Free Web NovelChapter 143: Chapter 143: Grilled Brains
"These humans are so pathetic. Tsk, tsk. A gentle squeeze and they scream so miserably."
"Nice weather we’re having today."
"How are your hemorrhoids?"
"Hey, bro, got a light?"
"To be honest, I’m finding these days a little hard to get through..."
Ten Mikes chattered all at once, gradually closing in and crowding the first Mike in the middle.
At this point, Mike finally realized something was wrong. He twitched his shoulders, trying to shake off the hands, but couldn’t budge them at all. He roared angrily, "Are you all crazy!?"
All the copies possessed the same personality as him; they would never act or speak like this.
’Something’s wrong. I’m getting a completely unfamiliar feeling from these copies around me...’
A copy next to him didn’t answer, but muttered to himself, "Jingwei, we can begin. Can you turn the high-frequency noise into a piece of music? Just using plain white noise is a bit boring..."
Mike’s eyes widened. He said grimly, "What the hell are you talking about... Wait, you’re not me!"
But it was too late! freёwebnovel.com
A piercing, high-frequency noise instantly blared. This time, it wasn’t just noise. It had a melody—Vitas’s classic piece, "Opera No. 2"!
The dolphin-like high notes instantly echoed throughout the entire Holy Sanctuary, and everyone present revealed looks of shock.
But the music had clearly been modified. It was extremely shrill and ear-splitting, to the point where many people felt their eardrums were about to burst.
At the same time, the tens of thousands of Mikes present were instantly frozen in place, as if hit by an Immobilization Spell. Their entire bodies began to break down and disintegrate, looking like they were turning into pixels!
Mike’s eyes were wide as he struggled to maintain his Nanomechanical Cluster, forcing out the words, "What... did... you... do..."
He slowly turned his head to look at the strange characters beside him, only to find that these "Mikes" were also being disrupted by the sound waves. They were becoming blurry and indistinct, their entire nanomechanical clusters on the verge of dissolution!
’What the hell is going on!?’
Just as Mike was racking his brain, the Mike next to him carrying a bag suddenly split open, and a smiling young man stepped out from within.
Black hair, yellow skin, and brown eyes.
It was that Asian kid!!!
Mike was furious. He desperately tried to throw a punch but had temporarily lost control of his nanomechanical body.
As Shen Feng stepped out from the Nanomechanical Cluster that had enveloped him, he hummed a tune and said to Jingwei, "This high-frequency noise sounds much better after the arrangement. Next time, let’s adapt a song called ’Call Me Daddy.’ Might as well get a little something out of it."
Jingwei rolled her eyes in the electronic space and said, "Just get to work and stop with this nonsense. We can’t even be sure if this is the original body yet."
Shen Feng walked up to Mike with a dagger, stabbed it into the man’s head, and said confidently while rummaging around, "It’s definitely this one. This guy was the first to speak, and he’s been giving all the orders. With that arrogant asshole Mike’s personality, he’d definitely... What the fuck, it’s not him?"
By now, he had completely torn apart the Mike’s head but hadn’t found any kind of control center.
He and Jingwei had already run simulations. If Mike had converted himself into this kind of self-replicating Nanomechanical Robot, he would have had to preserve a memory unit—his original brain.
Otherwise, given the basic structure of these nanomachines, they wouldn’t have been able to directly copy the information during the process of consuming the brain.
In other words, his original body must have a brain. If there was no brain, it wasn’t the original.
But inside this guy’s head, there was no trace of a brain at all!
"How is that possible... A leopard can’t change its spots. A guy who modeled his life after the real-life Kingpin, dreaming of becoming the underground Emperor of New York every day, wouldn’t just change his nature so easily..." Shen Feng frowned at the Mike before him, muttering to himself.
A nearby, immobilized Mike gave a grim smile and said, word by word, "Kid, there are over seventy-eight thousand of me here. Go ahead and search. Find them one by one. Let’s see if you find my real body first, or if you run out of energy... Besides, every me is me. So what if you find my real body? Every me is a perfect me!"
Shen Feng glanced at him and suddenly chuckled. "Look at you, failing to act tough. You almost tricked me..."
With that, he walked back to the first Mike and began to peel away his Nanomechanical Cluster, bit by bit, with the dagger.
The head was already a mangled mess. This time, Shen Feng started from the neck, methodically carving downwards. His expression was extremely serious, as if he were dissecting a living person.
Soon, he had completely disassembled the Nanomechanical Cluster of the Mike’s upper body and reached the abdomen.
