Chapter 185: This Is A 【space Of Gods Squad】?
As intense vibrations came from the floor, the surrounding air seemed to boil as well, and strange sounds, both distant and near, flooded into the mind all at once, eroding the spirit like deadly poison.
Upon closer listening, each word of these [Zen Sound] was indistinct and muddled, like the meaningless ravings of a hysteric, neither clear nor comprehensible.
But if one ignored these minor details and treated these [Zen Sound] as background noise, enlightenment would inexplicably dawn, grasping a certain Buddhist Dharma.
The [Zen Sound] Yuan Zhu was hearing at this moment urged him to open his mental defenses, actively seek and accept the [Buddha Cocoon], integrate it into his flesh, and thereby enjoy great freedom and happiness, comprehend the secret method of instant Buddhahood, with countless kinds of happiness…
Unfortunately, this erosion was quite inferior to him now. These ‘sound viruses’ hadn’t spread in the mental world yet when the [Soul Crystal] was triggered first.
Ahead of the [Soul Firewall], it popped up in the brain to prop open a ‘holy light mental power field’, sheltering the mind from pollution erosion.
That wondrous [Buddhist Dharma Zen Sound] receded like the tide, keeping him rational throughout, unaffected in judgment.
“Hmm… why does it feel not as intense as the sounds in the Misty Mountains?”
Little Spicy Stick: “Because during the car ride, you didn’t enable the shielding function at all, but instead actively cooperated to receive mental pollution? And now with the [Zen Sound], you instinctively despise the [Buddha Maggot], so you subconsciously chose to resist.”
The floor vibrations underfoot gradually subsided, the air still seemed to be boiling, with ‘Buddha Rhyme’ still diffusing and spreading in the air. Yuan Zhu ignored these ‘things’ and looked toward his two temporary teammates.
On Meng Xiyue’s body, fleeting energy fluctuations appeared, actively clearing and shielding the ‘Zen Sound pollution’. As for A Miao, she showed no adverse reactions from start to finish.
Yuan Zhu: “The situation just now…”
Meng Xiyue: “Some Buddhism high monk is causing trouble, perhaps in battle? Or attacking the vault’s defense system for a robbery? But we can judge that they’re some distance from us, and we chose the right evasion direction!”
Yuan Zhu: “Next, shall we continue moving away from the direction the ‘Zen Sound’ came from? Find another safe spot and wait for rescue.”
A Miao expressed opposition, tossing the little pumpkin in her palm: “You’re too passive. We should continue as now, seeking more valuable gifts of fate.”
Meng Xiyue recalled the ‘internal map’ she had just seen, simply analyzed it with the [Skull Server], and then had an idea: “Ha! I thought of a great place, follow me.”
Out of trust in her, Yuan Zhu and the other chose to follow after sweeping the living room. Soon, the three followed the stairs to the second floor, wound around seven turns and eight bends, and finally stopped outside a room with a tightly locked room door.
Yuan Zhu glanced at the sign on the door: “Monitoring Room.”
Meng Xiyue: “Correct! Quickly smash the door open, let me check the records stored in the [Monitoring Room]. Maybe we can find the cause of the incident. If the [Bank]’s monitoring system hasn’t failed yet, we might see what’s happening now.”
A Miao gave her a thumbs up, said nothing, drew her gun and shot, blasting the door lock.
Yuan Zhu also transformed into Little Spicy Stick, cheering from the side: “You’re such a little genius, even figuring this out, awesome!” Then he kicked open the room door.
Meng Xiyue walked in, intoxicated amid the cheers, then sighed: “Ah, look at that, such a familiar smell!”
Yuan Zhu poked his head in, looked along, and then discovered a big treasure. A huge head over 3m tall, with pale green skin, of an unknown creature, placed in the center of the room.
Around this head, there were other heads of various alien creatures, connected to each other with piles of wires, blood vessels, and nerve tentacles, looking extremely eerie.
In such a large room, not a single ‘display screen’ could be seen, just filled with heads big and small. He looked up behind, and above the back wall, a row of mouse heads with brains embedded, each with eyelids peeled off, eyes wide in death.
