Chapter 199: Chapter 196: Let Me Introduce You to a Friend
Shen Feng, however, was no longer anxious. He walked over slowly. Behind him, the greatsword and arm formed by the Nanomechanical Cluster dissolved back into the Gray Tide, which swirled and flowed constantly like a living ocean wave.
Dozens of Nanomechanical Robots also stood guard behind him.
Shen Feng, still in the guise of a tall, slender Asian man, passed through the thick, yellow, toxic fog and came to a stop behind the hooded figure.
From behind, the figure appeared to be a young man.
The figure stood with their back to him, perfectly still, gazing up at Tokyo Tower.
Shen Feng looked up as well, only to see that Tokyo Tower was now covered in sharp metal spikes. They were layered one on top of another—tens of thousands of them in total.
And impaled on these metal spikes were countless people, writhing and struggling.
All of them had been pierced through the body, left to hang on the tower like ants skewered on a branch.
And they were still alive!
They hadn’t turned; they were still conscious and alive!
’They’re all Immune!?’
’If all these people are Immune, then developing a serum for the Evil Spirit Virus would be almost effortless!’
But from the looks of it, they were all run completely through by the metal spikes. They clearly wouldn’t live for much longer.
Their moans had been faint, but upon seeing Shen Feng’s arrival, they all began to groan loudly.
Their originally weak brainwaves began to fluctuate violently, forming a magnetic field around Tokyo Tower.
Blood flowed ceaselessly down the structure of Tokyo Tower, collecting at its base in a pool. Amid the yellow fog, it gleamed like a bright, crimson mirror, an exceptionally bizarre sight.
This was some kind of ritual.
The hooded figure watched the scene unfold, softly chanting something under their breath.
Expressionless, Shen Feng stepped closer and made out the words the figure was chanting:
"...An instant is ten thousand years, and ten thousand years an instant. One is a billion, and a billion are one... A thousand suns shall grant the sinners a new rebirth... The hero slays the Evil Dragon, crawls from the ashes, and horns sprout from his head..."
Shen Feng’s pupils shrank. The words sounded like utter nonsense, yet only he could understand them. They were about him!
To be precise, they were about the three apocalypses he had already experienced!
The first line referred to the statues of the Stone Statue Apocalypse. The second described the baptism of Rebirth Day in the nuclear wasteland. And the last line was a taunt, mocking how Shen Feng had killed that world’s Arthur Seldon, only to take control of the Nanomechanical Cluster for himself!
’Who the hell is this!? How do they know so much about me!?’
He reached out, placed a hand on the figure’s shoulder, and started to turn them around.
Just then, the hooded figure suddenly whipped its head around, revealing a face full of black veins, crimson eyes that looked as if they were about to drip blood, and a pair of glasses.
Its skin had almost turned completely black, its face was sharply deformed, and it barely looked human anymore.
Spikes from its mutated brain even protruded from its forehead!
A deeply mutated zombie!
Yet, his features were vaguely recognizable. It was the man with glasses from outside the hospital on the outskirts of Tokyo—the one who had crashed his car and turned into a zombie just as Shen Feng was setting out. Shen Feng had even "borrowed" an arm from him!
Just as Shen Feng froze, a violent electromagnetic pulse erupted from the zombie’s brain. Its head exploded like a powerful Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb!
The violent EMP instantly fried the Nanomechanical Cluster covering Shen Feng’s body. As it crumbled away, it revealed the face of an East Asian youth, a trace of surprise still on his features.
"Hee hee..." A smug giggle came from the dense fog, only to stop abruptly.
The young man’s face also blackened and crumbled. His entire body turned a dead black as arcs of electricity sparked across it, and he collapsed into a scorched clump of nanomachines that fluttered to the ground.
It was another Nanomechanical Robot!
Meanwhile, one of the Nanomechanical Robots following behind turned to face a direction in the fog and spoke:
"Found you."
