The "Survival on the Train" game has bugs, it's really laggy!

Inside the control room, the red alarm light cast a blood-red glow on everyone's faces.

The interference layer on the radar screen was completely torn apart by two brute forces. Two enormous red spots overlapped and headed straight for the location of the Devourer at extremely high speed.

The probe waves created dense ripples on the screen, and a piercing buzzing sound made the entire carriage hum.

Wang Hu suddenly leaped from his seat. He roughly pushed aside the secondary control panel in front of him, and his large hands grabbed directly at the physical firing lever of the 400mm main gun.

Before his hand even touched the metal bar, Su Yuan's hand reached out from the side and gripped Wang Hu's wrist tightly.

The immense force caused Wang Hu to pause in his movements.

"Do you want the car and the person to fall apart together?" Su Yuan's voice was devoid of emotion, and his eyes were icy cold.

Wang Hu's eyes were bloodshot, and he was breathing heavily through his nostrils. The veins on his neck were throbbing.

"They're practically face-to-face with me! Are we just going to sit here and wait to die? I'll blow my guts out and knock one of their teeth out!"

Su Yuan flung Wang Hu's hand away.

"We can't beat them, and we can't outrun them."

These six words struck the metal plate of the control room like a hammer blow. Wang Hu gritted his teeth, unable to refute them. The Devourer's chassis had just suffered severe damage, and its main energy was extremely depleted. To confront two even stronger and larger golems head-on at this moment would be tantamount to suicide.

Su Yuan's fingers slid rapidly across the control panel. The screen switched to a 3D topographical map of the skyrail waste dump.

A plot of land marked as a high-risk red zone was opened to the public by Su Yuandian.

It was a massive wreckage area. Hundreds upon hundreds of twisted industrial cooling pipes, broken alloy support columns, and abandoned drilling rigs were intertwined. Signal interference was extremely severe.

This is the "Spiral Graveyard".

"Go in there." Su Yuan stared at the intricate steel maze diagram. "Go in and be a mouse. Turn off all the exterior lights."

The mobile refining furnace outside the carriage had just finished its final intake.

The last bit of usable alloy and energy from the JIPIN-001 wreckage was squeezed into the refining furnace's circulation system. A large plume of acrid black smoke billowed from the discharge port.

Xiao Huo's mechanical voice switched to the communication channel.

"Absorption complete. The stability of the Blue Flame Core has been forcibly pulled back to 19%."

"Abnormal residue detected. The refining furnace is unable to perform high-frequency melting on it. The sample has been transferred from discharge channel number seven to sealed chamber number three."

With a clang, a piece of something encased in a high-temperature resistant glass box was delivered from the lower side of the control room hatch.

It was a fist-sized mass of black matter. Its surface was covered with countless tiny pores, and numerous thin, dark red tubes, as fine as hair, were intertwined, still weakly expanding and contracting. It was breathing.

"This is a 'neural cord aggregate'." Xiao Huo's scanning beam swept across the glass box. "Its structure is extremely dense, and it has a protective lock based on underlying rules."

The colossal monster was pieced together, but the only true core remaining was a small, twisted piece of rotten flesh.

Su Yuan picked up the glass box and placed it on the central control analysis table.

"Forcefully bypass the protection lock. Analyze it."

Xiao Huo executed the command without delay. Three dark gold data probes rose from the analysis platform and plunged into the aggregate with a "whoosh".

The alarm blared two octaves higher in an instant.

"Analysis module severely overloaded! Temperature spikes! Requesting forced disconnection!"

The sound from the small fire icon started to stutter frequently. The green characters on the main control screen were instantly overwritten with garbled text.

After the blinding white light, countless fragmented images were forcibly projected onto the screen.

It's not code; it's all fragments of living people's memories.

A woman wearing an old hazmat suit is stuffing a biscuit into the mouth of a dirty little boy. The image freezes on the boy's smiling face as he chews.

A dark red beam of light suddenly pierced the screen. The woman's face melted instantly. She let out a piercing scream, which was stretched and distorted, finally turning into a mechanically repeated word: Go home.

