dmims Chapter 164 Synthetic Living Mind Radar! Birdman Mutant?
Chapter 164 Synthetic Living Mind Radar! Birdman Mutant?
The soldier's body convulsed violently, and the fleshy wall behind him seemed to writhe as if alive, with dark red veins climbing up his neck, trying to crawl into his eye sockets and ears.
Jiang Ming, holding the [Hellfire and Thunder Prison] greatsword, watched him quietly.
There was no unnecessary nonsense, nor any cheap sympathy.
In this messed-up world, sometimes dying a quick and painless death is the greatest blessing.
Jiang Ming flicked his wrist, and the broad blade drew a lightning-fire arc in the dim light.
"Pfft!"
The head fell to the ground, the cut was charred black, and not a single drop of blood splattered out.
The mangled body was instantly swallowed up by the wall of flesh behind it, emitting a nauseating chewing sound.
Jiang Ming squatted down and picked up the head with its eyes closed.
The system panel will display prompts as needed.
[Obtain Special Material: Assimilated Scout Head]
[Note: The brainstem is physically connected to the living network of the second level of the Tower of Chaos, retaining faint traces of obsession and terrain memory.]
Marlow poked half his head out of the cockpit, looking at the human head Jiang Ming was holding, his big green nose wrinkled up.
"Boss, what are you going to do with that thing? You can't use that as engine fuel, it's disgusting!"
"Enough with the nonsense." Jiang Ming, carrying his head, walked back to the vehicle, yanked open the door, and climbed inside. "The magnetic field on this floor is too chaotic; your conventional radar is practically blind. Without radar, we'll be wandering around here until next year and still won't be able to get out."
Chen Qi slid down from the turret and watched as Jiang Ming placed the bloodied head on the gleaming metal command platform, his stomach churning.
"Ming-ge, you wouldn't be thinking of...?"
Jiang Ming ignored him and skillfully opened the system synthesis panel.
While purchasing supplies at the military region's ammunition depot, he casually picked up a few sets of disassembled vehicle-mounted precision radar parts, which now come in handy.
He dragged the [Precision Electronic Radar Receiver], [Inferior Otherworldly Energy Crystal *5], and this [Assimilated Scout Head] into the crafting menu all at once.
[The synthesis formula is being developed...]
[Due to the inclusion of high-risk living tissue, this synthesis carries a 25% failure rate (failure would trigger a small-scale psychoactive explosion). Shall we continue?]
"continue."
Jiang Ming didn't even blink.
A blinding white light shone on the control panel, and several fleshy tentacles emerged from the light, tightly intertwining with the radar's metal casing.
The piercing sound of electricity mixed with faint murmurs echoed in the carriage.
[Ding! Synthesis successful!]
[Obtained: Living Mind Radar (Blue - Rare)]
[Effect: By consuming interdimensional energy crystals, forcibly connects to the flesh and blood network of the current area. Ignores all illusions and magnetic field interference, scanning for life signs and energy centers within a radius of one kilometer.]
[Side effect: Prolonged use may attract the attention of local authorities.]
The white light dissipated.
The original square radar display screen disappeared, replaced by a strange device that was half flesh and half machine.
The scout's head was embedded in a metal base, with several copper wires piercing directly into his temple.
His skull was completely opened, revealing not brain matter, but a holographic display screen emitting a ghostly green light.
"Holy shit!" Chen Qi suddenly took a step back, his back slamming heavily against the bulkhead.
Marlowe was so frightened he almost slid off the driver's seat, his long ears drooping as he waved his hands repeatedly.
"Boss, your skills... have improved a lot again!"
Jiang Ming ignored their flattery, grabbed two pieces of otherworldly energy crystals, and stuffed them into the power supply slot of the radar base.
"Buzz—"
The head, which had been tightly closed, suddenly opened its eyes, and the eyeballs were completely transformed into glowing electronic prosthetic eyes.
The green screen on the top of the head lit up instantly.
A series of green scanning ripples spread outwards.
