239: Chapter 240 The Machine Soul's Great Joy

The anomaly on sea breeze no. 9 was naturally seen clearly by the players.

"Holy shit!"

Nicotine Truth lay prone on the edge of the hole in the mothership's hull, pointing at the armor plating of sea breeze no. 9 in the distance. "Look, you guys! What is Boss doing standing up there?!"

Player Pi She looked in the direction he was pointing and immediately gasped.

"This is bad!"

Pi She said with deep worry,

"The boss seems to have been corrupted by this Warp storm too! Look at him, his whole body is twitching. Our boss won't turn directly into a Chaos Spawn covered in tentacles like those NPCs did just now, will he?"

Hearing this, Zhen rolled his eyes hard.

"Stop joking around, okay? Who do you think the boss is?"

"Our boss is the ultimate faction Big Boss who can summon Old Man Huang to possess him! He's someone who can chat and laugh with the Emperor! Would he be afraid of a few measly tentacles? He doesn't give a damn!"

After hearing this, Pi She felt that Zhen had a point.

But he was still a bit worried:

"Then why is the boss standing up there like an idiot? And posing without moving a muscle?"

Meanwhile, from Lin Li's actual perspective, he was in an emotional world filled with unspeakable horrors, stared down by a Chaos God of the Warp.

But in the eyes of the players in the physical dimension,

Lin Li was simply half-kneeling on the armor plating of sea breeze no. 9.

He had his head tilted back, staring blankly at the swirling mass of Warp energy above him, looking exactly like a frozen red sculpture.

Following Lin Li's gaze, the players looked up in confusion.

Aside from the expanding, churning purplish-red Warp cloud, there was absolutely nothing else of substance in that void.

Gradually, more and more players gathered, and they all noticed Lin Li's strange behavior.

ikun waddled over, cradling a massive pile of expensive gear he had just looted from his fallen brothers.

"This doesn't look good, guys."

ikun looked at Lin Li's stiff figure.

"What's going on with the boss? Did he glitch out? Should we put on our jetpacks and fly over to see if we can trigger a quest?"

More and more players gathered around the edge of the hole to watch, forming a massive, dense crowd.

This unusual behavior also drew the attention of the Space Marines, who had been on high alert guarding nearby.

Lucas, the Captain of the Death Spectres, frowned and followed the gaze of these mortals, looking toward the top of the distant spaceship.

There stood a man whose physique was slightly taller and larger than that of an ordinary mortal.

He was also wearing a suit of Power Armor of a model that Lucas did not recognize at all.

But the state that man was displaying right now...

Lucas saw that the players seemed deeply concerned about the man's safety.

After a moment of thought, out of respect for these brave mortals, he warned in a deep voice:

"Mortals, if I am not mistaken, the soul of the man you are watching has been forcibly dragged into the deep projections of the Warp."

"Huh?" ikun turned his head. "Why would that happen? How come we're fine?"

Lucas pointed overhead:

"The barrier between the Warp and physical reality has severely overlapped in this region. That purplish-red cloud above you is the projection of the Warp's pure emotional energy manifested in the physical world."

"That mortal must be a... er, very powerful Psyker, correct?"

Lucas tried to explain in layman's terms.

"To the demons within the Warp, the stronger a Psyker is, the more their soul smells like a sweet, delicious feast! Although that man still shows vital signs, to us, he is already no different from a corpse."

Lucas concluded with a cold gaze:

"His soul has likely long been torn apart and devoured by Warp demons. Next, his soulless body will become a breeding ground, a fleshy egg to hatch a powerful demon."

Lucas paused.

"Therefore! To prevent an even greater tragedy, it is best to kill him from a distance with large-caliber weapons right now and completely cremate his body. Otherwise, this place will soon face a new Chaos disaster!"

Actually, under normal circumstances,

as a Space Marine whose duty was to purge heretics, Lucas would have raised his Bolter and physically purged any mortal suspected of Chaos possession without saying a word.

But today was different.

The combat power and resistance to Chaos displayed by these mortals had far exceeded the Astartes' common sense and imagination.

Whether out of admiration for their courage or to win over this force for their own benefit,

only then did Lucas patiently respect these mortals' views and kindly suggest executing him.

However,

after hearing this bone-chilling explanation, the other players looked at each other.

They exchanged bewildered glances, and their faces were filled with confusion.

What "vegetative state"? What "demon breeding ground"?

ikun, on the other hand, looked completely calm.

He pushed up his helmet visor and methodically began to analyze the game mechanics for everyone:

"Don't panic, brothers. Just take the NPC's words with a grain of salt. Don't take them seriously."

ikun pointed at Lin Li in the distance.

"Think about it, we haven't been forcefully logged out by the system yet. It's written in black and white in the newbie handbook: once the faction boss Lin Li dies, the game server will immediately shut down for maintenance!"

"This means that the boss is not only not dead, but he's actually doing perfectly fine!"

Zhen scratched his head:

"So what do we do now? Just stand here and watch? How about we fly over there and slap the boss in the face a couple of times to physically wake him up and interrupt his casting?"

"Are you out of your mind?!"

ikun cursed directly,

"An NPC of the boss's caliber needs you to save him?! If you dare slap him, believe it or not, he'll wake up and crush you to death with a single finger?!"

