Chapter 434: The Mysterious, Code-Level Black Thread Virus
John didn't hesitate to place both palms over Cissel's chest. He covered both hands with blood and instantly paid the one hundred Mental Points fees to initiate the extended handshaking.
"It worked!"
The moment the handshake was established, he spotted a white area covering her entire body. Yet unlike what he experienced before, something new appeared.
Out of the blue, and as the glowing green codes vanished and got replaced with whiteness, lots of black threads appeared.
They looked minuscule at first, yet with the whiteness coming from his hands expanded and covered Cissel's codes, turning green to white, the black threads finally appeared clearly in his eyes.
"These…"
It was the first time for him to see something like that. The black threads seemed to grow and surround every single code inside Cissel's body, acting as if they were an invading virus, emitted and spreading from her codes.
Seeing this explained lots of things to John at once, yet he couldn't tell why he hadn't seen them before now. And then his thoughts drifted to the most compelling question at the moment: How come Mark did it?
"And how can I change it?"
The moment he muttered these words, as if this was the trigger needed, a series of system notifications appeared.
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[Ding! You will need to use something to destroy these threads!]
[Ding! Be wary, though, these threads are entangled around the very code base of your friend!]
[Ding! Destroying the codes means killing your friend!]
-
John could already tell the last warning even before it came into his eyes. He could tell if he missed, he would kill Cissel instead of saving her.
"How can I do it then?"
"Those threads are at a microscopic level!"
John looked at the threads again; they looked as if Cissel's entire body was replaced by a nervous system made out of black threads. It felt like he was looking at an invading organism, one that aimed and wanted to reap the life of Cissel.
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[Ding! Code destruction ability can do the trick!]
[Ding! Yet you'll need to pay tons of Mental Points to control it to such precise control!]
[Ding! Even if you can do it, your friend can't sustain the pain and damage!]
[Ding! And these threads won't stop regenerating back to cover up the damage!]
[Ding! You'll need something extra, but you don't have it now!]
[Ding! The best solution is to destroy at least one fifth of these threads, then your friend will be fine… For quite some time, though!]
-
John could tell what the system wanted to convey. His options were narrowed down to a temporary solution.
"I can live with that!"
He didn't hesitate to accept.
"Take everything you need, I'll do the same as I did before."
Luckily, he had experience in absorbing lots of Mental Points from metal scraps whenever he made the Machine Factory. Like before, he first cancelled the handshake, set a proper stage, filled the ground with tons of metal scraps, then carried Cissel's body over them.
Looking at her like that felt like a sleeping beauty, sleeping over a metallic bed, while tortured by a scary nightmare. And he was her saving prince; he was her saviour.
Instead of a kiss, he was going to cause a riot inside her body.
"I'm set."
He narrowed his eyes and established a new, enhanced handshake.
"I'm ready."
He glared at those black threads, and then he received permission from the system to start.
John instantly activated his MP Absorption ability, then he used his Code Destruction ability. This time, he felt like the world had been magnified, and he could see the small threads as if they had turned into thick bridges.
And his Code Destruction ability turned into a huge knife, with a very sharp, very thin edge. He tested and found out he could freely control this knife to fall and cut the bridges to some extent, before stopping at some point once the bridge was severed.
The moment he did that, he saw the two severed parts trying to dance in the air, trying to come back together.
"Not a chance, you motherfuckers!"
He instantly moved his knife freely, cutting those threads into smaller parts, not giving them any chance to reconnect. The moment the first test succeeded, he instantly had hope.
Even when the system told him he paid one thousand Mental Points just to destroy a single black thread, he didn't care.
"Let's do it!"
"Let's save her!"
He instantly started a spree of destroying the black threads. At some point, all the metal scraps got depleted, and the colossal amount of Mental Points he absorbed and used wasn't enough.
He didn't hesitate to repeat the process, replacing the exhausted metal scraps with another batch, much larger this time.
Then he returned to save Cissel and destroy more threads and black bridges.
Time passed like flowing water from the top of a waterfall. He kept repeating the process for many times to count, destroyed countless bridges and severed tons of black threads.
At some point, a ding echoed in his mind, startling him and jolting him awake from the middle of his process.
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[Ding! Congratulations!]
[Ding! You destroyed one fifth of the black threads successfully!]
[Ding! Warning! Going any further will endanger your friend!]
-
John looked at the three notifications, feeling like a huge boulder had been removed from his chest. He felt relief, and for the first time, he lay on the ground, in drenched cloths of sweat.
He didn't realise the toll he paid to do it, didn't realise how far he pushed himself to reach this point. Yet the results were apparent.
Cissel slept entirely peacefully over the bed of metal scraps, closing her eyes, and finally stopped screaming and twitching.
John didn't realise he spent five hours doing this until Elena and Ben arrived. The two kept fighting fervently, feeling like they drew the short stick out of the lot.
Yet when they returned to John and Cissel, they realised this wasn't the case. John looked in terrible shape ever. And yet, Cissel looked much better.
"Guard the two of us," John weakly said, "I'll need to rest for a few hours. Wake me after five hours from now."
At this point, he knew he wouldn't serve anyone any good in his current state. He was terribly tired. And this wasn't the issue of depleting his Mental Points. It was mental exhaustion, and he needed some rest before continuing the war.