Screen switch.

An expeditionary force soldier knelt in a trench littered with corpses, clutching a broken rifle, half-empty, tightly in his hand. He stared at the collapsing sky above him, his lips moving slightly, as if calling out someone's name.

The red light descended once more. It burned through the soldier's eyeballs. He dropped his gun and frantically dug at the scorched earth with both hands. His fingernails curled and bled profusely. He howled like a wild beast as he dug.

He was also shouting that word. Go home.

Hundreds of fragments of memory flashed wildly across the main screen: a lover's embrace, a parent's admonition, a comrade's sacrifice. All these emotions, once imbued with warmth, were shattered by an extremely vicious force of rules.

They were roughly sewn together, kneaded into a ball of extreme, obsessive, insane, and irrational obsession.

To return to that coordinate, one can devour everything, tear everything apart, and piece everything back together.

This is the truth behind the "homecoming" signal.

The air pressure in the control room dropped to freezing. Looking at those ravaged souls, even Tang Lan, who had always been expressionless, felt a very slight tremor in her hand holding the sniper rifle.

A bloodcurdling scream erupted from a corner of the carriage.

Jiang Yu crashed to the ground without warning, his body contorted into a shrimp-like shape.

On his only remaining arm, the skin had split open in several places. The dark gold living metal vessels hidden beneath the blood vessels had gone completely berserk.

Black blood dripped down his arm.

"Hold him down!" Wang Hu turned around and pounced, using his knee to press against Jiang Yu's back and his hands to firmly grip his shoulders.

"It's different..." Jiang Yu completely ignored Wang Hu on his body, his one eye fixed on the two red spots getting closer and closer on the radar screen, and a whirring sound came from his throat.

"These two things...are different!" Jiang Yu tilted his head back at an odd angle. "They're much purer than that monster from before!"

Jiang Yu's facial muscles spasmed, and he bit his lower lip until it bled to stay awake.

"The one on the left! It's always hungry! It's screaming that it's starving... It can't get enough to eat, it wants to stuff everything into its belly. Like a perpetually hungry black hole!"

"That one on the right! It's fire...it's all fucking fire! It's enraged, it wants to destroy everything in its path! It's pure rage!"

Hunger. Anger.

The offerings not only have numbers, but have even given rise to the most basic emotional concepts.

This also means that they are more destructive and have a clearer attack intent than the previous chaotic first splicing monster.

Su Yuan withdrew his gaze from Jiang Yu, who was writhing in pain. He stared at the still faintly twitching neural cord aggregate.

"Since they have emotions, they can be manipulated." Su Yuan's lips curled into an extremely cold smile.

He pressed the external control lever.

"Old Wang! Let him go. Go and control the crane arm!"

Wang Hu immediately released Jiang Yu and rushed back to his position.

"Get me that identification plaque engraved with 'JIPIN-001' from the wreckage pile outside." Su Yuan gave the order directly.

Wang Hu's eyes lit up, and he immediately understood what Su Yuan meant.

The mechanical crane arm of the Devourer suddenly extended, rushing into the still-smoking pile of scrap and rummaging through it. The mechanical claw precisely gripped the metal nameplate with black slime stuck to its edge and pulled it back.

The furnace opening of the refining furnace opened and closed rapidly. In just a few seconds, a simple signal amplifier casing made of low-density scrap iron fell into the tray.

The crane arm shoved the nameplate firmly into the amplifier and locked it in place. The faint signals from the nameplate, mixed with the despair of the living, were immediately amplified more than tenfold.

After doing all this, the Devourer's engine roared to life.

The heavy tracks crushed the gravel blocking the way, and the massive vehicle plunged headlong into the dark spiral graveyard ahead.

This ruined terrain was practically a natural hiding place. Using night vision goggles, Su Yuan spotted a triangular blind spot formed by the collapse of three giant cooling pipes, each with a diameter of five meters.

