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Chapter 306. "The Mechanic" (Two-part series)

15:27 PM local time.

As dusk settled, a storm poised to reshape the balance of power was brewing.

Dream Pavilion and Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals joined forces to formally declare war on Rose Group. At the same time, they brazenly launched "Nightmare" missiles at Xiayang City, where Rose Transportation was stationed.

The moment the missile streaked across the sky, it instantly ignited the boundless rage of Jun Yunqi, the Crown Princess of the Rose Group.

In an instant, the flames of war swept across the land like wildfire.

The elite armed forces under Rose Transportation and the Undead Legion of Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals engaged in an unprecedented military conflict in the area of ​​the Green Abyss.

The two armed forces clashed head-on on this war-torn land. The deafening explosions, the dense barrage of gunfire, and the shouts of the soldiers almost tore the air in the area to shreds.

The Dream Pavilion, on the other hand, became the driving force behind the war machine, supplying Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals with a continuous stream of advanced weapons and equipment, making this already brutal conflict even more cruel and bloody.

On the very edge of this war-torn inferno, when the smoke and the stench of death filled every inch of the air—

Far to the south, in a small town shrouded in drizzle, Jiang Jianxin sat alone in an inconspicuous restaurant.

Outside the window, the autumn rain fell incessantly, the fine rain threads slanting down like silver lines, stirring up countless tiny water droplets on the bluestone slabs, casting a hazy veil over this city that was temporarily far from the ravages of war.

However, the battlefield scenes flashing on the television news in the restaurant, amidst the constant static, brought the bloodshed that was thousands of miles away right before her eyes.

"...According to industry news reports, MeiMei Rose—Rose Group—"

"pat-"

Jiang Jianxin couldn't stand the slurring sound of the television any longer. She slammed her hand on the table, grabbed a black broom, and smashed it hard. With a crisp "crack," the strange television, contaminated by some unknown source, shattered in two. The flickering white screen instantly dimmed, like a blinded eye.

She sat back down with a sullen face, took out a bottle of chilly mineral water from her storage watch, and took a gulp.

The cool water slid down my throat, slightly easing the stuffiness in my chest.

Previously, the power of death helped her move her grave, which was several thousand miles to the south.

The Green Abyss is located just north of this city.

The conflict between Rose Group and the two major forces, Dream Pavilion and Black Pupil Pharmaceutical, has fully erupted, and she has inadvertently found herself on the southern edge of the battlefield, within the core control area of ​​Black Pupil Pharmaceutical.

This realization was like a bucket of ice water poured over her head, making her extremely uncomfortable.

Intuition is quite good at comforting people:
[If it weren't for the deathly silence leading you through the graves... it would have been very difficult to infiltrate such deep within the territory of Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals.]

Jiang Jianxin just gave a dry laugh.

—Is there anyone who wants to enter the heart of Black Eye Pharmaceuticals, a place as ruthless as Myanmar?

She stumbled out of the cemetery where she had just woken up, and as she stepped into the city, the glaring scarlet red color suddenly caught her eye.

The entire street was soaked in blood, giving it a dark red sheen that gleamed thickly in the dim sunlight.

This is a desolate, ghost town.

Scattered pieces of flesh and bones lay haphazardly on the street, some limbs even retaining the contorted postures they had before death, as if time had been frozen in that moment forever.

Jiang Jianxin immediately recognized that the cutting marks on these pieces of flesh were exactly the same as those in Zhenbei City.

Clearly, Feng Shiman was ordered to thoroughly "clean up" the city, leaving no survivors and no trace.

When she first stepped into this hell on earth, the overwhelming stench and the visual impact of the corpses scattered everywhere almost made her stomach cramp and she nearly vomit on the spot.

The scene was so horrific and nauseating that it far exceeded her tolerance.

As time went by, the sunlight was gradually swallowed up by the dark clouds.

Since there was no trace of any living person left in the city, the entire city seemed to have been ripped out of its soul, becoming a veritable ghost town.

The streets were deserted, and even the howling of the wind through the dilapidated buildings carried an eerie echo.

