Book 6 Chapter 38.2 - Embrace
In a certain small town on the western shore of the continent, life was still peaceful. Roughly three hundred people lived in this small town, and just like in every inhabited area, life was difficult, yet also stable, cruel, yet had basic structure. For some reason, this small town wasn’t purged by the mechanical bug swarm found throughout the continent. Meanwhile, the people here were completely oblivious to the events taking place a few dozen kilometers out. The environment here was blessed by heaven, as long as one went out to sea to fish, then there was no need to worry about food, to the extent where even the phenomenon of wasting food existed in this small town. There were just too many fish in the sea, if a boat went out to sea, a day and night’s worth of work would result in tons of fish. The reason why the population of the town didn’t increase was because the amount of radiation within the ocean fish was too strong, and the mutation the people suffered was too severe, lifespans thus shortened to less than thirty years.
Unknowingly when, a little girl had joined the town. She was extremely thin and weak, clothes ragged and shabby. Even though she only looked seven or eight years old, she already exuded a type of delicate beauty. Normally, she would have left the classification of girl a long time ago, becoming the toy of men, but during this period of time in this small town, she was instead extremely safe.
The little girl appeared and disappeared randomly, everyone always seeing her, yet when the men wanted to do something, they would always find that they just couldn’t find her. When they already vented their lust through other means, she would always appear at the edge of their field of view. Meanwhile, most of the time, the men wouldn’t have any thoughts. She was still too young, and the mutated tissues on her body were too strange, scattered throughout her body like ripened grapes.
No one knew where this girl came from, they only knew that she didn’t have parents, nor did she have any relatives. The townsmen always saw her digging through the garbage heap for rotten fish to allay her hunger, and sometimes, there would be people who would purposely place a complete fresh fish by where she usually roamed. This was an extremely inconceivable thing in these times, yet in this little town, it wasn’t all that absurd, because this place didn’t lack fish.
On a certain morning, when the people of the town woke up, they suddenly discovered a line of blood red words written at the center of the town’s plaza: Hurry and leave, scatter, do not remain in this town by the time night arrives.”
There were people who believed these words, but more people who snorted disdainfully. Life in the little town was rich and peaceful, at the very least, they wouldn’t starve to death, who would leave? The dangers of the wilderness were self-evident, so who would leave this place and run into the wilderness?
When dusk arrived, there were still only several dozen people who left the small town, entering the boundless and mysterious wilderness. This was an extremely reckless move, but a fear that came from their very instincts made them choose to leave. No one discovered that there was a pattern to those who left and those who stayed behind; those who left were all those who had more or less displayed some kindness to that little girl.
However, not even those who left noticed that the little girl had silently disappeared.
Night finally descended, those who remained in the town still grew restless in the end. For some reason, they felt more and more nervous, and then those with the sharpest perception vaguely heard a buzzing engine noise. A mechanical scouting bug appeared above the small town. It was extremely small, flying a thousand meters in the air, and the little town only had normal people, so there was no way they could detect its appearance. A second later, the information that this region had several hundred large scale lives was already transmitted through a carrier wave a thousand miles out. Just several hundred kilometers out, over ten thousand mechanical units activated their engines, starting to fly in this direction.
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In the north, the frozen earth that piled up suddenly split open, a small figure making its way out from within. It stood perfectly straight, trying its best to lengthen its body, first gazing into the sky. The sky was full of gloomy clouds of radiation, the lighting dim, not even a single bird flying above. However, in its many compound eyes, more than a single mechanical scouting bug drifted about in the sky. These mechanical scouting bugs were floating in and out of the clouds of radiation, almost impossible to detect, but they were all reflected in its eyes without exception.
It instantly began to deduce its path of escape, but discovered that the scouting bugs in the sky had no gaps in coverage at all, completely impossible for it to quietly and quickly leave. It hesitated a bit, and then began to calculate its speed of moving underneath the snow layer and underground, but before it truly began to calculate this, it already knew that this would waste too much time. Even though the summoning that came from the depths of its blood didn’t give a concrete time frame, it still felt a presupposed bottom line, a feeling that came from its instincts.
