True Apocalypse Game

The cranial saw cut into the back of Ivanovic’s skull like a hot knife through butter. The sharp blade sliced through the bone in an instant.

Shen Feng’s hands were incredibly steady. The cranial saw moved like a paintbrush, tracing a circle on Ivanovic’s skull. A round, palm-sized piece of bone, along with the scalp, was cut away.

Casually picking up the piece of scalp and skull, Shen Feng couldn’t help but recall the gruesome scenes of early white settlers and Indians scalping each other during the North American frontier days.

’I wonder if their technique was more practiced than mine?’

He placed the hairy piece of scalp and skull onto a tray beside him.

Shen Feng looked into Ivanovic’s brain.

A healthy, pinkish-white brain floated in the cerebrospinal fluid of the cranial cavity.

Shen Feng carefully observed the brain, trying to find any structural differences between these Purifiers and normal people.

But he found nothing.

Apparently, the Purifiers themselves were still just ordinary humans. Unlike the zombies from the Evil Spirit Virus outbreak, they showed no signs of organic brain lesions.

The influence they were under seemed to be purely psychological.

Jingwei came closer and asked:

"What’s the plan? Cerebral angiography?"

Shen Feng rubbed his chin and said,

"Let’s go straight to resonance imaging. Inject him with the Nanomechanical Cluster contrast agent."

Jingwei immediately grabbed a syringe, roughly jammed it into Ivanovic’s neck, and injected the contrast agent. She even shoved the entire syringe into Ivanovic’s body through the puncture wound.

In less than a minute, Ivanovic’s brain began to show a silver-gray hue. The Nanomechanical Cluster had completely infiltrated his capillaries and brain tissue, lying in wait.

Jingwei glanced at Shen Feng again for final confirmation:

"This imaging method is something we invented through theoretical deduction. It’s never been tested in practice. If it goes wrong, we might turn his brain to mush."

Shen Feng nodded.

"Do it. If he dies, we’ll just get another one."

He wasn’t about to go easy on these bastards from the Purification Society.

Jingwei immediately cupped her hands over the opening in Ivanovic’s skull, and a low hum emanated from them.

The Nanomechanical Cluster dispersed throughout Ivanovic’s brain vibrated in response, instantly mapping its internal structure.

A beam of light shot from Jingwei’s eyes, projecting a holographic image of Ivanovic’s brain into the air.

Structurally, the brain appeared healthy and normal, but Shen Feng noticed something strange.

Ivanovic’s pineal gland was significantly larger than a normal person’s!

A normal human pineal gland is a grayish-red, oval-shaped body, 5-8 mm long and 3-5 mm wide, weighing 120-200 mg. Ivanovic’s, however, was nearly two centimeters long and about one centimeter wide.

Shen Feng raised an eyebrow.

’This thing was so big, could you even call it a pineal gland? It was more like a winter date!’

Moreover, the surface of Ivanovic’s pineal gland wasn’t smooth. It was wrinkled and pockmarked, not at all round.

The pineal gland’s primary function is to secrete melatonin, inhibit the pituitary gland’s secretion of follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone, and secrete various peptide hormones with strong anti-gonadotropic effects, as well as a hypoglycemia factor.

Throughout human history, many mystics have regarded the pineal gland as the so-called "third eye." They believed that stimulating its development or influencing it could open this "third eye," granting knowledge of the past and future.

Shen Feng had always scoffed at such claims. After all, the thing was really just a hormonal control valve in the human body.

Now, it seemed that for these so-called Purifiers, at least, the pineal gland might hold some other significance.

"These wrinkles on the pineal gland... they look strange, almost like human facial features?" Jingwei muttered to herself, simultaneously magnifying the holographic image of Ivanovic’s pineal gland and rotating it upside down.

Shen Feng’s eyes narrowed.

The wrinkles on the surface of the pineal gland formed a blurry face!

The features were faintly discernible, twisted in an expression of agony. It was the face of a man!

"What the hell..." Shen Feng stared at the face, disturbed by the grotesque sight.

’Whose face is this?’

’Could it be the Whisperer?’

’Does the Whisperer have a physical form?’

"Jingwei, run a global search immediately. See if you can find anyone with this face..." Shen Feng said slowly, taking a deep breath.

He was now completely certain that the Purifiers’ pineal glands were connected to the conspiracy behind them.

"Search initiated," Jingwei said, casually handing him several microchips. "Should I install these directly? Or do you want to make some other modifications?"

Shen Feng shook his head and said,

"We can’t be too obvious... Our goal is to temporarily reduce his brain function to make him more susceptible to Hypnosis... I think we should use the Nanomechanical Cluster to influence him and try to install the microchips in his hippocampus."

The hippocampus, located between the thalamus and the medial temporal lobe, is part of the limbic system and is primarily responsible for functions like converting and storing long-term memories and spatial navigation.

"I suggest we mess with his thalamus too. It’ll be easier to induce hallucinations or hypnotize him later," Jingwei said.

The thalamus is the brain’s most important sensory relay station. All sensory pathways from the body synapse in the thalamus before projecting to the cerebral cortex.

"Good idea. Let’s start now," Shen Feng said with a nod.

As they spoke, the two of them began modifying Ivanovic’s brain, controlling the Nanomechanical Cluster.

Soon, the Nanomechanical Cluster had implanted microchips into various parts of Ivanovic’s brain, with his pineal gland being a key target.

However, aside from its strange size and shape, his pineal gland showed no other special characteristics.

By the time the neurosurgery was complete, only a little over ten minutes had passed.

After finishing, Shen Feng took the piece of skull and scalp, placed it back in its original position, and sealed the edges with a ring of biological glue, as if simply putting a lid on a bowl.

Jingwei, meanwhile, took a glass jar filled with culture fluid and placed it directly over Ivanovic’s head, completely submerging the wound.

This was the culture fluid from *Humanoid Robot Mimicry Simulation*. It could rapidly cultivate biological tissue, act as a disinfectant and anti-inflammatory, and worked wonders for healing wounds.

Aside from leaking a little cerebrospinal fluid, Ivanovic hadn’t suffered much other damage from the craniotomy.

"All right, he should recover in about an hour. We can wake him up then," Jingwei said, plopping down on the operating bed. "If you ask me, we should just take some of his biological tissue, grow a clone of our own, stuff a tactical nuke up its ass, and send it back to the Purification Society’s headquarters. One push of a button and we wipe them all out in one go."

Shen Feng rolled his eyes and said,

"And then what? Wait for a new Purification Society to pop up? The Whisperer would never let it go that easily. Besides, the Purification Society isn’t stupid. You think they wouldn’t notice a nuke stuffed up someone’s ass?"

Jingwei grinned.

"Shouldn’t your concern be whether a nuke can even fit up an ass...? His clothes... they seem a little strange."

Shen Feng nodded.

"Yeah, the wear on the right side of his chest is worse than the left, which means he often reaches into his left inner pocket with his right hand..."

As he spoke, Shen Feng unzipped Ivanovic’s jacket, reached into the inner breast pocket, and immediately felt a piece of paper.

He pulled out the paper and saw it was a sheet of A4, folded neatly into a square. It looked quite old.

Shen Feng unfolded the paper. He glanced at what was on it, and his brow furrowed.

"Looks like these guys all took drawing classes..."