At this moment, Jiang Jianxin sat in the restaurant, gazing at the drizzling rain outside the window.

Dark clouds, thick as ink, piled up over the city, making it hard to breathe.

The entire city was shrouded in a gloomy and somber atmosphere, even the sound of raindrops seemed particularly dull, as if even nature was mourning the fate of the city.

"how so……"

Jiang Jianxin murmured to himself, his voice so soft it was almost drowned out by the sound of the rain.

She gazed at the desolate scene outside the window, her eyes filled with incomprehension and pain, deeply lamenting that this once prosperous city had now become a living hell.

Death caused her to lose her newly bought Bluetooth device, so she had to get a new one. Ah Yu, listening through the Bluetooth, heard her sigh and responded:
“I’ve just taken over the city’s surveillance cameras and found footage of the massacre. Would you like to see it?”

Jiang Jianxin thought to himself that he was not a pervert and had no interest in watching violent and bloody videos.

However, after experiencing so many bizarre events, her way of thinking has unknowingly changed.

She hesitated for a moment, and out of caution, asked carefully:

"Besides the one-sided massacre, did the video record anything unusual or strange?"

"Some unusual phenomena were indeed discovered."

Ayu answered calmly.

"The relevant video has been downloaded to your phone's photo library."

Jiang Jianxin opened his phone in surprise and clicked on the video that A Yu had recently downloaded in his photo library.

The video itself is not long; it has likely been edited using artificial intelligence, with most of the massacre scenes removed.

About a minute after Jiang Jianxin entered the video, the scene of the massacre changed.

A fierce wind raged through the desolate city, whipping up pieces of flesh from the ground and sending them arcing through the air. As the wind intensified, an ominous blackish-red aura began to slowly emerge at the scene of the massacre.

This light was completely different from the heavy, deathly aura emanating from the God of Death and Silence—it was not pure darkness, but mixed with a kind of unsettling dark red hue, like blood seeping from the abyss, carrying a distinctly evil meaning.

Jiang Jianxin's gaze was drawn to the center of the halo.

Through the limited view of the surveillance camera, she could vaguely see the outline of a magic circle emerging in the halo, with intricate and delicate patterns engraved on it.

Although the camera could not capture the entire array, and the details of the patterns were difficult to discern due to the limitations of distance and angle, Jiang Jianxin was reminded of a scene of some kind of divine summoning ritual.

She replayed the video several times, observing the details within the halo more closely each time.

Finally, she asked her intuition:

[Is this a divine magic circle?] Almost the instant the question was posed, intuition provided the answer:

Yes, this is a ritualistic array, directed towards a specific deity.

Jiang Jianxin fell silent.

She looked out the window at the deserted city—the dark sky was like a heavy lead plate, making it hard to breathe.

The streets were covered in crimson blood, which gleamed in the dim light, resembling an apocalyptic scene.

In an instant, the series of inexplicable and unusual actions taken by Black Eye Pharmaceuticals recently connected in her mind into a clear clue:

So, Black Eye Pharmaceuticals went to great lengths to instigate this massacre, creating this living hell... their true purpose was to summon a god?

Intuition corrected him:
[That's the gist of it, but you're not quite right—there's already a god behind Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals, and they're currently increasing the anchor point, bringing that god here, or projecting more power.]

Upon seeing this sentence, Jiang Jianxin was reminded of the mechanical pollution caused by Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals.

Before the War Alliance was destroyed, Black Eye Pharmaceuticals used mechanical prosthetics and medical devices to mentally corrupt a large number of people.

The former was a force established at the beginning of the apocalypse, when the national government had not yet completely collapsed. The War Alliance had also gained the recognition of the remaining government personnel and became the only force recognized by the general public. It recruited a large number of elite talents who had awakened in the general public by setting high entry barriers.

After being infiltrated by mechanical pollution, most of them became mechanical followers, while some migrated to the Dream Pavilion.

At the time, Jiang Jianxin only thought that Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals' method of infiltrating through medical devices was terrifying, but now that he thinks about it, perhaps everything can be traced back to something.

[...Is all that contamination clinging to the machinery the power of that god?]

