Chapter 14: You Go Appease the Machine Spirit!

"The machine spirit is displeased!!!"

Watching the excavator wildly waving its mechanical arms, both the hive city workers and the gang members fell into panic.

It swayed its body as if alive, spinning its tracks and kicking up a shower of debris across the ground.

"The excavator has gone mad?!" A gang member retreated in terror.

They hurriedly raised their automatic pistols in hand and unleashed bullets at that small excavator.

The bullets struck the excavator's low-grade ceramite shell, sparking a shower of sparks.

Even a low-grade ceramite shell was not something the gang members' automatic pistol bullets could penetrate;

this volley of bullets seemed only to make the excavator grow even more frenzied.

Its mechanical arm swung violently, smashing into a nearby building; under the immense force, the house shook, debris flew everywhere, and the gang members scattered in fear to dodge.

"What the hell do we do?" The leading gang member shouted at the hive city workers.

Machines coming alive was a situation they had only heard of in rumors and stories; their understanding of "machine spirits" was limited to merely knowing the term existed.

The hive city workers were equally bewildered; they knew a little about machinery, but regarding something as mysterious and abstruse as a "machine spirit," they were completely in the dark.

"... Shouldn't we appease the machine spirit?" One hive city worker suddenly said.

"Right, right, right, I remember now, this is the time to appease the machine spirit!" Another hive city worker nodded vigorously.

"The story I heard in the tavern said the same thing: appease the machine spirit!" The hive city workers chattered all at once.

The leading gang member nodded, grabbed a nearby gang member at random, pointed at the rampaging excavator, and said:

"You, go appease the machine spirit."

"Me?" That small gang member pointed at his own face, saying in utter bewilderment: "M-me go appease the machine spirit?"

"For real?"

"Hurry up and go!" The leading gang member barked furiously.

The small gang member shivered and walked forward trembling.

How could he know anything about appeasing a machine spirit? He could only extend his hands, employing the skills he used at night to serve his wife at home, and stroke the excavator's shell.

The motion was gentle yet nauseatingly affectionate.

"Will this really work?" The leading gang member frowned as he watched the scene.

With the small gang member's rubbing, that excavator actually stopped.

"It really works?" The leading gang member's eyes widened in shock.

The hive city workers nearby also cried out in surprise one after another.

"I-I can appease the machine spirit!" The small gang member's face lit up with delight.

He turned his head and gave a thumbs-up to the other gang members behind him.

The other gang members immediately began to applaud.

Then, behind the small gang member, the excavator raised its mechanical arm high.

Boom!

The mechanical arm fell heavily; the small gang member's eyes rolled back, and he fainted.

The excavator's wheels began spinning wildly again, its mechanical arm waving recklessly.

Sweat trickled down Zhou Yun's forehead;

controlling the excavator with telekinesis from such a distance, pretending the machine spirit was rampaging, was indeed somewhat draining.

Fortunately, the entire gang stronghold had descended into chaos; even those gang members guarding the water source had been drawn over, attempting to subdue the mad excavator.

This was precisely the opportunity.

Zhou Yun glanced at Mohg, and Mohg understood immediately.

He sliced his own arm with that rust-red dagger, and bubbling blood gushed forth.

Mohg picked up a stone from the ground, dripped the blood onto it, and momentarily the stone was corroded with numerous fine pits, filling with his blood.

"Just throw this stone into the pool, and it will be done," Mohg said, looking at Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun nodded, picked up the stone, his figure vanishing from the spot in an instant, only to reappear moments later beside the pool in the gang stronghold, where he threw the stone into the water.

Not far away, beneath the mountain of rubble, the excavator, now deprived of Zhou Yun's telekinetic control, had stopped.

The gang members, both startled and exhausted, watched that excavator while covered in sweat.

"This should do it." Zhou Yun nodded slightly, his figure vanishing from the poolside and returning instantly to Mohg and Margit's side.

"It's added in," Zhou Yun said, nodding slightly to Mohg and Margit.

The three of them stayed in the shadow of this house, watching the gang members and hive city workers not far away panting from exhaustion;

in a short while, nearly all of them had drunk the water tainted with Mohg's blood.

And then, and then nothing happened...

Zhou Yun's eye corner twitched slightly;

indeed, a few gang members had started getting diarrhea, and indeed, a few were crying out about stomach discomfort,

but... but most people seemed unaffected...

Mohg noticed the slight twitching of Zhou Yun's eye corner and said with little confidence:

"One cannot generalize about the constitutions of different people."

"Some people drink water that isn't filtered cleanly and might get diarrhea immediately."

"Others might need to wait half a day before feeling discomfort in their stomachs."

Hearing this, Zhou Yun's eye corner twitched even more severely.

"No, buddy." Zhou Yun held his head and looked at Mohg: "Is the toxicity of your blood on the same level as unfiltered dirty water?"

Mohg nodded with a guilty conscience,

"The toxic components in my blood are secreted and stored by glands. They were already limited to begin with."

"Just now, to deal with you, I consumed quite a bit. Now the toxicity might be a bit low."

"Wait a bit longer, wait a bit longer."

Meng Ge spoke with less and less confidence.

"This really isn't my fault," Meng Ge muttered quietly in his heart.

Just now, he had been startled by Ryan Ruse's terrifying face.

He couldn't hold it back and squeezed most of the toxic substances in his glands into his blood and used them up; now the blood toxicity is a bit too low.

"Wait a bit longer, have patience." Meng Ge looked at Margit beside him: "You agree, brother?"

Margit also seemed to feel a bit ashamed and couldn't help but turn his head away.

Looking at these two Caigouxie Sect disciples before him, Zhou Yun felt a moment of utter collapse.

Which genius in the Garden of Nurgle corrupted these two Caigouxie Sect disciples?

Other cultists are blessed by Nurgle, by the Great Cleanser; were you two blessed by a Nurgle Spirit? So weak.

Zhou Yun shook his head and reached out his hand toward Meng Ge: "Lend me that dagger of yours."

"Ah?" Meng Ge paused for a moment, then handed the dagger covered in crimson rust to Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun weighed the dagger in his hand; he decided to solve the problem with a simpler, more direct method.

In Meng Ge's bewildered gaze, Zhou Yun's figure vanished from the spot in the blink of an eye.

He suddenly appeared behind the leading gang member, holding Meng Ge's dagger horizontally against his neck.

The surrounding gang members were all startled and immediately raised their automatic pistols, aiming them at Zhou Yun.

"Don't move!"

"This dagger of mine is coated with deadly corrupting venom. Even a slight scratch will turn a person into pus, corrupt their soul, cast them into the realm of demons, and they will never return to the Golden Throne for eternity."

I'll make a slight change to the next chapter; I'll post it ten-odd minutes later.

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(End of this chapter)