Savage

  [Time: 0.01 seconds before contact]

  Carlisle's hands, carrying blue high-voltage arcs, stabbed ruthlessly into the alveoli-like Creep under his feet.

  No transition.

  Nor the so-called "Out of Body" lightness.

  Only severe pain from the brain.

  That pain was like being thrown into a centrifuge running at full speed, while tens of thousands of red-hot steel needles flowed upstream along the nerves of fingertips, piercing directly into the cerebral cortex. Sounds of the real world—Savage's roar, the monster's screech, the sizzling of electric current—were forcibly cut off at this moment, turning into dead silent snowflake white noise.

  [Scene 1: The Dive]

  Carlisle opened his eyes.

  He thought he would see a void or flowing True Script rain. But he was wrong.

  He stood in "Light."

  This was a world composed of pure, dazzling geometric lines. Countless gloom-blue light rays crisscrossed, forming perfect grids, cubes, and infinitely extending function curves. This was the underlying logic layer of the Second Epoch relic—an absolute rational domain allowing no error, no ambiguity, no sensibility.

  However, this perfect geometric world was currently under hack.

  Carlisle looked up, pupils constricting sharply.

  Above him, occupying half the "Sky," was a mass of dark red, constantly wriggling "Filth."

  It had no fixed form, more like a viscous colloid forcibly mixed from rotten flesh, turbid eyeballs, and flashing garbled True Scripts, constantly dripping scarlet juice outward. Every drop of red filth falling, once touching the orderly blue geometric lines below, those originally flawless straight lines would instantly twist and crack, then alienate into slimy biological tissue at a visible speed, covered with disgusting wrinkles and pulsating blood vessels.

  This was the monster's true body—a supervirus piled up by countless dead logic units and greedy instructions over long years.

  It had already sensed the existence of Carlisle, the intruder. The eyeballs on the colloid surface turned toward him simultaneously; pupils flashed with chaotic scarlet light.

  "Hungry..."

  A grand and chaotic intent bombarded Carlisle's consciousness body directly. That wasn't language; that was the final wailing of thousands of micro logic cores swallowed by it.

  Red filth boiled instantly, turning into a monstrous wave, slamming down on the tiny Carlisle.

  [Scene 2: The Flesh Line]

  Real World.

  BOOM!

  With Carlisle's intrusion, the huge tumor body emitted an extremely shrill screech—that was absolutely not ordinary sound waves, but severe pain feedback piercing the soul, vibrating the entire space buzzing.

  It went completely mad.

  Dozens of thick tentacles whipped the ground madly like out-of-control high-pressure water guns. The hard alloy floor was smashed into deep pits half a meter deep; gravel and sparks splashed.

  Carlisle's body was now like a puppet with cut strings, kneeling limply on the ground, hands still stuck dead in the Creep. His skin turned red due to high voltage overload; the surface layer had long begun to carbonize. Wisps of black smoke rose from under the damaged clothes; the air was filled with an increasingly heavy scorching smell.

  "Damn it! This kid really thinks he's a lightning rod!"

  Savage roared, dragging his left leg pierced by bone spurs, like an injured old bear, forcibly blocking in front of Carlisle.

  He had no gun anymore. He only had a heavy industrial wrench covered in oil picked up from the ground.

  Whoosh—!

  A tentacle covered in barbs swept over with a fishy wind; the barbs at the tip flashed with cold light.

  "Get lost for me!"

  Savage advanced instead of retreating. The hydraulic pump of his mechanical right arm emitted a dying wail, pushing power output to the red zone. He wielded the wrench, meeting it with a near-suicidal posture.

  CLANG!

  The loud noise of metal clashing was deafening.

  The wrench smashed ruthlessly on the tentacle's joint, breaking the metal bone inside directly; dark green viscous juice gushed out. But the huge reaction force also made Savage spit a mouthful of blood, sliding back three meters, boot soles grinding two scorched marks on the ground.

  "Cough cough... really hard..."

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  The dwarf spat a mouthful of bloody saliva; gums were bleeding. Before he could catch his breath, a shadow enveloped him again—this time three tentacles, strangling toward him from three different directions.

  "Elf! Don't space out there! I can't hold it!"

  Lyria knelt behind Carlisle. She didn't look at Savage, nor at those waving death tentacles. Her hands pressed on Carlisle's hot temples; fingertips could clearly feel the terrifying high heat that brain was experiencing, as if about to burn up in the next second.

