Volume 4: Shadows Under the Neon Lights Chapter 218 Purple Flame
Right below this "Iron Maiden" is a kneeling Japanese warrior wearing "great armor", with his hands on his knees and his head lowered. On the sword rack in front of him is a simple-looking samurai sword.
"I thought more people would be able to come here ." The warrior said in a low voice.
"I thought that more people would be able to come here..." Complex echoes came from all directions... No, that's not right. These were not echoes. Instead, it was the flesh and blood that made up this huge dome that were repeating his words. Those were the voices of men, women, the elderly, and children. They were wailing and sobbing... They were struggling desperately, but were unable to break free from their restraints... They could only repeat what that man said over and over again, as if they were puppets controlled by him.
"Who are you?" Ke Lan asked. He had already raised the gun in his hand and aimed the other person's head right in the center of the crosshairs.
"I am... from the Arasaka family... No, that is just a ridiculous identity. I am just a bug that survives on the weak body of a human being... Today, I will get rid of all this."
"And today, I will get rid of all this..." The voices of countless victims are still repeating every word he uttered.
"You can call me - Zi Yan." The warrior grabbed the knife and stood up.
"He is the...hiss...patriarch of the Arasaka family, the highest...hiss...controller of the consortium... and the...hiss...leader of the Six Samurai...hiss...Zi Yan..." Victoria said to Ke Lan.
"That is to say, this is the BOSS..." Ke Lan pressed the trigger slightly, "Oh...he may not be the BOSS. The thing in the iron coffin is the real trouble."
"No...hiss...he is...hiss...the thing in there...hiss..." Victoria shook her head slowly.
At this time, Zi Yan took a step forward, and Ke Lan saw that his back was also filled with those fleshy hoses, which connected him to the "Iron Maiden" above his head and the entire dome of flesh and blood... They were a whole, and Zi Yan was only a small part of this whole.
"Then he should be considered the 'brain' of this thing, right? I wonder if the situation will get out of control if we kill him." Ke Lan took a deep breath and pressed down his right index finger a little more. He could already feel the resistance coming from the trigger. This was truly "trigger-ready". As long as he added a little more strength, the bullet in the barrel would be fired immediately.
"But if we keep him alive...things...will only get worse..." The damage to Victoria's vocal device seemed to have improved a little. Although her speech was still intermittent, the harsh electrical noise had disappeared.
However, the volume has become much smaller than before.
Ke Lan noticed that her prosthetic limb was trembling slightly. This was not because of a malfunction, but a sign that the power accumulated inside the machine had reached its limit and was about to burst out.
"I didn't expect that the task of defeating the final BOSS would fall on the shoulders of the reconnaissance team..." Ke Lan smiled self-deprecatingly.
Perhaps Victoria herself did not expect things to develop to this point, but Ke Lan was not the same. His purpose was very clear from the beginning - he came to the East 9th District just for the voice coming from the depths of his mind. This voice carried an irresistible magic that guided him step by step to this place.
Ke Lan felt like a moth that flew into a flame... or a drug addict, it was an instinct engraved in his bones...
But until now, he had not sensed any hostility from the "Iron Maiden". The hostility came from the guy in front of him called "Zi Yan", but his will was not the same as that thing's will.
Victoria was wrong, and Zi Yan was also wrong. He and the thing in the "Iron Maiden" were two completely unrelated individuals. He was still the human being with a weak body and a lingering life in his words.
This idiot, does he really think that by inserting a few tubes into his back, he can become one with the primitive race?
Ke Lan pulled the trigger.
The whistling bullet instantly crossed a distance of a hundred meters, shattering the gorgeously crafted but non-functional armor, tearing open Zi Yan's skin and muscles, and creating a hole about two centimeters in diameter on his forehead.
Afterwards, Zi Yan's entire head exploded under the terrifying internal pressure, and gray-white brain matter and bright red blood spilled on the ground, mixed with fragments of armor made of precious metals with intricate patterns.
"Bang."
The samurai sword slipped from his hand, and the headless body stood still, unable to take another step.
"I am a god... I am the great god... I will not die... I cannot possibly die..." Zi Yan's final roar was released through the flesh and blood, but soon, his remaining consciousness completely dissipated, the roar began to gradually weaken, and the consciousness that was originally controlled by him was completely liberated -
“Save me… save me…”
"It hurts so much... I'm in so much pain..."
"Kill me! ... Please kill me... Let me be free..."
“Ah…Ah…!!”
"Woo...save me...please..."
…
All kinds of screams and wails hit Ke Lan's eardrums and nerves like a huge wave of collapse. Those came from the consciousness of the victims who were used as "sacrifices". They were imprisoned in that "Iron Virgin"...
"I won't give up!"
An angry roar drowned out all the wailing. Under the incredulous gazes of Ke Lan and Victoria, Zi Yan, who had lost his head, slowly bent down and picked up the samurai sword that had fallen to the ground.
“He… is… still… alive…?”
"No, it's not Zi Yan who is alive. Zi Yan is dead, and his brain is smashed... His body is controlled by another consciousness, and that consciousness comes from there." Ke Lan raised his head and looked at the "Iron Maiden" hanging in the air.
"I don't know how to explain this phenomenon to you..." Ke Lan continued, "In the old Chinese supernatural novels, some people who died unjustly would turn into evil spirits that harmed the living because of their deep obsessions... This thing in front of me is probably similar to an evil spirit..."
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Victoria did not ask any more questions. Instead, what came out was the roar of the large-caliber hunting pistol in her hand. The bullets made blood holes the size of bowls on Zi Yan's body, but each blood hole lasted no more than half a second - the substances transported from the flesh tubes could repair the wounds on Zi Yan's body in an instant.
Victoria quickly emptied a magazine, and then, like an arrow shot from a bow, she rushed straight towards Zi Yan - straight towards the "Iron Maiden" right above him.
Only by destroying what's inside can all this end!
