After a brief "hesitation," perhaps thinking that one more "laborer" would help with the transport, or perhaps because the false "obedience" feedback had worked.
One of the aberrations extended a relatively slender jointed limb, hooked it into a depression along the edge of the "Metal Cocoon Shell," and dragged it onward toward the "Meat Mountain."
The first step had succeeded!
Inside the cocoon shell, Ming Xin held his breath and maintained the disguise with all his strength. The vibrations and noise caused by being dragged were absorbed and converted by the preset buffer layers and Energy Field within the shell.
Like a genuine piece of "cargo" or "semi-finished product," he was dragged across the uneven ground.
He drew ever closer to that enormous, bizarre device, as well as the "Meat Mountain" and the Watcher beside it.
He could feel that the closer he got to the core of the device, the more pronounced the energy pressure difference became between the silver-white light and the dark purple corruption. Even the air seemed to grow viscous.
He could also more clearly sense the greedy suction radiating from the "Meat Mountain," like that of a living digestive organ, along with the Watcher's omnipresent, icy gaze.
The aberration dragging him stopped roughly a hundred feet from the "Meat Mountain" and joined several other aberrations.
They attempted to push the enormous silver-white component toward the mouthparts at the base of the "Meat Mountain."
The process was slow. Several aberrations let out low, meaningless hisses, seemingly coordinating their efforts.
Ming Xin was temporarily "abandoned" to one side, right beside a protruding metal structure on the device's base that was covered in thick rust.
The light here was dim, but the angle was good—through the tiny sensory slit left in the cocoon shell, he could "see" the