Witch Redemption

Furthermore, since witches do not possess magic, magical flight is an even greater dream.

Perhaps the only word to describe a witch with a maxed-out spellbook is "exquisite".

That is, a terrestrial immortal.

Standing on the ground, tall and upright, is enough to confront any god.

So it's really a pity at this stage. Li Lan can't fly, and she doesn't want to jump down because she's afraid of the pain. So she can only keep going down step by step and continue to waste time.

Soon, he came to a fork in the road where he could choose a path. After thinking for a moment, driven by intense curiosity, he raised the Libra Cross Greatsword in his hand and pried open the tightly closed door of the hut, trying to see what was inside.

Normally, the first thing to do is ask, "Is anyone home?"

Unfortunately, there was no sign of any living person in this godforsaken place, so Li Lan just went ahead and came anyway. With a simple "click," the door opened.

The first thing that hit you was a pungent, putrid smell.

Next, a large amount of drifting dust comes into view. Beyond the hazy dust, you can see neatly arranged simple tables and chairs, small bookshelves crammed with books, and a dark red desk with strange scratches and damaged books piled up haphazardly.

Finally, Li Lan's gaze settled on the innermost part, on a low bed beneath a murky window, where a human skeleton lay quietly.

He was roughly 1.2 meters tall, with a bone structure similar to humans. The difference was that his skull had a natural hole in the forehead, which seemed to be the creature's third eye. Furthermore, judging from his toe and finger bones, each of his hands and feet had an extra finger compared to a normal human.

"This is... the Machine Engineer race?"

Li Lan's imagination was insufficient; this skeleton alone was not enough to imagine what the ancient machine-craft race actually looked like.

However, judging from their height, if they are indeed adults, then the Machine Engineers could perhaps be classified as a type of dwarf.

"Well, don't let their petite frame fool you. The real machine race is much fiercer than you imagine. Their combat power is a level above that of the dwarves."

Black-haired Yu Hui casually offered a few words of explanation.

Her gaze was more focused on a figure lying next to the skeleton than on the skeleton itself.

"A living person?"

Li Lan also noticed the figure. Judging from the back view with a black ponytail and the gray-blue dress she was wearing, she looked like a normal human girl.

"No, why don't you take a look and you'll see?"

Yu Hui, with his black hair, gestured for Li Lan to go over and check. The strange smile on his lips gradually became arrogant, suggesting that he was planning some kind of prank.

Li Lan didn't think much of it and took a few steps forward.

"My goodness!"

In that instant, as if sensing danger, the figure suddenly twisted its head, turning it 180 degrees to reveal a stunning appearance.

On that rusty face, where human features should have been, were all black holes. Furthermore, the cheeks of this creature were densely covered with numerous iron pipes, making it look like a hideous and terrifying creature.

The astonishing head merely turned behind its back, without making any further moves, but the intense killing intent that erupted at that moment was extremely real, almost tangible.

Li Lan had been through countless battles and seen all sorts of dangerous places. But the situation he just experienced still made him instinctively raise his sword to defend himself, and cold sweat suddenly broke out on his forehead, as if he were hallucinating that he was about to be killed.

"what?"

It's obvious that this thing is inanimate, but it's terrifying.

“Machine Elf, the most prized weapon of war of the Machine Elf race,” Black-haired Yu Hui quickly explained, feeling quite satisfied with Li Lan's startled reaction. “Wait, let me think… probably around ten thousand years ago, during the age of the gods…”

Black-haired Yu Hui and Leviathan have revealed more than once that the ancient mythological era was an era filled with bloodshed and barbarity, and most of the lower intelligent beings under the rule of the gods were like ants.

Enlightened deities such as the goddess of dawn, the goddess of space, the goddess of the underworld, and the feathered god are extremely rare. Most deities prefer to reveal their true forms and rule everything with fear.

Therefore, when all the ancient creators want to play a new game of true godhood and elevate all lower intelligent beings to power, they must eliminate all the top rulers.

Without a doubt, in the ancient mythological era, the machine race of the Machine Kingdom was one of the targets that had to be eliminated, and their strength was comparable to that of the dragon race of today.

According to Hei Fa Yu Hui's explanation, the Mechanic Goddess of the Mechanic Kingdom is one of the few enlightened goddesses, extremely protective of her own. Her Mechanic race is basically loyal only to this goddess and ignores the true god behind her, the Dream Witch. Furthermore, this race possesses an absurdly aggressive nature, which can be understood as the fascists in Li Lan's mind, adhering to militarism.

On the eve of the prophesied day, the space goddess Chronos excluded the machine goddess and refused to cooperate with her, mainly because the machine kingdom valued conquering the world more than the destruction of the world.

Why is there only one mechanical engineering nation in the southern continent?

