Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 895: Sequelae of Brain Damage
"How could this happen? How could this happen?" Thirty-three opened his eyes wide and kept muttering to himself.
No, not all soldiers were wearing his clothes and wearing armbands with his military number embroidered on them - the soldier lying on the ground twitching was different from the others. Thirty-three wanted to look at his armband, but found that the number on the armband was as blurry as the facial features of these soldiers... The next second, this blurred visual effect had spread to the soldier's entire body. Thirty-three could only see a barely recognizable human figure curled up on the ground, just like the harmonious pictures in the news that were mosaiced.
"What's going on... What on earth is going on..." Sanshisan felt an indescribable fear rising from his heart, but for some reason, he didn't feel that there was anything wrong with these strange scenes. In his opinion, all of this was extremely real and happening right in front of him.
The blurry shadow on the ground began to distort. It no longer maintained its human shape, but suddenly expanded like an adult insect emerging from a cocoon.
The completely deformed figure split in the middle, and an indescribable monster many times larger than the original figure stood up from it.
The reason why this monster is indescribable is not because Sanshisan can't find the words to describe it, but because this monster, like the previous human figure, is also shrouded in mist.
The indescribable monster walked towards Thirty-three. It seemed to be saying something to Thirty-three. Thirty-three could hear those whispers like a dream, but he could not make out the content of the whispers at all... The more he listened, the more his head hurt as if it was about to burst...
“Go to hell!”
Thirty-three finally threw away the last bit of his rationality, picked up the assault rifle in his hand, and pulled the trigger -
But Sanshisan did not feel the resistance on the trigger, and no gunshot was heard. He looked down and saw that what he was holding in his hand was not an assault rifle, but a bloody severed arm!
The surrounding wasteland had become a sea of fire at some point, with thick smoke covering the sky and the pungent smell constantly drilling into Sanshisan's nostrils. Those silent soldiers had now turned into broken corpses on the ground, and some of them even had their entire bodies crushed. Looking down from the sky, they looked like a tomato that had fallen from a high altitude and hit the ground heavily.
The sight of corpses everywhere made Sanshisan forget to breathe. He raised his head and looked up into the sky.
The aircraft carrier that brought them to this place had long disappeared. Only a few reconnaissance planes were circling in the air. They soon flew to a higher and farther sky and disappeared from Thirty-three's sight.
Thirty-three knew that they had become abandoned pawns... No, they were no longer there, only he was left.
He is a discarded pawn and no one cares whether he lives or dies.
“Hoo…Hoo…”
Thirty-three was breathing heavily, he raised his head and looked at the monster approaching. He threw away the broken arm in his hand, pulled out the military hand axe from his waist, and rushed forward with a roar.
He had already made up his mind to die, but this indescribable monster did not seem to be that strong, and Sanshisan easily got close to it, and the sharp axe blade wedged fiercely into the monster's body.
The feeling of the axe was very strange, as if it was chopping into a ball of high-density cotton wool. The erratic feeling made Sanshisan feel very uneasy. He pushed the axe blade forward with force, wanting to chop deeper - since the monster's body surface is made of this cotton-like substance, then the core part must have substance, right?
Chop it! Slice it! Chop it!
Thirty-three was about to continue exerting force, but a tentacle covered with pustules swung out from the monster's body, hit his abdomen, and knocked him flying, then threw him hard to the ground.
Thirty-three heard the sound of his bones breaking, but this time his sense of pain seemed to have been stripped away. It was as if this body was not his own. He didn't know which bone was broken, nor did he feel any pain.
Anyway, the movement of the body was not restricted in any way... Sanshisan jumped up from the ground again and rushed towards the monster with an axe in hand.
…
…
“This will never end…” Ke Lan looked at the frantic Thirty-three in front of him, dodging and blocking his attacks and the black flying blades that penetrated everywhere. If this continued, either Thirty-three would die of exhaustion, or his defense would be flawed and the black flying blades would hit his head… The brain was Ke Lan’s only vital part. If the brain was damaged, things would be very troublesome…
The "trouble" here does not refer to death, but something that Ke Lan fears more than death.
In the fight just now, a black flying blade successfully penetrated Ke Lan's defense net and cut a hole along the edge of the skull. The tip of the blade penetrated the bones, ligaments and fascia, creating a half-inch deep wound on the side of Ke Lan's brain.
The wound healed quickly, and even the damaged bones grew back immediately... But in these few short seconds, Ke Lan always felt that there seemed to be something missing and something extra in his brain.
He had forgotten some trivial things in his daily life. He couldn't remember when the last dinner of the God Hunter Group was held and who attended. The figures of Hound, Asano Akira, Zofia and others also became a little blurry in his memory. In addition, his fighting skills became much less sophisticated. He missed several attacks that he should have prevented because of his deformed movements, and the black flying blades left more wounds on his body.
This was not due to exhaustion. With Ke Lan's physical fitness, he would not be physically exhausted after fighting at such an intense level for more than ten hours... He simply "forgot".
Not only did the brain forget, but even the muscles forgot. They forgot the movements of slashing and blocking, and the techniques of exerting force... The cold engineer shovel always made Ke Lan feel uncomfortable in his hands, and he could never get back the original comfortable and smooth feeling .
What’s even more terrible is that the missing part of the memory did not leave a gap, but a “replacement” appeared.
It was as if there were a hundred people whispering in Ke Lan's head. Ke Lan could tell that they were speaking the language of the Alpha civilization, but the sentences were fragmented and could not form complete words that could express the meaning. These whispers were like the meaningless "ebah" and "ah" sounds that babies make when learning to speak... they were completely worthless.