"Reduce pressure. Lock the tracks halfway. Slide in." Su Yuan flipped his wrist.

The Devourer was like a venomous snake that knew how to retract its scales. Its massive body scraped against the edges of the three cooling pipes, squeezing itself into the triangular space.

The surrounding area is entirely composed of high-density lead plates and thick, pressure-resistant steel pipes. For external radar to penetrate this area would be virtually impossible.

"Throw the bait out. A hundred meters away. Find an open space."

Wang Hu controlled the crane arm and hurled the amplifier, which was covered with the number one nameplate, with great force. The metal lump drew an arc in mid-air and crashed into a relatively flat area of ​​scrap armor plates.

The decoy had just landed when the tremors reached the Devourer.

The vibrations grew stronger, and the remaining rust inside the cooling pipes fell down in a rustling sound.

Two new, gigantic offerings finally entered the visibility range of the night vision goggles.

The first thing that catches the eye is JIPIN-002, codenamed "Hunger".

Its size was outrageously bulky. It was the lumps of at least twenty heavy excavators and mining vehicles. It had no legs. Its chassis was a single, continuous array of ultra-wide tracks.

The chest cavity was as large as a granary, with a terrifying gaping maw in the very center, formed by six heavy excavator buckets spliced ​​together in reverse. Inside the maw were jagged, broken gears, and a thick, blackish-yellow liquid was dripping incessantly down the edges of the buckets.

For every meter it moves, it picks up small pieces of scrap metal from the ground and rolls them into the bucket, where it chews them up and swallows them with a "crunch, crunch" sound.

To its right lies a completely different scene. That is JIPIN-003, codenamed "Anger".

Unlike the bulky 002, the 003 has a slender body and a deadly sharpness. It was pieced together from a large number of scrapped military reconnaissance drones and light assault mechs.

Instead of bulky tracks, it has six mechanically articulated limbs with reverse joints. The ends of these limbs are not feet, but are directly welded to a multi-functional plasma high-frequency cutting blade.

003's physique is extremely bizarre, with four huge, dilapidated engine nozzles hanging on its back. Its single eye is a horizontal red beam that flashes extremely rapidly.

The two completely different monsters stopped in this open area.

Because they simultaneously detected the signal source placed on the ground—the number one nameplate representing the core of its kind.

They could have immediately devoured that lump of iron.

But they didn't.

The two colossal machines stopped simultaneously on either side of the nameplate, less than fifty meters apart. Their massive bodies stood facing each other. They didn't even glance at the bait on the ground, but stared intently at each other.

Just then, the eerie nursery rhyme of the little girl echoed once more from the abyss.

This time, the voice was devoid of any innocence. All that remained was blatant malice, urging, and incitement.

"The moon goes...and you go too..."

"Going home... there can only be one..."

"Eat it...go home..."

The sound, amplified by a special sonar, echoed back and forth in this wasteland. It was a seductive whisper from the deepest depths of the abyss.

No physical command is needed. The sound is like a match lighting a powder keg.

"Anger" was the first to attack.

The four dilapidated engines behind 003 suddenly spewed out blinding blue-white flames. Its slender body left a trail of afterimages in its wake.

The sonic boom cloud exploded where it had started.

Like a black spear released from its bow, it instantly pressed against the bloated front of "Hunger." Its two forelimbs transformed into death scythes, the plasma cutting blades bursting with intense red heat, directly slashing down at 002's massive mouth made of a digging bucket.

A sharp metallic clang tore through the air.

Hunger is unavoidable, and it doesn't try to avoid it. Its movements are clumsy, but its quality is undeniable.

003's double blades slashed at 002's thick, multi-centimeter-thick patchwork armor, leaving two terrifying, two-meter-long, deep gashes that revealed bone. The dark golden bio-cables were severed, and black bodily fluids gushed out.

But this injury is nothing to 002's massive size.

"Hunger" suddenly leaned forward, crashing directly into the object with its hundreds-of-tons-weight body.

