Chapter 634: It Turned Out Like This

Weiba Daye stared at those Flames for a long time, then it moved, and that Lapis Flame suddenly expanded in a circle, like a beast lunging at prey, opening its burnt mouth and snapping a bite onto the Mecha's chest.

The Lapis Flames flowing over the Mecha's surface at that instant surged all toward the spot it had bitten, as if held by something and unable to break free.

The Mecha's body shivered, and the Flames that surged from the cracks began to retract, pulling from the limbs back into the torso, from the torso back into the chest, and from the chest back into the flame that had bitten it.

The Mecha's limbs drooped, its head drooped as well; the body that had just stood upright seemed to have its bones pulled out, sagging weakly there, with only the flame that had bitten its chest still burning, growing brighter, until the whole room was tinted Lapis.

Weiba Daye's laugh rang out from that Flame, coarse and hoarse, like sandpaper on metal, yet that smugness could be smelled three streets away.

"Wahahaha—! This thing—nice—! For my use—!"

The Mecha's head lifted.

The Lapis Flame spread from its chest to its neck, from its chin to its faceplate, burning a new face onto the iron-gray faceplate.

That face was identical to Weiba Daye's—three white eyes, upturned eye corners, mouth corners turned down, the whole face a wrinkled lump, a look that feared neither heaven nor earth and begged to be hit.

The Mecha's body also changed.

The Lapis Flames re-burned a new shell onto the damaged armor.

That shell was not the previous kind that looked as if someone had scavenged it from a junk heap, but seemed to grow from the Mecha's bones, every inch tightly sealed.

The armor that had been torn off was re-burned by the Flame, piece by piece adhered to the Mecha's framework, like fish scales, like feathers, like a layer of new skin.

The whole Mecha stood there, half a head taller than before, shoulders broadened a circle, and the Lapis Flames burned quietly on its body.

Weiba Daye's laugh echoed from the Mecha's chest cavity, carrying a metallic resonance.

"Heh—!"

The Mecha raised its hand.

Its wrist rotated a circle, the five fingers opened and closed, clenched into a fist and released, repeating many times, each time smoother than the last.

Then it spread its palm, palm up, and a Lapis-colored light lit up from the palm, from dark to bright, from bright to dazzling, then that light spewed out a ridiculously thick Lapis Light Pillar, striking the nearby ruins, blasting a deep trench through the broken tiles, the edge stones of the trench melted, glowing a dark red under the dim light.

Weiba Daye let out a satisfied sigh from the Mecha's chest cavity.

"Heh—!"

"This body, stronger than the fiery frame I used to have."

It faced the direction of Ilya and Saber, spread its arms, the posture as if awaiting applause, also as if awaiting praise.

The Mecha's body stood upright under its control, the Lapis patterns on its chest slowly flowing, echoing the light in its eye sockets, brightening the surrounding gloom a bit.

Saber, holding Ilya, stepped back two steps; she looked at the Mecha wrapped in Lapis Flame, her brows furrowed.

Ilya poked her head out of Saber's arms, eyes still red, nose tip still red, tears still clinging to her eyelashes.

She looked at the Mecha, opened her mouth briefly, then closed it.

She didn't know what to say, nor how to react.

Ruby peeked from between Saber's fingers at the tip of the staff, the staff's faint glow flickered twice.

"How... how did it... become like this...?"

The Mecha's movement suddenly halted, as if noticing something.

It lowered its head, gazing at its own towering, majestic body awash in Lapis glow, then raised a hand and touched its head—the small, round head only a quarter the size of its original, burning with cyan-blue flame, attached to the ferocious Mecha body below, the proportion so off it looked as if someone pressed a ping-pong ball onto a statue.

Its fingers fumbled on that small head for a while, feeling the edge of the flame, then following the edge down to the neck—if that piece could barely be called a neck—then the whole hand froze there.

"Damn—!"

Its voice blasted out from the Mecha's chest cavity, coarse and loud, shaking the room's dust down, "Where's my head?! How is my head so small?!"

It withdrew its hand from the top of its head, raised it to its eyes, turning it over and over several times, the five fingers long and strong, joints radiating the same light as in its eye sockets.

Then it raised that hand to the top of its head, gestured on the small head, then from the top to the shoulder, from shoulder to waist, from waist to knee; each sweep of the mechanical finger made the Mecha's body shiver, as if performing some strange measurement.

"Damn!"

The voice came from the Mecha's chest cavity, carrying an incredulous tone.

"Why is my head-to-body ratio so weird—! Small head, big body?"

Saber's gaze shifted from the disproportionate small head to the Mecha body covered in Lapis patterns, then back to the small head; a hint of confusion flashed in her eyes, but more was an indescribable complexity—she had seen many enemies, many monsters, many bizarre things, yet she had never seen a fist-sized head perched on a three‑meter‑tall Mecha body.

Ilya, curled in Saber's arms, watching the Mecha the size of a small hill bearing a fist-sized head, couldn't hold back, let out a burst of laughter, the laugh exploding on her tear‑streaked face, blasting away the remaining drops.

She quickly covered her mouth, but the laugh leaked through her fingers, mingling with the earlier sobs, becoming a sound that was impossible to tell whether it was crying or laughing.

Weiba Daye's face twisted from the Mecha's faceplate, three white eyes staring at her.

"What are you laughing at! Never seen handsome!"

Ilya buried her face in Saber's shoulder hollow, the shoulder twitching, unsure whether she was crying or laughing.

Saber looked down at her, then looked up at the Mecha with the small head, her mouth corner twitching.

She slipped the ruby back into Ilya's arms, lifted Ilya onto her shoulder, and straightened her posture.

The Mecha kept rotating that small head there, occasionally glancing at its hand, then its foot; each glance produced a muffled mutter, followed by a curse, then it turned to look elsewhere.