Wasteland Echoer.

Chapter 550 Promotion! Stage 3: Battle

“Era One: The great Creator will never seem to wake up from the nightmare, because the entire world was born in His dream. All the universes, time and space, matter, and dimensions continue to multiply and develop in the endless power brought by this nightmare, until the Supreme Being in a higher dimension that cannot be seen awakens the Creator. At that time, everything will disappear in an instant, as if it had never appeared.”

"Era Two: Before the Creator created the universe, he created two eternal and unchanging 'substances', one is 'life' and the other is 'death'. The Creator said, 'Let there be 'life', and there was 'life'; 'let there be 'death', and there was 'death'. Survival is the eternal and unchanging topic in the universe, and death is also the eternal and unchanging... ending in the universe." - "The Word of God".

The death of "the future" and Luo Nie did not bring much impact to Luo Nie. Apart from the fact that he was trapped in the "Silent Highlands" for thirty years, which eroded some of his human emotions, he actually did not really have much contact with these two crucial "destined people" for too long.

According to the script written by the Creator, he should indeed go on an expedition to the north with Luo Nie, who had gained the [personality], after the battle of "Silent Highlands", and fight against Ivan XXII, the initiator of this wasteland world, and then put an end to the Cruz Federal Committee's wishful thinking of "Universal Energy Evolution Platform Project", and head eastward to the territory of the Flame Empire before this land completely fell into the hands of the Lost and the "Careless People".

And now...

After an unknown amount of time, Wright rubbed his sore eyes and woke up from a short sleep.

He wiped off the yellow sand on the silver-white guard uniforms, supported his body which had recovered some of his physical strength and magical power, and looked around.

The sun above seemed much brighter, like midsummer, bringing a feeling of anxiety and heat.

The river not far away was filled with clear yet dangerous water, shimmering in the sun.

"Is everything...over?" Wright shook his head vigorously. After he regained consciousness, he found that the limbs that had been corroded by the decayed matter of "Pramini's Sorrow" had returned to normal, but there were only seven "Dark Touches" curled up and drooping on his back. The tentacle that was severed would probably not be able to grow back for the time being.

After observing for a while, Wright chose to run to the place where the mechanical body Luo Nie had just fought with "Pramini's Death". Now, there was nothing there except a pile of mechanical debris and rotten, rusty metal blocks.

"Logically, defeating the boss in the illusion should open a door to the outside world or a deeper realm. However, 'Pramini's Sorrow' is dead, and Luo Nie is also dead. Why hasn't the passage to the outside world appeared yet? Could it be that I missed some important clue?" Wright was facing a pile of scrap copper and iron that smelled of motor oil, holding his chin and thinking:
"Luo Nie said that in the prophecy of Aidari Sage... there is a sentence, 'The old mechas will create a new world'. If this sentence refers to this battle, the passage to the outside world should have been opened. But if it does not refer to the battle, then the clue... should be in these mechanical fragments."

As he spoke, Light mobilized the red magic power in his body and activated the "Burning Black Vision".

After a black ribbon-like gas swirled around his eyes for a few times, his already dark pupils quickly spread outward, and even the whites of his eyes turned pure black.

This time, Wright chose to let the power of "Burning Black Vision" act on both eyes, instead of retaining one eye to observe the real world as he was used to doing in the "future".

In Wright's view, the entire world is either completely illusory or completely real. There is no real existence between illusion and reality. If it is half real and half illusory, either a lot of important information will be left behind, or... it will be distorted... and go crazy.

Soon, the world in Wright's eyes turned completely black and white, as if he was observing through a black and white camera. The originally bright, endless blue sky now had an uneven dome.

A boundary appeared in the seemingly boundless world of yellow sand. Looking closely, it was a barrier made of light.

"It seems that this place has boundaries. Perhaps it is not a completely different dimension, but one of the closed spaces under the 'Red Fantasy Ruins'. In this case, a passage to the outside world must appear, but it should not be at the edge of the space, but at the core. The mechanical fragments in front of us have a strong breath of magic power, as well as traces of 'divinity' and 'antiquity'."

As Light analyzed, he was searching for something among the messy mechanical fragments. Soon, when he moved half of the broken mechanical head according to the information revealed by the "Burning Black World", a flower bud made of machinery appeared in front of it.

Legend has it that when the dragons were completely expelled to the dragon realm filled with blood and lava, humans who possessed the "wisdom" and "inspiration" sequence cores ushered in the "Steam Age" that the gods had never imagined. Creatures that relied on extraordinary powers, including dragons, strange beasts, vampires, monsters, etc., gradually lost the source of their power. They either turned to believe in the "ancient gods" or relied on weak magic to mingle in the human world and exist in the guise of humans.