With a flick of his dagger, he peeled off a layer of the Nanomechanical Cluster.
Something silvery-white was revealed.
It was the cerebral cortex.
Shen Feng laughed. "You’re a real piece of work, hiding your brain practically in your crotch. Tsk, tsk, you almost fooled me."
The Mike he had chosen from the very beginning was the original body after all!
He had just hidden his remaining brain deep inside his body instead of in his head.
Seeing that Shen Feng had discovered the original brain, the surrounding Mikes couldn’t help but let out a torrent of curses and roars.
"Damn you, yellow-skinned monkey! You’ll pay for what you’ve done!"
"I’m going to kill you! Kill you!"
"We share one mind but have separate bodies! We’re already different people! Even if you destroy that brain, it won’t affect us!"
"This is pointless! It won’t change anything unless you kill all seventy-eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-two of us at once!"
But even though they were frantic, they were affected by that damn, bizarre high-frequency sound wave. It was incredibly difficult for them to even move a muscle, their entire bodies in a state of semi-dissolution.
Shen Feng carefully observed the brain, which was enveloped by the Nanomechanical Cluster, and said casually, "Oh, I’m so scared. Since this brain has nothing to do with you, I guess I’ll just make some grilled brain."
Of course, he wasn’t going to be fooled by the Mikes’ bullshit.
If the brain really had nothing to do with them, they wouldn’t be so frantic.
A small part of the brain’s cerebral cortex had already been consumed and assimilated by the Nanomechanical Cluster, but it wasn’t a complete assimilation.
Shen Feng carefully reached out and pinched the brain as if it were a piece of tofu. Then, he applied a little pressure, and the brain’s surface actually began to dissolve slightly, revealing some fissures.
Shen Feng immediately used the faint light to see the internal structure.
Most of the brain’s matter had been preserved, but there was a small Nanomechanical Cluster inside it.
It seemed the entire brain and some of the Nanomechanical Insects had perfectly fused, turning it into a semi-biological, semi-mechanical brain.
It was actually similar in principle to Shen Feng’s own Silicon-Based Brain.
However, its functions were clearly no match for the Silicon-Based Brain.
After all, the structure of these Nanomechanical Insects was relatively simple, making it difficult to achieve more complex performance.
’Come to think of it, the main purpose of this semi-biological, semi-mechanical brain is probably to act as an individual with higher authority, coordinating the relationships between the other copies.’
’After all, copies with the same memories and personalities won’t necessarily work together in harmony.’
’Interesting...’
Shen Feng continued to observe the brain carefully. He even placed it back into the Nanomechanical Cluster before him to observe how the thing controlled the surrounding cluster.
It gave him a lot of inspiration.
Soon, Shen Feng had basically figured out the operating principles of this thing and came to a conclusion.
This had to have been artificially created; it wouldn’t have appeared out of thin air.
Given the structure of Mike’s own brain—that of an ordinary person—the Nanomechanical Insects wouldn’t have fused with it for no reason.
Not unless an external force was involved.
And the creator was very likely the one he’d felt was hiding behind the scenes all this time...
Just as Shen Feng was thinking, he suddenly heard a rumbling of footsteps in the distance, as if thousands of people were running at once.
The next moment, Construction Machines of various forms poured in from all the entrances of the Holy Sanctuary. These Construction Machines were all humanoid. However, compared to the ones he had encountered before, aside from the silver metallic glow in their eyes, every single one of them looked like a normal human!
Their appearances were extremely beautiful; each possessed a perfect figure and a gorgeous face.
And they were completely unaffected by the high-frequency noise!
The same electronic, mechanical voice sounded from their mouths simultaneously:
"Target detected: illegal saboteur. Violation of Azure Sky Technology Company regulation number twenty-two. Authorized for extermination and expulsion."
"Target detected: viral Construction Machine. Violation of Azure Sky Technology Company regulation number twenty-three. Authorized for extermination and expulsion."
"Target detected: illegal saboteur. Violation of Azure Sky Technology Company regulation number twenty-two. Authorized for extermination and expulsion."
"Target detected: viral Construction Machine. Violation of Azure Sky Technology Company regulation number twenty-three. Authorized for extermination and expulsion."
"..."
The "illegal saboteur" was obviously Shen Feng, and the "viral Construction Machine" was, of course, referring to Mike.
As they spoke, the heads of these Construction Machines writhed and twisted, rapidly transforming into the shape of guns. They became like upright, walking, humanoid firearms, aiming at all the Mike Robots and Shen Feng, preparing to open fire!
The next moment, a volley of gunfire erupted!