That's because the other goddesses and their corresponding races had long been wiped out by the Machine Kingdom. This race, overflowing with a sense of superiority, disdained to cooperate with other races.

"However, the Machine Race does have the confidence to challenge the ancient creators and other mythical races. This race is extremely powerful!"

Black-haired Yu Hui gradually became immersed in his past memories.

She mentioned that every mechanic race creates their own mechanic spirit after their coming-of-age ceremony. This mechanic spirit will accompany its master for life, until the moment the master dies.

The mechanical spirits can take many forms, from swords and spears to powerful beasts crawling on the ground, but most often they are humanoid monsters like the ones they see now.

It's worth mentioning that those of the Machine Engineer race are all skilled in a special technique called "card technology." Black-haired Yuuki didn't know the principles behind this technology, only that the Machine Engineer race, in addition to their superior physical abilities, could also create unique cards from their magic, spells, and swordsmanship.

The mechanical spirits they carry are the users of the cards, acting as amplifiers of magical power, making them the ultimate weapons of war for the mechanical race.

"I don't know the specifics. At the time, I only heard various rumors in the Eastern Continent and did not witness the Machine Race taking action."

Because on the eve of the end of the mythological era, all the ancient creators were outmaneuvered by a guy named "Nyarlathotep" and were eventually eliminated.

The first True God Game ended in victory for the creator of chaos, Nyarlathotep, and the "Witch Summoning," which emerged at the end of the first True God Game, became the catalyst for the second True God Game.

However, before the second True God Game begins, all unstable factors from the mythological era must be eradicated.

The murderous intent of the ancient creator was the true cause of the goddess of mechanics leading the people in rebellion, and their rebellion ultimately succeeded.

Ihydra, the dream witch and creator of the goddess of mechanics, became the first and only unfortunate true god to be betrayed by his own creation.

The death of the Dream Witch's avatar caused her true form to lose all prestige and become a laughing stock among many true gods. This enraged the true god, who broke the rules of the True God Game and descended to the mortal realm in his true form to completely annihilate all the Machine Clan.

The true God cannot be challenged!

Whether in ancient times or in this era, to live better, one must act within certain rules, rather than mindlessly provoking various creator entities.

"In short, it was a joke of the times, and also a tragedy of the times."

Black-haired Yu Hui doesn't pity any creatures from ancient times. To them, creatures are basically divided into two types: trash and toys.

"I see. So this mechanical spirit can still function?" Li Lan asked. He personally wasn't interested in the past of the dead; he just wanted to know a little.

"No, all machine spirits are loyal to their masters, and they carry a portion of their original master's soul power. Furthermore, their activities also consume energy. The reason this guy was still able to move just now was probably because your approach triggered its instincts, causing it to exhaust its last bit of energy to attack you."

"Oh, right, the Mechanical Wizard actually has two modes: one is virtualization, and the other is physicalization, which can be converted between each other."

It feels similar to some kind of thing that can "smash Warudo".

Li Lan was quite interested for a moment, "Is it possible to get your hands on this technology?"

"I don't know." Black-haired Yu Hui waved his hand.

Li Lan pondered for a moment, then glanced at the large number of books beside him. He quietly walked over and said, "Let's stay here for a while and see if we can get some valuable intelligence."

Chapter 9 The Holy Land of Mazina

Li Lan spent three whole days in this room filled with the dead, finally managing to read through most of the books and gain a general understanding of the mechanical kingdom.

It must be said that half of the books here lack a clear historical period, and what they contain are basically odes to the goddess of mechanics, offering little in terms of educational value. The remaining half of the books, while still useful for reference, are equally dry and uninteresting.

"Militaryism?"

The mechanics are highly aggressive and threatening. Although they are small in stature, each of them is brave and skilled in combat and is a fitness enthusiast.

All citizens belonging to the Machine Nation are instilled from childhood with the concepts of loyalty to the nation and the Goddess of Machines. Anyone whose thinking is flawed must undergo "thought correction" by a special envoy from the Machine Church. Those citizens who cannot be corrected, regardless of age, will be punished according to the Machine Nation's constitution.

Furthermore, almost all members of the Machinist race are extreme racists, possessing an almost unbreakable sense of superiority over their own race. Moreover, various legal provisions stipulate that the Machinist race must maintain a high degree of internal unity, down to every aspect of daily life.

As for external relations, those who are not of our kind will surely have different intentions.

Problems that can be solved with slaughter are never met with loud complaints from the Machine Race. This is the real reason why the Machine Race struck fear into the hearts of many intelligent beings in ancient times. Other nations might wage war with empty words, but when the Machine Race calls for war, it is always a matter of total mobilization, a fight to the death.