"Anyone with half a brain can tell that this is definitely an epic cutscene in the game's main storyline!"

As ikun spoke, he dropped the pile of looted gear in his arms.

He ripped the electronic dog tag from his waist and began furiously slapping and shaking the screen.

"If I were you!"

ikun shouted at Zhen,

"I'd immediately check if I could fix this crappy pv terminal's camera function! Hurry up and take some high-definition screenshots of the boss's limited-edition pose!"

"Do you have any idea about the game forums?! Last time, that guy named Nikon Da Niao secretly took an 8K pure-enjoyment picture of our boss, and it's currently being sold for 8,000 credits a piece! That's pure cash!"

Hearing this, Zhen's eyes instantly turned green with greed:

"Holy shit! Really? A chance to make a fortune has arrived!"

Hearing ikun's reminder,

the surrounding players, who were just watching the spectacle, all began to look down and fiddle with the pv terminals on their wrists.

They tried to restore the camera function in this damn place filled with Warp magnetic interference.

Everyone used all kinds of primitive methods:

Some breathed hot air on it, some banged it against their heads, and some even roasted it with flamethrowers. Yet, there was no response at all; the screen remained a static mess of harsh snow.

Just then!

Elbow-Strike Helicopter suddenly cupped his pv terminal in both hands and brought it to his lips with deep affection.

In front of hundreds of people, he actually started passionately kissing a completely soulless electronic screen!

"My dear little PV baby~"

Elbow-Strike Helicopter said to the screen in a high-pitched, affectionate voice, eyes full of devotion,

"Do you know what my biggest flaw is? It's that I lack you~"

Hearing this sudden, nauseatingly cheesy pickup line,

ikun, standing nearby, felt goosebumps all over his body and felt like throwing up his dinner from last night.

"What the hell is wrong with you..."

However! A scene unfolded that left ikun dumbfounded, his jaw practically dropping to the floor!

After receiving this cheesy pickup line,

the PV screen, which had been flickering wildly with static due to the Warp storm's interference, miraculously began to stabilize! The static was visibly reducing!

Seeing that it actually worked, Elbow-Strike Helicopter was so excited he almost jumped in place.

He immediately cleared his throat and continued to bombard the cold screen with even more cheesy lines:

"I want to go get something, can you wait a moment? I've come to marry you~"

"Guess which side my heart is on? The left side? No, it's on your side~"

With this intensive barrage of cheesy pickup lines from Helicopter,

the pv terminal's screen flickered a few times and then actually stopped suffering from interference completely!

It restored its original, clear information display interface!

"Hahaha! It worked!"

Helicopter laughed loudly, skillfully opened the system's high-definition camera function, and began taking a rapid-fire succession of photos of Lin Li in the distance.

Standing to the side, behind his heavy helmet visor, ikun's mouth was hanging so wide open that a fist could fit inside.

"Wait, what?!"

ikun was completely bewildered.

"What kind of metaphysics is this?! Is this the machine spirit showing its presence?! But nobody ever fucking said that the machine spirit is into this kind of stuff?! Is this machine spirit some kind of pure-hearted simp?!"

The surrounding players who had been unable to fix their PVs saw that Helicopter's ridiculous method actually worked.

They all had a sudden realization!

And began to copy him!

Instantly, on this solemn battlefield littered with bug corpses and bloody debris, the atmosphere completely changed!

Hundreds of bulky men of The Fourth Calamity clad in heavy Power Armor cupped their electronic terminals.

They began to passionately recite all sorts of cringe-inducing cheesy pickup lines to their screens.

Of course, there were also some socially anxious players who simply couldn't bring themselves to do it.

Unable to utter the cheesy lines, they decided to throw caution to the wind, unbuckling their belts and pulling down their pants in an attempt to bribe the machine spirit with their bodies.

Watching this chaotic, absurd display of madness, ikun felt like his eyes were going to burn out.

He kicked away the player next to him who was pulling down his pants.

He also wanted to recite some cheesy lines to his PV to fix his device, but after straining his old face for a long time, he couldn't squeeze out a single word. He could only watch others take photos, staring in anxious frustration.

Not far away,

the Space Marines watched this sudden outburst of abstract, utterly baffling behavior from the mortals.

These battle-hardened Astartes veterans were completely dumbfounded, falling into a profound silence.

Since Space Marines had their hormones and other physical desires surgically removed during their transformation process, their emotions were extremely suppressed.

Thus, they could not comprehend at all why these mortals were acting so crazily toward a communicator!

Was this some ancient deity-summoning ritual to ward off the Warp?!

Looking at this group of crazed players,

Lucas, after a brief moment of shock, miraculously felt much more mentally balanced.

"So that's how it is..." Lucas muttered.

Looking at the mortal who was pulling down his pants, Lucas let out a long sigh.

"So these mortals are all mentally unstable. That explains it... That explains everything!"

After all, in this universe filled with madness and despair,

there was an extremely applicable golden rule:

The more mentally unstable and crazed a person was, the more ridiculously powerful their combat capability tended to be!

The bunch in front of him perfectly validated this truth.

On the armor plating of sea breeze no. 9,

in a deep, idealistic dimension completely invisible to the players, Lin Li was facing the most terrifying crisis since his transmigration.