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Chapter 324 The Future Behind the Door (Part 2)
Even Chen Xuan himself was somewhat surprised; his agility seemed to have reached a new level.

From being far behind the Divine Eye Technique in the past, to barely being able to use the Divine Eye Technique to parry the enemy's cold arrows, and now to being almost in sync with the Divine Eye Technique... even if it can only be maintained for a few seconds, that is an amazing improvement.

To outsiders, that split-second retreat was as fast as lightning.

This is clearly related to his change of mental cultivation method.

The "Heavenly Clouds and True Method" continuously provides the body with spiritual energy, just like injecting ample energy into an engine.

After realizing it had missed its target, the washing machine turned and tried to bite Liuli.

The latter maneuvered and dodged within a small space, seemingly in perilous situations, but in reality, it always just narrowly missed the long string of rotating rollers.

At this moment, Chen Xuan noticed the difference.

He relied on sheer skill to dodge, while Liuli relied on sheer technique.

After observing for a few rounds, she finally drew her sword. More than a dozen sword shadows appeared in mid-air, crisscrossing before transforming into fierce slashes!
Tables, doors, bed frames... these roadblocks piled together were instantly cut to pieces, and even the walls and the floor were marked with several trenches. But the washing machine continued to move freely after bursting into a large burst of sparks, showing no sign of falling apart.

"This thing... is so hard!" Liuli exclaimed in surprise.

Chen Xuan was also quite surprised. He had witnessed her abilities before. In the demon's headquarters in Paris, she almost single-handedly stopped the enemy's armed reinforcements. Neither titanium alloy armor nor tungsten steel bullets could withstand the sword shadows she unleashed.

She could even slice through a floor's reinforced concrete pillars in one go, causing the entire ceiling to collapse.

This is something that cold weapons simply cannot do.

So even though she wields swords and knives, Chen Xuan basically treats her as a conceptual weapon.

But now he discovers that Liuli's sword has its limits.

Since the enemy looks like a machine, let's try the effects of magic. With a thought, Chen Xuan summoned two Thousand Thought Swords to his side, their tips crackling with electricity—swords imbued with the Heavenly Thunder Token, not only a nemesis of demons, but also good for cutting down conductive robots.

Liuli, however, was not happy about it.

She sheathed her sword faster than Chen Xuan, then lowered her body and assumed a standard sword-drawing stance.

"What about this trick?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Liuli's body transformed into a stream of light, piercing directly through the body of the washing machine!
Even Chen Xuan, who observed with his divine eye, could hardly discern her movement trajectory—in an instant, N21 seemed to merge with the blade she had unleashed; she was the sword, and the sword was her! Chen Xuan also realized that the blue-and-white light was not an illusion, but rather the ionization phenomenon caused by the high-speed impact of the longsword with the air. The fragments of stone and metal stirred up by the airflow evaporated directly into a wisp of green smoke as they passed through the light!
The sword light continued its unabated momentum, piercing through the washing machine and advancing forward, blasting a large hole half a meter wide in the wall.

At the same time, a burnt smell filled the corridor.

That's the smell of dust being burned to ashes.

The front-loading washing machine is no longer in good condition. Its core has been completely melted, and the protruding drum has fallen to the ground, losing its biting power.

What's chilling is that even after being severed, it didn't stop moving like a machine. The "steel neck" formed by the rollers continued to pupa on the ground, resembling a dying steel centipede.

"Hmph, I knew it! How could my sword not even handle a washing machine?" Liuli turned around with satisfaction, carefully examining the twisting wreckage of the enemy. "But what exactly is this thing? Has the machine come to life?"

"...It's not AI; it's alive, possessing a certain degree of self-awareness, more like a life form composed of microscopic machines. We call it a nano-living organism."

Lin Qing's words came to Chen Xuan's mind.

"It is... a living nanomaterial?"

"What is that?" Liuli asked, puzzled.

"A catastrophe caused by nanobot technology, ultimately leading to the extinction of human civilization," Chen Xuan murmured. There's no mistake... this must be the source of the calamity Lin Qing spoke of. They look like mechanical creations, yet possess life-like characteristics. Like this "household washing machine" in front of him...

Its severed parts continued to wriggle slowly, as if trying to recombine. The nanobugs, which should have existed in a microscopic state, had now coalesced into a macroscopic entity. Internal components such as rollers, motors, and shafts were not actually metal parts, but rather formed from hundreds of millions of nanobugs condensed together. Like a centipede that doesn't die easily, they were difficult to completely destroy using conventional methods.

“To deal with living nanoparticles, you either have to melt them with high temperatures or break them into pieces smaller than five centimeters square.” Chen Xuan said, recalling Lin Qing’s explanation. “Their strength is usually linked to their volume. They are extremely difficult to destroy when intact, but once they are broken, their strength drops sharply.”

