The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 33

The text in the Emerald Record was still scrolling up, but Perfit had already read everything she needed to know.

She shifted her gaze from the emerald green text, temporarily pushing the Jade Record's display to the edge of her vision, and looked again at the divine beast that was slowly approaching them.

She no longer believed that it was a deity.

It is merely the sins left behind by the ancient gods, the lingering resentment of those who have long since perished, remnants that should not exist in this world.

"What is that thing..." Alan's voice came from behind her, with a tremor that Perfit had never heard from him before.

This young alchemist, whose wrists were as steady as a watchmaker's when he squatted on the frozen ground in the swamp to draw a transmutation circle, couldn't even finish a sentence at this moment.

Another alchemist knelt down on the ground, his hands tightly clutching the alchemist's badge on his chest. His lips were moving, but Perfitt couldn't hear what he was muttering—not the runes of a transmutation circle, but something more like a prayer.

The monstrous creature emerged from a gap in the hospital ruins.

Its size was much larger than the area of ​​the seal that Perfitt had seen in the cellar.

The black slime had stopped flowing out in new quantities, but the substances that had already fused together were enough to make its shape extremely large.

It has no clear head, but at the top of its torso is a huge, irregular bulge, the surface of which is densely covered with more than a dozen faces, all with their eyes open, facing in different directions.

Then all those faces turned at the same time, and all their eyes were aimed at the direction where Perfit was.

"By the Father..." Chertsov blurted out beside her, his voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

Sabel came up from the back of the group, reopened the Book of Words, and held it to her chest.

She opened her mouth to recite the scriptures, but her lips trembled, and the scriptures came out brokenly from her throat.

Perfit reached out and pressed down on the back of her hand holding the Book of Words, interrupting her calmly: "Judge. You were able to suppress it in the cellar because the remaining inscriptions of the seal were still there; those inscriptions shared most of the pressure for you."

Now the seal is broken, the inscription has dissipated, and the true form of the divine abomination has completely broken free.

Its essence is the lingering resentment of the fallen gods, something no mortal's spiritual power can contend with alone. Your scriptures cannot suppress it.

Sabel looked up at Perfit, and for the first time, a look of near despair appeared on his face, which had remained as hard as iron when facing Sample Seven in the Langton quarantine zone: "So we're just going to watch it come here?"

Perfit did not answer.

She turned around and glanced in the direction of the post road—the last street corner. A few hundred meters ahead was the defensive position of the garrison. The wagons were already harnessed, the military doctor was waving in this direction, and the flag captain was leading the knights who stayed behind to build a temporary barricade at the street corner.

She turned her head to look at the Divine Evil again, mentally estimating the speed and distance at which it would crush her.

Judging from its current crawling speed, it won't take long for it to reach the last street corner, while the expedition team might not be able to get to the post road even if they ran as fast as they could.

Moreover, even if they reached the post road, even with the added firepower of the garrison, it would be meaningless against this wall of flesh and blood that was essentially the remains of gods.

The only difference is whether the person is facing up or down when they are crushed.

Ludwig walked over to her, switched the blood-stained knight's sword to his left hand, and wiped his right hand on his breastplate.

"What exactly is that thing?" Ludwig stared at the fleshy wall rising from the hospital ruins, his voice low, but each word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth.

"A divine abomination, something that shouldn't exist in this world." Perfit spoke quickly, without intending to explain further. "We must stop it before it crushes us, even if it's just for a little while. Otherwise, no one will escape."

Ludwig sensed something in her words that he was reluctant to delve into. "What do you want to do?"

Perfit did not answer.

She took the alchemical staff from her waist, which was inlaid with a fragment of the Philosopher's Stone, and drew out the Philosopher's Stone rod, which was inlaid with another fragment of the Philosopher's Stone.

A crimson light shone from the Philosopher's Stone fragment at the tip of her staff. She pressed the end of her staff to the ground, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

She recalled the consequences of her last attempt to manipulate two Philosopher's Stones simultaneously for a large-scale material transformation; afterwards, Foster had to help her withdraw her mental energy to prevent her from fainting on the spot.

The alchemy she is about to unleash will be on an even larger scale than the last one.

When she opened her eyes again, she was completely calm: "If I faint, carry me."

Perfit pressed the end of his cane to the ground and closed his eyes.

The moment the two Philosopher's Stone fragments were activated simultaneously, crimson light burst forth from between her fingers. At first, it was just a small cluster, but it quickly spread, enveloping her fingers, wrists, and forearms in a flowing red light.

She stood like this four years ago in the underground laboratory of the Brandlis Manor.

She had only been in this world for less than a quarter of an hour. In front of her was the rampaging Philosopher's Stone transmutation circle, and behind her were two bloody and mangled corpses that were still protecting her with their bodies.

At that moment, fourteen-year-old Perfit Brandlis activated the Emerald Book of Omniscience for the first time, using the last bit of composure left by the transmigrator to suppress the rampaging alchemy array and reassemble the torn Philosopher's Stone—at the cost of the Philosopher's Stone, which should have been whole, split in two. Later, she embedded one half in her cane and the other half in her Alchemist's staff.

That year, she didn't rely on her alchemical skills; at that time, her alchemical level wasn't even that of an apprentice.

She relied on the analytical abilities granted to her by the Jade Record to understand the structure of the rampaging magic array in an almost instinctive way, and then used her fourteen-year-old mental strength to forcibly bring it back on track before it completely collapsed.

What she has to do now is no different in essence from what she did four years ago.

She opened her eyes, and the unique emerald green light of the Jade Record shone deep within the iris of her right eye.

The All-Seeing Eye began to analyze the remaining structure of the ancient sealing runes on the cellar well wall—every stroke, every bend, and the position of every rune node that she had directly imprinted in her memory with the All-Seeing Eye before she left, all of them now surged up from the depths of her memory and were reconstructed frame by frame in her vision as emerald green line drawings.

The structure of the ancient seal unfolded before her eyes, and the missing parts were marked segment by segment by the All-Knowing Eye, which then began to deduce and complete it.