Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

"There was a fight... but why..."

Ella murmured quietly, unable to help biting her thumb as she whispered to herself.

Whether it was the waves of artillery fire and shock waves before, or the flames and thick smoke rising into the sky now, they all indicated the tragic fighting situation in the city, and this situation was in no way within Ella Hepper's expectations - anyone who had learned about the area of ​​Twick would not be unaware of the reputation of "Wall of Erumu" and its unshakable glorious history. The more they understood its weight, the more impossible it would be to imagine the fact that "Wall of Erumu had fallen."

Of course, her voice was so soft and slow that it couldn't penetrate the wind to be heard by the other people.

"Luna, do you want to keep going?"

"Of course, there's no reason to stop here—" Lunicia cast her eyes on the construct in her arms, "Ms. Leah, where do you think we should go now?"

The direction of the artillery fire, the planned base of the Iron Leviathan, and the main battle area at the city gate, these three locations are all possible at the moment, but time will only allow Lunicia and her party to go to one of them. How to choose in order to avoid wasting precious time is the problem you have to face now.

"Don't call me by that honorific. It's so corny..." Leah Efayet pouted in dissatisfaction. "Why should I give you advice? After all, you are the ones making your own decisions. Just go wherever you want. Why are you asking me?"

"Even so..."

"But your life is in our hands now. We are all spiders on the same web. You have to follow us wherever we go. Don't forget such an important thing, okay?"

Ella came closer again and gave the "Arbitrator" a gentle and kind smile.

"Alright! That's enough! I got it!"

After repeatedly shaking his head, the "Arbitrator" began to yell as if he had given up on himself:

"If it's Sister Lusa, she will definitely run to the most lively place. The plague god you are looking for is also 100% waiting for the opportunity to rush into the city. No matter what you want to do, just go to Twick City!"

"Then go to Tweak! This way!"

So, the group of four changed direction and started running straight towards the towering city wall with thick smoke billowing out.

……

…………

........................

For this marching team, there is no difference between the dead and the living, even if some of them are just corpses driven by incomplete souls and resentment, while others are real living people. They are still "getting along in a friendly manner" for now - or it can be said that there is no option of "getting along unfriendly" between them.

Those who believed that the living and the dead should be separated, those who held the "pietists" in Lucy's church, those who felt uneasy about using undead creatures as an army, or those who simply had opinions or doubts about Alexis's actions... In the end, these people never appeared again, regardless of their status or responsibility. As a result, over time, the stupid and outspoken people disappeared automatically, and the ones left were either loyal and had no dissent, or smart people who knew what to say and what not to say.

Zombies and walking corpses walked at the front of the team. Even in Alexis Pentellier's eyes, there was no difference in status between the dead and the living. These rotten or half-rotten bodies did not have any value. They were stupid, slow and smelly, emitting a strong corpse stench. Every step they took would leave rotten water or fallen rotten meat on the ground. Their only value in this undead army was to become meat shields that were blown to pieces in a sudden attack; followed by skeletons, those things left after humans or sub-humans were completely decayed. They staggered with steps, and the equipment and weapons on their bodies fit their pale and thin bone frames very well: cheap, rusty and tattered. Compared with rotten corpses, they could at least be called a real army, able to deploy troops in battle arrays and execute orders.

Spears and flagpoles stood up densely from the square formation of skeletons. In addition to the fluttering red eagle flag with double claws and wings, there were many things inserted on it as embellishment: heads, half corpses, shaking internal organs, and torsos that were gnawed... Those were horrifying things in the eyes of ordinary people, but in the eyes of these beings, in the eyes of those zombies and skeletons, those were not femurs and rotten meat, but swords, crowns and treasures, shining brightly with golden light.

If you want to know where these "treasures" come from, look at the back of the team.

