Chapter 65

In this dim place where day and night could not be distinguished, the sound of childish weeping echoed in the silence.

Like a baby.

Ji Jue felt his whole body go numb.

No way.

A pair of embroidered shoes, two red lanterns, a gloomy mansion on a rainy night, a pale bride wearing a red bridal veil, and other scenes suddenly emerged from his heart. It was all Lu Feng's fault for always filling the computer with horror movies and liking to play them out loud while watching, which had almost given Ji Jue a psychological shadow.

At this moment, silence arrived, and the fine, fragmented sounds became even more obvious; the part that made Ji Jue feel cold all over was... it came from behind him.

In the dead silence, he turned his head stiffly.

And then he saw Little Niu Ma shivering like a dog!

Upon noticing Ji Jue's gaze, the shrinking motorcycle stuck itself to him, as if seeking warmth; it was scared to death!!!

Why are you so spineless?

Ji Jue wanted to slap it; you're a motorcycle spirit, what are you afraid of ghosts for!

"Do you want to go take a look?" Little An asked in a low voice.

Ji Jue shook his head decisively.

Without hesitation!

Are you kidding? A character who wants to go over and watch the fun whenever they hear a strange noise is definitely the first to die in a horror movie, okay?!

But not looking felt like it wouldn't work either; after all, sitting in this gloomy ruin with BGM playing, it was chilling no matter what.

But don't be afraid; at this time, you have to take out a magical little gadget...

Ji Jue rummaged through the bag on his chest for a long time, and then held up the thing placed at the very bottom with great excitement:

—A drone!

Ever since he experienced the convenience of this thing last time, Ji Jue gritted his teeth and ordered a high-end military version from Sister Laila, a rotor reconnaissance type, hidden and silent; even the Imperial Army of Middle Earth said it was good after being bombed. After being strengthened with the Supreme Good emblem of the Wasteland, it could already prevent shooting from small-caliber semi-automatic weapons.

To prepare for the things needed for this trip, he had been detained at the security company, modifying guns for them for an entire afternoon.

Ever since Ji Jue gave Lu Feng's service pistol a spiritual quality health check, everyone who had used it was crazy about it; it was said that at Laila's place, Master Ji's consecration service items were already booked until next year.

At this moment, with a thought, the drone took off, and the screen in his hand lit up, displaying the image. The small drone swept silently through the air, never alerting those monsters lurking in the dark, which spared Ji Jue the worry in his heart.

It was just that when it had just flown past a corner, it almost bumped face-to-face with a spider monster; the spider monster seemed not to have seen it either, showing no reaction, which made Ji Jue even more confused about their madness mechanism—could it be that the local guys all loved fresh food and didn't eat vegetables?

Just like that, carefully crossing a distance that wasn't long, they found the source of the crying on the back of the ruins, an apartment covered in cracks.

Behind the collapsed and broken walls, the lights flickered dimly, intermittent.

A family sat around the dining table, enjoying dinner after a day's toil, with soft smiles in their beautiful reunion... if only it were just like that, it would be fine.

The ragged husband could vaguely distinguish the outline of a human, but his head was already hanging from his neck, the bloodstains at the crack had congealed and long since dried.

It seemed as if he was using his long-gone right hand to pick up food to enjoy, his stiff face twitching, as if squeezing out a smile: "Eat, eat, eat, it's so good, thank you for your hard work."

The table was empty, with only dust left in the broken plates.

The busy wife looked back, smiling gently, revealing a deep depression on her face, with viscous black liquid slowly dripping from the corners of her eyes.

"The, the, the child is crying, crying, crying again, go look..."

In the tattered cradle, the baby wailed sharply. The mother's alienated claws brushed across its face, stroking gently, leaving another rolled-up bloody wound.

"Mom, it hurts, Mom, I, it hurts."

"Yes, baby, Mom, Mom, Mom loves you too." The mother picked up a piece of rag that only had rotten fibers left and asked gently: "Do you like the new clothes Dad bought for you?"

"It hurts so much, Mom, it hurts."

The baby in the swaddling clothes wailed, making a sound, "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts—"

Under the baby's rotting flesh, it seemed as if invisible insects or something else were writhing violently, heaving, constantly pushing up one vague outline after another.

Making the wailing sound even more shrill, sharp, and resounding throughout the apartment.

Only it seemed to be gradually changing... or rather, gradually becoming non-human. From the once childish voice, it gradually became hoarse, shrill, sharp, thick, or numb!

It was as if countless people were hidden within that small shell, screaming desperately over and over again, becoming increasingly frenzied.

Until the end, when the wailing stopped without warning, the tattered baby in the cradle also burst open; under the plasma and minced meat, writhing tentacles and insect-like arthropods grew, swaying, crawling, darting out of the cradle, and hissing away.

Disappearing under the dim sky.

And the mother was still smiling, facing the empty cradle, soothing the non-existent baby. Then, she cleared the dishes, tidied up the housework, and finally, turned off the lights that had long since gone out, and together with her husband, welcomed peaceful sleep on the tattered bed.

In their dreams, under the incomplete bodies of the couple, invisible things writhed, heaving, like parasites drawing nutrients from the host's shell, waiting for the day of delivery to arrive.

The drone flew back slowly and landed in Ji Jue's hand.

The two looked at each other in silence.

At least Ji Jue now knew where those messy things came from...

Non-human things born from non-human things.

