Chapter 168: Mechanical Wail, Edge of the Crescent

"Creak… squeak… clack…"

Cold, stiff footsteps, heavy with the sound of metal scraping, echoed through the relatively thin withered mist. The Wrench—or rather, what had once been the Wrench—was advancing in a grotesque posture. Nearly half his body was encased in frigid metal components forged by the Prism Hub, his exposed mechanical joints glinting with a cold, ghostly light in the mist. His back was covered by thick armor plating, his spine and limbs connected to thick energy conduits through which roiled unstable, ghostly-blue energy. The goblin's once-cunning little eyes were now filled with chaotic electronic light, his pupils constantly contracting and dilating, his vision flooded with twisted data streams and cold threat-assessment frames.

Zero's mandatory directive was seared into his core processor like a brand: 【Escort Xiang Lingna into the passage! Target: Crescent Glade!】. However, the spatial storm had torn them apart; the directive's target, "Xiang Lingna," was lost, leaving only a vague coordinate pointing toward—Crescent Glade.

"Target… lost… error… error…" The Wrench's synthesized electronic voice crackled with static, repeating itself in broken fragments. His logic core kept throwing errors from conflicting directives, and each error triggered an overload-like searing heat in the energy conduits implanted within his body, burning his remaining biological nerves and bringing soul-tearing agony.

"Pain… so much pain… roar!" He abruptly halted, his intact left hand—covered in metal gauntlets—slamming viciously into a withered tree beside him. Hard metal struck rotting wood with a dull, thunderous crash, splinters flying. The dead tree snapped and collapsed with a roar. But this venting did nothing to ease the pain; instead, it made the ghostly-blue glow within the energy conduits flash even more wildly.

His remaining biological consciousness drifted between the tearing agony and the cold pull of mechanical logic. Fragments of memory were a chaotic mess: the figure of girl Xiang Lingna digging in the tunnel, Sister Zero's icy electronic voice, the horrifying sight of mechanical arms cutting into a body, and... a fascination with and compulsion to repair intricate machinery, something deeply rooted in goblin blood.

In the corner of his vision, a red warning frame kept flashing: 【Right arm hydraulic transmission system damaged, efficiency reduced by 43%】. That was the damage left when the spatial storm had torn him apart. The warning was like a thorn, lodged in his chaotic consciousness. Goblin instinct overrode his fear of the searing pain, and he lowered his head to look at his fully mechanized right arm, whose movements were now sluggish.

"Broken… need… fix…" he muttered to himself, a glint of obsessive light flashing through his chaotic electronic eyes. Ignoring the errors from his core directive, he began stumbling about, searching the surroundings. Soon, among a pile of moss-covered ruins, he found some rusted metal pipes and broken gears—junk left over from the old world, but "materials" in his eyes.

He sat down against half a collapsed concrete wall, ignoring the searing pain of the overloaded energy conduits, and clumsily began prying apart the joint armor of his damaged right arm with his relatively intact left hand and his teeth. The intricate mechanical construction drew his full attention for the moment; the instinct buried deep in the goblin technician's soul temporarily suppressed the pain and the chaos.

Just as he was utterly focused on trying to jam an irregularly shaped metal pipe into the transmission assembly, an extremely faint, broken electronic signal—like a pebble tossed into dead water—was picked up by the communication receiver module inside his body!

【…sssh… sssh… this is… Crescent Glade… Seventh Patrol… encountering… corrupted vines… requesting… support… sssh… sssh… position… Ash Canyon… west side…】

The signal was very weak, laced with heavy interference and static, but several key words within it struck the Wrench's consciousness core like a bolt of lightning—Crescent Glade! Patrol! Support!

The core directive was instantly reactivated! 【Target: Crescent Glade!】 The logic conflict temporarily subsided.

"Cres… cent… Gla… de… support!" The Wrench's electronic voice rose sharply, a "clarity" of a re-locked directive cutting through the chaotic light. He lurched to his feet, his damaged right arm letting out a piercing screech of friction from the sudden movement. Ignoring the "materials" on the ground, his electronic eyes swept frantically through the thick fog, trying to lock onto the direction of the signal's source.

Yet, almost at the same instant, another, far stronger and far more irresistible directive erupted from the energy control core implanted in his spine—like a top-tier virus!

【High-priority threat source detected: corrupted creature gathering signal!】

【Purge protocol activated! Eliminate all threats!】

【Execute!】

Hmm——!!!

Every energy conduit inside the Wrench instantly erupted with a blinding ghostly-blue glow! The violent energy instantly shattered the sliver of directive logic he had just pieced together! His chaotic electronic eyes were completely replaced by a cold, blood-red killing intent! Jets of searing air blasted from the seams of the armor plating on his back! He spun sharply toward the opposite direction of the signal's source—where a pack of corrupted curs, creatures that looked like a hybrid of hyenas and dead wood, drawn over by the sounds of the patrol's battle, were revealing their crimson eyes from within the mist with low growls!

"Threat! Purge!!!"

The Wrench let out a metallic roar that sounded nothing like a human voice. His damaged right arm jerked upward, the armor plating on the palm sliding open to reveal a thick gun barrel crackling with unstable energy! Completely ignoring the Crescent Glade signal, like an activated killing machine, he launched a frenzied charge toward the corrupted curs with an unstoppable, destructive momentum! The heavy thud of metallic footsteps and the charging whine of the energy gun instantly tore apart the dead silence at the forest's edge!

Inside him, the faint consciousness that belonged to the goblin Wrench let out a silent, desperate wail, crushed beneath the violent energy and the killing directive—like a candle guttering in the wind, on the verge of being snuffed out entirely.