The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 1018: Stop!

An electrical screech tore through their eardrums, seeming to emanate both from outside and within their skulls.

Everyone clutched their heads, hit by sudden disorientation and weakness.

“Ah!”

Gao Yang seized his moment, twisting to kick Berserking Lion away before lunging for the door.

His hand stopped short of touching the sensor.

He turned slowly, steadying himself.

Berserking Lion, Yan Feng, and Gui Zhe lay crumpled on the sofa and floor, unconscious. A head emerged from the tea table's edge—Can, her invisibility dissolving as she cackled.

“Done!”

Ten seconds ago, she had sneakily turned off the Silencer. @@novelbin@@

Just when Gao Yang was going to be put under the control of the Corpse Herder, Ronnie had turned on the speaker in this booth alone with his staff privilege and made a special sound that would disorient the brains; that was his superpower, Disorientation.

Without Silencer restricting her, Vermilion Bird had infiltrated the three men's S-Chips, deploying a sleep virus under cover of the disorientation, rendering the men temporarily unconscious.

Everything happened almost at the same time. It would be difficult for them to figure out what had happened to them.

Vermilion Bird, feigning disorientation, rose. “Let’s get on with it.”

She touched the Red Scorpion on her side to contact everyone. “Ronnie, keep DJing.”

“Xiran, keep watch outside.”

“Lithe Snake, come in and cover me.”

“Gray Bear, secure Liu Li’s escape route.”

She spoke as she went up to Yan Feng, her long fingers feeling their way to his chin. There was a discreet switch. She pressed it, and the simulated muscles on his face rippled away, revealing the celebrity’s well-known face. Vermilion Bird confirmed his identity. Then she pressed the switch once more to restore the disguise.

Taking a steadying breath, she sat beside him and initiated the deep neural hack.

Two seconds later, she slumped backward on the sofa.

The door blasted open. Lithe Snake entered, assessing the scene instantly.

“There’s nothing else for you to do here, Can. Go.” He produced two charged laser pistols, tossing one to Gao Yang before shoving the other into Berserking Lion's mouth, ready to fire.

Gao Yang pressed his weapon to Gui Zhe's temple. If the plan failed—if they woke and resisted—immediate elimination was the only option.

Can looked at Vermilion Bird worriedly. Captain was strongest but also weakest when she infiltrated someone’s brain. She would like to guard her, but she would only be a burden here.

“Be careful.” Can went invisible. Two seconds later, the automatic door opened and closed.

“Remember, you must only rush out of the door after they open their eyes and see you,” Lithe Snake said. “And make it fast.”

Gao Yang nodded, “Make sure they don’t realize that the time isn’t right.”

Lithe Snake said calmly, “Xiran’s adjusted every timepiece in the bar. And Vermilion Bird can wipe out the traces left from their lapse in consciousness and her visits in their S Chips.”

Gao Yang fell silent.

The moment the three men fell unconscious, Vermilion Bird’s I Chip had projected a hologram counting down from 180 seconds. There were 139 seconds left.

He gripped the pistol, transfixed by the diminishing numbers. Each second seemed to race past, yet every minute stretched into eternity.

At 64 seconds, Vermilion Bird's eyes snapped open.

“Already?” Lithe Snake frowned. Although they were completing the mission early rather than late, it wasn’t a good thing for their calculation to be off by such a large margin.

“It’s a little too easy to get the digitized memory,” Vermilion Bird said with a hint of exhaustion. Rather than getting up immediately, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

After ten seconds, she opened her eyes. “Clean up.”

Lithe Snake holstered his weapon. Gao Yang returned the gun to him.

While Lithe Snake exited swiftly, Gao Yang remained, positioned to open the door.

Vermilion Bird's left eye flickered with data streams. She reactivated the Silencer—it would take around eight seconds for the device to switch on. She returned to her previous position.

Pressing a hand to her temple in feigned pain, she signaled Gao Yang silently.

Three seconds later, she roused the unconscious men. The Silencer went back online. The disorientating electric noise would sound once more, but fading.

The three men would believe they'd fallen victim to Gao Yang's superpower, losing mere seconds to disorientation. They'd witness his escape, everything seemingly happening in an instant.

Vermilion Bird counted down, fingers folding one by one.

Three.

Two.

One.

Whoosh. A thin purple laser shot through Vermilion Bird’s temple. Her face froze in confusion.

“No!” Gao Yang threw himself at her.

Another laser struck his forehead.

He crashed down, dead instantly. Blood spread across the floor.

Gui Zhe remained “unconscious” on the sofa. He'd awakened the moment Vermilion Bird's consciousness left Yan Feng's brain, but maintained the deception. His right palm revealed a hidden aperture—a cutting-edge laser prosthetic capable of ten precision shots, requiring just one second to lock onto targets to ensure the shots would hit.

Gui Zhe opened his eyes and scoffed as he stood up. “Shit, I knew something was wrong.”

He approached the bodies slowly. Then reality itself froze.

“Stop!” Ronnie shouted.

The scene dissolved—the booth, the bar, all of it vanishing to reveal an empty, cluttered factory. Their elaborate stage had been nothing but old furniture arranged to simulate the space.

Gao Yang and Vermilion Bird stood up, completely unharmed.

Ronnie studied the Green Box's simulation data while Can, Lithe Snake, Gray Bear, and Xiran watched from beyond the mock booth's boundaries, bewildered.

Vermilion Bird turned to Ronnie. “What happened?”

“As expected of the state-of-the-art tech built with the help of Closure’s AI,” Ronnie spoke with rare eloquence, eyes bright. “Green Box doesn’t simply follow the instructions and simulate a scenario, but extrapolate the information we input and give us the most likely outcome.”

He looked up at Gao Yang. “When putting in the keywords, Liu Li told me to emphasize ‘never seen without the other’. That turns out to be crucial.”

Vermilion Bird caught on quickly.

She gave Gao Yang an approving look. “You’ve got good attention to detail, kid. You guessed that he might have a substitute.”