Butterflies, birds, crocodiles, snakes, and even that terrifying giant insect lurking in the ruins that could treat Ji Jue as a snack and eat several bags without burping—those messy ghosts were probably all made this way!

Although he didn't know why those 'humans' were so obsessed with imitating the lives of normal humans, there was no doubt that these were all masterpieces created by Mercury!

Temporarily turning materials into fluid, following their physical properties and essence, adjusting them to the best state that fits their inner nature, or catalyzing the creations in reverse through spiritual quality qualitative change, bestowing a further layer of metamorphosis.

This was the proof of why Mercury was able to ascend to the position of Grandmaster and reach the pinnacle of Sages, the "Fluid Alchemy" that had already become a swan song in the history of alchemy!

Even this title came from this technique.

Products created through fluid alchemy often had extremely strong concealment, with absolutely no traces of external processing, and would even possess multiple forms and appearances.

Therefore, it was called the Art of Ten Thousand Changes.

The scene Ji Jue had just seen was probably the further metamorphosis that the creations underwent amidst the spiritual quality chaos.

And according to the information Ji Jue had crammed by flipping through books: this kind of metamorphosis, if not restricted, would definitely not happen only once. They could continue to grow like living things, turning into even more hellish things, until the spiritual quality overloaded and the physical properties collapsed on their own!

What made his hair stand on end even more was that even with such a degree of chaos and loss of control, within the entire Rift Realm, there were still no traces of sin-tainted mutation.

Not a single flaw of pollution-induced mutation.

The hell before his eyes was entirely created by the power of the Supreme Good!

"What kind of things did he create?"

Ji Jue sat on the rubble, his scalp tingling, just like a newly graduated junior programmer who had accidentally opened a mountain of data shit piled up by generations of predecessors over decades.

No way to start, nowhere to ponder, nothing to be done.

He didn't know what mechanism was hidden inside, nor did he know what other mysterious big surprises were hidden at the bottom that were enough to cause his heart and lungs to stop, only the thought of wanting to die was stronger than the last.

Little An sat quietly on the ground, still maintaining that kind of bewilderment as if something had happened but he didn't understand it at all. Anyway, Sister Wen said to listen to Ji Jue if anything happened, so wouldn't he be able to stop using his brain?

This was the first time for such an easy Rift Realm exploration!

Yay!

Brother Ji Jue is great, no need to say more!

Feeling the admiring and worshipful gaze from the boy, Ji Jue wanted to say something but stopped, and then, he wanted to die even more.

And just in the silence, he finally felt a slight vibration in his bosom.

The Ghost Work Ball, which had been burning hot for several hours, seemed to have finally broken its fever.

It emitted a weak response.

The moment Ji Jue realized it, he immediately picked it up and hurriedly poured all his spiritual quality into it, letting the Ghost Work Ball swallow it like a whale drinking water. Just draining Ji Jue's spiritual quality alone wasn't enough; it even drained more than half of his cousin's spiritual quality reserve, before it finally emitted a faint sigh.

"Brother Ball, are you better?" Ji Jue asked with joy.

【... Half-dead, but still manageable.】

The Ghost Work Ball, still warm, emitted a groan-like response: 【I didn't expect that after so many years of storms and waves, I almost capsized in a gutter.

Taking an apprentice on an outing almost caused a rollover.

They came to cheat and ambush me the moment I opened the door, bullying an old ball like me with no one to rely on, almost kicking my mold line open; despicable, shameless, extremely base!】

The Ghost Work Ball shook violently and cursed: 【That dog Mercury, how can he be called a Grandmaster!】

The moment it entered the Rift Realm, when it opened the detection mode according to the logic of the underlying circuit... it was reverse-detected by another signal so powerful it was jaw-dropping!

Like the mutual observation between two sonars in the deep sea.

The moment it sensed the other's existence, the Ghost Work Ball felt something was wrong and wanted to close, but it was too late. The malice from the other side had already surged over.

The moment it sensed the appearance of the second signal, the workshop guard module left behind by Mercury was activated. It stirred up a tide of aggression directly from the fluctuations of spiritual quality.

Thousands of miles away, it began to invade the Ghost Work Ball's spiritual quality circuit from afar, even wanting to completely overwrite the Ghost Work Ball's underlying instructions directly on the basis of Professor Ye.

This was also a compulsory course for the Embers lineage in workshop struggles: suppressing the opponent's alchemical items, and even plundering control for a backlash.

Regrettably, four hundred years had passed.

The outside era was still constantly changing, and the establishment of modern alchemy had led to completely different versions. Coupled with the fact that the guard program without anyone controlling it was too rigid, it was eventually completely shaken off by the Ghost Work Ball.

The price was that it itself had also crashed for who knows how long.

Pity, it failed to launch a counterattack.

Because in this level of struggle, Ji Jue wasn't useful either! If Ye Xian were here, let alone suffering a loss, by this time, the workshop on the other side would have already changed its surname to Ye!

But at the very least, during that brief clash, it had gained some of the most basic understanding of the workshop Mercury left behind.

"Found it so quickly?"

Ji Jue's eyes lit up: "Efficiency is lightning fast, Brother Ball! Where is the workshop?"

【Haven't you figured it out yet, you silly boy?】

The Ghost Work Ball sighed gloomily, just like Professor Ye once expressed regret for others' IQ: 【We have long been inside Mercury's workshop.】

It said: 【The entire Rift Realm is her workshop!】