Chapter 87: Mechanical Temple

Third layer of the labyrinth, Mechanical Temple.

A lithe figure moved like lightning, crossing over the high mechanical platform, and landed steadily on the platform connected to the stone pillar.

A slight mechanism triggering sound rang out, and the stone pillar sensing the intruder began to rotate slowly.

Accompanied by the creaking sound of metal gears, more than a dozen platforms connected to the stone pillars slowly rotated in the wide space like the blades of a propeller.

It wasn't just vertical translation!

There was also horizontal rotation! Facing that complex mechanism array, there was no panic in Sarah's eyes, she just took a deep breath and lowered her body, then the whole person leaped into the air like an arrow off the string, landing on the platform tilted at a 45-degree angle directly above.

Not a moment of pause—

Almost the moment her feet touched the stone slab, the long legs pressed into a bow shape continued to exert force, pushing Sarah to jump toward another platform.

Everything was as easy as breathing.

That lithe figure was like a light feather, dancing up and down between the rotating stone pillars and stone slabs, moving upward against the wind and gravity.

Finally reached the topmost platform.

Sarah touched the ground with both feet, turned the mechanism handle on top of the stone pillar hard, and released the alignment of some kind of inscription inside the stone pillar.

The pale blue light extinguished!

Sarah quickly jumped backward, pulled out the dagger hanging at her waist, and stood on guard.

Accompanied by the creaking sound of metal gears, the rotating stone pillar finally stopped slowly, and along with it, those blade-like platforms also stopped.

Looking down from above, the staggered platforms formed a spiral staircase winding upward around the huge stone pillar.

Seeing the mechanism released, Sarah relaxed slightly, and quietly wiped the sweat hanging on her cheek with her arm.

However, even though the mechanism had been released, her tense nerves still didn't dare to have the slightest relaxation, her agile eyes always vigilantly watching the surroundings, not daring to miss any wind or grass movement.

Not until she saw Luo Yan walking up the steps below the stone pillar with Okto and Bond did a trace of uncontrollable pride curl up on the corner of Sarah's mouth.

With full anticipation, she quietly glanced at that lord, then quickly moved her gaze away, and then couldn't help but quietly glance again.

No need to guess what she was looking forward to, Luo Yan naturally wouldn't pretend not to see her efforts, and praised her genuinely.

"Well done!"

Honestly speaking, even if his panel data was much higher than Sarah's, he absolutely couldn't do this set of movements of moving left and right.

Proficiency isn't something that can be solved by stacking a few BUFFs; besides talent, it also requires years of training.

Sarah's skills weren't just learned from Chris, the thief's techniques, but more from the survival skills she was forced to learn in the past dozen years while wandering on the edge of human society as an "untouchable."

Such as hunting, such as surviving in the cracks, such as avoiding the "justice execution" of fanatical believers, etc.

Hearing that genuine praise, Sarah could no longer suppress the corner of her mouth that had long been raised, and the cat ears on her head shook happily.

Luo Yan's gaze crossed over the top of her head and looked at the suspended corridor directly in front.

Dozens of self-destructing robots were lying in ambush under the corridor, ready to jump out at any time to give the intruder a surprise.

However, they were destined to have no chance.

Long before coming up from below the stone pillar, Luo Yan had discovered their existence and threw a Frost Breath to freeze them all.

Holding his magic staff, he continued.

"Let's continue forward... I can feel that we are not far from the 'mastermind' who built these mechanisms."

"I can feel that they are running out of tricks."

All mechanical mechanisms related to inscriptions were added later.

Luo Yan had learned from the Nightmare Realm that the mechanisms on the third layer of the labyrinth before were mainly elemental magic enchantments.

Such as rock-earth puppets and metal golems, etc.

Therefore, they only needed to continue walking along these superfluous mechanisms, and sooner or later they would find the guy who made these mechanisms.

Luo Yan couldn't help but be curious.

What kind of guy could transform this area, where even adventurers weren't very willing to stay for long, into this in such a short time.

Even if what was transformed was only a small edge area in the north of the labyrinth, even if there was the component of taking materials on the spot, the workload of this "renovation project" was quite astonishing.

Dwarf?

Or gnome?

Soon he would know...

Just as the group passed through the frosted corridor, behind the gears hanging on the towering wall, a few sneaky heads poked out.

They had furry bodies, fleshy claws, eyes that were almost invisible, and noses that occupied one-third of their faces.

These guys weren't any dwarves or gnomes, but "Mole-men" living in the mountains of the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain Range.

Some humans would mistake them for rat-men, but underground creatures living underground knew very well that these furry guys had nothing to do with rat-men, whether it was physiological structure, faith, culture, etc.

Additionally, besides having poor eyesight and not being good at spellcasting, their attainments in stonemasonry and metal processing were no worse than dwarves.

Watching the man suspected to be the Demon King pass through layers of mechanisms and continue forward, the moles monitoring from the shadows were all panicked.

"Damn! How did he discover our mechanisms?!"

"Frost magic! Damn! The weakness of this human thing that uses magic was actually discovered by him!"

"Must not let him continue forward! Ahead is the territory of the Iron Tooth tribe! We cannot lose our mine!"

"Must do something!"

"Release the big guy!"

"Are you sure!?"

"Sure! Hurry!"

"But who's going to drive it?!"

"You go!"

"No! You go!!"

"I will never sit on that thing that hasn't been tested!"

A group of mole-men screamed and chattered, squeezing together and pushing each other... only when they were cowardly were these noisy guys very similar to rat-men.

