Chapter 534 Chapter 531 Battle of Upgrading
Isabella tried her best to twist her body, but her strength was bound, sticky, entangled and dissolved like a stone sinking into the sea. Her twisting didn't look like a struggle, but like a lover acting coquettishly. If it weren't for the ferocious expression on his face and the blood-red eyeballs that almost popped out of his sockets, Morgana might have misunderstood him.
asshole! asshole! asshole! Isabella cursed in her mind, but she did not fall into useless anger. At this moment, she was extremely calm. She knew very well that she was in huge trouble. She underestimated the weirdness of the mercenary in front of her, and encountered weird technology that she had never seen in the tactical reserve. At this time, what she needs to do most is to search her guts to find a solution. If she can't find something targeted, then everyone will downgrade together and return to the level of combat where only primitive methods can be used.
Promotion and downgrade are internal terms within the company. Upgrading refers to "using higher-level shadow follower items, techniques and abilities to fight, and using as much shadow follower energy and firepower as possible"; downgrading is the opposite, using less or no shadow follower related techniques and using the most basic of kinematics, physics, and simple chemistry to solve problems.
The two states each play important roles in different environments. Isabella is good at "upgrade" fights, but she's also good at "downgrade" fights. This benefits from her relatively low implant replacement rate, which is the so-called "body does not expand". Even if she completely loses her shadow skills, her body parts can still function normally.
She is a cautious person - just like Zhuang Xuteng - even if she cannot do her best in any situation, she must first be able to fight in any situation. Among the augmented people she is familiar with, she is the one who pays the most attention to basic physical fitness, basic martial arts and basic shooting training. She is also the one who most often turns off implant assistance to complete daily tasks. So at this moment, she decided to activate the war shackles again.
This is already Isabella's trump card. She believes that with the passive protection ability of her armored skin and her solid basic training level, she can defeat Nike without any shadow energy assistance. She originally planned to use this move to deal with those guys in the company who had higher levels of enhancement, but the current situation forced her to deal with Naike who had lower levels of enhancement.
"Shame..." Isabella gritted her teeth and ordered the shock wave to be activated a second time.
If it were Zhuang Xuteng at another time, he would have gone through an emotional transformation process from shock and anxiety to acceptance and tension. The Eye of Kaho can only emit a shock wave once when it is fully charged, but this does not mean that all implants have the same specifications. Isabella specially found a special eyeball implant of excellent quality, and asked the engineering department to modify it slightly to increase the energy storage limit so that it could launch two shock waves.
It became a racing game at this moment to see whether the sick lady fired faster or the second shock wave occurred earlier. Both need to accumulate power, and there is a time lag from activation to launch - they both count down desperately, but the quality of the implant produced by the company is better, and in the end it is faster than the sick lady, and first releases two vertical three halos. .
A shock wave surged through, and this time even the sick lady was affected. She is composed of resentment and mana kneaded by shadow energy. She has the characteristics of necromancy and shadow magic. In addition, she also has intelligence. It can be regarded as a kind of nerve-controlled shadow effect, and it is within the scope of the shock wave. As soon as the shock wave was generated, the sick lady felt as if she was being illuminated by the sun. The terrifying "active" energy was the nemesis of the "dead". She screamed in "fright". The resentment that was originally kneaded and formed burst out with a scream, and this formed a banshee howl.
The first war shackles are two shock waves, and the second war shackles are a shock wave and the Banshee's Wail. This time the howl erupted inside Isabella, and she bore the brunt. The death aura formed by the resentment collided in her body, and every organ was severely hit. It was equivalent to being infected by various diseases, toxins and curses at the same time. It could be said that there was no good place left.
Isabella was seen bleeding from all her orifices, her blood vessels were purple and protruding, and a light yellow grease-like liquid was flowing out from the damaged areas of her armored skin. There were uncontrollable bubbling sounds in her throat, "gurgling, gurgling, gurgling, gurgling", and she felt like every breath was a huge challenge. The auxiliary motion implant system, which was completely wiped out by the second shock wave, began to work randomly. The airflow spurted out of the thin tube was like an old lady's cough with thick phlegm, which was the absolute opposite of "refreshing".
Contrary to her original expectations, Isabella completely lost control of her body, and there was no subsequent demotion battle at all. At this moment, she was unconscious, her consciousness was trapped in an endless cycle of nightmares, and her body could only swing with the random airflow. If Zhuang Xuteng hadn't entangled and supported her, she would have fallen long ago.
Why does Zhuang Xuteng continue to support and pester Isabella? Because he himself was also feeling uncomfortable and was in a semi-conscious state. The shock wave hitting him again won't actually have a big impact on him, but it will only make the implant more painful and make it more difficult to move. But the Banshee's Howl was too cruel. Even if Isabella blocked a lot of its power, the rest would still be unbearable.