Ke Lan was basically certain that he had become truly immortal. Even if his brain was damaged, the brain tissue could still be restored... but the more parts that were restored, the more things he had forgotten, and those meaningless whispers and chaotic fragments would fill his mind.
If his entire brain was restored again, would he still be the original Ke Lan?
Just like the Ship of Theseus in the allusion, any damaged plank of the hull would be immediately replaced with a new one. When all the planks on the ship have been replaced, can this ship still be considered the original ship that was pulled out of the shipyard?
Ke Lan didn't know what would happen when he forgot everything... Maybe he would become a fool, maybe he would go completely crazy, or maybe he would become a puppet of someone or something... But no matter which ending it was, he didn't want to see it.
This kind of ending is really not as good as dying quickly and painlessly.
Is it true that only thirty-three can be killed?
Ke Lan stared at Sanshisan's face. Even though he was not one of the people who formed the God Hunter Group at the beginning, and she had only known him for a few months, she didn't need to spend a long time with some people to be sure that they were the kind of people she could trust with her life. Sanshisan was such a person.
If possible, Ke Lan really wanted him to live.
"I can't wake him up... I don't want to kill him... and I can't knock him out..." Ke Lan was thinking hard about a solution. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration flashed before his eyes -
“There is a way!”
Ke Lan kicked away a flying blade that was shot at him from the side, turned around and ran out of the jungle. Sanshisan immediately followed and chased after him.
"If I remember correctly, go out of this exit of the hunting ground, walk one thousand meters to the right, and at the third intersection... the depth of that place should be enough..." Ke Lan thought as he ran. Thirty-three's speed was not much slower than him, especially on the streets in the city - there were many Nino alloy components in the ruins of those buildings. Thirty-three used the building materials containing Nino alloy as the base of the "slingshot" and the force between himself and Nino alloy as the bowstring of the "slingshot", bouncing continuously, just like what Ke Lan did in the garbage channel. Every time he exerted force, he could catapulted himself hundreds of meters away.
In addition to catapulting movement, abandoned building components would occasionally rise from the ruins, bringing large chunks of concrete or other metal and stone materials to smash towards Ke Lan... Forcibly manipulating this tonnage of Nino alloy creation was a huge burden for Thirty-three, but he didn't care about the damage caused to his body by overdrawing his abilities at this moment. Even though the blood flowing from his nostrils had made Thirty-three's face as pale as paper, he still pursued Ke Lan relentlessly - as if for him, as long as he could kill Ke Lan, any price would be worth it.
"boom!!"
A concrete block with a diameter of more than fifteen meters fell heavily on the side of Ke Lan, pressing one of Ke Lan's arms directly into it - this concrete block was one-third of the foundation of a building on the street. This foundation was pulled out by Sanshisan and thrown at Ke Lan. Although Ke Lan barely avoided the huge object falling on his head, he still paid the price of losing an arm.
Without hesitation , Ke Lan cut off his arm that was trapped under the concrete block and had turned into a mixture of broken bones and meat, and continued to run forward. The urban area was undoubtedly Sanshisan's home ground, where his abilities could be fully utilized to the greatest extent. This advantage would be several times greater than in the jungle hunting ground.
Not only that, the mental strength of Thirty-Three who was trapped in the dream was not restricted, but was greatly increased. It was absolutely impossible for Thirty-Three who was awake to lift a concrete block weighing dozens of tons with just a few steel bars that contained less than half the Nino alloy content. Even if he bit his teeth to pieces, he couldn't do it. But now, he just waved his hand, and the houses on both sides of the street fell towards Ke Lan as if they were directional blasted.
Several times, Ke Lan was buried directly in the ruins. He forced his way out despite being covered in injuries, but what greeted him were more, bigger, and heavier components, as well as black flying blades hidden among the rubble and dust.
Ke Lan felt that he was almost at his limit. Although he was numb to the pain and the wounds on his body healed immediately after they appeared...but his spirit was beginning to be tired ...Several times, he wanted to give up...turn around and help Sanshisan get some relief.
It was not difficult for him to kill Thirty-three. Thirty-three's attack style did not include any defense. Ke Lan did not even need to get close to him. He could end it all by just shooting at Thirty-three's forehead...
It’s not that Ke Lan had never shot at San San before. He tried to shoot San San’s knees and ankles, but when the bullets were about to hit these parts that would affect San San’s movements, a few black flying blades would always fly out to block the bullets... and when Ke Lan aimed at vital parts such as San San’s head or heart, the black flying blades would attack Ke Lan with all their might.
"Is his dream controlled by Neto... It seems that Neto is determined that he does not want to kill his companions..." Ke Lan sighed. The best way to get out of the predicament is naturally to kill Thirty-three, but Ke Lan does not want to do that unless it is absolutely necessary... Even though he knows that this will be used by Neto, he still wants to save Thirty-three's life.
Finally, the destination that Ke Lan had planned appeared in his sight—it was a large pit at the crossroads. Judging from the shape and depth of the pit, it did not look like it was dug out by machinery, but rather like it was blown out by explosives buried deep underground… This pit was probably left by the residents of the hive city when they were fighting against the “disaster”. There were many traces of battles like this in the entire hive city…
But none of this matters. What matters is that the pit is deep enough and there are no Nino alloy components at the bottom of the pit.
Ke Lan ran to the edge of the pit, picked up the few objects containing Nino alloy, threw them far away, and then watched Thirty-three rushing towards him.
Despite having his legs torn off by the black flying blade, Ke Lan rushed into Sanshisan's arms. He grabbed Sanshisan's shoulders with his newly grown arm, twisted his waist hard, and used the force to throw Sanshisan directly into the big pit!
