Guixu Relay Station, Forbidden Goods District.
The air here carried the scent of fermented rust, mixed with the charred stench of decaying skin from ancient gods. The stone road beneath their feet was wet, cold, and greasy, its cracks packed with Dark Red filth.
Chu Qing walked over it barefoot. Each time his toes gripped the ground, he could feel the Death Qi seeping from the Shattered Epoch drilling up through the soles of his feet and into the cracks of his bones.
The stalls on both sides were filled with contraband: broken Karma Law Chains, still-pulsing fragments of World Hearts, and even several sliced-thin tentacles of "Heaven."
"Master, those tin cans up ahead have been watching us for a long time."
Nangong Xue hurried two steps forward and pressed close behind Chu Qing's ear, lowering her voice. Her fingers gripped the Array Disk hidden within her sleeve, and her knuckles had turned bluish white from excessive force.
Chu Qing did not look back.
At an angle ahead of him, a group of beings blocked the road. They did not look human, but more like monsters pieced together from precise mechanical parts. Some had hydraulic arms cast from brass; others had transparent Liuli covers for chests, through which dense gears could be seen spinning at high speed.
They were people from the Mechanical Divine Domain.
The leading Mechanical Lifeform, designation X-7, had a faint hum issuing from his mechanical face. His left eye, composed of thirty-six layers of lenses, opened and closed at high speed as a laser as thin as a red hair swept back and forth across Chu Qing's body.
"Scanning... Unknown variable detected. Lifeform: carbon-based. Status assessment: trash."
X-7's voice held no fluctuation, cold as metal sheets scraping against one another. "Logical calculation: this target's survival rate