The physical fitness he had trained with folk methods - mainly in terms of endurance - was far inferior to Isabella's, so it can be said that the Banshee's Howl hit both of them equally. Zhuang Xuteng's consciousness was directly blown away by the patient's shout, but he did not fall into an infinite nightmare. He had already entered a state of floating and not knowing his last name. He also lost control of his body, but his body did not lose control. The supercomputing martial arts made his nervous system strong and tough. He retrained the conditioned reflex training process twice, making his body like insects and amphibians, which have the ability of ganglia to control movement.
The subjective consciousness of the brain went offline, and the rest of the nervous system still maintained the supercomputing martial arts, and it was still in the state of eight flashes. Therefore, he still hugged Isabella and countered her randomly moving hands and feet. Although the two of them were swaying and in weird postures, they finally maintained a fragile balance.
Another race began, this time the competition was who could regain consciousness first. Since the main cause of the loss of consciousness was the Banshee's Howl, and Zhuang Xuteng had learned necromancy, while Isabella had not, the advantage was on Zhuang Xuteng's side. Although Isabella's physical fitness was better, the outbreak point of the Banshee's Howl was in her body, so the two aspects could be equalized. After the two people hugged each other and swung for about a minute, Zhuang Xuteng was the first to regain some consciousness.
At this time, although he had not figured out what exactly happened, he made a key decision: to use the dormant martial arts to transfer all his pain to the surroundings, and whoever got close would be unlucky.
When resentment, pain and fatigue began to transfer to Isabella, the balance of victory and defeat in this battle had completely shifted. Isabella had a harder time recovering from coma, while Zhuang Xuteng's condition continued to improve. After several coma and wakefulness, Zhuang Xuteng finally regained full consciousness and could observe the surroundings, analyze the situation and make decisions completely, continuously and coherently.
"Why was I hugged by this woman? Is she trying to crush me to death?" At this moment, Zhuang Xuteng was still a little dizzy, and he hadn't been able to recall all the memories of the previous battle. He thought for a moment, and immediately pressed his left palm on Isabella's forehead, fully operating the dormant martial arts, and directly transferred the damage through the vengeful spirit array in the palm of his hand. At the same time, he summoned and stretched out a vengeful spirit tentacle to take back the armor-breaking hammer that fell on the ground.
Using all his strength, the armor-breaking hammer hit Isabella hard, hitting the junction of the cervical vertebra and the skull, causing a comminuted fracture here. The breath of life immediately disappeared from Isabella's body, and the resentment of the dead spirits rose and gathered, becoming extremely strong. Zhuang Xuteng still didn't dare to let go of his left hand, but just pushed Isabella's limbs apart, put her down, and squatted down. Then, he used the armor-breaking hammer again, hitting continuously, and finally broke the head and brain, completing the finishing blow.
At this moment, he slumped to the ground, panting hard, almost crying. It's not that he doesn't want to control it, but he just came back from the brink of life and death, and the stimulation is too great. The Banshee's howl almost killed him. If it weren't for Isabella who dared to block the knife and stood in front, and if the patient's grievances were not the same as his own, reducing accidental injuries, he would not be alive today.
The near-death experience was not good at all, which strengthened Zhuang Xuteng's belief that "he must survive". After a few breaths, the memory of the battle process came to his mind again with the thought of "what happened in the end", and Zhuang Xuteng could finally examine and analyze his progress.
The supercomputing martial arts finally broke through to the eighth flash, completing the progress of "enemy and me are the same body". In fact, from the seventh flash, Zhuang Xuteng and his master, Famine Stranger, have embarked on different paths. The seven flash memories formed are different, and the difference is more obvious when it comes to the eighth flash. Famine Stranger defines the eighth flash as "knowing your enemy". He said that when he is in the eighth flash state, he can anticipate the enemy's moves and complete at least three levels of thinking before the opponent.
Here, one level is not "one" subsequent change, but "one step" of subsequent change. Each step will have multiple possibilities, and each possibility will trigger multiple possibilities at a new level. Famine Stranger said that he could see three levels and choose the one that is most beneficial to him at the same time, so as to induce the enemy to act according to his ideas and manipulate the situation. However, he also said that many powerful enemies, especially the company's enemies, would not be able to bear many of their action options. They often see ten possibilities, and all ten of them are at a disadvantage. In this case, the biggest role of Eight Flash is to start running away three steps before the enemy takes action, so as to ensure their own safety.
