Steam Tyrant, Hunting Gods

The cloud vortex kelp is neither an animal nor a plant; strictly speaking, it is a giant algae.

They embed their roots deep into the rock layers of the mountains and extend countless inflated, thick, python-like tentacles into the clouds, capturing any creature that passes through their airspace.

These tentacles do not contain deadly toxins, nor are they overwhelmingly powerful.

But they are numerous, working together, and appearing as silent as ghosts in the fog.

Its digestive capacity is nothing short of terrifying.

Whether it's flesh and blood, wood, or even a hard ship hull, everything can be slowly broken down and devoured in their secreted mucus.

According to available records, the highest tentacles of the cloud vortex kelp can reach up to 3,000 meters in height.

However, Roya had heard the hunters boast drunkenly in the tavern that they had seen the tallest cloud vortex kelp tentacles pierce through the top layer of the cloud sea.

Given that there are still countless unexplored and treacherous peaks in the foggy and smoky areas, this statement may not be entirely nonsense.

Although the flesh of Yunwo kelp is delicious, its phytoestrogen content is pitifully low, the juice is extremely difficult to clean, and the kelp skin is very prone to spoilage.

For hunters, the value of hunting is negligible, making it impossible for them to risk hunting.

Only specialized food companies would dispatch large fleets of harvesters deep into the ground to harvest kelp in concentrated quantities.

now.

On the deck of the shuttle airship, apart from Roya, the other three people reacted very strangely.

Although cloud vortex kelp is not ubiquitous, it is a registered spirit in the "Cloud Sea Spirit Compendium".

They are large and intimidating in appearance, but they pose no real threat to well-armed hunter airships or military airships.

Giles and Eamon, even if they were seeing the real thing for the first time, should have practiced their response strategies at the nautical academy, so they wouldn't be so frightened that they lost their ability to react.

Even if Giles and Eamon were seeing the real thing for the first time, they should have practiced how to deal with it at the nautical academy, so they wouldn't be so scared that they didn't fire in time.

Unless, of course, they really are a complete bunch of idiots.

Or perhaps... they have ulterior motives.

As for Wendell, her reaction did not seem like fear.

It was more like using his entire body and personal armor to forcibly suppress a wild, almost bursting surge of emotion within him...

Roya guessed that if Blue Dragonfly hadn't intervened, Wendell might have gone berserk.

"Damn it... This is my first time hunting, and not only did I not get any guidance, but I'm also the only normal person on the whole ship!"

Roya felt like he was carrying the weight of everything.

He even suspected that none of these people were venturing deep into the sea of ​​clouds and approaching the ground for the first time.

He's the only one who's truly experiencing it for the first time!

Roya bent down to pick up the fallen ram's horn teapot, wiped off the dust, and hung it back on the leather buckle at Wendell's waist.

The shadows in Wendell's eyes faded, and a hint of color gradually returned to his pale face.

"Thanks."

Eamon let out a long sigh of relief, punched the railing, and kicked the seaweed skin.

"Phew, it was just seaweed... Look how scared Miss Wendell was!"

Beside him, Giles stared intently at the Blue Dragonfly armor, his gaze burning with admiration.

This was the first time he had ever witnessed a humanoid armored vehicle, in voice-controlled mode, exhibiting maneuverability comparable to that of a manned vehicle.

"I'm sorry, I lost my composure."

Giles's voice carried a hint of annoyance.

"At the Naval Academy, we learned how to deal with the Cloud Vortex Kelp, but when we saw those huge, wriggling tentacles for the first time, we were still shocked... Since the Hills Mountains are a kelp-covered area, for safety reasons, the airship can only hover here. We will fly armored vehicles and ornithopters down to salvage the shipwreck."

"This is the only way."

Although somewhat annoyed, Roja couldn't find any logical flaws in Giles's argument.

In the end, Allison stayed on the airship.

The other four were each given a palm-sized military mechanical pigeon for emergency communication.

And a mother-and-child insect compass, used to locate each other.

Giles piloted his agile and alluring red humanoid armor.

Eamon is piloting a black ornithopter.

Roya and Wendell piloted the Blue Dragonfly and the steam-powered flying armor.

The shuttle airship slowly rose to the surface, leaving the kelp area.

The other four people left the airship in their respective vehicles.

Continuing to descend, we ventured deeper into the airspace of the kelp-covered Hillis Mountains.

Roya thoughtfully put a blindfold on Wendell, allowing her to sense the airflow by hearing and feeling the wind, and lead the way at the front of the group.

He took charge of bringing up the rear, protecting everyone in front of him.

Giles and Eamon were protected in the middle.

There's nothing we can do; they're the client who's paying the bills!