“Holy crap!”
Although he knew very well these heads were [Knowledge School] processed [Skull Servers], suddenly entering a room full of such eerie heads still made Yuan Zhu’s San value spike, hairs stand on end, a chill creeping inexplicably down his back.
Meng Xiyue showed no discomfort, instead rubbing her hands like a fly, eagerly approaching the largest ‘floor-standing head’, groped around a few times, then picked up a helmet-like thing from the nearby desk and put it on her head.
Muttering in her mouth: “Let me see quickly, what exactly happened?”
Meng Xiyue closed her eyes, rubbing nonstop on the bald pale green occiput in a way Yuan Zhu couldn’t understand. It was like a salon girl’s shampoo massage service, or like a muttering middle schooler proficiently operating a mouse.
She was now staring at the ‘operation interface ([Magic Net])’ in her mental world, docking with the [Skull Server], fingers clicking and operating in the void.
Soon, among the neat row of rat heads on the wall top behind Yuan Zhu, the largest one suddenly lit up its eyes. It converted the information from the Skull Server into signals the [Rat Head Player] could recognize and process, ultimately turning it into images via ‘gaze’.
[True. Rat Eyes Inch Light] live playback! Giving the originally terrifying room full of heads a bit of [Monitoring Room] flavor.
…
At this moment, the wall projection had only images, no sound, and the images were somewhat distorted and deformed.
This was his first time at 0 distance with the ‘Rat Head Player’, feeling the image completely different from Earth’s video recorder. The projection had no snowflakes, but used a dream-like state or the meaningless distorted images of a mental illness patient to substitute for the missing ‘video’.
After a series of meaningless distorted transitions, the projected video gradually cleared up.
This was a top-down overlook perspective, location should be the bank’s first-floor interior area, with four distinct ability users appearing in one corner of the image. At their feet lay four ordinary people suspected to be companions.
At the start of the projected image, these eight people were already inside the bank, surrounding staff all fainted on seats or fallen on the floor.
Among these four ability users, the most striking was the black-skinned muscle monster, huge and glaring, even more robust than the Butcher of [Happy Home]. Next was a [Pumpkin Head] wearing plant-type armor, clearly an alien.
Then, a red-haired barbarian with balanced and sturdy build, yet with an Eastern-style bun, clothing with a bit of cultivator + warrior vibe. Finally, a cloaked mechanical helmet shorty.
They first confirmed something? Then talked and discussed, afterward starting ‘wake-up service’ on the four unconscious companions, followed by a rough explanation.
The four ordinary people, two men and two women, upon waking first showed distrust, then shook heads and refused cooperation, and after being forcibly educated, that Pumpkin Head snapped his fingers at the four.
A set of simple armor woven from green vines forcibly equipped on the four, controlling their bodies to stand up. The four ordinary people shouted uncooperatively, but it was meaningless, their bodies manipulated by the armor.
At this time, the cloaked one with head wrapped in mechanical helmet seemed to be saying something? But the image was affected, not clear, couldn’t make out what he was babbling. But the other three teammates seemed to listen cooperatively.
This inexplicably familiar scene, Yuan Zhu felt like he’d seen it somewhere?
He looked at A Miao seriously observing beside him, asked: “Do you think these people could be robbers?”
A Miao showed a thoughtful interested expression, as if playing some puzzle reasoning game, answered Yuan Zhu: “I didn’t see any as ‘Buddhism’ high monks. Four mutually familiar ability users with tacit cooperation; and four ordinary-looking, mutually unacquainted people showing clear distrust. Interesting combination, seems like I’ve heard of it somewhere?”
Yeah! I feel familiar too, isn’t it the standard setup of the [Space of Gods]!
Through the projected image, he saw one ‘newcomer’ after listening to the veteran explanation, distrustfully roll up sleeve, looking at some ‘rune mark’ on the inner arm.
Then he recalled [Happy Home] seemed to have something similar. This setup was clearly some [Demon God] dropping a squad into the [Present World] for mission trials.
