Forced to Be a Villain: Starting With My Brain Extraction System

—

[A fresh brain with a damage level of 0% has been detected.]

[Do you want to perform extraction?]

—

Mo Zhiran stared blankly at the prompt echoing in his mind.

'A brain? Where the heck is the brain in here?'

He glanced at the stiff doll in his hand. Its blood-red eyes rolled restlessly, filled with anxious energy. Other than the soul inhabiting it, giving it some semblance of life, it was no different from a lifeless puppet.

How could something like this possibly have a brain to extract?

For the first time, Zhiran began to suspect that his definition of a "brain" and his system's definition weren't quite the same.

"..."

'System…Perform extraction!'

Whatever the case, he was still the one benefiting. So, after his brief surprise, Zhiran decisively gave the command.

He wanted to see what would happen, especially since, according to the system, this so-called brain was completely undamaged.

As soon as he gave the command, the blood-red prompt dissolved erratically, only to be replaced by another one, accompanied by a cold, robotic voice.

—

[Extraction Successful!]

[Congratulations! You have gained your first complete brain.]

[Initiating sequence transmission…]

—

Surprisingly, the message Zhiran got this time was completely different from before.

However, before he could show any surprise, he suddenly felt extremely dizzy, his outward vision fading rapidly.

But, even as consciousness threatened to slip away, he still heard Han Luo's shrill scream, filled with a dread and fear countless times stronger than before, before it abruptly fell silent.

'Where am I?'

When Zhiran regained his vision, he realized he was suspended in an endless void. He saw that the blackness stretched in every direction, with no stars, no light, nothing to give him any sense of space or distance.

The emptiness and silence were so glaring that they made his thoughts slow down unconsciously.

'This doesn't seem like a memory of Han Luo. What the hell is this place?'

Zhiran thought the situation was quite weird.

After all, this time, rather than just having a vision like before, he felt he was truly present in this place, fully alive. Heck, he could even move, although he didn't even know what form he had.

Before he could think further, though, suddenly he felt that the space around him was vibrating violently.

Then from nowhere, a dense, transparent cloud of energy materialized directly in front of him.

It pulsed with an otherworldly rhythm, as if alive, radiating a quiet hum that resonated deep in his chest.

Then, with almost surgical precision, the cloud's energy instantly dispersed in a circular pattern, directly making a glowing platform hovering effortlessly in the vast emptiness.

Everything happened so fast that before Zhiran could react, a brand-new white circular platform appeared suspended right in front of his vision. In this vast space, it was the only object he could see.

'What is happening?'

Zhiran didn't understand. Nothing he saw made any sense.

Just as he was thinking of stepping onto the platform to investigate, it too suddenly began to shake violently, trembling intensely.

Then, to his astonishment, along with the tremor, a tall golden pillar suddenly began emerging right at the center of the platform. Zhiran could see that the pillar was wide and towering, looking extremely imposing.

Thick chains of unknown origin coiled around it like a dragon, giving it an even more menacing presence.

But his attention wasn't on that. Rather, it was on the smaller pillars that began emerging one by one, surrounding the central one.

Just like the tall pillar, they looked similar, only they weren't as imposing.

However, they still managed to draw his attention more, simply because of what he saw atop each pillar.

"Elder Shuren?" Zhiran mumbled in shock as he saw, at the top of one of the pillars, the head of Elder Shuren floating calmly, eyes closed.

Well, it wasn't exactly the physical head, but a reflection of sorts. But it definitely belonged to Elder Shuren, whom he killed.

The situation was so bizarre and sudden that Zhiran almost lost his cool.

But this wasn't the end of his astonishment, as after Elder Shuren, another two heads belonging to a boy and a girl appeared atop other pillars, followed by several more pillars with different heads, each arranged in a strict hierarchy.

All of them were the same people from whom he had extracted brains before.

'So… all the heads of the people I collected brains from are here?'

Zhiran calmed himself and tried to think clearly after taking in the situation before him. Although he still didn't know where he was, he realized that this might be the doing of his golden finger.

It seemed his brain extraction system was as simple as he thought.

Sure enough, just as he expected, finally, even the heads of Wine Monkey and Han Luo appeared atop their respective pillars, eyes closed like everyone else, as if in deep sleep.

"Hmm?"

Only this time, Zhiran noticed that Han Luo's pillar was taller than all the others by a huge margin.

It was still nothing compared to the impressive central golden pillar, but it was substantial enough to draw attention.

Not to mention, his head looked cleaner and more intact than the others, as if preserved differently.

'What is the use of this place?'

Zhiran couldn't deny that he was feeling a little… unsettled by seeing such a view. But his curiosity about the significance of this place outweighed his unease.

So, putting aside his feelings, Zhiran moved his incorporeal self toward the platform, intending to observe and investigate closely.

As he moved closer and closer to the platform, the faint glow of the pillars and the subtle hum of the chains seemed to pulse in rhythm with his own heartbeat, making the space feel strangely alive.

Zhiran didn't know why, but he felt a strange, unequivocal connection with this place, as if…

'As if… it is a part of me?'

Just as he was surprised by the feeling and was about to land on the platform, Zhiran was once again interrupted, this time by his system prompt.

—

[Sequence transmission successful…]

[Congratulations! You have successfully...