At the same time, its massive bucket-shaped maw in its chest cavity suddenly opened. Without any warning, a thick column of corrosive industrial waste gushed out.

The waste liquid had an eerie, ghastly green color and emitted a pungent, sour odor.

The waste liquid was poured onto the "Angry" mechanical limbs. The high-strength military armor plates immediately emitted thick white smoke and emitted a rapid, hissing corrosion sound. Large bubbles bulged on the armor surface at a visible speed, dissolving rapidly.

003 emitted a low-frequency electronic roar, like a wild beast. Instead of retreating, it used its left leg, which had been splashed with waste liquid, to push off the ground, causing the entire machine to flip in mid-air.

Its stern was fitted with a damaged rapid-fire railgun salvaged from a cruiser. The barrel was charged as it tumbled.

boom!

A pure energy pulse, without any physical projectile, struck the right shoulder armor of 002. This blast blew off a large section of the right side armor plate, exposing the three auxiliary reactor units inside to the air.

The violent energy shockwave hurled tens of thousands of tons of waste around it.

Heavy steel plates flew around like pieces of paper in the midst of the battle between the two giant beasts.

Even a hundred meters away, the Devourer, hiding in the gap of the triangular cooling pipes, was still shaken to its core by the impact. Sand and scrap metal rained down on the outer walls of the cooling pipes.

This is a most primitive and irrational mechanical brawl. They are frantically dismembering each other with the jigsaw puzzle pieces they have seized.

Wang Hu pressed his face against the observation window, his mouth dry from watching. His Adam's apple bobbed, and his fists were clenched tightly. If the Devouring Wasteland were to go toe-to-toe with a purely combat-oriented monster of this level, it probably wouldn't even last three rounds.

"That's right. Bite it to death." Su Yuan leaned back in his chair, his eyes half-closed, staring intently at the central control screen.

Instead of relaxing, he frantically typed commands on the screen.

"Xiao Huo, establish the highest priority analysis model."

"Abandon capturing their exoskeleton data. Perform a full-power analysis of their energy circulation network, neural cable routing, and weakness distribution."

"I don't want to see who lives and who dies. I want all their underwear data."

The progress bar on the screen moved forward rapidly. The blue wireframes continuously built up a three-dimensional perspective view of the two behemoths in the radar scan.

The fisherman's profit is never achieved by waiting, but by calculating.

The battle in the center of the battlefield became increasingly fierce.

"Rage" is extremely mobile, but its defense is relatively weak. One of its left hind mechanical legs has been completely dissolved by corrosive waste liquid, and it can only maintain its balance by relying on its remaining five legs.

Despite its large size, "Hunger" became an easy target. The massive digging bucket on its chest was cut in half by 003's laser blade, completely transforming it into a pile of twisted scrap metal.

These two monsters, driven solely by emotions, had no concept of stopping or defense.

002 suddenly twisted its body. The spliced ​​robotic arms on its side frantically grabbed around. One of them, a two-meter-thick abandoned crane boom, accidentally got stuck in a crevice in the rock strata of the ground.

How could 003 possibly overlook such a flaw?

Its engine roared to life again. With a zigzag acceleration, it surged to the side of 002. The two longest plasma cutting blades plunged directly into the joint of the crane arm and pried it open with a sudden thrust.

Click!

A deafening cracking sound.

The crane arm, weighing tens of tons, was forcibly removed from the vehicle body of 002 by 003.

003 hadn't even had a chance to throw it away. 002's massive body charged like a bull, ramming into 003's side.

The immense impact caused 003 to lose its balance completely, and the crane arm, weighing tens of tons, that it was holding spun around and was violently thrown upwards and to the right into the darkness.

That direction leads directly to the triangular void of the Spiral Graveyard where the Devourer is hiding.

The massive black metal pillar, carrying terrifying wind pressure, shot straight towards the cave entrance.

Once it hits solid, even with three cooling pipes acting as a buffer, the kinetic energy of those tens of tons will be enough to completely tear apart the Devourer's disguise. At that point, the monsters currently fighting each other will inevitably discover the third party lurking in this corner.

