Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 694 Interrogation and Decryption

A set of prosthetic components equipped with an alchemical microphone was urgently delivered, and Arturo quickly and skillfully installed it into the vessel that already contained the winged soul.

The brass-colored metal skull trembled rhythmically, its dark eye sockets flickering with soul fire, as if it were enduring unimaginable torment.

Harvey, who was lying to the side, suddenly opened his eyes, stood up nimbly, and smiled, "Its soul has been severed from its main consciousness... I used the power of the rules that control the core to forcibly establish a shared perception with it. Now we can start communicating with it."

After saying that, he walked over to the metal skull, raised his hand, and gently tapped his bald head with his finger.

The skull immediately emitted a chilling sound of teeth grinding, then opened its mouth to its limit again, letting out a hoarse and long roar.

“Lowly…exiled!”

A deep, husky voice came from the alchemy transmitter, causing everyone present to tense up.

"We will... reclaim the stolen core of our heritage! And you... will pay the price of your entire race's annihilation!"

Although they had learned this truth from other historical secrets, when a living alien said it himself... it still made most of the people present gasp.

They were indeed after the so-called fragments of inheritance, and the human race was regarded as exiles and bandits in their eyes.

Harvey's expression was not surprised, and he spoke in a calm tone: "Lowly? In the battle that broke out in the icy sea not long ago, you were completely defeated by us... defeated by the exiles you speak of."

He paused, then laughed with utter contempt. "Does this mean you're not even as good as lowly exiles?"

“That’s because of the Inheritance Core… You must have used the Inheritance Core to wield such power.” The winged being seemed provoked by Harvey’s words, momentarily confused and incoherent. “No! We will not fail… We are fully prepared…”

Harvey astutely discerned valuable clues from the incoherent nature of the man's words. Taking advantage of the man's confusion, he planned to press him relentlessly, leaving him no time to think or resist.

"Preparations? What preparations have you made? More troops? Or more powerful weapons?"

"Hmph... Ordinary individuals are just worthless consumables... Of course, it's the more powerful evolved beings!" The winged being seemed to immediately regain his composure as soon as he uttered the words, realizing that his weakness had been exploited.

Immediately, the magical runes on the skull's surface dimmed again, no longer as bright as before.

It clearly realized something... and decided to resist interrogation.

Harvey, however, had no intention of letting him succeed again. He tapped the metal skull with his finger once more... The control core continued to exert pressure on his soul, causing the winged being to finally let out a painful howl.

Although they achieved sensory sharing through the control core, the core could only make their sensory thinking as synchronized as possible, barely acting as a two-way simultaneous translator... But after all, they are two groups with completely different evolutionary histories, and their language communication always has great differences. Even the most common word definitions may not express the same meaning.

Therefore, the "evolvers" mentioned by the winged beings do not necessarily refer to their ever-emerging bizarre units.

The interrogation lasted for about a minute before Harvey stopped and pressed on, "Are the floating islands the containers of your main consciousness? Does the evolution of ordinary individuals depend entirely on them? How many more floating islands are hidden beneath the icy sea?" The suppression and torment suffered on the soul level seemed to make the winged beings feel unbearable pain, and even the skull carriers made their teeth chatter.

"You lowly...exile, don't even think about getting any information or news from me!"

"What we are seeing now is merely... the vanguard of our army. When the true consciousness descends... you will understand what... doomsday truly means!"

Harvey shook his head helplessly. The winged being, having just undergone a soul transfer, was still in a vulnerable stage of mental confusion. The more incoherent its speech, the more valuable information could be extracted from it... But now it had clearly stabilized, and even with repeated torture and coercion, it was unwilling to reveal too much.

But these gains were enough to satisfy Harvey... At least for now, it could finally be proven that the alien race they called the Demon Lizardmen were intelligent life forms with souls, emotions, and independent thinking abilities just like humans, rather than killing machines completely controlled by the group's main consciousness.

Seeing that the winged being remained unresponsive to further interrogation, Harvey decisively severed the connection between them, waving his hand at the magic shield and saying, "It's worthless now, take it and get rid of it..."

……

The alchemical vessel, whose soul core had been crushed, was quickly transported away, and everyone returned to the lower-level lounge with Harvey.

As soon as he sat down and looked around, he noticed that everyone's expressions were unusually solemn. They were all clearly aware of the importance of the information they had inadvertently obtained behind this soul-searching question.

Harvey coughed lightly, trying to sound relaxed, and said, "First of all, this brief interrogation has confirmed an important fact... the two fragments of inheritance, Control and Rebirth, were indeed stolen by our people from the Demon Lizardmen."

This is the only reason why the other side would choose to launch a full-scale invasion and provoke a major war.

"Secondly, it also proves that... the fragments of inheritance possess great power, which will mislead these alien races into believing that our current strength is achieved by relying on the power of the fragments of inheritance."

The problem is that it is not a complete whole at present... but has been completely divided into twelve fragments, lost and scattered in completely unknown places. The descendants of the tribal chief who was originally responsible for its safekeeping have long been wiped out at the end of the Dragon War. Trying to find any clues hidden in the fragments in the ruins of history is no different from finding a needle in a haystack.

Salas frowned and pondered, "Let's not gather all the fragments yet. Even with just the two that His Majesty currently possesses... we haven't fully explored their uses and properties. It will take the Church even longer to obtain the newborn fragments. After hundreds of years of research, they have only gained very little."

Harvey nodded and said, "So we can only temporarily focus on the impending crisis..."

According to the Winged Ones, ordinary individual Demon Lizardmen... that is, Black Lizard Warriors who only possess the ability to manipulate Black Water, are merely worthless expendables in their tribal conception. Only those beings called "Evolvers" can be considered high-ranking.

Dawson scoffed, "Clearly, its attitude shows that it considers itself one of the [Evolvers] as well."

If the Red Lizardman, who can only control red light and lightning, is considered the lowest-level evolved being, then the Winged One, who possesses both black water and red light control talents and can also control flight... should at least be considered a mid-level evolved being.

After all, it keeps claiming that above it... there really is a leader-level being called the Main Consciousness.

But it has not yet truly descended, revealing its true face and strength to the human race!

(End of this chapter)