  She was trembling. Although the virus was lured away by Carlisle, that residual chill still made her soul shudder.

  But she must do something.

  Lyria took a deep breath. In this hell full of sulfur smell and metal noise, she closed her eyes and opened her cracked lips again.

  The first syllable—clear, ethereal, piercing the surrounding chaos like spring water.

  [Scene 3: The Requiem]

  Spiritual World.

  The red wave was like a monstrous flood, about to swallow Carlisle's consciousness completely.

  In this dimension of combat, there was no so-called "Dodge," only direct collision of mental capacity. The information volume carried by that mass of red virus was more than ten thousand times Carlisle's. What it wanted to do was assimilate him, turning him into part of its body.

  Carlisle felt his self-awareness dissolving, like ice thrown into boiling water. He began to forget his name, forget why he came here, even forget the definition of "Self." He felt he was just an insignificant variable, about to return to this warm, chaotic matrix, losing independent existence forever.

  "Give up... Join us... No pain here..."

  Chaotic whispers echoed in his mind, carrying bewitching tenderness. Just at the moment Carlisle's consciousness was about to extinguish completely—

  A golden light suddenly lit up in this blue-red interwoven world.

  That wasn't data, nor logic, but melody.

  "Sleep, oh sleep..."

  Lyria's singing penetrated the barrier of dimensions from the real world, gently wrapping Carlisle's tottering consciousness body. This singing had no aggression but carried extreme stability, like a golden anchor pile nailed into the chaotic ocean, firmly fixing the him who was about to disperse.

  Carlisle woke up sharply.

  "This is... Lyria?"

  He couldn't understand the lyrics but could clearly feel the intent contained in the singing—that was adherence to "Self," a call for "Order."

  With this anchor point, he was no longer fighting alone.

  "Thanks, partner."

  Carlisle's spiritual body re-condensed, becoming solid as never before. He looked at that disgusting red chaos before him, a cold arc curling on the corner of his mouth, no more confusion in his eyes.

  He raised his right hand.

  In this world composed of logic, the most powerful weapon was not sharpness, but definition.

  He extended a finger, drawing a perfect straight line in the void—that was the symbol of order, pure and unpolluted by any chaos.

  "In this world, between two points, a straight line is the shortest."

  With his declaration, that originally non-existent line turned into a sharpness cutting reality.

  "And you..." Carlisle pointed at that wriggling meat mass, voice carrying unquestionable decisiveness, "You are a redundant parameter."

  [Scene 4: Delete * From World]

  Real World.

  Savage had been forced into a dead corner. His mechanical arm was severely deformed and jammed, hydraulic pipe burst, that industrial wrench also broke into two pieces, lying weakly at his feet.

  A huge tentacle raised high, bone spur at the tip flashing with fatal cold light, aiming at the dwarf's chest, ready to pierce him once falling.

  "It's over." Savage closed his eyes, waiting for the final puncture.

  However, the expected severe pain didn't come.

  Hummmm—

  An extremely low hum, as if from deep underground, resounded through the entire cavity.

  All sounds—tentacle flapping, monster screeching, Lyria's singing—vanished instantly at this moment. The world fell into weird dead silence.

  Savage opened his eyes and saw a scene he would never forget in his life.

  That tentacle suspended above his head stopped.

  Not static, but... Solidified.

  Starting from the tip of the tentacle, a strange, deep blue luster was spreading madly. The moment dark red rotten meat touched the blue light, like being frozen by some extremely low temperature, it quickly faded color, turning into transparent crystal, veins clearly visible.

  This crystallization wave went all the way up along the tentacle, faster than naked eyes could catch.

  The monster's massive body began to tremble violently. It wanted to scream, but vocal cords had turned into hard crystal.

  Crack-crack-crack-crack—

  In a series of dense crisp sounds like glass growing, the huge tumor twenty meters in diameter, dozens of flying tentacles, and that terrifying compound eye... in just three seconds, all were forcibly reconstructed.

  It was no longer a pile of chaotic rotten meat, but turned into a giant geometric sculpture twenty meters high composed of deep blue ether crystals. Edges distinct, emitting gloomy cold light, breathtakingly beautiful.

  Even the pus splashed on the ground by it turned into clusters of exquisite crystal flowers, twinkling in the glimmer.

