Chapter 1105: Unashamed to Ask - Lin Sanjiu
Chapter 1105: Unashamed to Ask - Lin Sanjiu
"Why is her breathing becoming so rapid?"
Bohemia suddenly raised her voice, a nearly sharp tone cutting through the chilly night air. "Doctor, the way she looks seems off..."
"Help me open her eyelids; I want to see."
With those words, fingers quickly lifted and propped open Lin Sanjiu's eyelids. As her eyes were uncovered, she could see once again: a furry cat's chin came into view, partially blocking the dark blue night sky. As the chin lowered, it revealed a pair of bright, glistening eyes and two pointed, upright ears. On the other side, Bohemia's disheveled head created a bird's nest-like silhouette in the darkness.
Finally seeing them again should have been a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, but Lin Sanjiu had no time to spare a glance at them. When another sudden surge hit her, her vision immediately blurred, and all objects swayed, losing their shape and color. She only remembered a bright light shining down from her eyes.
"Her pupils have slightly dilated," Dr. Hu's voice gradually faded, as if a television volume was being turned down. "Besides that, her reaction is similar to a patient in physical distress..."
She couldn't hear what he said afterward.
Lin Sanjiu didn't feel pain anywhere on her body, but if she could, she would have traded physical pain for what she was feeling now.
She had probably guessed the truth: being trapped in someone else's brain for a long time would gradually lead to absorption and dissolution as one lacked the support of a physical body—unless you were Nüwa, capable of unimaginable means. Just after she finished speaking, Pig Eyes launched a sudden assault on her brain.
Initially, he only intended to scare her, making her understand he had the power to destroy her brain. However, after a few minor demonstrations, Pig Eyes was evidently surprised to find that Lin Sanjiu's brain remained unaffected.
That was natural.
While she was in the Puppeteer's Pocket Dimension, she understood that she survived her ordeal in the Kisaragi Station thanks to a layer of Higher Consciousness forming a 'brain,' containing her last remnants of life. Later, as her physical body recovered, this layer of Higher Consciousness enveloped her entire brain from the inside out, becoming a protective shell. Without it, she wouldn't have withstood Bohemia's attacks.
Pig Eyes, unaware of this, misunderstood, "I didn't expect you had such means."
Before Lin Sanjiu could respond, he laughed somewhat hysterically, "Unfortunately, your Higher Consciousness is too weak compared to mine. I haven't seen a protective shell in the world that can't be broken!"
With a much more intense surge of Higher Consciousness hitting her brain than before, Pig Eyes began a series of frequent and intense attacks.
His ultimate goal was still to force Lin Sanjiu to agree to his demands in fear. He certainly didn't want to accidentally destroy her brain and bury himself along with it. For this reason, Pig Eyes' attacks, though seemingly ferocious, were actually quite measured. After each assault on the protective layer, he adjusted the strength of the next attack accordingly.
Having her consciousness shaken directly was a terrifying feeling, like watching oneself lose sanity and descend into madness, losing all self-control.
If there wasn't a small discovery supporting her, Lin Sanjiu might have shouted, "Wait!" without knowing when.
She found the disharmony in Pig Eyes' attacks.
Although her consciousness became blurred every time she was attacked, she could still sense the intensity of Higher Consciousness directly. The subtle disharmony was extremely minute, and it could easily slip through the cracks in her consciousness.
It's embarrassing to admit that after years of wandering in the apocalypse, she hadn't made it to the big leagues, but she had taken quite a beating. Through one life-or-death battle after another, she had developed an extraordinary combat awareness beyond normal human imagination.
So, even under this rare attack that continually blurred her consciousness, she still noticed: sometimes, Pig Eyes' attacks would be slightly weaker than the previous one.
Upon careful consideration, it felt incredibly illogical.
He kept increasing the strength of his attacks on Lin Sanjiu, intending to make her fearful, and there was no reason to weaken his power at this moment.
Unless... unless his strength had diminished now?
So, it seems that the melting of Pig Eyes' consciousness has probably already begun.
Lin Sanjiu's spirits lifted, and she gritted her teeth to endure yet another attack. She then noticed that Pig Eyes didn't say anything but intensified the pace of his attacks. Her previous thoughts resonated loudly in her mind, and there was no way he hadn't heard.
Sure enough, as she had expected, after a while, Pig Eyes' attacks became increasingly unstable. Sometimes the effects of his Higher Consciousness were as mild as a bump on the shoulder, while the next time, having learned from the previous attack, the protective shell shook so violently that it surprised both of them.
