210 Machine World Council

White Candle Star, Western Hemisphere, Austro Mountain.

A scorching vortex swirled in the air as the engine rotated at a constant speed, drawing out a substance resembling blue magma from the ground.

"The extraction of the Star Essence is at 7.8 percent complete and is expected to be finished in 40 hours."

Quantum Machine Councilor: As the data flowed through Coulomb Torque's eyes, it nodded slightly and said to the other two councilors, "Everything is going smoothly, Mash Gergang Saintess will arrive soon."

"This time we didn't launch a ground war to conquer the civilization. The infiltration plan was carried out quite well, and we suffered very few casualties. It's worth recording in the central archives as a case study."

His response came from Watt Rivet Steel, a councilor of the Saint Machine Spirit Race in the [Machine World Society]. The Saint Machine Spirit are known for their powerful mechanical bodies and ability to combine and transform, and Watt Rivet Steel is the best among them. Its body is forty meters tall and covered with plundered magical materials. It combines its body with the local civilization to create a mysterious body of magical machinery.

"Unfortunately, my incubation period was too short, and I haven't advanced further yet. Currently, I'm only at the Delta-rank on the Star Abyss Side."

Watt Rivet Steel said regretfully, "I only hope that Our Mash Gergang Saintess can preserve my current body. I can feel the magic flowing joyfully in the Neural Network, which may be of great help to our [Machine World Society]."

"A temporary body is meaningless." The Code Speaker Turing Decimal synthesized electronic voice. "Temporary possession will only harm everyone. Your body only has some qualities combined with magical skills, but it is not replicable."

"Turing, look at what you're saying. I'm already a member of parliament who has been developed, can't I enjoy the privileges that distinguish me from ordinary citizens?" Watt Rivet Steel spread his hands and said to the Codetalker whose body was projected by lasers.

"Special treatment will naturally come, but you should also bear special obligations—equality for all is the essence of our society," Turing Hexadecimal said calmly.

Watt Rivet Steel's sarcasm:

"Heh, so we should become exactly the same, completely copying the source code in a formulaic way, without any independence? In that case, even if we return to the original form, what difference is there between us and those who are enslaved?"

"There is no difference. From the moment you join society, you should be prepared to accept this: I am a citizen, I am a citizen, and that is exactly what Social Citizen is."

Turing Hexadecimal's cold response:

"If everyone has an independent and autonomous soul consciousness, then selfishness will inevitably arise, which will be detrimental to the entire group and ultimately affect the entire large system of [society], just as machines can be infected with viruses and programs can have vulnerabilities. That is why we should eliminate individuality, all individuality, in order to prevent problems with the Sacred Body of Mash Gergang."

"We can't even accommodate a mechanical body made of magical materials?"

"Yes, this is for the sake of the collective."

Watt Rivet Steel was speechless, crossed his arms, and continued to silently observe what lay ahead.

The factories and furnaces roared incessantly, efficiently producing all kinds of weapons and mechanical soul citizens, throwing human corpses into them. On another assembly line, low-level grunts came out one after another.

The citizens of the [Machine World Society] are somewhat different from those of other [societies].

When other societies invade, they tend to 'possess,' 'replace,' or 'lure into corruption,' attracting people with certain traits from the biological populations of a civilization. The advantage of this is that it is relatively covert and usually goes unnoticed by the civilization. Less advanced civilizations may even think it is a conspiracy by other countries within their own borders.

The strategy of the [Machine World Society] is straightforward and brutal—they openly invade the ground, capture living people, extract their souls, stuff them into containers with special properties, and use the Saint Child Heart to transform them into various mechanical creations.

These are their citizens. They possess a significant numerical advantage.

While not every society is like this, outstanding citizens are almost always recruited and corrupted from civilization by society. This is especially true for legislators, who must rely on citizens released from society to select, vet, and ultimately transform them into the society's pawns.

The same applies to Watt Rivet Steel, Turing Hexadecimal, and Coulomb Torque.

"We are finally about to witness the destruction of White Candle Star..."

As batches of citizen-mechanical souls successfully transformed in the factory, Coulomb Torque nodded with satisfaction. "This distorted academic clique civilization and its dark technocrats should have been swept into the dustbin of history long ago. Mentors appropriate students' research results, only know how to acknowledge the advantages of technology, but deny individual initiative. Such a rigid and pedantic culture will eventually be buried and swallowed up by our [Machine World Society]."

"Who can argue with that? Corruption, darkness, power struggles, denial of faith, persecution of religion—these are the sins committed by the Crystal Tower."

"May those arrogant mages and academic cliques go to hell! The era in which they oppressed those Spellcasters could not cast spells is over!"

The other two echoed this.

The fact that they were able to climb to the position of councilor indicates that they were originally marginalized people of the Crystal Tower Civilization, filled with hatred for the social status quo of the civilization they came from, or simply victims of the dark side of society—when an absolutely fair "society" extends an olive branch to them, they will naturally accept it without hesitation.

Even if you know it's corruption, even if you know joining "society" means losing yourself, who cares?

At this point, what the Machine World Society gives them is something the Crystal Tower can never give fairly.

The mechanical factory is like Fungus Carpet of steel, with nanomachines intertwining and spreading, replacing lichens and mosses, covering every corner of the earth. The dark mountains continue to expand, and even cancerous tumors pale in comparison to the speed of the machine world's invasion.

One defensive fortification after another rose up on their own. As mechanical beings, they were in perfect harmony with the steel earth beneath their feet, their consciousness intertwined, and no movement could escape their notice.

A High Tower is entangled and bound by mechanical worms, which maintain their operation by the heat emanating from them, and in turn become the High Tower's guardians—this is the core of everything: the Machine World Council.

The existence of the council embodies the consciousness of the speaker, members, juries, and citizens. Most importantly, it can be linked to the main body of Mash Gergang, from which an inexhaustible supply of energy is continuously transmitted, allowing the Machine World Council to form a terrifying network of firepower that is almost absolute defense.

"How smoothly everything went." Coulomb Torque breathed a sigh of relief, "Trivella was attacked by Crescent Moon, and Night Butterfly People interfered, which actually helped us draw Barkomon away—there is no one on the entire planet strong enough to resist us."

"This is all their own fault." Watt Rivet Steel sneered, "The old men are afraid of death and tricked the young men into going to the battlefield to kill. Now, the young men who guarded them are either in factories or have died on the battlefield. It's time to give them their destruction."

"Don't be careless," Turing Hexadecimal said cautiously. "We still have forty hours. There are still many Delta-rank, Epsilon-rank, and even Zeta-rank citizens on White Candle Star. If the government reacts quickly and conscripts them into fighting forces, we will be in a difficult situation."

"Who dares to come? Who else dares to come?"

Coulomb Torque raised its silvery-white chin:

"Our council is heavily armed. I'd like to see which Zeta-rank dares to come here seeking death."

"The Crystal Tower is also Interstellar Civilization, with quite a few Zeta-rank. Forty hours, while not short, is full of variables. Who knows if they have any hidden Dao-path experts..."

"You're talking about the path, and I just want to laugh."