During their descent, the tentacles of the cloud vortex seaweed continued to attack the four from various unpredictable directions.

But soon, they were destroyed and burned by the four men's precise artillery fire, sharp slashes, or raging flames.

At this moment, Roya truly saw that Giles' armored vehicle piloting skills and Eamon's flying skills were both exceptionally proficient.

Giles's red armor, in particular, although not as agile and unpredictable as the Blue Dragonfly, has a very rapid and brutal catapult acceleration and turn, which shows that Giles has endured extremely high acceleration and his physique is far superior to Roya's.

Even as a novice, Giles is a highly skilled beginner who has undergone countless trials and tribulations.

It's obvious that this is an elite team!

The tentacles of the cloud vortex kelp seemed to sense the trouble this group posed, and they all cowered and retreated.

The four of them quickly made their way through the terrain and accelerated their descent to the ground.

Only a few greedy swordfin fish chased after the exhaust fumes from the engine.

As they continued to descend and got closer to the ground, the hot, humid, and heavy air, mixed with increasing air pressure, enveloped them like a soaked blanket, making it suffocating.

This suffocating feeling suddenly disappears once you break through some invisible critical point.

The wind suddenly howled, the airflow became violent and turbulent, and the magnetic field also became chaotic.

Visibility improved, and everyone's view became clearer.

After three years, Luo Ya finally witnessed the vast land.

……

The mountains are like folds, shrouded in a gray haze.

Wendell then folded his metal wings, rode the wind down, and landed steadily on a relatively flat ridge.

Amon's black ornithopter was violently jolted by the raging air currents, staggering like a kite with a broken string, circling for a long time before finally making an emergency landing in the valley below.

Giles, on the other hand, took a simple and brutal approach. He accelerated at an exaggerated angle into the wind, driving his red armor, and crashed into a cluster of giant, house-sized glowing mushrooms, sending up clouds of glowing spore dust.

at the same time--

Blue Dragonfly underwent a magnificent and smooth transformation amidst the gale, its joints snapping together with a crisp metallic clang.

Finally, with a graceful and decisive movement, it landed steadily beside Wendell, its armored feet deeply embedded in the rock.

Through the reinforced glass of the cockpit, Roya gazed at the vast and wondrous land.

For a fleeting moment, he felt as if he had arrived on another planet.

"So this is the surface of the steam age..."

Visibility in the mountains was slightly better than in the thick clouds, but it was still only enough to make out the blurry outlines of the opposite mountains.

Luo Ya heard that, due to the influence of the abyss rift, the surface terrain, climate, and magnetic field had become strange and unpredictable.

The scene before us perfectly proves this point.

Thick, towering kelp vines take root on the mountain ridge, like ladders to the heavens, swaying incessantly in the fierce winds on the ground.

The spores, soaring on the wind, shimmered with a faint light.

A white network of mycelium covered the ground.

Blue moss covered the rocks like a velvet blanket.

Clusters of colorful mushrooms are taller than a person.

The strangely shaped ferns have outstretched and curled leaf veins.

Countless strangely shaped insects scurried and crawled through the crevices.

Even though the footprints were covered by fungal hyphae, the enormous animal footprints were still clearly visible...

As far as the eye can see, there is no trace of human civilization.

The advent of the steam age allowed surface creatures to become like inhabitants of the deep sea, freed from the constraints of human aesthetics and growing wildly in bizarre, grotesque, and distorted directions.

The air pressure was high, but the air quality was better than I expected.

Luo Ya sat in the cockpit, and after a short while, he didn't feel too uncomfortable.

Standing on the ridge and looking around, Giles and Eamon were not visible to the naked eye.

I only caught a fleeting glimpse from the air just now, seeing Giles's red armor charging diagonally into the giant mushroom cluster...

This landing method is strikingly similar to the way he used to crash into walls and make rough turns in his previous life's racing games.

Brutal and efficient, but the physical abilities are truly superhuman!

Luo Ya activated the mother-and-child insect compass and quickly determined the two's landing locations, both within a kilometer of each other on the other side of the ridge.

So, he tapped the megaphone and shouted:

"Gilth, Emmon, are you alright?"

After all, he didn't want anything to happen to the client.

On the other side of the ridge, Eamon, who had crash-landed in the valley, pursed his lips in the cockpit and whispered:

"What a load of rubbish! So what if a flapping-wing aircraft can transform?!"

Upon closer reflection... it is indeed remarkable.

Even the mechanical engineering professors at the Maritime Academy, using higher-strength body materials, couldn't create a transforming mech that could leave the laboratory.

