“Fuck! That hurts like hell!”
Feng Xue, lying on the “luxurious” king-sized bed, suddenly arched up so violently that he sent Lika, who had been in “silent standby” beside him, bouncing straight off the bed.
Almost instantly, Lika sprang up as if triggered by a stress response. Her force-field shield deployed at full power, while her physiological monitoring functions activated in tandem, scanning Feng Xue—who was curled up like a shrimp—from head to toe.
“No physiological lesions detected. No logic virus detected. No discordant mental frequency detected. Not a prank by Lady Suxin... More than twenty-four hours since last cybernetic implantation. No neural blockade detected. No residual painkillers detected... Conclusion: severe phantom pain. Danger level: low (Note ①). Recommendation: activate pain-relief measures...”
Based on the information in her AI database, Lika displayed the professionalism expected of a top-tier security robot. Her palms, originally sealed so tightly that no seams could be seen, unfolded, and fine, velvet-like soft pads swept over Feng Xue’s skin. Tiny electrical pulses spread along the tactile receptors of his skin, creating a sensation akin to a fluffy swab rotating inside the ear canal—only far more vivid and substantial.
The real tactile signals clashed sharply with the abrupt burst of phantom pain, slowly separating reality from illusion, until everything finally returned to calm.
“Hoo... What the hell was that?!”
Feng Xue, who had finally recovered, continued enjoying Lika’s wondrous massage specialized in tactile stimulation, still shaken by what had just happened.
This cyber world really had no shortage of bizarre things. Even after he had used Source Energy to cleanse away the toxin, that tiny bit of residual memory of pain left in Kong Wu’s brain had nearly made him lose the ability to move.
Fortunately, he had ultimately been controlling him remotely through his golden finger. The moment he transferred even a little of his consciousness over, the pain triggered an emergency response and snapped him back. Otherwise, Kong Wu might really have crashed and burned.
“I really can’t afford even the slightest carelessness!” Feng Xue looked at Kong Wu, whose whole body was trembling on the screen. In the end, he did not dare transfer his consciousness over again. He directly controlled him with his mind to complete the withdrawal, then turned around and hugged the soft, squishy Lika. Right now, his entire body was numb from pain, and he needed a little soft tactile comfort for his wounded heart.
“Hmph!” Next door, Suxin, who was still compiling algorithms for the Sword of Hell, let out a light snort. In the end, she rolled her eyes and immediately lowered her head to continue working—
“You pile of scrap metal, just you wait! Once I have a body...”
...
Gradient neon flickered along the streets, giving this district—where rain should not exist—a hazy, rain-mist-like blur. When John woke up from the simple bed, his face immediately twisted in pain. Although he had reflexively pulled all his consciousness back into his main body last night, that brief moment of shared consciousness had still left the memory of phantom pain in this body’s brain. Even after an entire night had passed, he could still feel that agony rooted deep in memory.
John’s first reaction was to rest for another couple of days, but his reason decisively abandoned that thought. If even an underground boxing match had methods like this, then in real combat, what he might encounter would probably only be more despicable and more terrifying. Right now, even this little bit of residual pain was already unbearable. Was he supposed to simply abandon one avatar every time he encountered a similar opponent in the future?
Enduring the phantom pain that was being worn away bit by bit by time, John picked up the weapons beside him and glanced at the cyberware he had previously stripped from Iron Mask.
The arms and legs were all standard-issue cyberlimbs. Even secondhand, they were worth tens of thousands apiece—mainly because they needed to be reflashed to avoid contamination from the previous owner’s usage data. The only thing he truly valued was this three-section spinal cyberware—
Kerenzikov.
This thing had entries, but he had never dismantled it. After all, among cyberware, it was absolutely high-end merchandise, the sort that sat at the same table as an access pod. If the old man’s [Purple Mansion] was a six-star item among five-stars, then this thing was a five-star item among four-stars. If paired with a Sandevistan of the same grade, its price might even exceed that of two brand-new ordinary five-star cyberwares.
After all, five-star limbs could still be produced by piling on materials, but something like this, which directly connected to the spinal cord—if it was even slightly off, the lightest consequence would be cyberpsychosis.
Dismantling it directly would be far too wasteful, and with the technology Feng Xue currently had, it would also be very difficult to replicate. Thus, Feng Xue’s idea was to use this thing directly when he later refitted the Demon Sword.