The ghouls crawled on the ground and walked on all fours, their mouthparts and claws were covered with wet bright red blood. They held unfinished food in their hands and chewed from time to time, or used their long tongues to shave off the remaining flesh between their teeth. The dark ghosts wandered in the sky, those beings full of hatred for the living, with green ghost lights shining in the place of their eyes. Most of them followed the large group in a scattered manner, while some gathered in groups, located between the dark "clouds". The ones they target are often living captives who are still screaming and in pieces. When the ghosts use their claws to tear apart the fresh flesh and blood to satisfy their sadistic desires, the remaining parts will be thrown to the front of the team and stuck on spears and flagpoles to spill blood. Death knights are few in number, but even so, the blood on the hands of each of them is thicker than that of any other undead individual. Every black corpse wearing heavy armor will have five or six hideous heads hanging around its waist as a badge of their loyalty and glory.

No matter which one it is, there is no doubt that it is an existence that will only frighten the living and make the living tremble.

As mentioned before, people who would question, express dissatisfaction, express confusion and anger about this phenomenon would have long been out of existence in "Legacy of Natya".

It is for this reason that those people, those taciturn soldiers and mages, all dressed in solemn yet ridiculous, blood-stained black robes, not only feel fear and disgust at the abomination and evil of their colleagues, but also do not express any opinions on what they are doing.

What is happening now goes beyond the scope of an act of war and turns into pure bloodbath.

The army pouring in from the main gate and the side gate did not seem to be going to engage in street fighting with the defenders and then occupy the city and bring it under the control of "Natya's Legacy" - no matter whether they were living or undead, after entering the city, they began to indiscriminately attack the streets: burning houses, killing everyone regardless of whether they were civilians or defenders, and flattening anything they could see.

Those who fell, those who died from being gnawed, bitten, chopped, pierced, burned, and corroded, no matter whether they were men or women, old or young, strong or weak, high or low in status, failed to get the rest they thought they would be able to rest in peace.

A mixture of dark green and pitch-black aura enveloped the entire city of Twick, and with the footsteps of a certain existence, its scope was expanding little by little. The corpses illuminated by this evil aura, no matter when they died, no matter whether they were intact or broken - began to tremble, struggle, and shake, and the corpses turned into undead. Skeletons spliced ​​together, zombies walked onto the streets, and ghosts crawled out of the incomplete corpses. Then, they eliminated the estrangement, dissatisfaction, hostility and opposition they had in life, and joined the march of the dead, the tide of the undead together like brothers and sisters.

In the center of this army that is expanding like a snowball is their lord.

Their lord, their leader, their king, their god, their everything, the cause of their death and their creator, Alexis Pentelier was floating, moving forward, carrying the tide of death forward.

This lich is only a nominal leader, but the de facto king, even though he has no royal blood and no claim to the Kingdom of Gunasalan. "Legacy of Natya" is nominally an equal organization, but in reality, status is determined by strength. Before anyone who can be called "royal orthodoxy" is brought to the fore, whoever has the greatest power will be the de facto leader, and will be the only and undisputed "regent" after the restoration of the country.

The living and dead around him were like honor guards. The dead were completely unaware, but the living would look worse from time to time - and not long after, they would stagger and fall to the ground. When they stood up again, they had already left the world of the living and joined the march of the dead. The death aura around the great lich was so strong that the living would quickly approach death as long as they breathed and moved within its range.

No matter who it is, they just accept this fact in silence.

With each step forward of the Archlich, its aura further covered the entire territory of Twek, and when it advanced to this place, the progress of the massacre also advanced to this place. During the Principality of Marie, Twek City had a population of more than 700,000 in its most prosperous period. Even though the population declined sharply due to economic recession, war and other reasons, there are still about 450,000 people living here today. But now, under the influence of the tide of the dead and the aura of the dead, more than 90% of the population has been transformed into blasphemous undead. It can be said that this is now just a dead city on the verge of destruction.

Getting a dead city, hundreds of thousands of skeletons, zombies and ghosts, does such a thing really make sense?

Can the glory of the Kingdom of Nasaran be restored by reducing the capital to ruins?

Who can give the answer to this question, and who should give the answer, is still unknown here - one thing is very clear, even those almost unconscious zombies can feel it.

The ground is shaking.

Shaking, trembling, this is not some kind of illusion, look at the ruins on the street, those charred wood blocks, those broken bricks and glass are all shaking, look at the ground, whether it is bricks, cement or pure land, they are all shaking and even cracking. What are those? Are they dark gaps caused by cracks? Or is it something else? Look there, cast your eyes into the deepest part, do you see it? Something curled and crawling. Do you see it? Something opening and closing. Do you see it? Something opening and blinking. Do you see it?

