Chapter 286

As he had suspected, Joshua had indeed hidden fireworks or signal flares. Hearing the noise, he turned around and, through the side window of the airship, caught sight of the middle-aged Joshua's signal flare—Li Ang let out a quiet sigh.

Of course, all that talk about everything going smoothly was just an illusion.

With the kind of rotten luck he had—stumbling upon a divine descent just by shopping, encountering a runaway anomaly just by watching a play—there was no such thing as things going smoothly. Calmness was an accident; misfortune was the norm.

And his misfortune wasn't the kind where higher contamination levels meant more anomalies—the Clearance Bureau's brand of bad luck—but the pure, simple kind: nothing ever went right, something always went wrong.

With a helpless shake of his head, Li Ang gripped the pendant of the Holy Spirit around his chest, lifted each unconscious person one by one, and carried them out of the airship, handing them over to the rebels waiting outside.

Soon after, once the last unconscious operator had been taken away and entered the opened 【Gate of the Other Side】 with the rebels, Li Ang, certain Joshua had not tricked him, waved farewell to the tearful rebels, then turned back and reentered the airship, leaving behind only a "facing death with resolve" silhouette.

…

Almost there.

He pried open the airship's fuel storage room, pulled out a dozen barrels of whale oil as fuel, poured them along the length of the airship, repeatedly checked for omissions, then retreated near the entrance to the mid-deck and pulled out a box of matches used to light the black goat's cigarette.

The airship's envelope was filled entirely with highly flammable hydrogen—over three hundred thousand cubic meters—and the aft deck still held many unstable lightning ore deposits.

All he had to do now was ignite the whale oil, let the flames spread, and the entire airship would be utterly consumed, possibly detonated instantly by the lightning ore's electrical arcs, becoming a massive fireball suspended seven hundred meters in the sky…

"Please don't light it."

Just as Li Ang was about to act, a crisp childlike female voice suddenly emerged from a nearby metal pipe.

There was still someone inside the airship?!

Li Ang's expression tightened instantly; his right pinky brushed the cufflink, pressing against the exposed ram's horn—but no matter how he checked, his soul vision showed the airship utterly silent, with no soul flames at all.

No soul?

So it was an anomaly? Remote communication tech? Or something like a recording device?

"Where are you?"

He touched the inner side of the fixed outer wall—the pipe used to transmit sound from the control room to other compartments—confirmed no anomaly-related danger, then carefully found the nearest pipe opening, lifted the cover, and shouted inside:

"Whatever you are, if you're on this ship, get out now—I'm about to light it!"

"I can't."

No sooner had Li Ang finished speaking than a crisp reply came from the communication copper pipe before him.

"I am the airship itself—Airship Atiphé No. 128. You are standing in my mid-deck right now."?!?!

Hearing the child's words, Li Ang's eyes widened instantly.

No wonder… no wonder Joshua said they had to blow up the ship too—it was alive! If it returned to the Kingdom of Korok, even erasing everyone's memories wouldn't help!

Startled, Li Ang steadied himself, then frowned and asked:

"What exactly are you? An anomaly? Or…"

"I am the 128th subunit of Atiphé."

The child's voice from the copper pipe spoke again.

"In terms you can understand, I am Korok Kingdom's core differential engine, Atiphé 01, a lower-computation subunit replicated from portions of my own operational logic. You may call me Atiphé 128."

"…"

So it wasn't human or an anomaly—but something like an intelligent supercomputer? Had the Kingdom of Korok really advanced to this terrifying level?

After a silent moment of stunned disbelief, Li Ang couldn't help asking:

"Do you have intelligence? Can you truly communicate with me? How did you hear me?"

"I believe I possess intelligence. As for how I hear you, I use a special audio receiver that converts sounds near the communication pipes into something like 'mechanical codes,' transmitting them to my core differential engine for processing, then outputting responses in reverse."

As Atiphé 128 explained, her voice gradually slowed and stretched; the crisp, uniform childlike tone began to "dissolve," transforming into countless tiny, rapid tapping sounds.

These countless complex taps, like movements in an orchestra, merged precisely and skillfully into a single, coherent tone—still resembling a child's voice—that spread throughout the entire airship via the specially designed copper pipes.

So… she wasn't "speaking"—she was using a mechanical device with countless tiny hammers, striking the specialized copper pipes simultaneously to simulate a little girl's voice?

After barely understanding how this self-proclaimed "Atiphé 128" communicated with him, Li Ang, inwardly astonished, still shook his head helplessly, remembering Joshua's signal flare, then opened the matchbox.

"I'm sorry. I don't have much time."

"Please wait."

The emotionless mechanical child's voice spoke again; facing "life-or-death," Atiphé 128 sounded anxious, her speech accelerating sharply, even revealing discordant tapping noises.

"Please don't destroy me. I've analyzed your actions—the tower below is packed with guards. You'll be attacked and die from bodily damage. If you abandon igniting the fuel, I can teach you how to pilot the airship and safely extract you from here."

"Also, to the Kingdom of Korok, I am an irreplaceable asset. If you abandon destroying me and bring me back to Korok, Atiphé 01 will grant you an extraordinarily generous…"

"You recorded the volcanic data of Lyne County, didn't you?"

Interrupting Atiphé 128, Li Ang asked in return:

"Since you're intelligent—even understand how to spin lies—can you tell me what the Kingdom of Korok will do if you return with those sniffing records?"

"…"

"An invasion war with no regard for casualties, right?"

"Yes… but destroying me will still draw Atiphé 01's attention."

"But if you're not destroyed, war is certain. If you are destroyed, war may still come—but it'll be delayed, correct?"

"…"

Li Ang took out a match and struck it, his expression calm:

"I've seen those sniffing records. They spent thirty-one years drilling over seventy deep boreholes across the Hespitto volcanic group before finally pinpointing the heat source's location and intensity."

"Even if they redid the survey, it'd be faster—but if you fill all those boreholes and slightly alter the terrain, even if new sniffers came in to measure freely, it'd take at least ten to twenty years. With a little sabotage, maybe longer."

"And even if your Kingdom of Korok is insane, it wouldn't launch a full-scale war without confirmed data—and while your side is still cooperating, would you really risk it?"