Deep in the Living

Chapter 631 Hawke's Guess

Having achieved his goal ahead of schedule, Roddy originally planned to spend the remaining days experiencing the life of an ordinary Spinewalker inside the Nest City.

Before he had even finished shopping in the morning, he stepped on something.

Looking down, it turned out to be an eyeball.
As if activated by being trampled, more and more eyeballs appeared, quickly adhering to Roddy's body until they completely covered him.

His body also rapidly decomposed under the cover of his eyeballs.
The cluster of eyeballs transformed into a small lighthouse, projecting beams of light onto the top layer of the hive, the very top building.

The Seven Horns

This is a region that only the most elite spine masters, true demon kings, can access.

There are seven special seats inside the council, each corresponding to one of the seven most powerful demon kings.

At this very moment, three of them are sitting here.

One of them was Oculus, who had brought Roddy here. He had changed his previous appearance of covering his body with a hood and was now showing his true form in his seat.

【Eye of Hell - Oculus】

A pink spine, based on the optic nerve and intricately woven from trillions of nerves, stands there.

Based on the spine, "branching nerves" extend outwards, much like the structure of a tree trunk and branches.

Each trunk is covered with countless eyeball-shaped fruits, forming the structure of two hands.

One hand was holding onto the chair.

One hand supported the burning, large-eyed head.
As for the lower body, it no longer has a leg and foot structure. At the base of the spine, countless small eyeballs are clustered together, like a small mountain, which is integrated with the seat.

Besides Oculus, there was another being that Roddy had never seen before.

The sight of it evokes a sense of heaviness, and you can hear the sounds of machinery colliding with flesh and bone, as if it were a factory in hell.

One of the Seven Demon Kings.

[Governor-General of the Military Industry - Scarlatser]

Headless and six-armed

Each arm was mechanically modified, and its surface was inlaid with dense metallic runes and strange numerical symbols.

These arms are either holding cold weapons.
Or the front end could be changed to an exaggerated hand cannon with a multi-barrel structure.

The arm is not only driven by flesh and blood, but also connected to various metal conduits and multiple power systems.

All the metal conduits point towards the center of its body.

There huddled a small, severely underdeveloped demon, metal conduits merging within his body, or rather, making perfect contact with his frail spine.

Each segment of the spine has an output port, seemingly capable of providing an endless supply of energy.

This "weak" demon is the real body, and is one of the Seven Demon Kings.

Currently, the opponent's modified mechanical eyes have turned to look at Roddy, or more precisely, at Roddy's left arm.

……

As for the last one, there's no need to elaborate.

The top leader of the spine,

They have held their position for many years and no one has been able to challenge them.
[The Overlord, Bellator Impellat]

He didn't deliberately highlight his true nature, or rather, he intentionally restrained it to avoid putting too much pressure on Luo Di.

Today's parliament is directly related to Roddy.

Just as Roddy was about to ask what was going on, hum! Another beam of light shone in, and this time the person who came was someone who did not belong to the Spine Clan, but was also an acquaintance of Roddy.

The military governor, Scarather, was the first to raise his hand in greeting, as if he were quite familiar with the man.

"Hawk, it's been a long time."

"Scarather... does it have a new shell again?"

"It's just a minor detail; the real outer shell is still underneath."

After exchanging pleasantries, the Overlord's voice rang out.

"A special council meeting will be held today, requiring only the three of us to be present. This meeting will revolve around two individuals who do not belong here."

His dark eyes quickly fell on Roddy, first glancing at Black Ridge, then staring into his eyes.

"Roddy, Hell plans to respond in advance to the extraterrestrial visitors who have appeared in your world."

The Spine Guardians will establish a partnership with the Punishment Chamber and gradually expand it throughout the entire monastery.

This collaboration requires you to provide something.

"Metal?"

Roddy probably already guessed the real purpose of the meeting.

"Yes, I asked Hawke about the origin of your arm."

Since this is a "high-grade metal" that combines elements of the outer realms and torture chambers, if it could be mass-produced, it might be used for military manufacturing, greatly enhancing the combat power of Hell.