Su Yuan did not give the order to dodge, because there was nowhere to hide.

He didn't even look at the car window to his side.

"Bang!"

Inside the carriage, a crisp gunshot drowned out the sounds of fighting outside.

Tang Lan, her right eye pressed against the sniper scope, knelt at the firing position. Her shoulder, bearing the brunt of the recoil, shifted back two centimeters.

A wisp of smoke rose from the gun barrel. A scorching hot brass cartridge case bounced up, tumbled through the air, and landed with a crisp sound.

Her movements went unnoticed by Wang Hu, because the roar outside was too loud.

Several hundred meters away. In mid-air.

The crane arm, which was spinning and crashing towards this side, suddenly disintegrated less than fifty meters from the opening.

The specially designed armor-piercing projectile was accurate to the millimeter level, penetrating the already aging central connecting bearing of the crane arm at an incredible angle, directly shattering the stress node there.

The massive robotic arm disintegrated into seven or eight pieces of scrap metal in mid-air.

The two largest pieces continued flying due to inertia, grazing the outer edge of the triangular opening where the Devourer was hiding.

It only knocked off a patch of rock and soil at the edge of the cave entrance, without causing any destructive impact.

They managed to stay hidden.

At the heart of the battlefield, the scales of life and death finally began to tip.

The wrecked barrel of "Angry" finally exploded due to poor heat dissipation after continuous firing. The explosion blew half of its back to shreds.

But this also brought out its most extreme ferocity.

003 used its remaining five mechanical legs to launch itself into the air. It leaped directly onto the wide roof of "Hunger." It combined its two cutting blades into one and stabbed it hard into the main energy distribution compartment, the weakest point in 002's back armor.

Stab it--!

The two-meter-long light blade was completely submerged. Instead of pulling it out, it went full speed ahead and frantically churned horizontally inside.

"Hunger" let out a final, resounding cry that echoed through the abyss.

This strike from 003 not only shattered its main control neurons, but also directly severed the left-side main energy transmission pipeline that 002 used to transmit energy from the main reactor to its entire body.

This is a composite armored pipeline with a diameter of over 80 centimeters, which is normally buried deep within the machine.

After the pipeline was torn off, the broken half, trailing blinding electric sparks and high-pressure steam, was flung out of 002's body like a whip by the residual pressure difference inside.

The broken pipe traced a parabola in the air before crashing heavily onto the waste-strewn ground.

It happened to land on an open ground less than fifty meters from the cave where the Devourer was hiding.

That's not the worst part.

At the break in the pipeline, the unsealed energy valve completely collapsed. A stream of highly pure, dark blue liquid plasma energy, like an out-of-control waterfall, gushed out continuously from the broken pipe.

Because of its high energy concentration, it did not evaporate immediately, but instead gathered on the surface to form a small puddle of energy radiating high heat radiation.

The energy was so pure that the radar in the control room showed a double image.

This is not only a deadly source of radiation. It is the purest, most unadulterated, high-quality fuel.

At this point, the stability of the Blue Flame Core of the Devouring Wasteland was only 19%, and it wouldn't last more than a few hours.

A tremendous temptation lay on the line of death, fifty meters away. There was no cover there. And once past, one would be completely exposed to the sight of 003, who had just taken down 002 and was now in a bloodthirsty rage.

Su Yuan tapped his finger on the armrest.

"Old Wang!" A loud shout rang out in the carriage.

Wang Hu was like a hungry wolf that had been chained behind a fence and smelled blood. The moment Su Yuan called his name, he smashed open the hatch latch with a single punch.

He was already fully armed. The heavy, industrial-grade exoskeleton armor wrapped him up like an iron barrel.

"Understood!" Wang Hu didn't need Su Yuan to tell him what to do next. He had been staring at that pipe for a long time.

I opened the car door.

The pressure difference from the outside air brought in metallic dust that rushed in. The communicator inside Wang Hu's helmet was instantly filled with wind noise.