As soon as it thought about this summoning, it suddenly trembled, the deep fear it felt containing a hint of excitement. The summoning that came from its paternal body awakened an instinctive fear within its innermost depths, it wasn’t willing to meet its paternal body, yet couldn’t refuse this summoning. Meanwhile, on the other side, it also felt a bit of curiosity towards its father, wishing to see what this person who gave its mother such a deep impression was like.
It hesitated for a moment, and then finally set its resolution. It leapt out from the snowy heap, hovering roughly a meter from the ground, and then its body was pulled perfectly straight, suddenly shooting out like an arrow! Its speed became faster and faster, to the extent where it drew out a clear trajectory through the sky. A sharp screaming sound transmitted into the distance, waves of air sweeping through the large amount of snow and dust, drawing out a roiling dragon of smoke behind it!
Its speed became faster and faster, moreover still continuously accelerating. The noise produced by high speed flight was extremely great. Forget about scouting bugs, even normal humans could hear it from several kilometers away. The scouting bugs in the sky entered a wave of panic, immediately transmitting information out. The creature moving at high speed was within their list of targets, very likely belonging to the highest level ultra life form. The scouting bugs in the surrounding space immediately gathered towards this region, cutting it off from the front, chasing from the back, the large amounts of mechanical units along the way also starting to slowly turn around, intercepting it at the predetermined point that was calculated.
However, a few minutes later, the scouting bugs discovered their mistake, that they couldn’t catch up to this target moving close to the ground at all. Moreover, when a mechanical bug swarm was mobilized, the little fella would have long passed through the interception point, and then speed past. All of the mechanical bugs within a several hundred square kilometer radius already temporarily linked up into a web, quickly calculating the little fella’s new activity trajectory, and then assembled a new web of interception of over ten thousand combat units.
The little fella was also feeling extremely gloomy inside, it only remained dormant underground for a period of time, so why did the number of annoying metal fellas outside become this many? Moreover, they were everywhere! In its eyes, it naturally couldn’t see the difference between machines and living creatures, but it could feel that there was some kind of powerful will behind all of the mechanical units, which was why these mechanical bugs were viewed by it as a part of a giant life entity.
In addition, the scenes that it saw while moving also left it feeling inwardly shocked. The great earth was incredibly barren, no large scale life to be seen at all, everything deathly still, as if it was in a life devoid of life. Its food wasn’t necessarily only living things, but this type of environment without life gave it a cold and lonesome feeling. Right at this time, large amounts of combat units appeared up ahead, the specks of radiance signs of high energy light beams about to be fired. Meanwhile, the little fella felt a type of powerful danger, an indication that it was being targeted.
Right when the high energy light beams were about to fire, the little fella suddenly released a roar, the overcast sound wave traveling far into the distance, shaking up the front row of combat units until they trembled, the feeling of being targeted immediately decreased substantially. However, the sound wave was merely a surface level attack, the true danger was the force fields attached to the sound wave that locked onto all of the combat unit force fields. They were just that weak, to the extent where the combat units’ scouting perception didn’t detect anything.
The little fella’s entire body became brilliant, suddenly increasing speed, its speed instantly exceeding 1000 kilometers! It was like a comet, immediately breaking through the combat units’ layers of obstruction, and then leaving them all behind. The high energy light beams fired out, immediately activating the hidden force fields. Even though the force fields only barely affected the high energy light beams, they were fatal towards the weak light beam firing devices. Combat units’ light beam firing devices exploded one after another, smaller sized combat units directly basting apart. The large scale units also suffered serious damage, now only barely able to maintain flight. Clouds of flames ignited in the sky, burning remains continuously falling from the sky.
Meanwhile, the little fella was now already more than ten kilometers out, moreover quickly leaving the scouting bugs’ range of monitoring, leaving into the distance just like that. Its tactics were successful, which was to break free through absolute speed, to the point where the mechanical bug swarm couldn’t react in time. Even though it already responded to the summoning, it threw all thoughts of its fate to the back of its mind. Now that it was facing its paternal body, even if it was directly eaten by him, before destruction, it still wanted its father to give it a name.
It wanted a name, already wishing for one for a long, long time.