Zhuang Xuteng's Eight Flash cannot be used to escape. He is more confident in defeating the company's powerful enemies, so his Eight Flash will allow him to stick to them so as to engage in extremely close combat. His "enemy and me are consistent" is not based on prediction, but on using his powerful nervous system to directly receive the enemy's nerve signals. It is equivalent to Zhuang Xuteng copying all the various commands of the enemy to control the body, and then using the processing power of the peripheral nerves, without going through the brain, to directly respond at the conditioned reflex level.
"How did you do that?" Zhuang Xuteng pushed himself to the state of Eight Flash again, and then suddenly realized it. At that time, he focused all his attention on the enemy and took back the Wraith Jelly, but the Wraith Jelly did not completely disappear. The extremely compressed Wraith Jelly combined with the withdrawn attention established a bridge similar to the nervous system between Isabella and him.
"The skin is not connected, the flesh is not connected, but the nervous system is connected. What is this... It feels like I used an information probe to spy on her?" Zhuang Xuteng scratched his head, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that this was the case. Could it be that he got familiar with Meteor, Nightingale, and Rock Sparrow, and his daily envy entered his subconscious, and turned into his own skills?
The first time I entered Eight Flash, I was generally not proficient, so I focused all my energy on Eight Flash, and even suspended my subjective thinking. But I will have experience in the future. With more practice and more adaptation, I will definitely be able to make Eight Flash and subjective thinking exist at the same time, so there will be more tactical options, right?
Zhuang Xuteng was just happy, but his throat suddenly felt hot and itchy, and then he opened his mouth and spit out blood with a wow. It seems that the internal organs were injured, on the one hand because of the patient's howling, and on the other hand because of Isabella's squeezing. That woman, every part of her body is like a clamp and a hydraulic press, twisting and turning to kill people! Fortunately, Bashan was able to control her at that time, otherwise one would have broken her waist by hugging her waist, and the other would have broken her head by twisting her neck! This time, I have to take good care of her, but it is better to deal with Isabella's body first.
Zhuang Xuteng supported himself on the ground with both hands, slowly got up, and took out an instant energy bar from his pocket to replenish his strength. The energy bar was completely squeezed into powder, and he could only pour it into his mouth a little bit, and eat it while holding back the choking cough. His body greedily absorbed sugar, generated heat, and produced nerve relaxation signals, which could relieve the uninterrupted pain and fatigue throughout the body.
"Eye of Shadow," Zhuang Xuteng knew that intelligence was life at this moment, and immediately used the Eye of Shadow to check Isabella's residual shadow energy. After checking back and forth three times, he was basically relieved: Isabella was indeed dead, and all the shadow devices on her body had been turned off, and no shadow energy signals were sent, received or generated.
"It can be basically assumed that Isabella's death is temporarily unknown." Zhuang Xuteng made a judgment. He chose to fight in the sewer, mainly because of the building structure here. In order to reduce the trouble of disassembly and maintenance, the sewer pipes in Peicheng are all pre-assembled and spliced, with stable quality control and good closed structure. When walking inside, forget about mobile phone signals, only a few high-power signal transmitters can penetrate. In addition to the three shock waves before and after the sweep, there is absolutely no usable signal transceiver near the battlefield, and Isabella cannot communicate with Dingxin Magic Creation.
Next, as before, we must cover up her body well and create a solid alibi for ourselves. Cleaning the battlefield is the first step, especially bloodstains and other things containing biometric information... Wait, what's the sound?
Zhuang Xuteng pricked up his ears and listened carefully. The sound came from the depths of the channel and kept approaching. Because the enhanced hearing implant had not recovered yet, Zhuang Xuteng still looked at the slowly increasing water flow under his feet before he figured out what it was: the municipal government opened the gate to release water, discharged the treated sewage into the Pei River, and flushed the pipe wall of the drainage channel by the way.
He quickly took out the folding body bag from his pocket, unfolded it quickly, stuffed Isabella in it, tied the mouth tightly, and then carried her away. After a while, the water rushed in, and all the traces of the battlefield were washed into the Pei River. Zhuang Xuteng stood above the drainage ditch with the corpse and observed with the ghost jelly, and was quite satisfied with the flushing effect of the water flow.
Although the two people fought very fiercely, from the time point of view, it took less than ten minutes in total, not enough for Isabella to walk back to the artist's studio from the secret passage normally! Zhuang Xuteng thought about it, planned the route of action in his mind, and then left the drainage ditch with the body bag. He first found some sundries from the nearest trash can to wrap the black bag, then put on disguise, stole the homeless man's shopping cart in the park next to the river bank, put Isabella in it, and ran away with a clattering sound all the way.
As the implants such as enhanced hearing gradually recovered, Zhuang Xuteng heard the curse of the homeless man behind him. "Who! Who stole my car! Bastard, what a bastard! How can I live without a car..."
Bullying someone weaker than oneself is a crime, but Zhuang Xuteng really doesn't dare to stop at this moment.