  This was "Formatting."

  Forcibly resetting all uncontrollable chaotic variables into the most stable, orderly crystal constants.

  [Scene 5: The Reverse Sun]

  Zzzzt...

  The electric arc on Carlisle finally extinguished. Those six high-energy batteries had turned into charred scrap iron. He slid down from the stiffened Creep (now also crystal) like a puddle of mud.

  "Carlisle!" Lyria couldn't care about wiping the blood off the corner of her mouth, hurriedly supporting him.

  "Hey! Dead yet?!" Savage rushed over dragging his crippled leg, trembling to check his breath.

  Carlisle opened one eye with difficulty, looking at that gloomy blue crystal statue in front, twitching the corner of his mouth: "A bit... too... hard."

  He should have fainted just like this.

  Rumble—

  As if responding to this tragic victory, the entire underground cavity suddenly underwent violent vibration.

  On both sides of the abyss, those more than a hundred "Axiom Sentinels" dead silent for ten thousand years woke up after bathing in the pure blue light emitted by the crystal statue.

  Savage looked up in horror, seeing a scene unforgettable for life:

  Those geometric giants sixty meters high didn't launch an attack. They slowly lowered those huge heads in the shape of inverted square pyramids. More than a hundred giant rock hands composed of countless cubes slowly, solemnly, with an elegance unique to precision machinery, placed on their empty chests.

  Salute.

  They paid the highest tribute spanning time to that collapsed three-person team on the trestle bridge, to that requiem.

  Immediately after, that golden light sphere (Primordial Core) imprisoned for a thousand years rose from the crystal statue. It was vibrating; it was angry.

  Lyria looked up sharply, golden light flowing in her pupils: "Carlisle... It asks us, where to shoot this anger accumulated for ten thousand years?"

  Carlisle's pupils, which had already dilated, contracted at this moment like a flashback.

  He struggled to raise his charred left hand, pointing at the heavy rock layer overhead that blocked the sky.

  Pointing at that arrogant Order world that treated them as ants.

  "Tell it..."

  Carlisle used his last breath to spit out that crazy coordinate parameter, a hideous smile curling on the corner of his mouth:

  "Get the f*ck... out!"

  Hummmm————

  More than a hundred giants raised their arms simultaneously, gathering all energy onto that golden light sphere.

  BOOM——————!!

  A pure white light column exceeding two hundred meters in diameter, mixed with geometric order and natural anger, gushed out from deep underground like a reverse waterfall.

  It instantly pierced through the rock layer thousands of meters thick overhead, unobstructed like a hot knife cutting through butter.

  On the ground, Blackthorn Woods. Hounds overloaded and paralyzed.

  In the sky, those three silver battleships representing the absolute authority of the Order, before even having time to activate shields, were hit head-on by this energy flow from ancient times, vaporized instantly.

  Above Blackthorn Woods rose a Reverse Sun.

  After doing all this, Carlisle's hand dropped weakly, completely fainting in Lyria's arms.

  And behind them, that "Wall of Sighs" melted through also crashed open in the aftermath of this energy.

  > **Current Chapter:** 17.

  > **Status:** Manufacturing Protocols Online.

  > **Objective:** Fix what is broken.

  **Hello, Code-Breakers.**

  We have seen the ethereal beauty of the "Hall of Mirrors." Now, it is time to get our hands dirty.

  In a world of glitching magic, sometimes you need cold, hard steel to survive.

  // CHARACTER PROFILE: UNLOCKED //

  > ?? **Asset Name:** `MASTER_SAVICH` (The Dwarven Engineer).

  > **Description:** He smells of oil, ale, and gunpowder. He doesn't trust code he can't hit with a hammer.

  > **Visual Access:** I have uploaded the official character concept art for Savich. Check my **Patreon** (or the art thread) to see the master of the Scrap Iron Inn in all his rugged glory.

  > *Note the details on his mechanical arm/tools – that is where the real magic lies.*

  // MAINTENANCE REQUEST //

  > The system runs on your energy.

  > ?? **Drop a Like/Heart:** To fuel the furnace.

  > ?? **Rate the Story:** To keep the gears turning.

  > **Thank you for building this world with me.**

  // END TRANSMISSION //

  -Field Analyst Zimo ???

  // Trust in Steel. //