The vehicle radar panel, which was originally filled with static, became crystal clear immediately after connecting this live radar.
On the screen, the intricate passages, the dead ends obscured by illusions, and even the faceless monsters hiding in the walls, ready to ambush, were all clearly marked as red dots.
"Look, there it is." Jiang Ming leaned back in his chair and pointed to the upper right corner of the screen.
There, a very large red dot was slowly flashing, and next to the red dot was a very faint, almost extinguished green dot.
Those are vital signs representing the life of humanity on Earth!
"That green dot is probably the captain that guy was talking about earlier." Jiang Ming tapped the screen. "Marlowe, follow the safe route given by the radar and go full speed ahead. Ignore those red dots around you, just crash into them."
"Alright! As long as I can see the road clearly, I can drive this car to the heavens!"
Marlow immediately perked up and gripped the nerve-connecting ball again with both hands.
Boom!
The Flesh Furnace engine let out a deep roar, and two dark red tongues of fire shot out from the exhaust pipe.
The bronze-level heavy armored fortress suddenly shot out.
Guided by the live radar, the armored vehicle moved through the chaotic ruins of the second-floor shopping mall as if it were empty.
The bronze-level heavy armored fortress suddenly shot out.
Guided by the live radar, the armored vehicle moved through the chaotic ruins of the second-floor shopping mall as if it were empty.
What appeared to be an impregnable load-bearing wall ahead was actually an illusion displayed on the radar.
Marlowe didn't even blink, flooring the accelerator and crashing into it. The wall shattered like ripples in water, and the tank passed through unscathed.
The level 20+ mutated monsters that tried to pounce out from the shadows couldn't even get a whiff of the tank's exhaust. Occasionally, a few foolish ones would jump onto the roof, only to be instantly blasted into pieces by the explosive reactive armor attached to the side skirts.
They sped forward at breakneck speed.
Within five minutes, the tank rammed through three hidden layers of flesh and blood.
The surrounding space became increasingly open.
That sense of disorientation and inversion grew stronger and stronger.
A huge glass revolving door appeared ahead, its frame deformed by some kind of violent force.
"Boss, the target is behind that door!" Marlowe reported loudly, staring at the screen. "The energy fluctuations of that red dot are a bit scary. The radar shows... it's at least an elite monster of level 30 or higher!"
"Chen Qi, load the machine gun, warm up the chain gun." Jiang Ming stood up, planted his greatsword beside him, and stretched his neck.
The tank did not slow down, and the bulldozer blade slammed into the deformed revolving door.
boom!
Glass shards rained down like a storm.
The chariot charged into an extremely large atrium hall that spanned five or six floors.
This area was originally supposed to be the central atrium of the China World Trade Center, but now, gravity has been completely reversed here.
The hall has a transparent glass skylight at the bottom, and outside is an endless black fog.
Above them was a bottomless, pitch-black abyss, where countless broken building materials, tables, chairs, furniture, and even luxury cars floated slowly in mid-air as if weightless.
Jiang Ming looked up through the panoramic periscope.
In the very center of the atrium, suspended in mid-air, was a giant cocoon of flesh woven from countless dark red blood vessels.
Below the cocoon, a humanoid monster with four tattered gray-white wings was holding a man dressed in a Blue Star officer's uniform by the neck with one hand, lifting him into the air like a rag bag.
Seemingly hearing the commotion of the chariot breaking down the door, the monster slowly turned its head.
It was a face devoid of skin, only covered by bright red muscle texture, with two golden vertical pupils filled with savagery and mockery.
【Fallen Feather Guard - Alien (Lv.31 Elite)】
[Danger Level: Extremely High]
【Features: Low-altitude dominance, Feather Storm, Psychic Scream, Rapid Regeneration.】
"So he's just a piece of trash with bird feathers on him." Jiang Ming sneered.
"squeak--"
The Fallen Feather Guard let out a piercing shriek, a sound that seemed capable of tearing one's eardrums apart.
It suddenly released its grip.
