Ruins Colossus (23)

The swarm had been drawn here by the highly toxic Origin Matter and psionic energy. The whirring of their wings was shrill beyond measure, piercing straight into the heart and making calm thought impossible. The masses of black mist they carried were even more poisonous, capable of making skin rot away with ease.

Had the special operations unit and the Machina Church not already worn gas masks and applied protective skin coatings, ninety percent of the team would have died from that single assault.

"What kind of insects are those?"

The battalion commander reached out and caught one. It was a monstrous insect resembling a fusion of a moth and dragonfly, its exterior covered in uneven gray-black metal scales. Its wings rubbing against those scales produced that piercing buzz which resonated with psionic energy. Yet beneath the scales, its head was blue-green and red, gleaming with an oily sheen, while its tail had a reusable venomous stinger like that of a killer bee.

Crushing the strange insect in his hand, the battalion commander discovered in astonishment that it was not yet dead—the creature's insides were a bizarre corrosive gelatinous mass, with its organs floating within. Crushing its shell could not kill it immediately; it had to be treated with fire, alkali, or salt.

"Buzzz..."

The swarm continued to crash forward, shaking the passage with unstoppable momentum. Their scales gleamed, their stingers were razor-sharp and menacing, and their shrill cries struck terror into the heart. They were practically perfect weapons of war. Wherever they passed, they swept through like a flood, making everyone want only to retreat and evade them.

The Blazing Flame Lands soldiers who had first made contact had already opened fire, muzzle flashes blazing.

"Ahhh!!"

"Help!"

But it had little effect. The sound and flash of gunfire instead attracted the swarm. The first two soldiers to fire were drowned beneath the gathered insects. When the insects dispersed, their bodies were riddled with holes, and even their mangled flesh was packed with dense clusters of eggs and larvae.

—The swarm nested inside the bodies of creatures they killed, using them as nourishment for their young!

Left with no choice, the battalion commander could only meet them with cold weapons. He drew his sword and drove wind pressure through it, slashing at the swarm amid ringing metallic cries.

Several constantly spinning wind blades, like cutting discs, swept forward, slicing and crushing great numbers of the strange insects—the Scale-Armored Mothflies were not particularly tough. With the strength of Terrans, a single sword stroke could destroy quite a few of them.

This gave the other soldiers an idea. At once, the sounds of blades chopping through the black mist rang out without cease as all manner of martial techniques struck at the swarm. Amid surging shockwaves, corpses rained down one after another.

At the same time, the traps were detonated.

Boom!

A violent explosion erupted, echoing through the passage like thunder. Rubble and shockwaves surged back and forth through the relatively narrow space, while the shaped explosive charges formed a wall of high-temperature air that directly cut off the still-rushing poisonous black mist and even drove it back.

The psionic shock blast also took effect. Even the Blazing Flame Lands soldiers who had not been its primary targets felt, after a burst of blue light, as though their brains had been struck by a heavy fist. Their five senses vanished for an instant, their ears filled with a droning roar, and they could hear nothing at all.

On the broad surface, the swarm could have scattered to evade the shockwaves and psionic shock blasts. But in the underground ruins, there was nowhere for them to flee. They could only be burned to ash or fall like raindrops. In a mere instant, more than half of the once-dense swarm had perished, and the pitch-black darkness thinned considerably as well.

"Buzzz..."

But before the people of the Blazing Flame Lands could breathe a sigh of relief, another shrill beating of wings came from the distant passage. The black mist thickened once more, and everyone's expressions changed drastically.

"What exactly is up ahead? Are they impossible to kill off?"

In response, the Machina Church had no choice but to reveal one of its trump cards. The Sister removed a box from the center of her chest and opened it. A beam of red light shot onto the ground, swiftly condensing into a massive machine gun as tall as a person.

The Sister easily lifted the enormous machine gun one-handed. She was plainly heavier than the gun itself.

—The Iron Sisters of the Machina Church all had bodily modification rates exceeding eighty percent... Rather than humans, they were better described as armored shells carrying human brains!

Buzzz...

The massive machine gun began to spin and warm up, while the Sister displayed her inherited ability—scorching, fiery-red dust flowed into the machine gun, condensing into bullets that were half-real and half-illusory.

The Machina Church's unique True Form inheritance, Heavy Assault Trooper, could form high-explosive bullets anytime and anywhere. Even without logistical support, one person could seize an enemy position.

The small box she had taken out earlier was precisely the technology the Machina Church had excavated from a Pre-Epoch Civilization life ruins only within the last ten years: the Aether Matter Converter. Through specific inscriptions, it could turn designated objects into aether and Origin Matter, storing them in corresponding storage boxes.

It was said that this technology had been the core of the Pre-Epoch Civilization's Ascension Project... In other words, it could transform human flesh into aether as well, reducing the burden of ascension and allowing more people to ascend at once.

The massive machine gun finished warming up, then instantly unleashed a storm of flames that swept through the entire passage—the blazing breath incinerated nearly all the Scale-Armored Mothflies in an instant.

Although part of the swarm turned to surround the Sister, the insects discovered only after stinging and biting that beneath her loose clerical robe was not soft flesh, but solid steel... The Sisters of the Sleepless Eye—or rather, the core members of the Machina Church—were all required to undergo special bodily modifications. Apart from the flesh retained to house Origin Matter structures, nearly every part of their bodies was replaced with steel.

Mere stingers could not pierce the Sister's outer armor. They could only be scorched to ash by the cooling streams blasting from her body's heat vents.

Forward

At this moment, having entered combat mode, the Sister's true voice sounded. It was a flat electronic tone without the slightest emotion or inflection. "There should be a nest for these strange insects ahead. If we wish to continue exploring, we must eradicate it!"

The massive machine gun continued spinning and firing, only slowly coming to a halt after crimson flames had swallowed everything.