Did you hear it?

That is the call of the abyss, the abyss is singing.

There was no exclamation, no screaming, not even the sound of the earth tearing apart. The crack suddenly widened, and then countless dead souls and countless living people disappeared. Were they swallowed by something under the darkness? Or did they encounter something else, something more terrifying than death, disappearance, and wiping out existence, something that would drive even those broken and selfless souls crazy and seek destruction?

Unknown, unclear.

The army, united by fear, began to move because of fear. Even though they could not see where their enemies were and did not know what they were facing, they still tried in vain to move, wielding spears, claws, drawing swords from their waists, crawling, flying, preparing to cast spells... If there was no effect, what effect would there be? Rusty spears and swords, spells that corroded and weakened, powers that sucked energy and souls, these were just things that could have an effect on the enemy, no matter how serious the effect was - and where was the enemy, and what was the enemy?

Are those the cracks?

Or is it the song that fills the sky?

puff--

The sound arose from the chaotic army, inexplicable and indescribable. What kind of sound was that?

Puff, puff, puff————

One after another, more and more, clearer and clearer. What was that sound? This matter seemed to be no longer important. One after another, strange sounds came and went, interweaving into a strange and frightening rhythm, as if celebrating, welcoming, announcing the arrival of something, some existence.

Puff puff puff puff————————

Lively, wriggling tentacles burst out from the bodies of the zombies, each with many intertwined and stuck human faces, some laughing, some afraid, some angry, some sad, with deformed eyes, ears, mouths and noses, some intact and some dissolved, making incomprehensible and bizarre sounds; the bones on the skeletons proliferated uncontrollably, some became chaotically shaped, huge monsters, and began to attack everything around them indiscriminately, while others grew into trees made of intertwined bones, unable to move; the ghosts' heads exploded, and their bodies made purely of spiritual essence twitched chaotically, their heads cracked, their limbs twisted, and they began to tear at their fellow creatures around them like crazy, as if they wanted to use the spiritual essence they had torn off to make up for their own deficiencies...

What about those living people?

That falls into the realm of no one's attention.

No matter they died of madness or became deformed, no one would pay any attention to them. After all, here, they and their fellow undead were equal.

Chapter 28: Where Destiny Meets (Part 4)

"—"

What is that sound?

Unable to understand, the brain only came up with this conclusion after thinking, that is, "unable to understand". Unable to understand? Then listen again -

"————The first time I saw you was when I was 18 years old————"

Do you understand? Do you understand? No, right? Incomprehensible, right? No matter who you are, you will have such feedback. Except for a small number of existences - except for a very small number of hidden existences in this world who can understand the meaning, at least without any side effects, the majority of other life, inorganic matter, and artificial intelligence, I am afraid they will not understand what these words express.

If you want to ask why...

"——I'm so happy——I'm so happy——I'm so happy——I'm so happy——I'm so happy——"

Because knowledge itself refuses to be understood.

For living things, this concept is easy to understand. Some things are imprinted into genes over a long period of evolution, and finally form a historical trace rooted in the instincts of living things, such as the judgment of danger, the need for survival, what should be avoided, what is edible, which are the same kind, and which are enemies... This concept is not only applicable to living things, or in other words, the memory imprinted in genes is only one of countless forms for living things. For any existence that can gain intellect, the world itself has prepared some "please be sure to follow" rules for it.

——For example, I absolutely cannot understand this kind of talk.

"——the 1984 edition of the ...

The vibrating atmosphere is used to make sounds, and I don't know what the whole is preaching at this moment. Perhaps the content is ordinary, expressing one's own thoughts, or perhaps it is intended to communicate with the only existence that can remain safe and sound under this blasphemous language - the great lich Alexis. If it can be translated, it is just some plain words.

“——what is the meaning of this?——what is the meaning of this?——what is the meaning of this?——what is the meaning of this?——what is the meaning of this?——what is the meaning of this?——what is the meaning of this?——”

For example, the meaning of the syllables that are mixed together and cannot be understood or even distinguished by ears is "Alexis".