The man in the officer's uniform "fell" like a stone toward the bottomless, dark abyss above the courtyard—in this gravity-inverted space, falling upwards was the norm.
"Chen Qi, suppress it with firepower, don't let it take off!" Jiang Ming slammed his hand on the command platform.
"Just you wait and see!"
Chen Qi had been holding back his energy for a long time, and suddenly pulled down the control lever.
The psionic armor-piercing chain guns on both sides of the vehicle and the twin-mounted machine gun on top fired simultaneously.
The eerie blue beams of chain cannons and solid high-explosive shells intertwined in mid-air, forming a dense barrage that rained down on the monster hovering in the air.
But the monster was incredibly fast.
Its four wings flapped suddenly, leaving a gray-white afterimage in the air, as it weaved through the gaps in the barrage of bullets.
Ding ding ding!
Several stray bullets hit its wings, creating a series of sparks, but not a single feather was knocked off.
"Are those feathers made of titanium alloy?!" Chen Qi gritted his teeth and rotated the turret, only to find that no matter how he tried to predict, he couldn't keep up with the monster's reversing flight in mid-air, which defied the laws of physics.
"Foolish tin can, in this territory, the sky belongs to me!"
The Fallen Feather Guardian actually spoke in broken human language. It hovered arrogantly in mid-air and suddenly flapped its four wings forward.
[Special Feature Triggered: Feather Storm!]
Hundreds upon hundreds of gray-white feathers, as if forged from fine steel, rained down with a piercing whistling sound, all crashing onto the heavily armored fortress vehicle.
Crackling sounds!
The dense thuds of impact made the inside of the carriage deafening.
The penetrating power of those feather blades was terrifying. Although they failed to penetrate the bronze-level composite armor directly, they left dense white spots on the armor plates. Some feathers even got stuck in the gaps of the tracks, sparking a lot of sparks.
"Boss, that beast's flying a kite in the sky, we can't reach it!" Marlowe frantically pounded on the control panel. "Should I drive the car up the wall and ram it?"
"No need for that." Jiang Ming pushed open the hatch on the roof, braving the strong winds and flying debris, and jumped onto the roof of the vehicle.
A terrifying power of forty-seven points surged within his body.
Jiang Ming bent his knees slightly, and the armor plate beneath his feet groaned under the weight. Using the recoil, he leaped seven or eight meters into the air.
The Fallen Feather Guardian in mid-air saw Jiang Ming jump out, a hint of disdain flashing in its eyes, and raised its wings again to prepare to unleash a storm.
In that very instant.
Jiang Ming suddenly exerted force with his wrist, and the thick, long black iron chain, like a black dragon emerging from the sea, tore through the air and precisely wrapped around the monster's left wing.
"Get down here!"
Jiang Ming roared.
[Special Effect Triggered: Gravity Drag!]
The pulling force from the chains instantly caused the Fallen Feather Guard to lose his balance.
Its proud ability to stay airborne was a joke in the face of Jiang Ming's brute strength of 47 points plus the gravity of the chains.
The monster screamed in terror, frantically flapping its other three wings in an attempt to steady itself, but to no avail.
Its massive body was forcibly pulled down from mid-air by Jiang Ming.
While in mid-air, Jiang Mingren used the momentum of his descent to suddenly yank the chain.
"boom!"
The Fallen Feather Guard crashed heavily onto the ground directly in front of the chariot like a meteorite, creating a large crater in the hard marble floor tiles.
"Marlowe, run him over!" Jiang Ming roared just before landing.
"Overload frenzy! Start!"
Malone's shrill voice boomed through the communication channel.
The Flesh Furnace engine roared under the strain, and the flames spewing from the tank's exhaust pipe instantly turned blindingly white.
The steel behemoth, weighing tens of tons, slammed into the face of the Fallen Feather Guard, who had just climbed halfway out of the pit, with an almost insane acceleration.
"Bang!"
The large bulldozer blade clamped tightly around the monster's neck, pushing it backward and carving a deep trench in the ground.