According to the "Future Epic: Preface" by Aidari Sage, which has long been burned, after the advent of the steam world, machinery and all the supreme scientific things it creates will completely replace magic, and everything in nature will experience destruction brought about by humans.

All living things, including humans, will go through a painful process of destruction and then usher in a new reincarnation.

If, in the "painful process", we can find the "mechanical bud", it will prove that in this reincarnation, the Creator does not want complete destruction to come, and He has left a glimmer of hope for mankind and all life.

"Remaining... hope?" After reading the above words in the Central language carefully, Wright closed the "Burning Black Vision" and carefully observed the flower bud. It was small enough that Wright could hold it in one hand, but it looked so tough. In the stains of machinery, oil and blood, relying on the "nutrients" given by the yellow sand, it stood among the dead machines like a star hanging in the curtain of the universe, and its silver-white color was slightly reflecting the light of the sun.

In Wright's view, perhaps this is the meaning of "hope": no matter the long night and death, or the scorching heat and survival, even if decadence and ruin are the style of the whole world, fear and confusion are never far away, there will always be seedlings struggling to break through the ground, chanting hymns of courage and life.

Such a charming "mechanical bud" seemed to pierce Wright's indestructible spiritual strength in an instant. He unconsciously raised his dirty right hand and stretched out his index finger to touch its top.

But what he didn't expect was that when his body filled with red magic power came into contact with the flower bud, a blade instantly shot out from the flower bud and cut his finger.

Soon, countless hair-thin metal threads drilled into the wound like greedy leeches, sucking his blood with a "gurgling" sound.

Soon, the yellow sand began to boil. As far as the eye could see, the sun's light disappeared completely. Countless pure blue light beams rose from the ground one after another. The yellow sand turned into powder with a smell of rust and rose into the air, which happened to be the top area of ​​the entire space, revealing a hollow iron plate with a strong mechanical style hidden underground.

A few seconds later, countless sounds of gunfire and explosions, some real and some ethereal, came from afar. The originally quiet, precise and harmonious world turned into the edge of a battlefield.

"Was there a battle? Or did the Crusaders enter the 'Red Phantom Ruins'?" Wright guessed.

However, apart from a few exploding shells not far away and the rising mushroom cloud, the only answer he got was the red sky and the blue underground space.

At this moment, the "mechanical bud" seemed to have absorbed enough nutrients and pulled the metal wire out from Wright's fingers. After a disturbing sound of mechanical operation, the "bud" actually bloomed, emitting an extremely unreal, bright ball of light mixed with confusion and chaos.

Wright was afraid that the light ball would affect his vision, so he turned his head to the side, observed the changes in the flower bud with his peripheral vision, and waited for the light to fade away.

Fortunately, his judgment was correct. The light disappeared after a few seconds. When Wright turned his head and looked back, he found that the pile of mechanical fragments had turned into a pile of broken bones of various animals, emitting the stench of decay.

At the same time, under the influence of the strange illusion around, the petals that bloomed like an inward-curling flower only lasted for a few seconds before they all withered, forming a beating, mechanical heart.

"This is a heart made of machines..." Luo Nie's voice came from in front of Wright.

Wright looked up and saw Luo Nie's light blue shadow appear in front of him.

"Luo Nie?"

"Don't be surprised. I didn't mutate into a 'different monster', nor did I die. Just now, the Lord of Machinery responded to my call and told me that I would return to the realm of God. Because I was created by the Lord of Machinery based on the fate arranged by the Creator." "Luo Nie" said in a calm tone:
“I was born to help you, the [Orderer], ascend to the throne at this moment. All my existence, including my acquisition of [Personality], are meaningless embellishments. Even if I have never existed as a human, this heart will appear before you.

"It's called the 'Mechanical Heart of Hope', Light. As long as you take out the 'Eternal Red Key' I gave you and insert it into it, it will shed its mechanical shell along with the heart and become a real heart for you to eat. When you really advance to Sequence 3, the path hidden behind the confusion will appear."

"The path after confusion?" Wright glanced at the military backpack in his hand. After struggling for a while, he took out the "Eternal Red Key" and inserted it into the mechanical heart.

Click, click, click, click!
The mechanical shell fell off normally as Luo Nie said...

Half a minute later, Wright wiped away the remaining crimson liquid from the corners of his mouth and the tears from the corners of his eyes, and walked towards the road ahead that led to the deeper areas of the "Red Fantasy Ruins".

At the same time, a white sequence core was generated in his soul, and the white light brought by the battle appeared on the tattoo of irises and sunflowers intertwined on his right arm.

　Thank you for the monthly ticket that is the slowest to be voted in by this group. Your support is my motivation to update more.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)