The earth vein's raging flood surged like an enraged jade dragon, violently throwing the three out from the underground ruins of the Glass City.
Rein tumbled dozens of meters through the mud before stabilizing his stance. The magical protective barrier formed by four types of energy on his body was already shattered. His first action was to look down at the baby in his arms—the little one's skin was covered with dense gear-like patterns, with black light and mechanical green glow intertwining in the skull mark on the chest. When it breathed, there was an eerie metallic friction sound.
"Ravenna! Ironbeard!"
Painful groans came from nearby. Ravenna was half submerged in the swamp, her severed arm's \[Alchemical Mimicry] completely dissipated, her face pale as a corpse. Ironbeard's condition was worse—the old dwarf's mechanical eye smoked black, and his left leg was twisted unnaturally, but he still clutched his war hammer tightly.
"Not dead yet…" the female rogue spat out a mouthful of mud, "but that little bastard…"
The ground suddenly trembled. In the distance, the Glass City's spire snapped in half, and countless mechanical debris fell like meteors onto the surrounding swamp. Even more terrifying was the moon in the sky suddenly being devoured by shadow, its edge appearing with a precise gear-shaped notch!
"Gear-biting moon," Ironbeard's one eye widened, "The dwarven prophecy's omen of apocalypse!"
The baby suddenly convulsed violently in Rein's arms. The skull mark shot out a black-green beam directly at the moon. Instantly, all the falling mechanical debris froze mid-air, then abruptly turned in unison towards their location!
"Dammit, he's attracting those things!" Ravenna struggled as she crawled toward Rein. "Break his control, quick!"
Rein's jade left eye saw an even more terrifying truth — inside those mechanical remnants flowed the same energy as in the baby's chest. Without hesitation, he activated Life Bind, jade vines wrapping around the baby's limbs, while simultaneously infusing the skull mark with Elven Calm and the dark-red Dragonblood Suppression.
The beam vanished, and the baby went limp. But the mechanical debris in the sky had already locked onto their position, roaring like a swarm of bees as they surged forward!
Ironbeard spat out a broken tooth and slammed his warhammer hard on the ground: "Forgewall!"
Dwarven runes exploded from the hammerhead, forming a hemispherical shield. In the next second, hundreds of mechanical fragments crashed against the barrier, sparks and corrosive liquid splashing everywhere. The outermost runes began to crumble. Ironbeard's lone eye bulged with blood: "It won't hold much longer!"
Ravenna bit open the alchemy pouch at her waist, grabbed three vials with her teeth, and hurled them into the sky: "Try some of Old Nick's Corrosion Feast!"
The glass tubes shattered. The moment the dark green mist touched the mechanical debris, the metal visibly rusted and dissolved, but more debris bypassed the toxic fog. Among them were clearly intact mechanical guard bodies, their eyes glowing with bloodthirsty red light.
Rein shoved the baby into Ravenna's arms. His Frosttongue sword slashed through the air, drawing a cross: "Winter Cross Slash!"
Silver-blue sword energy and jade vines intertwined into a net, cutting the first three guards to pieces. But the fourth suddenly morphed, its chest splitting open to shoot dozens of writhing tentacles!
"Can't dodge it!" Rein dodged sideways to avoid the vital spots, yet three tentacles still pierced his right shoulder. Amidst the sharp pain, he distinctly felt the foreign objects crawling through his blood vessels toward his heart —A flash of golden light streaked past.
The baby had somehow woken up, its tiny hand precisely grabbing a tentacle that had pierced Rein's skin. The gear-shaped right eye rotated, activating Divine Corrosion Command: Strip, instantly stiffening the tentacle, which withered and shattered as if its life force had been drained.
"Thanks, little guy." Rein gasped, only to notice the baby's mechanical green eye staring intently at his wound, displaying some kind of... hungry expression?
Ironbeard's shield finally shattered, and the old dwarf collapsed to his knees. His mechanical eye burst with a "pop," but suddenly pointed toward the depths of the swamp. "Retreat that way! There's something in the water that can disrupt them!"
Rein hoisted Ironbeard up, Ravenna held the baby, and the four staggered into the foul-smelling swamp. The mechanical debris suddenly lost control during the chase, some crashing straight into the mud. Through his jade vision, Rein saw the water filled with glowing nerve-like algae — the Magic Interference Fungal Mat, a natural anti-magic tracking trap.
Safe for the moment, Ravenna collapsed on a dead log and bit open a first aid kit. "Old-timer, you're bleeding black blood from your shoulder."
"Corrosive toxin," Rein tore open his clothes. The blood vessels around the wound had turned dark green. "Not ordinary poison... it's a mutated strain mixed with ancient tree sap."
The baby suddenly crawled over, its mechanical green eye fixed on the wound, tiny hands twitching. Rein instinctively leaned back, but then saw a single golden tear drop from the baby's gear-shaped right eye. It fell onto the wound and surprisingly neutralized part of the toxin.
"Two forces are fighting inside him," Ironbeard said as he fumbled with replacement parts for his mechanical eye. "The mechanical consciousness wants to consume him, but the Watcher instinct is protecting you."
In the distance came the last sounds of Glass City collapsing. The moon had already been swallowed by the gear-like shadows for a third of its surface. Strangely, those shadows were forming some kind of rune array — increasingly resembling the skull mark on the baby's chest.
Ravenna suddenly pressed her temple. "Wait... I'm seeing images in my mind... the deepest part beneath Glass City... there's a spherical chamber..."