"Move!"

Nearly all the insects had been exterminated. After a brief reorganization, the group immediately moved forward under the battalion commander's orders.

Further ahead, the passage gradually lost all traces of humanity... Before them lay a rift valley. Water flowing down from above the rift had formed small waterfalls that roared through this place. Whether it had always been so or whether geological changes over the millennia had altered it, there were indeed many black metal nests here, like beehives. Numerous Scale-Armored Mothflies whose lower bodies had not yet fully hardened were crawling out from the nest openings, while the water mist kicked up by the waterfalls was incubated into black fog by the poisonous water flowing from the nests.

The monks began taking samples. Once the sampling was complete, the nests were swiftly destroyed, and the black mist was burned away by flames.

"Is this really the center of the ruins?"

The battalion commander grew increasingly uneasy. With the swarm eliminated, the entire cavern was unnaturally quiet apart from the sounds made by their team. He could hear the gentle murmur of water in the distance; there should have been a small river ahead, formed from streams seeping down from above the rift valley.

This should have been a damp, freezing environment, but thermal vision told him that the surroundings ahead would only grow hotter. That little river seemed to have been brought to a boil, emitting a blazing red spectrum.

"It is. Look, there are many remains of Pre-Epoch Civilization combat weapons here."

The Sister rose to her feet. She had been examining the soil soaked with insect secretions and all manner of poisonous water. Now, without the slightest concern, she reached into the toxic mud and pulled out a silver-gray armor plate that had not yet corroded. In a tone almost obsessed, she said, "Look at the composition of this alloy... Even in a highly corrosive environment, it can maintain perfect stability, yet it is not refined gold. Though its hardness is somewhat inferior, this is an alloy whose stability rivals refined gold!"

"The materials are probably Deep Abyss Iron, Eversteel, and Radiant Iridium... Unfortunately, there isn't enough equipment to obtain more precise readings."

—A technological lunatic.

A flicker of disgust crossed the battalion commander's face. He knew perfectly well that the Machina Church was a pack of madmen who would disregard lives for technology. She had shown some restraint before, but now that she had seen her target, her actions would undoubtedly become extremely aggressive at once.

But at that moment, without warning—

The ground began to shake.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

It was as though some enormous creature were stumbling closer.

Having already been prepared because of the Giant Metal Mushroom Fortress Turtle, no one panicked. Yet the faces of the leading battalion commander and the Sister changed completely, even showing terror.

"That presence... Second Energy Level—"

The scout ahead cried out, but before he could finish, a black shadow flashed past. The scout's body vanished, leaving only two legs with bone stumps exposed where he had stood. Great gouts of blood dripped down from high above the rift valley.

"Fall back! Back into the passage!"

The battalion commander drew his sword and rushed forward, shouting sharply, "Set up the alchemical cannon!"

A piercing shriek erupted from the shadows of the rift valley, while a colossal thing darker than shadow itself moved through the air at high speed.

The battalion commander's Adam's apple bobbed. He had intended to draw his sword and charge forward, but no words came out, nor could his feet move. As the special operations unit's frantic voices mingled with the flashes of gunfire, the colossal entity hanging midway up the rift valley revealed itself.

What kind of bizarre, towering monster was that?

It was over a hundred meters long, its sharp shell seeming to be made of steel blades. Its countless writhing blade-legs were embedded firmly in the jagged stone walls of the rift valley, suspending its enormous body in midair.

It was a supermassive metal centipede, entirely black and without reflection, yet it was not truly a living creature. At the front of its body were two enormous drill-like forelimbs, while three turbine-like power units on its back continuously spewed shrieking, high-temperature steam. One could even faintly see pale particles constantly being released from the turbines, providing this metal beast with terrifying destructive force.

At the Giant Metal Centipede's "head" was a single scarlet eye, fixed upon the Blazing Flame Lands soldiers. Blood and shredded flesh from the soldier it had ground apart earlier still clung to the drill in its grasp.

It was plainly hostile, with no intention whatsoever of negotiating.

"Squish... squish..."

A disgusting sound of slime writhing arose. The Machina Sister immediately looked toward its source. It came from a hemispherical protrusion in the middle of the Giant Metal Centipede's torso, where vast amounts of bizarre flesh had proliferated.

Had Ian been here, he would have recognized at a glance that these proliferating masses of flesh were extremely similar to those produced when the Crocodile Dragon fused with the Great Shaman atop its head! They were also very similar to the proliferating polyps that emerged when parasites took over the brain!

"Is that a Magic Beast or a ruins colossus?!"

Before those words had even finished sounding, the Giant Metal Centipede launched its attack. It charged directly forward, its countless blade-legs moving back and forth in a steady rhythm, propelling its immense body ahead at high speed. Those incomparably sharp legs mercilessly crushed everything they touched.

"It's a ruins colossus!"

The Sister, tense beyond measure yet staring at the ruins colossus before her with fanatical intoxication in her eyes, shouted in reply. Her voice trembled, and it was impossible to tell whether it was fear or delight. "An intact ruins colossus—and there is even a 'pilot' controlling it!"

Boom!

Just as the Sister shouted her answer, a two-meter-long tongue of electrified flame burst forth as the alchemical cannon fired.

Thunderous roaring echoed through the open cavern layer upon layer, mingling with the howling gale. Explosive shockwaves, carrying shattered stone and superheated water mist, slammed in every direction with enough force to make even the largest beasts temporarily retreat.

Yet the combined strike of the Blazing Flame Lands' latest anti-armor cannon and incendiary warhead did not make its target waver in the slightest. It only left a negligible dent in its outer armor and covered it in a layer of harmless flames.

The black shadow continued to draw closer, step by step.

At the same time, Ian's group had already arrived near the Parasite River.