At the deepest part of Sonora, a white figure had already arrived.
Xiangli Yao walked slowly across a platform covered in mechanical devices. The world around him was shrouded in hazy mist.
In the distance, huge amounts of machinery had been discarded carelessly like piles of garbage.
And at the center of this enormous platform, a steel beast the size of a truck lay sleeping there.
Its two thick arms were pieced together from irregular mechanical constructs. At the position of its ribs were embedded a sword and a blade, one formed from lasers, the other from circuit patches.
Heavy pipelines coiled around its body like human muscles, twitching in an unsettling rhythm.
A massive mouth formed from mechanical sawteeth curved upward slightly, like a person grinning foolishly, its lips stretched all the way to its ears.
"Pascal... are you Pascal?"
Xiangli Yao slowly walked up to the Aggregated Mechanical Puppet. If this Sonora truly had been formed from Pascal's lingering obsession, then the monster before him was Pascal's incarnation.
Or rather, the incarnation of obsession itself.
Xiangli Yao was about to continue speaking when he suddenly noticed that a red light had lit up on the face made of rusted iron plates.
That lone red glow resembled a damaged eye, flickering with a dangerous crimson light.
"Hate... the world... rest... return to the past... destruction..."
A chaotic mix of voices, men and women, young and old, suddenly poured out from the monster's ear-splitting grin. In the next second, its massive body leaped high into the air, soaring dozens of meters upward in an instant.
Then it came crashing down wrapped in dark purple lightning.
Xiangli Yao's gaze flickered. He stomped hard against the ground and narrowly avoided the strike. At the same time, he raised his right arm.
The mechanical structure composing it split apart before rapidly reassembling into a massive cannon...
BOOM!!
A beam of light instantly pierced through the monster's left shoulder, leaving behind a smoking wound on its thick arm.
But it was a machine. It felt no pain.
The leaking electrical currents rapidly gathered around the punctured arm. A powerful magnetic field sealed the hole almost instantly, taking over the role of reconnecting the limb.
"Science no longer exists..."
As another murmur escaped it, sounding both hateful and unwilling to accept reality, the monster raised its right arm high and carved another streak of lightning through the air, slashing toward Xiangli Yao.
"So it's not just Pascal's frequency..."
Using his small and agile frame, Xiangli Yao slipped beneath the monster's arm. Then the machinery in his right arm reconfigured once again, transforming into a blade that swept out with dazzling light toward the monster's abdomen.
Although the strike left another wound, it still amounted to little more than a scratch for the creature.
"You geniuses don't understand at all!!!"
"As long as we... as long as we have Sea Erosion..."
"The Silent Zones... must be solved by us... by me!"
In just a few short seconds, man and monster had already exchanged blows more than a dozen times.
Though Xiangli Yao managed to leave wounds on the creature with every attack, sweat had begun to bead on his forehead.
He understood the situation perfectly well.
The Aggregated Mechanical Puppet could afford countless mistakes. Losing an arm meant nothing to it. But if even one attack landed on him, it would kill him instantly.
And beyond that, facing a monster of this level, the strain on his nerves and the constant drain on his stamina were gradually tipping the scales of victory in the monster's favor.
Realizing this, Xiangli Yao ignored the sweat running down his face. During a heavy dodge, he shouted at the monster, "Pascal, remember! What was it you truly stood for?!"
But what answered him was not his best friend's voice.
Only the crackling of electricity and the roaring wind from the monster's swinging arms tearing through the air.
The enormous arms smashed downward violently, forcing Xiangli Yao to leap backward.
But that was exactly what the monster had been waiting for.
The moment Xiangli Yao widened the distance between them, the monster immediately raised the mechanical collector mounted on its left arm. Destructive electrical energy surged wildly within it.
At that moment, Xiangli Yao was caught between movements, his old momentum spent while new force had yet to gather. In his haste, he only managed to raise his right arm, intending to counter with a beam attack.
But human strength had limits.
And Xiangli Yao was still positioned on the left side of the battlefield.
The blinding beam instantly swallowed his comparatively tiny figure before he could even let out a scream.
A long while later, the beam slowly faded away.
There was no trace of Xiangli Yao left before the Aggregated Mechanical Puppet. Only a scorched trail remained where the searing light had burned across the ground.
"Hahaha... my wish... will succeed very soon..."
"Recreate the Silent Zones, recreate Sea Erosion!!!"
Seeing its target eliminated, the Aggregated Mechanical Puppet lowered its massive arms. Its horrifying words once again echoed throughout the empty Sonora.
