Although the corrosiveness of the muddy flesh slurry was strong, it couldn’t break through the invisible barrier’s blockage right away.
“Shen Ge!”
“Probe Shen!”
“Shen Ge!”
Just as Shen Ge rushed from the corridor towards the stairwell, he saw the three women who had reunited. They seemed to be trying to come back to this floor to look for him.
“The heart ran away. It’s not safe here. Let’s go!” Knowing that Cheng Shengnan was the weakest among the three, Shen Ge directly scooped her around the waist and leaped down to the lower level.
Yang Yuxin and Yun’er followed closely behind. As soon as they reached the lower level, the dark red blood glow that had filled the entire floor vanished. Darkness was everywhere.
But the collapse didn’t stop. As Shen Ge had expected, after detecting the danger, the weirdness adopted a “pest control” mode, trying every method to eliminate intruders like them.
The collapse happened faster than Shen Ge imagined. As the few of them just rushed to the window in the next floor’s corridor, this floor began to collapse too. The floor beneath their feet suddenly disappeared, and they fell straight down to the next level.
“Little Seven!” Shen Ge shouted. With a confirmation beep from Little Seven, several rotting blood tentacles extended, pulling the falling Yang Yuxin and Yun’er close to him.
Yang Yuxin patted her arms. Pop, pop – the sound of airbags deploying. Two air cushions, one on the left and one on the right, shielded the four of them in the center, also successfully blocking a large amount of flying rubble.
Shen Ge and Yang Yuxin worked together to mitigate the impact of the collapse. But the layer-by-layer collapse inside the weirdness seemed like it wasn’t going to stop, collapsing several layers in a row.
“How strange. If it stopped collapsing now, given the amount of surrounding rubble, rotting flesh, and muddy flesh slurry, it would be enough to bury us. So why does the collapse seem unable to stop?” Cheng Shengnan suddenly thought of something and said loudly. Protected by Yang Yuxin and Yun’er holding up the weird energy air cushions on the outside, and Shen Ge and the Red Mist Battle Armor on the inside, she was arguably the safest among them, cradled in Shen Ge’s arms.
Shen Ge looked up and used his weird eye to examine the collapsed area above. He said in a deep voice, “It seems this thing doesn’t plan to bury us here. It wants to expel us.”
“Expel us?”
“Exactly. Maybe the attack on the heart made the weirdness aware of danger, so it wants to expel us from its body through this collapse.”
Hearing their exchange, Yun’er asked instinctively, “Expel? How?”
“I think you’d rather not know how.”
“Huh?”
Before Yun’er could react, Yang Yuxin’s face turned pale. She clearly understood what Shen Ge meant. She quickly pulled the weird energy air cushions tighter, wrapping the four of them into a ball.
Yun’er also seemed to realize something. “Probe Shen, when you say ‘expelled,’… you don’t mean the kind of expulsion I’m thinking of, do you?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Shen Ge sighed.
Yun’er looked like she wanted to cry but had no tears. Although fighting a weirdness meant dealing with rotting flesh and blood plasma, it shouldn’t matter too much where they got expelled from, as long as they got “out,” it would be better than dying in the weirdness’s stomach.
But the three women weren’t as experienced as Shen Ge in dealing with weirdnesses. This was their first time being swallowed by one, so they were somewhat resistant.
In fact, if given the choice, Shen Ge would also prefer to defeat the weirdness through combat and “walk” out honorably, maybe even pocketing a Tier 6 weirdness reward on the way.
But the weirdness didn’t see it that way. It already regretted swallowing these pests and just wanted to expel these indigestible “bugs” from its belly.
“Ahhh—”
The weirdness didn’t give Shen Ge and the others much time to react. The next second, the group, wrapped in the weird energy air cushions, felt themselves squeezed into a narrow “corridor,” pressed tightly together.
“Master, I’m detecting many weird energy signatures nearby, but none are high intensity. Just a bunch of Tier 1 and Tier 2 parasitic-type weirdnesses!”
Shen Ge opened his 【Map】 and saw that they were indeed surrounded by dense red dots. It was enough to trigger trypophobia.
“Alright. You want to expel us, huh? Then I won’t make it easy for you either!” Shen Ge gathered all the few remaining weird energy bombs from his bloodskin backpack and pushed them out through the gaps in the weird energy air cushions.
Bang!
With a loud crash, Shen Ge and the others slammed into a window at the end of the corridor, were wrapped in a mass of weird energy black mist, and forcibly pulled out of the weirdness’s body.
As they plummeted rapidly, a loud BOOM suddenly sounded from above. The weird energy bombs Shen Ge had left in the corridor had detonated.
“Master, would you like me to play a song by Jay Chou for you?”
“Chrysanthemums wither, sadness fills the ground / Your smile has faded yellow / Flowers fall, hearts break…”*
“…”
Shen Ge really wanted to complain about how Little Seven, after absorbing a large amount of luminous dream fragments, had developed a taste for “bad puns” and “cold jokes,” but reality clearly didn’t give him the chance.
The window they had broken through was nearly twenty stories high. Falling from that distance, not even Yang Yuxin, let alone Yun’er with her weird person body, would walk away unscathed.
“Captain Yang, release the weird energy air cushions!”
“Roger!”
The moment the weird energy air cushions were released, Shen Ge’s rotting blood tentacles connected to his weird stomach and weird hand, reaching out unhesitatingly towards a distant abandoned building.
But just then, a dark mass from above cast a shadow over them.
“…”
Great. Here comes something big, right?
Above their heads, a worm at least ten meters long, covered in rings of disgusting teeth, was opening its gaping maw wide, lunging to bite them.
Behind this disgusting worm, there were countless smaller ones. Dense and thick, they were falling like rain.