The content doesn’t matter.

There is only that language.

Language, as a carrier of meaning, is itself the most powerful poison in the world - as long as it is not understood, no problems will arise. On the contrary, if it is understood, enlightened, and known, it will be corroded, distorted, poisoned, and polluted. The "poison" lodged in the language itself will erode both the material and the spiritual, breaking the complete and the broken, and finally transforming into something that has no relationship with the original - that is, the same kind as the creator of this language.

Under the glow of the blood moon, the palace in the distance, the ancient and magnificent Gravenmoor Palace, seemed as fragile as a child's building blocks: the maze woven by trees and the soil beneath it were uncovered, and the ghosts hidden in it screamed and shrieked, beginning to welcome the most essential demise of their souls; the side hall was shattered into a floor of black bricks and tiles, and the charred bricks and wooden beams could no longer be seen in their original shape; stained glass and flying bridges were mixed together, and the sounds of breaking and cracking came one after another.

The long history ends here because there is no longer a carrier that can bear its weight.

The magnificent palace was torn in half from the center, and a dark slit appeared in the middle. All of this made the bright and beautiful royal courtyard deviate from its essence, that is, the residence of the royal family. If after these changes, the palace looked more like something else...

There is no doubt that it is "egg".

It split in the middle, scattering countless fragments. The inside was empty and some "eggs" had hatched.

Zombies with twisted flesh and blood, skeletons with overgrown bones, incomplete ghosts, fragmented knights, crazy humans, dead humans, those things that were contaminated by the whispers and something that leaked out of the cracks in the ground, now all stopped their movements, their flesh and blood were stretched, as if they had shed their bones, as if they had lost the supporting form, they seemed to be attracted by something - not an attraction of will, but a physical attraction, as if a hole was chiseled in a certain place in the world, a naked singularity was dug out - those deformed flesh and blood all rushed towards an invisible "point".

Spirits and spirits bit each other, flesh and blood dissolved into each other, bones were put together, armor and weapons were not spared, tens of thousands of individuals, now all lost the barriers between matter and soul, those powers that were born to maintain the existence of the form, now seemed very insignificant in front of the more majestic, more lofty, more majestic power, in addition to being dissolved, in addition to choosing to surrender and die, what other ways did they have, what other paths could they choose? So they melted, they intertwined, skin and bones stuck together, blood vessels and muscles stuck together, the torso formed a huge rotten sphere, quietly suspended in the air.

----

There seemed to be some sound coming from the center of the sphere.

Listen carefully, it is not words, but rather a sound that is more direct than words, easier to understand, and closer to the essence of this world.

——Plop——

Something was leaping with great force.

————Plop, plop, plop————

That’s right, that’s right, you understand, you must understand, no matter you are smart or stupid, no matter you know everything or you are blind and foolish, no matter you are higher than gods or lower than dust, no matter you are healthy, sick, disabled, adult, old, middle-aged, young, sensible, calm, passionate, crazy, mature, childish, pure, slow, agile, happy, painful, innocent, deep, strong, thin, you who understand, complex, male, female, you, you, you, you, you, you outside the screen, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you must have heard that voice, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you—————————

——Plop, plop, plop, plop, plop————————

————Plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop————

That! Is! A! Heartbeat!

——Pu La————————

Excessive beating will only lead to excessive results. A normal person's heart can beat between one and two times in a second. Even if there is no one other than the Great Lich Alexis who can hear the deafening heartbeat just now and therefore cannot complete the count, I can still tell you the conclusion directly here. It is very simple. The heart that has never been seen by anyone beat more than 3.15576 billion times in one second. A full hundred years of heartbeats were completed in ten seconds. The result is obvious, that is, explosion.

Blood splattered all over the sky. Not all of it was bright red, but mostly mixed with rotten black and yellow, and even sickly green. The only liquid that could be called blood was dispersed in the violent explosion, and after that, it turned into a blood rain that covered the entire city of Twick.