"Squeak—Let me go—"
The monster struggled frantically, its sharp claws scraping against the bulldozer blade with a screeching sound.
"Chen Qi, pick up the guests!" Jiang Ming landed steadily on the roof of the car and patted the turret.
"I've been waiting for this for ages!"
Chen Qi's eyes were bloodshot as he pressed the cannon barrel to its lowest angle.
At this moment, the chariot, pushing the monster, crashed heavily into a load-bearing pillar that was as thick as three people could hug.
There was no way to retreat.
The barrel of the psionic armor-piercing chain gun was pressed directly against the monster's chest.
"Da da da da da!!!"
A close-quarters, face-to-face duel!
The dark blue armor-piercing bullet tore through the monster's hard sternum, and its attached spirit-like destructive properties detonated directly inside its body.
Large gushes of foul-smelling black blood gushed out from behind it, staining the entire load-bearing column black.
In just ten seconds.
Chen Qi riddled the monster's upper body with holes, even turning its heart into minced meat.
[Defeat a Fallen Feather Guardian - Mutant (Lv.31 Elite)]
[Gained 65000 experience points.]
[Materials Obtained: Complete Bone Wings of a Fallen Feather Guard (Purple Epic).]
The chariot slowly retreated.
The monster's remains slumped to the ground, and the dark red tentacles beneath its body immediately emerged, greedily sucking the high-level material clean.
Jiang Ming glanced at the system panel; this wave of experience points had significantly increased his experience bar.
He put away the bone wing material and looked up at the sky.
The special forces captain who had been thrown out was now hanging precariously from an inverted steel bar at the edge of the courtyard.
Jiang Ming swung the chain, wrapped it around, and pulled it back onto the roof of the car.
This person is beyond saving.
His lower body had been completely crystallized, and a dark red, otherworldly crystal had pierced through his organs.
He was still able to breathe only because of his strong willpower.
"You... which unit are you from...?" The captain opened his eyes with difficulty and coughed up a mouthful of black blood.
"Enough with the nonsense, hurry up and give your last words." Jiang Ming squatted down.
The captain paused for a moment, then gave a bitter smile. With trembling hands, he dug a blood-stained silver metal cylinder from the lining of his uniform and shoved it into Jiang Ming's hand.
"This...this is the core memory that was removed from the building's monitoring center."
"It contains records... the reason for the formation of this layer of black mist... and..."
The captain's eyes began to roll back, his voice barely audible: "This floor... is just the outer hatchery... the real thing... is on the top floor..."
Before he could finish speaking, the captain's body suddenly stiffened, and he lost all life.
Jiang Ming held the metal cylinder, and a system notification sound immediately rang out.
[Obtained key quest item: Encrypted File.]
[Note: Contains the truth behind the formation of the Tower of Chaos and the coordinates and key to the core control room.]
This trip was worthwhile; Chu Tianfeng got what he wanted, something that could be exchanged for rare metals from the entire military region's treasury.
Just as Jiang Ming put the metal cylinder into his storage ring, the entire central courtyard suddenly erupted in an extremely violent tremor.
In the pitch-black abyss above, the floating building ruins instantly came to a standstill.
Immediately afterwards, a terrifying, suffocating pressure poured down from above as if it were a tangible force.
The feeling was like an ancient, ferocious beast slowly opening its eyes.
"Who...is destroying my farm...?"
A grand, deep voice, as if composed of countless vocal cords superimposed, exploded directly in the depths of Jiang Ming and the others' minds.
The head on the live radar screen suddenly screamed madly, and all the red dots on the screen disappeared, replaced by a huge skull logo that almost filled the entire screen.
Hazard level: Cannot be assessed!
"Boss! The radar's about to explode! Something incredibly terrifying is rapidly approaching!" Marlowe roared hoarsely in the cockpit.
Jiang Ming raised his head, his gaze fixed on the dark depths of the abyss above through the panoramic periscope.
There, two enormous orbs of light, like crimson moons, were slowly rising.