He strode out of his hiding place. The auxiliary hydraulic pumps of the exoskeleton emitted a high-pitched shriek. His feet slammed into the charred armor plates with a dull thud.

Sprint. A straight sprint without the slightest hesitation.

The battlefield to the left front was still emitting dull cracking sounds. 003 was completely dismantling the dead 002 and didn't have time to turn around immediately.

Wang Hu covered the short distance of fifty meters in less than six seconds.

He lunged at the massive, broken tube. High-temperature plasma sparks splashed onto his mask, burning fine white spots. The tube was like a raging python, thrashing wildly across the ground.

Wang Hu roared. The veins on his arms bulged as he used the mechanical calipers on his exoskeleton to clamp tightly onto the end of the bucket-thick pipe.

The high temperature penetrated through the insulation layer. Acrid smoke immediately billowed from the surface of the robotic arm.

"Catheter!" Wang Hu roared into the communication channel.

At the bottom of the Devourer's hull, the armored bulkhead of the mobile refining furnace suddenly sprang open. A massive, thickest-diameter devouring conduit, like a venomous snake emerging from its hole, rapidly slithered out along the ground.

The probe at the front end of the catheter opened a huge mechanical engagement opening.

Wang Hu lowered his waist and used his arms to lift the broken tube that was frantically gushing energy. The catheter's bite point immediately met it.

Click.

Under Wang Hu's forceful manipulation, the two pipes were tightly fastened together. The mechanical lock automatically engaged.

"Pull it!!!" Wang Hu pressed down on the joint of the tubes, using all his strength to prevent them from bouncing apart due to the enormous energy pressure.

In the control room.

The furnace core immediately emitted a greedy roar like that of a ravenous demon. Highly concentrated liquid energy was poured directly into the Devourer's energy circulation system through the conduits.

The Blue Flame core stability reading on the main control screen is insane.

Twenty-five percent.

Forty percent.

Sixty percent.

Eighty percent.

The energy replenishment rate was absurdly fast, completely exceeding the normal reactor purification cycle. This was because it was originally extracted from the very essence of another monster.

Just as a glimmer of hope began to appear in everyone's eyes, a second reversal occurred without warning.

The sound of the small fire instantly became sharp and piercing.

"Warning! There is a fundamental logical mismatch in the energy properties!"

"A high concentration of 'Living Metal Frenzy Concept' has been detected mixed in with the intruding energy! The Blue Flame Core is exhibiting a rejection reaction!"

"Core overload 170%! Cooling system unable to intervene! A regular chain explosion is imminent!"

The numbers on the radar screen all turned blood red.

The refining furnace at the bottom emitted a teeth-grinding expanding sound. The original pale blue light of the Blue Flame Core was instantly contaminated by this violent external energy, turning into an extremely dazzling, near-explosive, ghastly white light.

The high temperature spread upwards from the chassis, and the floor of the main control room was even slightly hot.

The furnace core is about to burst. Once it explodes, all the energy that was just replenished will be reduced to ashes.

The predicament instantly turned into an even greater dead end. Su Yuan slammed his hand on the emergency physical shut-off switch, preparing to forcibly disconnect the pipe.

But before he could pull the switch...

At the critical moment, the armor on Su Yuan's left arm suddenly heated up.

The "Paradox Armor" gauntlet, made of liquid metal and a relic of JY-003, suddenly lit up under extremely dangerous stimulation, revealing a faint "cloud" character mark on its surface.

It wasn't a blinding light, but rather an extremely soft, pure, pale blue light curtain.

The light screen projected from Su Yuan's left hand, precisely covering the core control matrix of the main control console.

Within the light screen, countless rule runes that Su Yuan couldn't understand at all, yet exuded an extreme sense of regularity and order, began to circulate rapidly.

These are things left behind by Ji Yun.

The obsession from fourteen years ago has now become the best neutralizer for this violent energy. It is a high-dimensional suppression rule representing "stability" and "harmony".