A Miao suddenly said: “Ah! It’s the [Space of Gods], I’ve heard similar storybooks! Interesting.”
Yuan Zhu also had his appetite whetted, no sound but still wanted to see what followed. However, after these eight left the room with the ‘rat head monitor’, the image cut off.
Meng Xiyue seemed not to dig up the next ‘perfectly time-connected’ monitor rat head image, instead, Yuan Zhu and A Miao were forced to watch distorted brainwashing color blocks flashing after…
In the bored wait, the two exchanged intel: “Miao Miao, with your rich experience, can you judge the caliber of these four ability users? I see one Pumpkin Head matches the race behind the [Star Realm Bank], could this be an ‘robbery case’ led by internal employees?”
A Miao analyzed: “Why can’t it be a special security squad? Along the way, you’ve seen lots of ability user corpses controlled by [Buddha Cocoon]. This accident should have two participating sides. [Star Realm Bank] is just the venue, one side Buddhism forces, the other this patchwork team. As for these four, the red-haired one’s system hard to judge, looks like warrior from build and movement temperament. Alien Pumpkin Head’s abilities probably revolve around racial advantages. That black hunk very like frog-type ability user of [Proving the Dao with Strength]. The last mechanical helmet probably related to [Mechanical System, Alchemy, Steam System].”
In their judgment, this oddly combined eight-person squad should be unrelated to [Star Realm Bank], the Pumpkin Head’s presence perhaps just coincidence.
They drilled into the hole in the bank interior, probably made by this group. And they seemed to have no intent to loot the bank, from the traces left along the way, they were heading straight for that ‘Buddhism existence’.
Along the way, making mountains into paths and bridging waters, without pause, blasting holes in walls, no robbery traces at all, forcing from bank interior to the external business area. Simultaneously blasting all encountered ‘Buddha Cocoon’ hosts, physical transcendence.
The two hadn’t talked long when Meng Xiyue dug up new content.
This time’s projected content was extremely short. A spacious corridor passage, thick walls instantly exploded from inside splashing, then flame-wreathed semi-transparent ability giant claw gradually dissipated.
The shortest cloaked mechanical helmet drilled out from the hole, then the round hole was punched to collapse half by someone, the flashy-muscled black hunk walked out.
Followed by red-haired barbarian, and Pumpkin Head, and four reluctant ordinary teammates with uncontrollable tense fearful expressions.
Then, streaks of ‘Jade Spear’ shot over, intercepted by a ‘semi-energy beast’ appearing from nowhere. This beast had flames wrapped around its surface, form sometimes solid sometimes illusory, like a guardian spirit, standing in front of the mechanical helmet.
After this energy beast pinned the spears, the other red-haired bun foreigner slightly bent to charge power, extreme step acceleration vanished from the image, returned over ten seconds later.
Then Pumpkin Head acted, rat head monitor didn’t record its operation. But soon, three ‘similar-looking’ [Star Realm Bank] Pumpkin Head guards, like walking dead puppets, crookedly joined the team, picked up ‘Jade Spear’ from the ground, became cannon fodder guards, following the four newcomers.
Image end, still that flame-wreathed energy beast suddenly swung fist to heavily strike the wall, producing explosion effect, and controlled the ‘explosion’ direction entirely to the other side of the wall, forming splash effect.
A Miao: “Others hard to confirm, but that helmet-wearer should be Steam System ability user, classical alchemy school. The ‘flame beast’ he summoned is [Steam Totem], popular for a while with Running, now incorporated by [Industrial God Kingdom], not common.”
Yuan Zhu: “[Steam Totem]? This thing is obsolete?”
A Miao: “Yes! [Steam Totem] is a portable spirit created by humans combining [Steam Engine, Alchemy]. Now mainstream is further sublimate [Steam Totem], build factories for them, divine ascension worship, integrate concepts like [Brand Name], create assembly lines, craft an [Industrial Deity]. These classical [Steam Totem] advantages are simpler and more stable, and can follow personal movement, carry and release power anytime.”