Yes, its power is related to machinery; Truth refers to it by the codename "The Mechanic."

"I answered intuitively."

It can attach mental pollution to machines to create new followers, and it can also use machines for eavesdropping.

Jiang Jianxin subconsciously glanced at his phone in his pocket.

She finally understood why the prophet had said in her letter that "God's eyes are everywhere"—even in this highly technological society, he still wrote her a letter.

It turns out there was a reason for everything; only now has she seen the truth behind the fog.

[If Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals' goal is to summon the "Mechanic," then what do you mean by "anchor point"?]

Jiang Jianxin asked:
The gate between this world and the outer realms is only a crack, not yet fully open. Most gods from beyond the realms roam the void; if they wish to land in a world protected by a barrier, they need an anchor point.

The fastest way to establish an anchor point is through human sacrifice, deepening the anchor point through blood and flesh.

"I answered intuitively."

However, people are foolish. From an omniscient perspective, setting up anchor points in this way attracts not only the god they want to summon, but also an uninvited guest.

Jiang Jianxin asked:
【Could it be...】

[The God of Deathly Silence.]

Intuition provided the answer.

Sacrifice requires killing, and killing is accompanied by death and silence, both of which are the primordial forces of death.

The anchor point was merely a bridge to allow extraterrestrial gods to cross, but the power generated by this cruel bridging method was entirely fed to Death.

Intuition slowly revealed itself.

Therefore, when Jiang Jianxin first saw the Death Scythe, it already had a growth rate of 1 and a complete staff. These were all the result of it passively accepting the power of the sacrifice.

The most fundamental difference between the gods above and below the truth is that the gods below the truth are only partial gods, who can only act on specific things and obtain their power.

Above truth are mostly primordial gods, who are omnipresent and can draw upon all things, good and evil, to make them their own power.

The Death Throne, standing at the end point, is an even more adept at extracting resources.

All actions that require death as a guiding force will ultimately feed back into the origin of the order of death.

After listening to his intuition's explanation, Jiang Jianxin suddenly had a thought:

If the anchor point is built, will death come?

[Uh... Death prefers to focus on his career and is currently in a detached state, so it's highly unlikely he'll descend. Perhaps the Temple of Deathly Silence can be drawn here by the anchor point.]

Intuition explained it.

However, the Mechanic already had control over the world before the Temple of the Dead was pulled in.

Jiang Jianxin gasped, a chill running down his spine.

She finally realized that the severity of the situation far exceeded her expectations.

If Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals is allowed to continue its northward expansion, it will inevitably lead to the massacre of more innocent people, and each killing will deepen the energy accumulation of the anchor point.

If this continues, one day, the god codenamed "The Mechanic" will surely transcend dimensions and descend upon this world.

Although the Rose Group has declared war on Black Eye Pharmaceuticals, temporarily halting its northward expansion, the war between the two forces continues to escalate.

Every day, countless lives are reduced to dust in the flames of war, yet they continue to accumulate strength for the anchor point.

The battle was at a stalemate, and the situation was steadily deteriorating, with no possibility of a turnaround in sight.

Jiang Jianxin felt a tingling sensation on his scalp, and a deep sense of powerlessness welled up in his heart.

Only now has she realized that the extraterrestrial gods' infiltration and predation of this world has never stopped, from "Truth" erasing the premonition sequence ten years ago to "Mechanic" polluting the war camp today.

The world is like a tempting giant cream cake, and those unspeakable beings from beyond its borders all want to reach out their fingers and grab the sweetest and most alluring honey-like fruits on it.

【I'm out of ideas, but the Foresight Family... surely they have a way, right?】

Jiang Jianxin asked expectantly.

Yes, of course.

Your immediate priority is to escape from Blackeye Pharmaceuticals' territory and help Rose with transportation.

Intuition analyzed it for her:
Although your contract with Rose Transportation was only for cleaning up the contaminated area, the chaos of battle began, and a single artillery shell nearly destroyed Rose Transportation.

[It's reasonable for you to step in and help Rose Transportation so that the benefits they promised you can be realized in a timely manner, isn't it?]

This is a super long chapter; I've made up for yesterday's.