Under the cover of this runic light barrier, the pale light about to explode was as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over its head.

The pale white halo rapidly contracted inward, forcibly smoothing out the violent and chaotic wavelengths.

Ten seconds later. The deathly paleness faded. The deep blue flames reignited steadily within the core, brighter and more intense than before.

Xiao Huo's piercingly loud warning sound finally subsided.

"Danger cleared."

"The Blue Flame Core's full load feedback is stable at a perfect 100%."

"The energy matrix has completed rule-based mandatory calibration. The current energy cycle structure has been optimized. Energy utilization rate has been permanently increased by 15%."

Inside the carriage, everyone let out a long sigh of relief.

Wang Hu released his grip from the outside and ripped off the connector. The decommissioned second half of the pipe bounced twice on the ground before going completely still.

Fully fueled and charged, back to normal.

But the crisis was not over. The sounds of fighting outside had ceased.

Su Yuan raised his head, his gaze passing over the windshield of the control panel.

Not far away, "Rage" (JIPIN-003) was executed. It paid a terrible price, losing all of its back thrusters and two of its five limbs, and ripped the massive 002 into a pile of unrecoverable scrap metal.

The industrial waste liquid scattered all over the ground emitted a pungent acidic fumes in the darkness.

003 pulled out a cutting blade covered in black blood from the pile of 002's wreckage.

It slowly turned its battered body, with exposed cables in many places.

Its single, massive red eye pierced through the hazy dust and acid mist, precisely locking onto the Devourer, hidden in the shadow of the triangular pipe, and Wang Hu, who had just finished stealing oil and hadn't yet returned to his vehicle.

Nothing can escape its detection. The energy absorption that caused such a huge commotion was more dazzling than the sun in its radar.

A stronger enemy has been born. The victor has devoured its own kind.

Wang Hu gripped the miniature Vulcan cannon on his exoskeleton arm. Tang Lan's gun was already re-aimed. Su Yuan's hand was on the main cannon's charging button. Now, with full energy, neither side was afraid of the other.

Just when everyone was preparing for a tough battle.

"Anger" does not involve attack.

It did not activate those killing weapons stained with the blood of its own kind. Even its last few mechanical legs, which were barely supporting its body, stopped moving.

With extremely slow and laborious movements, it dragged its broken and heavy body, which looked like it could fall apart at any moment, step by step toward the Devourer.

The distance is fifty meters.

Thirty meters.

ten meters.

The massive shadow of the mecha almost completely enveloped the cave entrance.

Then, with a sickening metallic twisting sound and the snapping of cables, the terrifying monster that had just torn its opponent to pieces bent its forelimbs.

It knelt heavily on one knee in front of the bulletproof window of the Devourer.

The heavy impact shook the ground three times.

Immediately afterwards, 003 used its only remaining, somewhat intact, mechanical arm to reach into its own chest cavity, which had been blown to pieces.

It pierced its own core compartment.

A chilling sound of flesh and metal peeling away rang out.

It carefully took something out from the location of its heart.

It was a pure black crystal in the shape of an octahedron. The surface of the crystal was covered with tiny nerve cords that writhed like blue veins, and the inside shimmered with an extremely faint, yet incredibly deep, red light.

This is the very source it fought so desperately to protect in the battle.

The monster held the black octahedron high with both hands and presented it to the front of the Devourer.

Suddenly, an extremely strange electrical microphone sound came from the public communication channel in the control room.

It wasn't a shout, and it wasn't that nursery rhyme.

Instead, it was a synthesized sound, crudely stitched together from the voices of dozens of men, women, and children, echoing intermittently in the carriage.

"Permissions... Authentication successful..."

"The 'key'... is being handed over..."

"The Arbiter..."

The red light in the monster's single eye flickered twice before dimming completely.

"Please... return to your place..."

The moment the sound faded, this terrifying war machine completely lost all power. Its raised arms froze in place, like a silent statue offering a sacrifice to a god.

The black octahedral crystal hung quietly in my palm, emitting an alluring glimmer.