Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 165 The Evil God in the Steam Engine

The crowd gathered around the steam engine suddenly quieted down. The roar of metal was particularly harsh in the warehouse. Chloe opened her eyes wide and looked at Hughes with a look of confusion and shock.

"Not Ah Nuo? But..." Her throat trembled with disbelief. The three of them had clearly successfully communicated with the Machine Spirit. If the roaring sound now wasn't the Machine Spirit they were familiar with, then what had just responded to them?!

Could it be that Hughes was mistaken?
Chloe thought subconsciously, hoping to get a definite answer, but also fearing the truth that might subvert her cognition.

Several banshees reacted, one rushed to Zeus, and another pulled Zeus over. They looked at the steam engine vigilantly, but the roaring huge machine seemed to have not changed at all.

Xius felt his heart beating very fast. The moment he touched the machine soul, he felt strange. This machine soul seemed to be roaring something all the time, which was the opposite of the silent A Nuo.

Just the opposite?

As if he had grasped some clues to the truth, Xiu Si suddenly turned around and grabbed Monica's wrist, speaking rapidly: "How did you communicate with the machine spirit? What did you say, and how did it respond? Tell me in detail!"

Monica was a little frightened. She took a step back and whispered, "I... I just told it to control the pollution, use it as fuel, and not let it escape. That seems to be all it needs to do its job well."

"Did it respond to you?"

Monica bit her lip and said, "It seemed to be saying something, but it was a little vague and I couldn't hear it clearly."

"You've been saying that? You were saying that before you?"

"Yes, it seemed to be saying something to me the moment I touched it. I tried to listen, but I couldn't really make it out. Its voice was so strange, like a whisper in my ear."

"No, that's not right. Machine Souls are not like this. Machine Souls are always silent. This endless whispering is more like—"

Zeus turned his head and stared at Chloe. The orange-red-haired girl obviously thought of something. She took a deep breath and said through gritted teeth:
"More like an evil god!"

The machine spirit is silent but can understand human words. The evil god chatters incessantly but will never communicate with mortals.

People stared at Chloe blankly, shocked by her words. Chloe was also confused. She had clearly followed the steps of the Mechanical Temple, so how could she have summoned the evil god?
"Chloe! You have dealt with the evil god, what should we do?" Zeus shouted to Chloe while notifying the other banshees in the mental link. Although he was a little uncertain, it was better to be careful. Who knows if a new evil god was really born in this steel behemoth?
"Damn it, I don't know either. The Moth Lord is a bound evil god, unlike this one! Anyway, let's retreat and observe what it is!" After a pause, she continued, "Don't worry, it's definitely not a new evil god. I even suspect it's being controlled!"

"Being controlled? What does that mean?"

"The evil god will expand, devour, and grow involuntarily, and it has been running stably for such a long time. This cannot be done by the evil god itself. Only a controlled evil god like the Moth Lord would behave like this!"

"Then how do we deal with the controlled evil god?"

"No need to deal with it."

Chloe gradually calmed down. She bit her nails and thought carefully for a while: "The controlled evil god is safe, as long as he has not lost control." "Really? I don't trust your safety standards."

Chloe glared at Hughes fiercely: "There is no such thing as absolute safety when dealing with evil gods. Our control methods are already very stable."

"So you think he's the evil god controlled by the Mechanical Temple? That mechanical spirit they worship?"

"Impossible. The means of controlling the evil god must involve transcendental beings. I'm certain that the mechanical priests of the Mechanical Temple are merely mortals. It's unlikely that they could cultivate enough transcendental beings in the Rhine under the watchful eyes of the Candlelight Society. You may hate the Candlelight Society, but don't underestimate the investigators."

"In short, this machine shouldn't be too dangerous. While the arrival of the evil god is dangerous, it will also absorb pollution. The main danger lies with the evil god himself."

The onlookers finally breathed a sigh of relief. After all, the incident happened suddenly, and it was the first time for most of them to come into contact with the evil god, although it was a safe evil god.

There were some noises outside the factory, and a group of banshees rushed in quickly. The support that Zeus called for had arrived. They were stationed at the test site, and the frequency of accidents here was a bit too frequent. The banshees on duty were already familiar with the situation.

Then they came in and stared at Monica, Gaia and Chloe warily.

Three people: "."

Hughes shrugged. "Look, it's not that I don't trust you. You three are also notorious in the most dangerous eastern test site."

"Speaking of which, the evil god was summoned into this machine? It's trapped here?"

"Not necessarily. I even think the Heretic God's true form isn't here. Summoning the Heretic God is a very complex undertaking. Any mistake could lead to the failure of the ritual. If you're lucky, nothing will be summoned. If you're unlucky, the Heretic God will descend in a new body—usually the summoner."

"So what you were doing before was a ritual to summon the evil god?"

Xiu Si recalled the prayers that Chloe and the other two had said to please the machine spirit, and suddenly felt that there were many strange things.

For example, the last sentence - "Light the sacred boiler and awaken the soul in the steel!"

Shouldn't this prayer be meant to please the steam engine? Why does it sound a bit like it's summoning a soul to appear?
And the first sentence is also suspicious - "Father of Steam, Spirit of Steel, hear our roaring hymn!"

It clearly identifies the existence of the "Father of Steam," and "Spirit of Steel" might also be its nickname. But shouldn't the Mechanical Templar worship machines themselves? Furthermore, the Mechanical Templar isn't a church, so why would it worship a specific entity?
He only vaguely felt that something was wrong at the time, but when he thought about it carefully, he found more and more strange things.

"Is your prayer really okay? I feel something is wrong when I hear it. Didn't you notice?"

"It's certainly not right, but it completely doesn't conform to the elements of a supernatural ritual. For example, if I want to summon an evil god, I must simultaneously prepare a body, a sacrifice imbued with supernatural power, a precise prayer, and gather enough people. The last point is the most important. Without a strong enough will that permeates reality, the ritual cannot succeed."

(End of this chapter)