The blood rain under the blood moon splashed drop by drop on the remaining dead, splashing on the pale and fleshless skull of Alexis Pentellier, and slowly rolled down the plaque nailed to the edge of the eye socket, which was engraved with his name and the year of his life and death.

The winter wind stopped here, the battle ceased for no reason, the flames slowly died down, the undead no longer wailed, and the great lich remained silent, but it was the only unchanging existence in this absurd silence: its silence did not come from suppressed actions, but it simply chose to be silent. It did not speak, and had never issued any orders in words since the beginning of the war. Was this a kind of distrust, or was it an absolute trust in the survivors, so that it was sure that even without the existence of words, those living and dead could accurately and undoubtedly execute the orders it wanted to execute?

It remained silent. The Great Lich neither despised nor took seriously what was happening now. So, what was it thinking?

——It doesn’t think about anything.

The plan cannot be disrupted, the expectation cannot be overturned, no matter what the reason. Therefore, the chaos of the legion, the death of the subordinates, the pouring of blood, these are not reasons for it to stop. Enemy? Where did the enemy come from? As long as it doesn't appear, no matter how loud it demonstrates, no matter what seemingly great speech it makes, as long as it hasn't attacked, it is equivalent to non-existence. It doesn't exist, so how can it be stopped by something that doesn't exist?

So, who stopped?

What kind of behavior is stopping? Stopping is an act that interferes with the predetermined plan. What kind of behavior is it to interfere with the predetermined plan? Interfering with the predetermined plan is equivalent to betrayal. What kind of punishment should the betrayer be punished with? The betrayer should die. The answer was quickly obtained, and the lich took a step forward.

—Puff, gurgle, puff—

Several human mages and a death knight who were personal guards and ceremonial soldiers were now confused by the sudden change, so they stopped and were firmly pressed to the ground by the aura of the dead that was as solid as substance. They were pressed into a shapeless meat pie made of a mixture of flesh and scrap iron, which quickly rotted and dissipated into a pool of dark green juice.

Let's move forward! Move forward! No matter what is waiting ahead, unknown terror or something else, it is now completely irrelevant to the soldiers of "Natya's Legacy". What's the unknown? What is the ending more terrifying than death? As long as you don't understand it, it's equivalent to non-existence. If you stop, you will just die, die at the hands of your leader, so why not keep moving forward, forward, forward -

"Stop. Let's go ahead and do this. Come on, get down from here."

The language was so chaotic, like noise, but for the first time its meaning was understood by people.

【Stop】.

Additional meanings are filtered out, and what remains is the most direct content it really wants to express.

After the voice stopped, those who were still moving forward, except for the great lich Alexis, all had their legs and feet cut off from the knees. Even the wandering souls flying in the sky were no exception, losing the part below the knees and then crashing to the ground. Falling to the ground and falling down were not the end. The spiritual light of the dead quickly corroded the soldiers who disobeyed orders into a pile of pus, and the severed legs and feet began to deform at a speed visible to the naked eye. The flesh and blood split into eight equal petals, stretched and squirmed, and began to crawl like an octopus.

This is the result of the influence of both sides at the same time.

In the sky above the place originally called Gravenmore Palace, a blood mist that was a mixture of black, green, dark yellow and more scarlet was slowly dissipating, eventually revealing something that was born after the heartbeat, something that was born from the interweaving of flesh and blood, and something that was born when the blood rained.

It really makes people wonder - such a huge existence, which is made up of more than one million kilograms of flesh, blood, spirit and metal, and is born in a cycle of one thousand years, is it so small?

If it were to be described as tiny, it would probably be a bit of an exaggeration. After all, it was more than two meters tall and was comparable to the gorgeously dressed giant lich below. The word tiny would never have to apply.

But no matter what, compared to one million kilograms of nutrients, that thing that looks like a bunch of tentacles entangled into a body, roughly similar to the human body, with luxurious chains woven with gold gems inlaid all over the body, holding a scepter forged from blood, flesh, bones, eyeballs and pure gold, with human facial features all over the body, those chaotic eyes, ears, mouth and nose, the place where the face should be is empty, with only a dark cavity, it is really impossible to feel an oppression beyond imagination at a glance -

puff.

A simple, unadorned single syllable.