Just moments ago, Lin Sanjiu felt like a grain of sand in the wind, but now she felt like a person made of sand being attacked. Each time he struck, it rained sand down, falling at her feet and entering her sea of consciousness.
For Pig Eyes, this was truly a nightmarish vicious cycle. The more he attacked, the more uncontrollable and dispersed Higher Consciousness there was. Once it fell into Lin Sanjiu's sea of consciousness, she promptly seized it to block attacks and reinforce her protective shell. What was most infuriating was that no matter how much he ranted and threatened, Lin Sanjiu behaved as if she were deaf and mute.
"What a thick-skinned person!" He cursed fiercely. Of course, this was like hitting a wall, with no response.
If Pig Eyes could muster the courage to use most of his Higher Consciousness, break through Lin Sanjiu's brain, and break this vicious cycle in one go, she would have been done long ago. But how could he willingly give up and go down with her? As long as he was still alive, he couldn't help but hold on to some hope. In no time, Lin Sanjiu found that her Higher Consciousness had actually increased more than before she entered the Astral Plane.
"She's trembling too much,"
Amid the fierce struggle, most of the outside voices were ignored by Lin Sanjiu until Bohemia's voice suddenly entered her ears. In her tone, there was a concern and anxiety she had never heard before, "I think this can't go on like this. How about I bring her into the Astral Plane again? This way, we can confirm her state of consciousness and see if she's in danger."
"I don't have Higher Consciousness, so I don't understand. What happens to the body after being brought in?" Fortunately, Dr. Hu didn't immediately agree, and Lin Sanjiu really wished he could come up with a thousand questions.
"Doctor, you know too much; sometimes it's better not to know about small things!" Bohemia was quick with flattery. "I couldn't feel my body at that time, so I can't say for sure, but it felt like my body turned into a plant, with no thoughts or activity."
"She seems to still have mental activity now," Meowie Hu observed Lin Sanjiu's face once again. "Bringing her into the Astral Plane suddenly, I don't know what the consequences might be..."
Yes, the consequences could be dangerous. Please don't bring me in!
The cries in Lin Sanjiu's mind were deafening, but unfortunately, they couldn't be heard by anyone outside. Few people had ever heard of a consciousness that had lost its physical body gradually dissolving in someone else's brain. She had no idea how to speed up Pig Eyes' dissolution. So, she could only wait, hoping time would melt him away like ice cream melting in the heat. Pig Eyes had sustained significant damage and had stopped attacking, now attempting to prolong the time instead. He occasionally succeeded, but with every action, more grains fell from his consciousness.
Dr. Hu's questions managed to extend the time somewhat, but Bohemia was an unpredictable character. When she was needed to contribute, she was lazier than anyone, and when she wasn't needed, she was like a fly, buzzing around. In Lin Sanjiu's muttered curses, she suddenly sat up, slapped her thigh, and declared, "I can't wait any longer! Let's go for broke!"
Before Lin Sanjiu could even consider moving her body, Bohemia decisively tied a grass-braided cord around her neck. What followed happened so quickly that there wasn't even time to feel regret. As Lin Sanjiu snapped back to consciousness and regained her senses, she was once again met with the familiar and beautiful expanse of the cosmic night sky.
Simultaneously shining with countless distant stars was her own starlight. In that moment, the dazzling brilliance, unrestrained and at full strength, illuminated the surrounding void. A small, pale golden-brown star, positioned within the intense radiance she unleashed, was nearly eclipsed.
"What—what's going on?" she shouted in surprise and confusion, "Lin Sanjiu?"
There was no time to answer her.
In Lin Sanjiu's peripheral vision, a mouse-gray star was rapidly streaking away into the distance. It's no wonder he could strike her by surprise. This mouse-gray star barely emitted any light and could easily be concealed by darkness. She suddenly accelerated, soaring straight up from behind and cutting a smooth arc through the air. She twisted her body and intercepted the path of the mouse-gray star.
"I said we were destined, and we really are."
Even though Lin Sanjiu hadn't generated any corresponding conditions, she was now quite well-off. Even though Pig Eyes couldn't see, she still smiled gently at him, "Why the rush?"
Bohemia only arrived at this point, looking bewildered and not understanding what was happening. Her strength was severely compromised. Standing next to Pig-Eyes, she even compared the mouse-gray star to a dwarf, saying, "Is this the piece of pig's head from earlier? How can it be brighter than me—why have you become so bright?"
"That's a long story, but we can discuss it later," Lin Sanjiu dimmed her radiance and firmly focused on the mouse-gray star in front of her. "I intend to extract enough information from him first... He seems to know quite a bit about the Concrete World Branch."