This warlike nation, with its various military merit systems, has never been a pushover. In ancient times, it even required the combined efforts of several major powers from other continents to suppress it and keep it in check for a while.

According to Li Lan's understanding, this ghost country might be a combination of Spartacus and Fascism, with an actual combat power that is extremely strong. Even if it were to challenge the true creator, it would never back down an inch.

Reasoning doesn't work. Perhaps only force can make this bizarre country back down a little. In the end, it will betray its creator and cause the entire population to be wiped out. It can be said that it died a worthy death and did not die unjustly.

Even Li Lan, after reading these books, felt that it was fortunate that such a country was destroyed.

Upon closer reflection, the main reason why the Southern Continent's Mechanical Kingdom is the only one that cannot obtain the witch's summoning power is that it was destroyed.

If this country hadn't been destroyed, and some subspecies of descendants had actually survived, then this country's method of using witch summoning would definitely not be much better than that of other superpowers in this world.

Consider the desolate ancient kingdom; all it took was the flesh and blood of witches, and the summoned witches were slaughtered on the very first day. If any of the subspecies survived in the Machine Kingdom, based on historical accounts, the treatment of witches would likely be even more extreme.

Does a country in this world really exist that treats witches kindly?

Li Lan didn't know, at least he had never seen one so far. Even on his daily journeys, he rarely encountered any local residents who treated witches kindly.

Anyway, after watching the whole thing, Li Lan had only one feeling: it's good that this country died!

In addition to gaining a general understanding of the history of the Machine Kingdom, Li Lan also found a book introducing the geography of the Machine Kingdom's territory. According to the book, their current location is on the southern continent, right in the holy land of the Mechanical City.

“The southern continent is the smallest of the five continents, but it’s not that small, especially with only one superpower,” Li Lan muttered to herself, pointing to the middle of the map. “If we want to leave, we have to go in this direction. Going from here will inevitably take us through the United Kingdom of Kazan, and we might even have to go around it in the Kingdom of Ross. That’s not good news.”

Li Lan hadn't returned to this world for over ten years, but he still had a pretty good idea of ​​what the Kazan United Kingdom and the Ross Kingdom were.

Although he is already a god-level being, he has left many of his powerful trump cards with the Dark Kingdom. At this stage, he is alone and might run into trouble if he rashly passes through these two countries.

"Headache!"

The Mechanical Maze of the Southern Continent is located in the central area and is completely surrounded by the Monster Zone, which is more than ten times the size of the Mechanical Maze.

Since Li Lan currently knows absolutely nothing about this monster-infested area, she has no idea how much risk she would have to bear traversing this vast monster-infested region. If the monster-infested areas of this godforsaken place were easy to navigate, then for tens of thousands of years, other superpowers from other continents wouldn't have completely severed ties with this place, never to interact again.

"Alright, we'll consider this later."

The land where the Mechanical Kingdom is located is called the Mechanical Maze. As the name suggests, wherever the Machine Workers go, they create "castles" made of mechanical structures and gears. These "castles" are the power source for the operation of the national machine, and each member of the Machine Workers is a small part that drives the operation of the machine gears.

The location where Li Lan had just woken up was actually in the inner part of the Mechanical City. Combined with the mythical era war mentioned by Hei Fa Yu Hui, it can be deduced that more than 90% of the territory of the entire Mechanical City has been reduced to ruins.

The remaining less than 10% of the area has long lost its former glory, leaving only the devastation of the mechanics' clan after their annihilation.

"I see. The place we are in now is the capital of the Mechanic Kingdom, the Holy Land of Machina. This place was once the most prosperous area of ​​the Mechanic Kingdom and the location of the Mechanic Goddess's Temple of Machinery."

The entire outer perimeter of the holy land of Machina is isolated by a long, mechanical wall, forming a large protective barrier with absolute defensive capabilities. Even a true god-level being would not be able to break through this barrier.

Inside the sacred site of Metzina, a massive underground city was constructed by digging 2,500 meters down, along with the sacred mechanical temple of the goddess of mechanics and the towering tower that reaches the heavens.

According to the book, the ancient sacred site of Metzina was home to the towering temple of the goddess of mechanics, which stood thousands of meters tall. Surrounding this tower were sixteen auxiliary temples, equally soaring into the clouds, like stars surrounding the moon.

Unfortunately, what Li Lan sees now is the state after it has been "ruined" or "ravaged," and those towering machine shops are nowhere to be seen.

It's hard to imagine just how outrageous the arrival of the Dream Witch in her true form was, that she could instantly annihilate the Machinecraft Clan and directly destroy more than 90% of the Machinecraft Kingdom's territory—it was terrifying.

However, the so-called history, culture, and geography only provided a rough understanding of a destroyed ancient country. What Li Lan was more interested in was the country's power system and what exactly the so-called mechanical spirits were.