Apocalypse Forecast

Red rain.

In an instant, it covered the entire world.

The Priestess Yima’s eyes flickered, looking up incredulously.

Countless threads of scarlet intertwined, turning into a crimson curtain under their feet. From within, numerous grand phantoms emerged, fleeting, transforming into countless mirages of surreal scenes.

A terrifying roar burst forth suddenly.

The penetrating scarlet finally overwhelmed the defenses, exploding in a roar, transforming into a red sea.

In an instant, it engulfed them.

The entire Helios trembled violently.

The propagation of light signals was so slow that five seconds later, observed from the Current Circumstances Hale Telescope, they glimpsed the horrific events occurring on the hideous war chariot suspended over the Eye of Jupiter.

The blood sea, dissolved from the Child of Leviathan, surged up, gushing from every crevice, spreading, diffusing, rapidly contracting and then expanding.

It formed massive, hard crystal clusters, rapidly moving, countless sharp edges unfurling like petals, clashing, closing, reversing, and defying all logic to expand its volume.

A faint radiance seeped from within, reflecting endless unfamiliar mountains and waterscapes.

They converged, like a lotus, rooting itself within the shell of Helios. Then, countless aqueous colors appeared out of thin air, amidst the ocean-like azure, protruding coral edges and massive fish silhouettes emerged.

Those were the elements of destruction long since dead, representing the remnants of the history of the Old Gaia.

—The forbidden Mystic Ritual·Gaia’s Seed!

Just like that, forcibly inserted into the system of Helios.

In that moment, the offensive from Garand began!

.

.

Loud bangs resonated, countless dust particles sifted down from the ceiling.

The skeleton, sneaking its head around on the tricycle, was startled and instinctively pulled out a rod that could vibrate with a hum, waving it haphazardly.

It almost poked Huai Shi.

"Watch it, can’t you switch to something else?" Huai Shi’s brow twitched, snatching away the object, and after rummaging through the skeleton’s collection for a while, shoved a frying pan into its hand.

"Use this, brother, it’s a blunt weapon with great power!"

"Really?"

The skeleton scratched its head in puzzled understanding, then tucked the frying pan into its rib cage, leaving Huai Shi dumbfounded.

They had been advancing through the eerie underbelly of Helios for an unknown time now.

Under the direction of Tong Ji.

"Ahead... take a detour ahead..." the skeleton suddenly warned.

Within its eye sockets, Fish Ball’s tail twitched nervously, then quickly, it lifted half its tail pointing in another direction.

But ahead was only one path, with no other options to choose from.

Huai Shi hesitated, scratching his head.

Deciding to trust Fish Ball’s judgment.

Conventionally, such experimental mice should have been completely unsuitable for the external environment, yet somehow under the skeleton’s care it was thriving, and was eerily sensitive to anomalies.

Along the way, just with what Huai Shi had witnessed, it had led them to avoid countless dangers.

Sometimes it was a patrolling Spirit of Nativity, sometimes it was a monster that had escaped out of control from a workshop, and sometimes... it was simply another Alchemist completely solidifying into a Mutant Species.

Sometimes, Huai Shi simply saw nothing.

Only the belated Death Perception continually reminded him not to make the wrong choice.

Thanks to its radar, their party had traversed Helios on such a large tricycle for so long without triggering a single confrontation.

Although they took detours at least seven or eight times more, safety came first!

"We’ve been going for so long without seeing anything," Huai Shi scratched his head. "Tong Ji, is your guidance really reliable? It feels more and more unsettling..."

Everywhere they looked, it was like the desolation of abandoned buildings.

Untouched for who knows how many years.

Even the lights on the walls were still from the gas era...

"We’re almost there, not far now."

Tong Ji retracted her gaze and said calmly, "Even if changes happened behind us, Helios’s basic skeleton and internal structure cannot possibly change, unless it wants to fall apart. Otherwise, it must maintain balance with the forming layer, excretion layer, creation layer, and activity layer. To keep balance, superseded discarded engine cores can only sink, thrown into trash heaps."

Huai Shi realized, "So we’re going to use the discarded engine cores to restart the engines?"

"How could that be?" Tong Ji laughed, "If it were me, before starting trouble, the first thing would be to destroy all backups, keeping the keys in my own hands. Publius has been brewing this for so many years, he couldn’t have overlooked this."

"Then it’s just a trash heap?" Huai Shi asked, "Why are we collecting trash?"

"Fool."

Tong Ji sighed helplessly, speaking earnestly, "At least activate some of your skills in illicit organization operation, okay? Think about it, the trash is useless, but what about the trash can itself! Even though the engine cores and such are definitely scrapped, the interface can’t be destroyed..."

Just like blood vessels in a body.

Those are the pathways hidden within every inch of Helios’s entity, the matrix hidden branches closest to the engines.

"How do you know this?" Huai Shi shrewdly spotted something amiss.

In silence, Tong Ji’s expression gradually turned innocent.