Moreover, in the same armored vehicle emergency landing in the gale, Roya's Blue Dragonfly was even more composed than Giles' Red Widow, the top armored combat champion of the Naval Academy!

Even Giles's close friend had to admit—

Even among geniuses, there are differences.

Roya continued shouting through the megaphone:

"Gilth, Eamon... it's dangerous nearby. You two must meet me at the summit immediately!"

However, the response to Roya was not a human voice, but a cacophony of insects filling the air like a tidal wave.

Smelling the phlogiston vapor, countless multi-legged flying insects emerged from the underground fungal carpet and whistled as they flew up the mountain.

In the blink of an eye, it turned into a swarm of insects that blotted out the sky!

Multiwinged flying insects, resembling flying centipedes, are slightly poisonous and mildly corrosive, and are also recorded in the "Illustrated Compendium of Cloud Sea Burning Spirits".

Roya simply couldn't stand the sound of billions of wings flapping.

Perhaps it's a kind of auditory trypophobia...

Roya immediately activated the flamethrower.

The scorching flames roared out, and the multi-legged flying insects sizzled in the flames, quickly curling up and smoking, emitting a nauseating yet strangely burnt aroma.

Giles and Eamon also activated the flamethrowers on their armor and ornithopters, waving them at the sky and indiscriminately burning the multi-legged insects, creating a spectacular scene.

Roya speculated that the flamethrowers mounted on the armor were designed specifically to deal with such situations.

At this moment, Wendell stood on the mountaintop, and the swarms of multi-legged flying insects dared not approach him.

She suddenly removed her black blindfold and looked up at the vast expanse of clouds in the east.

Just then—

A giant, multi-winged mother insect, over a hundred meters long, slowly flew in from the eastern horizon, breaking through the thick fog like a ghostly dragon boat.

Its slender, winding body undulated in the wind, and its densely packed legs and wings emitted a rustling, deafening, and mind-altering shriek.

"It's a multi-winged queen beetle!"

Eamon exclaimed.

Before the words were finished, the segments of the mother worm's abdomen swelled up one after another, spewing out streams of dark green corrosive acid from its navels, rushing straight at the crowd.

Luo Ya looked up and felt numb.

Megalophobia and trypophobia occur simultaneously!

Fortunately, his mental response was extremely fast.

The blue dragonfly instantly sped up, accelerating and flying sideways, easily avoiding the torrential acid flow.

Giles's red armor was trapped in the bacterial clusters. The steam vents on his back roared instantly, bursting with powerful thrust, and he was launched into the air, avoiding the acid.

Only the black ornithopter that made an emergency landing in the valley was unable to avoid the acid and its wings were splashed with acid!

The wings were quickly corroded.

Acid dripped into the cockpit.

With a bang—

The airbags deployed instantly, tightly enveloping the still-shaken Eamon into a bloated cocoon.

"Damn it...who said Baiyun District isn't dangerous?"

Wendell stands atop the mountain.

An invisible barrier of strong wind suddenly rose around him, causing the corrosive liquid to fly away upon contact, turning into green acid mist that drifted away with the wind.

Staring at the long, snake-like shape in the sky, Wendell felt a wave of nausea.

His golden eyes sharpened.

The sword at his waist was drawn, and a sharp, visible wind blade tore through the air and shot into the sky.

The resulting shockwave sent countless multi-legged flying insects flying for miles before they disappeared from sight.

The winding mother worm that stretched across the sky was instantly severed in two!

The foul-smelling blue insect blood, mixed with corrosive entrails and juices, turned into a torrential downpour of acid rain.

The scorch of the mycelium and moss on the ground produced wisps of blue smoke and corroded countless holes.

Wendell stood firm amidst the destructive rain, surrounded by auras that kept him completely dry.

Handsome as he may be, from the aerial view, Roya could tell from the rapid, slightly heaving white arc of Wendell's chest—

She cannot easily use her supernatural powers.

Acid rain has stopped.

The Blue Dragonfly Armor slowly landed beside Wendell and patted her on the shoulder.

"Gales and I can take down this queen insect with our cooperation. You are our team's strategic nuclear weapon, so we don't need to get involved in small-scale battles."

Only intervene when you encounter an enemy I cannot handle or when I am in danger; only then can you demonstrate your core value.

Wendell sheathed his sword and said coldly:

"I hate snake-like insects."

Startled, Luo Ya felt a chill run down his spine and quickly let go of her.

Indeed, no matter how strong a woman is, her fear of snakes and long worms seems to be ingrained in her bones.

"If you hate insects, why did you take off your blindfold?"

Wendell's silver hair fluttered, his eyes were indifferent.

"I thought you liked me wearing an eye patch. I can still see bugs even with an eye patch on. I took it off to avoid having illusions."