"I won't let you... twist his wish!"
The next second, a pale blue beam descended from the sky and instantly pierced through the monster's chest.
Startled, the Aggregated Mechanical Puppet lifted its massive and terrifying head and looked upward.
Two figures descended from the crack torn open in Sonora's sky, brilliant light shining behind them.
The one who had arrived at the very last moment was Zane.
The instant he entered the depths of Sonora, he saw the Aggregated Mechanical Puppet attacking Xiangli Yao from several hundred meters away. At that distance, saving him should have been impossible.
But who was he?
The unparalleled genius Zane.
Faced with that situation, Zane directly activated the Meta Field using the Nexus Armament. A skill originally meant to protect the surrounding environment from destruction had somehow been used by him to save someone instead.
Zane directly pulled Xiangli Yao into the Meta Field, avoiding the monster's attack, then dropped him back out from the sky.
Pascal...
After the experiment failed, unwilling to accept defeat, he left the institute carrying all the research materials and equipment with him, venturing alone deep into the Silent Zones.
In the end, hard work paid off. He independently discovered and summarized the frequency characteristics of the Silent Zones.
He had even created a prototype capable of predicting where Silent Zones would appear ahead of time.
What a magnificent invention that was.
As long as Silent Zones could be predicted, pedestrians, caravans, and villages alike could avoid casualties as much as possible.
The Midnight Rangers would arrive at the Silent Zones in advance through those predictions, snuffing out disasters before they could fully emerge.
With this invention, Pascal should have risen into the upper ranks of the institute and contributed his share toward Jinzhou's prosperity.
Unfortunately, the arrogant Pascal announced only his success.
He wanted only to proclaim his victory.
So on that day, he went to the predicted location. He intended to declare there that he had surpassed every other researcher.
But sadly, both the timing and scale of the Sea Erosion were vastly different from his predictions.
Zane still remembered that day. After hearing of his close friend Pascal's success, Xiangli Yao had brought his colleagues to observe the event.
What they saw instead was the outbreak of Sea Erosion.
And Pascal, unable to escape in time.
Only today did Zane finally see him once more within this Sonora.
Under Xiangli Yao's friendship-powered face punch and Zane's Myriad Swords Returning to the Origin, the Aggregated Mechanical Puppet was quickly defeated.
As the puppet's massive body dissolved into data and vanished, what remained behind was Pascal's lingering frequency.
What? You're asking where Zane got "Myriad Swords Returning to the Origin"?
You should first ask what kind of lunatic uses garbage as swords.
The endless black piles of stinking trash rained down over the Aggregated Mechanical Puppet's head from every direction, nearly blowing out its wiring.
The important part was that those trash bags didn't just deal mental damage. Garbage with an inherent 15% true damage bonus smashing directly into your face was basically a scattered nuclear strike.
If you don't believe it, just look over there. Even Pascal's residual phantom is squatting on the ground clutching his head now.
Zane scratched his cheek, thought for a moment, then turned and left Sonora, leaving time behind for the two best bro... close friends.
During that time, Xiangli Yao told Pascal everything.
Only afterward did Zane finally hear the complete story from Xiangli Yao.
That Aggregated Mechanical Puppet was called "Collection of Obsessions," the obsession born from knowing one's wish could never be fulfilled. Pascal's lingering fixation remained inside the machine and had been twisted by it.
But Pascal's courage in facing despair should never have been tainted or distorted.
And that was exactly why Xiangli Yao fought.
The year Pascal was swallowed by Sea Erosion, Xiangli Yao refused to believe Pascal had caused it. After the Sea Erosion faded, it was he who led his colleagues in recovering Pascal's remaining research.
In truth, the facts had already become clear that very year. The materials Pascal left behind were deciphered, and his research inspired countless people. Even the Black Shores sent technical consultants to Jinzhou for guidance.
In fact, the most important formula among them was later named the "Pascal Spectrum."
It was just that perhaps Pascal himself never learned this...
And so he left behind a collection of obsessions, along with his own "wish."
———
"I didn't expect you all to go through so much while I was away..."
After returning from Xiaoman's place, Rover listened to Zane describe the bittersweet conclusion and couldn't help letting out a sigh.
"Alright, alright, enough sighing. Now that the matter of the wishes is settled, next comes... the time to enjoy the festival."
As Zane spoke, he waved the plan in his hand toward Rover.
He intended to leave Jinzhou with a memory no one would ever forget.
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