With a wave of its hand, the Gray Tide behind it—a wave dozens of meters high—surged forward. It instantly shot out thousands of metal spikes toward the source of the laughter.
SHINK SHINK SHINK... The sound of flesh being sliced open was followed by a muffled grunt.
A great force followed, and with a brief flash of an electromagnetic pulse, the metal spikes were instantly severed.
Shen Feng snorted. The Gray Tide spun violently, its massive form kicking up a gale that thinned the surrounding yellow fog, finally revealing the "thing" within.
A mountain of flesh dozens of meters high stood there.
The surface of this "flesh mountain" was covered with thousands of arms and legs, countless densely packed eyes, and even human faces frozen in various expressions. It was horrifyingly clear that it was formed from the fusion of tens of thousands of people!
It was less a mountain of flesh and more a multi-limbed monstrosity.
Countless tentacles dangled from its underside, their original human limbs impossible to identify, creating a truly grotesque sight.
Standing before the flesh mountain was a man in a sharp suit, wearing no protective gear. He was smiling at Shen Feng.
Seeing that his position was exposed, the man didn’t seem surprised. He took a few steps forward, bowed to Shen Feng, and said with a broad smile:
"Mr. Shen, your reputation precedes you. I must say, you’re even more cunning in person than the rumors suggest."
Shen Feng replied with a deadpan expression, his tone utterly sincere:
"You’re Yamaguchi Sora, the president of the Celestial Divine Association? And if I’m not mistaken, this must be Maruyama Mori, right? Turning one of your own men into a puppet... You’re a true scumbag."
Yamaguchi Sora was indeed the president of the Celestial Divine Association, as well as the major shareholder and true controller behind the Celestial Divine Biomedical Corporation.
He and Maruyama Mori had been classmates, which was why he had funded Maruyama Mori to establish the biomedical company, earning Maruyama’s tearful gratitude.
Maruyama had followed his every order during the subsequent research and development. It wasn’t until human experimentation began that Maruyama Mori felt something was deeply wrong, but by then, it was too late.
He too became one of the test subjects.
Jingwei had just extracted this information from one of Maruyama Mori’s encrypted computers.
’As for the identity of that deeply mutated zombie,’ Shen Feng now suddenly recalled, ’I’d seen a photo of Maruyama Mori in the Celestial Divine Biomedical Corporation files I looked at earlier.’
’It seems they’ve been targeting me from the very beginning...’
Yamaguchi Sora was taken aback that Shen Feng had identified him so easily. After a brief pause, he smiled and said:
"As expected of the one my god holds in high regard. Mr. Shen, you truly are full of surprises."
Shen Feng raised an eyebrow, once again catching a key piece of information in the man’s words.
Everything Yamaguchi Sora did was for the Evil God he worshipped—or rather, a powerful consciousness from another dimension.
It was that thing that had told Yamaguchi Sora about Shen Feng.
That thing had noticed Shen Feng, and it was very interested in him!
"You went to great lengths to lure me here, so just say what you want to say," Shen Feng said coolly. "That thing backing you... it’s a consciousness from a Parallel Cosmos or a Subspace, isn’t it? Does it want to descend upon this world? Why?"
Yamaguchi Sora said with a smile:
"Mr. Shen, you surprise me more and more... That’s right. I represent a great, higher-dimensional being: the eternal Master of the Void! He is about to descend upon this pathetic, pitiful, preposterous world. The Master of the Void is very interested in you and wishes to bring you under his banner. I welcome you to join the void. What do you say, Mr. Shen? Merge with the void, and you will attain eternity!"
Shen Feng pressed a hand to his forehead, looking like he had a headache, and said:
"A higher-dimensional being is a higher-dimensional being. Giving it such a fantasy-style name is just unscientific. People will make fun of you... Speaking of the Master of the Void, I’d like to introduce it to a friend. What do you say?"
Yamaguchi Sora paused. "A friend? What friend?"
"That friend is called the Whisperer."