At his command, a thousand swords pierced through the writhing long string of cylinders.

The roller began to struggle violently.

Seeing this bizarre scene, Liuli couldn't help but curse, "Disgusting thing."

The Thousand Thoughts Sword's destructive power is far less than Liuli's Dimensional Slash, yet it can now easily destroy the remains of nano-living organisms, indicating that Lin Qing's information is reliable.

However, using mind control to chop meat sauce with the Thousand Thoughts Sword was a mentally taxing task, so Chen Xuan decided to let a professional do it. "Thank you for your trouble."

“No problem.” Liuli told Chen Xuan to take ten steps back, and then with a dimensional slash, she completely reverted the washing machine to its component form. The nano-organisms, now shredded to pieces, stopped moving, as if they had transformed from living beings into cold metal.

"Nothing special." She bent down, picked up a thumb-sized fragment, and played with it in her palm. "You're saying this thing destroyed human civilization? Aren't you mistaken?"

Chen Xuan also had some doubts.

Liuli's sword is powerful, but not powerful enough to destroy the world. She can slice through a building with a single strike, and she can do the same with high-yield bombs. Besides, this is the future; the destructive power of weapons should far exceed that of the last century. Surely humanity won't be wiped out by nano-sized living organisms like a washing machine?
Suddenly, the ground shook.

thump.

A cloud of dust fell from the floor.

Then there was another thud.

This time the sound was much louder, as if the source of the sound was rapidly approaching them.

Chen Xuan and Liu Li exchanged a glance, and they both immediately realized what the thumping sound meant—a huge and heavy thing was walking in their direction.

Its weight was so enormous that every step it took caused the floor to tremble, almost like a minor earthquake.

Is it upstairs or downstairs?
Their gazes simultaneously drifted to the hole in the wall...

The sound was coming from outside this building!

Chen Xuan gave Liuli a wink, then cautiously approached the cave entrance and peered out.

Boom!
He saw a "leg," a "leg" composed of a metal frame, high-voltage power towers, steel beams and columns, or other miscellaneous components. It stretched upwards from the ground, seemingly without end, its upper half obscured by a hazy, yellowish sandstorm, making it appear as if it were extending from the sky.

The surrounding tall buildings are not even half the height of this leg!

And it wasn't just one, but a full six! With each step, these legs could conservatively move five or six hundred meters, which is the distance of four football fields. No wonder the thumping sound was still quite far away, but in the blink of an eye, it was right in front of them!

Chen Xuan's lips twitched. "Hey... isn't this being unreasonable?"

The length of its "legs" reaches into the sky, but its diameter is only a hundred meters. This slender ratio is like that of a bamboo pole. Given its exaggerated size, it is impossible for it to support the "torso" above. It should have been crushed by its own weight long ago!
He also discovered that many "cocoons" were hanging from the leg closest to him.

However, upon closer inspection, he quickly realized that those things were not pupae, but human corpses. The dead had their hands tied behind their backs and nooses around their necks, swaying back and forth with the movement of the long steel legs, resembling some kind of evil ritual.

The more he looked, the more horrified he felt.

Can nano-sized living organisms do such delicate things?

Those nooses made of hemp rope looked as if they had been hung up by another group of people!
Boom boom boom!
Six legs landed in succession, causing the building to shake violently. If the two had collided, Chen Xuan had no doubt that the tall building would have collapsed like a sandcastle. But instead of continuing forward, they suddenly came to a stop.

Then an eyeball fell from the sandstorm-swirling sky.

It was about the size of a truck, with its end dragged by a dense network of cables, while its body was covered with blood vessels, making it no different from a human eyeball.

What's even more frightening is that after it spun around twice, its gaze met Chen Xuan's.

A chill ran straight up his spine from the soles of his feet.

"Run!"

The instant Chen Xuan shouted "Run!", Liu Li made the same judgment. She grabbed Chen Xuan and ran towards the apartment as fast as she could.

At the same time, a colossal leg swept across the building like a guillotine, instantly slicing it in two! The corridor behind the two was instantly turned into an open-air passage, with many floors collapsing and the rumbling of falling debris filling the air.

"Don't look back, keep running!"

Chen Xuan used the Thousand Thoughts Sword to deflect the falling rubble, creating a safe passage for Liuli, who then jumped and leaped with him in her lap, faster than the floor shattered.

A 100-meter-long corridor took them only three seconds to traverse.

The two rushed into the house, went through the back door, and slammed the front door shut in one swift motion!
The moment the door closed, all movement ceased abruptly, as if what they had just witnessed was merely a nightmare.

After locking the back door, Chen Xuan was still somewhat incredulous.

Is this the future after we've been saved?
End of Volume 2
(End of this chapter)