No way.

Fighting really wasn't their specialty, not to mention the opponent could use magic, which was much harder to deal with than those clumsy rock puppets.

Finally, three mole-men were squeezed out, and under the urging of their clansmen, they crawled toward the depths of the tunnel with tearful faces, using their hands and feet.

At the same time, on the other side, Luo Yan and his group entered an empty area after passing through the corridor and the archway on the wall. It looked like an abandoned industrial factory, and also like a temple in steampunk style.

Huge metal gears were placed close to the wall according to a certain special rule, like shrines in a temple.

And even more eye-catching was the pile of trash in the center of the hall... dense parts and waste pipelines were piled here, presumably these were the materials used to make those self-destructing robots.

Luo Yan looked around.

If he had to say what was missing here, he could probably only think of Lint Isaac's statue.

"... Such a blasphemous temple, clearly not the work of hell creatures, sure enough, it's a monster that spread from the nearby mountains."

Just then, the cat ears on Sarah's head moved lightly, and her amber pupils vigilantly looked around, just like a cat that had discovered a mouse.

"There's a sound..."

As she spoke, her nose sniffed lightly, becoming even more certain of her discovery.

"The smell of a mouse—"

Her voice had barely fallen when a deafening roar came from behind that huge pile of trash!

"You're the mouse! Your whole family is mice!!!"

That noisy voice was like a microphone being held against a fan, the sudden explosion of sound scared Sarah, who was concentrating on guarding the surroundings, into bristling, and she couldn't help but hiss.

Okto and Bond immediately gripped the weapons in their hands, one guarding in front of the Demon King, one standing in front of Sarah.

Also at the same time, Luo Yan saw the scene that was enough to rank in the top ten among all the scenes that had shocked his eyeballs since he traveled to this world—

"Holy crap!"

Gundam?! That thing clearly wasn't Gundam—

But it was at least an enlarged version of "Mechanical Enemy."

Only to see that on the top of the trash mountain, a trash giant was standing majestically! Its height was a full five meters—

Or maybe it was six meters!

Because its limbs were all supporting on the ground, Luo Yan couldn't determine its true height, and could only judge roughly based on intuition.

Twisted metal brackets and discarded gears and bearings formed its skeleton, and also supported its swollen armor shell, looking from afar as if it were a faded pumpkin and pumpkin vine.

Its limbs were exceptionally thick, and unexpectedly not one was symmetrical.

So much so that Luo Yan didn't know whether to be surprised at how this guy maintained balance, or to marvel at the horror of inscription technology.

That huge metal structure had no head, or rather, its head was hidden in the belly where the armor was most strictly protected.

Watching that figure, which one could hardly tell was comical or miraculous, Luo Yan maintained a dignified expression and spoke.

"Who are you people!"

The noisy voice resounded through this temple filled with mechanical parts again, and the giant standing on top of the trash mountain let out a restless roar.

"You don't need to know! Crunch, Flash, and Thump will smash you into potato chips!!! Have you seen potato chips? You will die! All of you will die!"

Maybe it was thinking of potato chips.

Sarah couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of saliva.

Crunch, Flash, and Thump... so there are three operators in this big guy's belly? Didn't you still tell me? Looking at the roaring mechanical giant, Luo Yan felt speechless for a while.

Although he always felt that this guy wasn't very smart, no one could guarantee that this wasn't a feint used by the other party, so he still put on a posture of waiting in full battle array.

"Prepare for battle."

As he spoke, nether-colored light condensed on the tip of his staff, and white bones slowly emerged in the void.

Usually when grinding levels, Luo Yan generally either used fire-type or water-type magic he wasn't very familiar with, or used Dragon Language.

And he couldn't estimate the combat power of this guy in front of him, so to be safe, he planned to use the undead magic he was most proficient in.

Looking at the light flickering on the tip of his magic staff, that huge robot let out a violent roar again.

"It's magic!"

"Hurry! Hurry and do it!"

"Turn off the speaker before talking! Idiot! He heard you!"

Accompanied by a sharp noise, the mechanical giant slowly raised its arms that were propped on the ground, revealing the cannon hidden in its palm.

Luo Yan's pupils contracted slightly, quickly changing the rhythm of waving his magic staff, and the incantation blurted out.

"Wall of Bones!"

The white bones emerging from the void formed an indestructible wall in front of the crowd!

Also almost at the same time, two explosive roars came from the trash mountain.

"Bang bang—!"

The first cannonball that came whistling was almost brushing against the bone wall and exploded on the floor, countless rock fragments wrapped in dust blew toward the semi-circular bone wall! This cannonball hit nothing, and the second cannonball was no exception, directly drying a hole in the ceiling.

Luo Yan originally thought it was some kind of tactical move with ulterior motives, such as the guy actually aiming not at him, but at the hanging object above his head... he even felt nervous for this.

Not until he saw that giant robot fail to withstand the recoil of its own firing, lose its balance, roll directly off the mountain of trash, and tumble onto the ground in a sorry state, did Luo Yan realize how much of a waste of effort his worrying had been...

Looking at the "big guy" who fell to the ground, the mole-men hiding in the shadows and cheering were all filled with despair.

"No!"

"Damn!!"

"This bunch of idiots! The big guy isn't driven like this at all!"

"..."

Looking

"Do you want to keep fighting?"

Not long after.

The metal hatch opened outward, and a white flag was raised.

Along with it came a trembling voice.

"Surr-surr-surr..."

"Surrender! We surrender!"

(End of chapter)