Fatal Shot
chapter-657-30041322

In the underground abandoned ruin, Feng Luo opened his eyes in confusion, and a vague black light flashed across his eyes.

"Woosh!"

"Hmm?"

After opening his eyes, Feng Luo became startled and immediately turned around to look at the Zerg Cerebrate inside the safe, which was still being aimed at by Wings of Death!

In the end, the Cerebrate inside the safe had closed its eyes again. It had returned to its lifeless form!

"Bang!"

However, Feng Luo did not hesitate to pull the trigger of the Wings of Death that he held in his hands and fired an armor-piercing round on the Zerg Cerebrate!

"Puff!"

The bullet punctured and dove into the Cerebrate's body, but no damage number appeared.

For this to happen, either the Cerebrate was really dead, or the bullet simply struck a lifeless, inanimate object.

The Cerebrate, which had previously been on a rampage and had almost completely annihilated both Feng Luo and 24K in the "Mental Space," now appeared to be dead!

"Bang, bang!"

After two more experimental shots, Feng Luo stopped.

At that time, Mu Zi and the others had woken up and started shouting and speaking all at once.

"Damn it!"

"What was that just now?"

"Why did the bugs suddenly die?"

"Yeah, a black flame suddenly appeared and burned all the monsters that I was fighting to the ground," said Feng Luo.

It was clear that they had experienced something that was similar to what he had experienced!

After regaining their consciousness, the people from the Nightless Club also noticed Feng Luo's attack.

Mu Zi realized something after observing the situation. "Brother Feng, you are the one who killed this Cerebrate and rescued us from that space, right?!"

"I was almost devoured by one of those bugs! The system notification said that it was some sort of mental attack. It was really gross!" said Little Snow. Her pale face was covered in a cold sweat while her chest heaved up and down very quickly.

"Brother Feng, thank you. The tail of a friggin bug almost ended me!" said Chairman Jiao, who was still unnerved by the entire situation.

Everyone chimed in to discuss their previous encounter with several questions. The "Mental Attack" was quite odd, and it was completely different from the attacks or skills of the monsters that they encountered in the past.

In truth, the group had experienced a mental illusion made by 24K in the temple last time. However, that was a completely different experience from the one the Cerebrate had put them through.

When Boss Meng and the others were discussing their terrifying encounters, Feng Luo did not speak a single word.

He had remained silent because after he had confirmed that the Cerebrate was indeed dead, he immediately switched his attention to 24K.

On the ground, 24K lay in front of Feng Luo's feet. It had stopped moving. The spark in its eyes were gone, and the beautiful and magnificent golden shell had lost its color.

"24K?"

When Feng Luo sent 24K a message through their mental link to one another, he did not receive any response from his pet.

Instead, he received a message from the system.

[Your pet has suffered from a severe mental attack. Its mental state is damaged, and it is currently in an unconscious state. A mental link between you two can not be established.]

"Unconscious state!?"

Feng Luo's heart sank as he considered the fate of his fallen pet.

It had become quite clear that after the enlarged 24K inside the "Mental Space" was shattered by the blue pillar of light suspected of being from the Overmind, its actual body also suffered considerable damage.

The system's notification was straightforward. However, 24K's status window showed that it was in a "severely injured" state. Moreover, that status of his pet contained some bad news, which was that its health would not be reset even after death!

"24K!"

Feng Luo extended his hands to pick up 24K and hold it in his arms. An extremely gloomy expression lingered on his face as he was upset by this revelation.

The system's notification had ended the possibility to save and heal 24K directly.

Meanwhile, the Cerebrate appeared to be genuinely dead. Perhaps it died from that green light or the black flames?

Nonetheless, the death of the culprit did not make him feel any better!

The good thing was that the mission that everyone accepted earlier did not disappear due to the death of the Cerebrate.

As for the mission Feng Luo received earlier for 24K, Heart of a King Beetle (2), there was no notification regarding its completion or failure, which meant that there were still ways to save 24K!

However, he was uncertain about what the ways were to save 24K.

Feng Luo suddenly remembered something. He turned around to speak to Mu Zi. "Mu Zi, can you take these devices to reset, read, copy, and extract the information contained within?"

In War, almost every Scout would choose their life profession to be a Chip Master. At the same time, they would always carry devices and instruments that could crack or power up all kinds of equipment, programs, and devices contained within abandoned ruins.

The reason they did this was because monster drops were not the only valuable items within military or research abandoned ruins like these.

The research information and data stored within some of the devices were also extremely valuable to players!

They were valuable because the game's background information was set up in a way so that all the major weaponized factions in the game would be greatly interested in benefitting from the technology left within these abandoned sites.

Players would obtain amazing rewards from the NPCs just by copying and handing over the information from various devices to them.

However, the reason why Feng Luo asked Mu Zi to restart the device was not so he could hand the information over to the NPCs.

He remembered something. Since the core research content of this lab was to create a "King Beetle" similar to 24K, Feng Luo assumed that they would definitely be able to find detailed information regarding 24K within the device.

He even thought that there could be information that would help or solve their current situation. At the very least, the possibility was not zero!

However, the regretful thing was that the caucasian NPC researcher decided to destroy most of the data at the last moment. After Mu Zi restarted the device, he was not able to find any concretely useful items.

After failing, Mu Zi seemed to have remembered something. He then pointed at the chip he was holding and said to the unhappy-looking Feng Luo, "But Brother Feng, this information chip has some highly encrypted data. Perhaps it contains information related to 24K!"

"Chip?"

Feng Luo shifted his gaze.

That's right. The NPC could never truly destroy all of his beloved research data. Therefore, the chip contained all of his most important research results!

However, what Mu Zi said next made Feng Luo raise his eyebrows slightly.

"However, my skill level isn't high enough. Moreover, this chip is very advanced. It also has a note saying that a forced reading of the chip will result in the chip's self-destruction!"

"One more thing, my mission info said that I need to bring this chip into the A-2 base!"

Nonetheless, Feng Luo's furrowed brows relaxed quickly.

As long as the chip contained something, it would not be a problem because encryptions could eventually be cracked!

While Mu Zi's profession level was not high enough, Lin was still a Master Level Chip Master.

Even if they were to fail to locate the A-2 research base that was probably over a decade old, Lin would most likely still be able to find a way to save 24K.

Feng Luo placed the unconscious 24K back into the pet space. After that, his gaze returned to his body.

After he recovered from the "Mental Space," Feng Luo could feel that something was drastically different from before.

He did not feel as if he had become weaker. Instead, he felt several times better than before.

However, he did not have a simple improvement in his vision, hearing, or perception. It was something that he could not describe.

If he had to put it into words, it would be that Feng Luo now saw the world in a different way. He was now able to see and detect a lot of details he had never even noticed before!

What was the reason for this?

Feng Luo quickly scrolled through his system logs.

[Your hidden stats: Your mentality has increased. Your overall perception has improved significantly.]

[You have awakened the Beginner Level Psionic Energy.]

Those were the two messages that he saw first.