What kind of illusion was this? Roya couldn't imagine it.

"Okay... next time I see a similar snake or insect, I'll shoot it down for you, out of sight, out of mind."

On the other side, Giles, piloting the red armor, rescued Emon from the spherical airbag.

With considerable effort, they crammed Amon's bulky body into the pitifully narrow co-pilot's seat of the red armor.

Amon let out a long sigh, staring blankly at Wendell through the cockpit glass, his eyes filled with envy for Roya.

"Miss Wendell is... a superhuman!"

Luo Ya looked up.

To their surprise, the two sections of the multi-winged mother insect did not fall down, but were carried away by the dense swarm of insects.

"Could it be... that these insects can also sew up their mothers like I sew up a whale carcass?"

Roya muttered to himself.

He had no desire to continue fighting. Looking around, he didn't see the supposedly forced-landing airship, so he shouted to Giles and Eamon:

"The mother-and-child compass cannot pinpoint locations over long distances and requires regular maintenance. How do you determine the exact location of the shipwreck?"

From the brass megaphone outside the red armor, Giles' calm yet undeniable voice rang out:

"Because the captain is still alive."

"Um?"

Luo Ya was taken aback.

Thinking about it carefully, it makes sense. If the captain dies, the airship wouldn't be called a forced landing, but rather a crash.

However, from the fact that the multi-winged mother beetle spewed out liquid that could corrode steel, Roya knew that the captain was no ordinary person, and might even be a superhuman, to have survived in such a dangerous ground environment and still be able to call for help.

The problem is that if the large differential engine on board the airship that made the emergency landing was as important as Giles said, the military should have dispatched a more specialized rescue team.

Still shaken, Amon checked the mother-and-child insect compass and reassured everyone, as well as himself, saying:

"We're not far from our target. It's about five kilometers to the north. Once we cross the mountain on the other side, we'll see it."

……

Braving the strong winds, the group took off again.

Amidst the roaring steam, we traversed valleys covered in mycelium and moss, finally arriving at the mountains where our destination was located.

However, the airship did not appear before them...

As far as the eye can see, there are only tiny purple mushrooms covering the entire hillside, like a wriggling carpet of fungi.

Roya stared at the spots on the surface of the small purple mushroom.

It is blue and purple in color, and can change color when excited by phlogiston vapor of different purities.

High purity phlogiston is blue.

Low purity phlogiston results in a purple color.

It operates on the same principle as the dot-matrix micro-differential engine carried by the Blue Dragonfly.

"So it's a biological material..."

Luo Ya muttered to himself, suddenly realizing something.

Amon stared at the compass in his hand, looking puzzled.

"Strange... The signal from the mother and offspring is very clear, indicating that the target is right beneath our feet."

In fact, the instant Luo Ya stepped onto the ground, his consciousness permeated the entire mountain from beneath his feet, and he had already discovered—

Inside the mountain, there was a huge cavity!

"If it's a very important difference engine, hiding the spacecraft inside a mountain is understandable."

This is how Roya explained it.

"How do you understand this? The airship comes equipped with its own excavator?"

Eamon muttered something.

Luo Ya casually offered a possible guess:

"It's also possible that the airship made an emergency landing in the valley and, in order to avoid being discovered by wild beasts or hunters, buried itself on the spot and disguised it as a hillside."

The red armored figure suddenly turned its head and stared at the blue dragonfly.

Inside the cockpit, only Amon could see the shock on Giles's face.

At the same time, Wendell, standing atop the mountain, slightly twitched his nostrils, reminding Roya:

"These purple mushrooms release hallucinogenic gas."

Fortunately, Roya had already sealed the cockpit in advance and was breathing through the internally circulated steam.

Upon hearing this, Giles immediately activated the armor's closed life support system.

Eamon covered his mouth.

Only Wendell turned around leisurely, seemingly unaffected by the pervasive colorless poisonous gas.

Just then!

A hoarse, metallic sound suddenly came from behind the two armored vehicles—

"They're inside the armor, they won't be affected. Shouldn't you be worried about yourself first? Especially someone like you whose soul is damaged."

Wendell remained indifferent and silent.

The red-armored figure slowly turned around.

Giles frowned.

He thought he had accidentally inhaled hallucinogenic mushroom fumes, which caused him to hallucinate.

At the same time, the miniature differential engine located in the central processing compartment of the Blue Dragonfly emitted a slight hum.

Luo Ya felt something was very strange.

He turned around, his gaze gradually freezing.

Within those contracting pupils, it seemed as if countless interlocking gears of fate were reflected.

—He had seen this person before!

I've seen more than just...