After sorting through the thoughts that had grown somewhat chaotic from the phantom pain, John rolled up the Kerenzikov and hid it under the bed. Gladys’s apartment might have an average environment, but its security was still somewhat guaranteed. At the very least, before he died, no one would dare risk simultaneously offending a fixer with who knew how many connections, a landlady who provided housing to who knew how many assassins and mercenaries, and an assassin with who knew how many lives on his hands, just to gamble on how much cash might be inside a 1,000-a-month apartment blind box.
Stuffing long guns and short guns onto his body one after another, John picked up a wide metal-style belt that carried more than a little chuunibyou flair and fastened it around his waist. Only then did he push open the door.
A foul stench mixed with all sorts of unpleasant odors immediately flooded into his nostrils. To prevent the room he had finally managed to freshen up from being tainted by the smell again, he decisively shut the door and walked out of the corridor while holding his breath.
It was not that he had no money, but with John’s current income, he was not exactly suited to live in a place on the level of the Glass Tower. As for places one tier lower, they were not actually all that different from where he was now... Mm, perhaps there would just be fewer “folded people” at the entrance.
A little irritated, John strode forward. Just as he was about to walk out of the unit entrance, his movement suddenly halted. His pistol was almost instantly chambered, and at the same time, his body pressed against the load-bearing wall. While moving himself out of any shooting angle, he also prepared to enter Mirage mode at any moment.
“Mr. John?” A tentative voice sounded from not far away. If he disregarded the possibility of a trap, John could end the fight with a single shot. Just as he was considering whether to activate Mirage and sneak over, directly fire an enhanced shot, or try out his new toy, that voice spoke again:
“I’m here to deliver a message. I mean no harm. If I’ve offended you, I apologize immediately. Please don’t be rash!”
John did not believe this sort of declaration at all. He directly took out a mirror and extended it beyond the unit entrance.
“See my mirror? Walk into the area reflected by it!”
In reality, extending the mirror was itself an act that exposed his position. However, with the district’s load-bearing wall as cover, there was no need to worry. This special material, which bore who knew how many hundreds of millions of tons of weight, could not be penetrated by bullets. If a missile could break through it, that would be disrespectful to the tower-district masters’ degree of self-preservation.
To reflect oneself in the mirror of an assassin famous for sniping was, without a doubt, a gamble with one’s life. At this moment, the messenger finally understood why this simple yet well-paid job had fallen to him.
As for running, he definitely did not dare. Judging by this Mr. John’s résumé, the moment his front foot moved, his back foot would be nailed to the ground!
“Okay, I’m coming right now. Please don’t be rash.”
The man swallowed, then finally gritted his teeth and began inching his body over. When that figure was reflected through the mirror and entered John’s eyes, John was finally able to activate his skill—
“Is what this person said true?”
“YES!!!”
Note ①: I’ve mentioned this before. Pure pain really can be life-threatening. Leaving aside instant shock and the like, just screaming from the pain can be dangerous.
Let me talk about something from when I was hospitalized. A man broke his leg. Wasn’t there an earthquake at the time? In the entire orthopedic ward, every single patient lying in bed was worse off than him, but this guy probably had never suffered hardship before and was extremely delicate. He howled so miserably that, in the end, he became the most seriously injured person in the whole ward.
Because he screamed until a cerebral blood vessel ruptured, and then he was transferred to the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular department...
So as a top-tier security robot, having a contingency plan for dealing with pain is reasonable. After all, rich people are definitely more pampered than ordinary people, aren’t they?
PS1: Regarding stats, the protagonist’s advantage lies in the mechanisms provided by his entries. In terms of stats, he is definitely at a disadvantage among those of the same level, and that disadvantage will grow wider and wider as cyberware grades increase. That is because flesh assimilation turns steel into flesh, retaining some functional “bugs,” but the material really does become flesh. At most, it is just a bit stronger than ordinary flesh. Take subdermal armor, for example. How could a layer of bone plate be stronger than a layer of steel plate? At lower levels, the stat gap between three-star equipment and the physical body is not that large, but when four-star cyberware is converted into flesh, retaining fifty percent of its attributes is already pretty good. As for five-star equipment, put it this way: the original version of the Burst Arm, when using its ultimate, can throw Big G away. But the flesh version, even with all its skills activated and all boosts like Great Strength counted, can at most crush a Kaiju. It cannot even get past a Titan like Rodan, who is not known for strength. So the higher-end the match, the more the protagonist’s stats fail to keep up.
PS2: Monthly votes are doubled now. Everyone can start voting.