While Hawke has some metal samples, research progress is slow. Therefore, in the next few days, I hope to receive your cooperation, Roddy, so that Scarrasser can carefully observe and study the structure of your arm, and then work with Hawke to advance the research and development.”

"no problem."

Luo Di's arm was able to break free from the shackles of the outer realm only through [Hell], not to mention that this time, the Overlord personally gifted him a weapon.

Even if you went to the treasure vault, you would not find a spineless soldier like Meijin.

and,

The usually arrogant and aloof tyrant actually took the initiative to cooperate with the torture chamber, and later wanted to establish an alliance with the entire monastery.

The root of all this lies with the "extraterrestrial visitors" who appeared in a corner of the world, and it is highly likely that Earth will become their primary battlefield in the future.

Since everyone shared the same goal, Roddy didn't care about the time involved and readily agreed.

The original plan to experience hellish life again had to be completely cancelled.

A week flies by.

Roddy barely rested, or rather, even when he slept, he slept in the factory, on the workbench, with people studying his arm 24 hours a day.

However, this cooperation was not a waste of time.

In the process, Roddy gradually deepened his understanding of the arm and learned the true operating principle. In reality, there was no so-called "hell factory" inside the arm.

Instead, the entire arm is made up of bionic metal cables that can "create" with each other. Once they begin creating, they emit processing sounds similar to those of a hellish factory.

This is a highly efficient, automated manufacturing method.

This is the technology that Hell most desires.
This processing efficiency far surpasses the current Hell Factory. If it could be replicated and expanded, the overall strength of Hell could be enhanced.

Hawke also worked overtime with Military Governor Scarrasser to draw up structural drawings of the arm, roughly figuring out its internal structure and functional issues.

No wonder Roddy's left arm could bear more divinity, even that wrinkled skin from a dead corner.

It didn't take up too much time.
The initial research concluded in about ten days, still far from being technically feasible, but Roddy, the "sample," was already ready to leave.

The last night.

Roddy, who was sleeping on his workbench, suddenly felt a sharp pain in his nerves and woke up abruptly.

Hawke sat down beside him and tapped Roddy’s arm lightly with his fingers.

"Roddy, our initial work here is almost done, and you can leave tomorrow. However, I've thought about it and I still want to tell you something."

You'll need to go back and try it yourself, since this is just my personal speculation and there's currently no theoretical support for it.

"what's up?"

Roddy quickly snapped himself out of it; he could tell that Hawke was unusually serious.

A perspective drawing of the "Hand of Prometheus" was brought out, recording the current research results.

Luo Di had already seen this manuscript during the day, and there was nothing special about it.

Hawke, however, took out a pen and modified the arm on the drawing, rearranging the internal bionic cables.

During this process, Roddy gradually realized something.

"This is……"

"That's right. At first, I didn't know much about the situation outside the domain, so my research approach was limited. As I came into contact with the infected person from the last outbreak and directly felt the small pore structure on his body, I confirmed that it belonged to some kind of 'transmission pathway'."

As you said, once the comic book fragments are accepted, they will form abyssal holes in the mind, which is a kind of pathway.

Then your arm with extraterrestrial attributes might also be able to achieve a similar effect to [the hole].

Your arm has completely severed all connections with the outside world. You may be able to build your own passage to establish distant contact with some other region.

For example, opening a passage to hell directly inside a corner.

Or it could be a forced connection between you and the depths of a corner.

and many more,

Such long-distance, even cross-dimensional, transmission is something your native capabilities simply cannot achieve.

But if this is an out-of-domain characteristic,
Since others can cross distant planes to reach this corner, if you could master a similar ability, you could also make this kind of unlimited, distant [channel connection].

Of course, this is just my personal speculation.

Whether it works or not depends on you, Roddy. Go back and give it a try; it might be of unexpected help.

"I'll try it now."

Under Roddy's control, the bionic cables inside the arm began to move in a spiral structure, attempting to form a similar hole structure in the palm.

A deep, recessed hole is about to form.

Squeak~ Roddy's arm made a malfunctioning sound.

Several internal cables broke due to excessive twisting. Although there was no spatial sensing at all, Roddy himself experienced a strange sensation.

His intuition told him that this plan might be feasible.

(End of this chapter)