Her purple-gold veins flared uncontrollably, projecting a blurry image in the air: twelve incubation pods surrounding a central light pillar, each pod floating a child similar to the baby, all bearing the skull mark on their chests!
"Mass production vessels," Rein's slit pupil contracted sharply. "The Council wants to mass-produce divine vessels!"
The baby suddenly screamed, the black light from the skull mark erupting uncontrollably. Even more terrifying, dozens of red eyes lit up around the swamp — the lurking Abyss Trackers had been awakened!
The three-headed hound-like monsters leapt from the mud, their streamlined armor etched with bloodsucking runes. The lead one suddenly stood upright, its chest cavity splitting open to reveal the projection of the city lord's consciousness. "Surrender the prototype vessel, or be killed to the last man."
Ironbeard's new mechanical eye finally activated. Scanning the enemies, he grimaced.
"Bloodsucking Bladehounds, upgraded. Each can singlehandedly take on an adult earth dragon."
Rein plunged the Frosttongue sword into the mud, infusing triple energies down the blade into the swamp. "Then let the swamp come alive."
"Wrath of Nature: Swamp Awakening!"
Where the jade light touched, the decayed vegetation grew wildly, entangling the legs of the blade hounds. Ravenna took the chance to throw her last three Venom Fang Bombs — the hiss of metal corroding echoed through the purple-black smoke.
"Run east!" Ironbeard pointed toward the faint outline of mountains. "Head for the Mechanical Graveyard! The interference is stronger there!"
As they broke through on floating logs, Rein glanced back at the sinking Glass City. Under the moonlight, massive mechanical tentacles slowly rose from the ruins, their tips opening a huge dark-green eye—
The Devourer had awakened.
The Mechanical Graveyard was even more unsettling than legends described.
Countless scrapped war machines piled up like steel hills, their surfaces crawling with glowing Corroded Iron Vines. The acidic mucus these plants secreted filled the air with a pungent stench, yet also formed a natural anti-magic field.
"We've shaken them off for now," Ravenna collapsed onto a tank wreck, blood seeping again from her severed arm. "But that little bastard's condition…"
The baby curled in Rein's arms, the gear patterns and black glow of the skull mark pulsing alternately on his skin. Most unsettling was his mechanical green eye, which sometimes fully filled his eye socket as he uttered in a cold, synthetic voice: "Coordinates… locked… descent…"
Ironbeard smashed open a rusty medical box and downed half a bottle of dwarven strong liquor. "We have to suppress his mechanical consciousness, or more pursuers will come."
"Use this." Rein produced a crystal shard from the Mother Tree — a fragment left from the last energy surge. Under the jade light, the baby's gear patterns faded slightly.
Suddenly, Ravenna drew a dagger and pressed it to Rein's throat: "Don't move."
The blade scraped along Rein's carotid artery, pulling out an almost transparent Hidden Fish Probe. The needle's tip twitched wildly, as if it had a mind of its own, stopping just half an inch from the skin.
"A masterpiece of the Glass City alchemists," Ravenna said, flicking the probe into a nearby pool of acid. "Looks like your flesh and blood are quite attractive to them."
Suddenly, Ironbeard's mechanical eye blared an alarm. From deep within the graveyard came the sound of metal deforming, followed by the rustling of some gigantic creature sliding along.
"This thing shouldn't be here…" the old dwarf's voice tightened. "Why did the Devouring Larva hatch early?"
Six dark green mechanical tentacles emerged from the shadows, covered with bark-like armor. Each tentacle's tip split into four petals, revealing spinning metal toothed tongues and suction cups dripping corrosive liquid.
Even more chilling was the half-human upper torso embedded at the base of the tentacles—a young woman dressed in a mage apprentice's robe, her spine fused directly to a mechanical core, eyes glowing like pulsing crystals.
"The First Container…" her voice crackled with electronic distortion. "Father needs you…"
The baby's mechanical green eye flared brightly, the skull mark on his chest fired a beam resonating with the woman's chest. Rein's Life Bind vines instantly corroded and snapped!
"Control him!" Rein swung his sword to sever the first attacking tentacle, the Dragonfire Enchantment igniting dark red flames along the cut.
Ravenna trapped the baby between her legs and quickly pulled out an alchemical rope to tie around his neck. "Sorry, little bastard!"
The Calming Rune on the rope glowed, and the baby's struggle weakened, but the skull mark's beam remained unbroken. The woman's tentacles took advantage to wrap around Ironbeard's warhammer, and the mechanical tongues shot out hundreds of Hidden Moon Poison Spikes!
"Runic Explosion!" Ironbeard roared, detonating the runes on his hammerhead. The shockwave shattered three tentacles but also caused him to cough up blood and collapse.
Rein activated Triple Gale, his figure becoming a streak of light weaving through the remaining tentacles. Each slash precisely cut vital hydraulic tubes, but the woman's true form hid behind a barricade made of mechanical wreckage, smirking coldly:
"It's useless... Father has already marked the First…"
Suddenly, a silver-blue arrow pierced through her crystal right eye!
Everyone turned around in shock, only to see the half-elf archer who should have died in the Glass City standing atop the radar tower a hundred meters away—her left arm replaced with a makeshift mechanical crossbow, and her right eye flickering with unstable light.
"She… is still alive?" Ironbeard murmured in disbelief.
The woman let out a scream unlike any human's, and the remaining tentacles abandoned their attack and all turned toward the half-elf. Rein took the opportunity to scoop up the baby and run in the opposite direction, but he heard the half-elf's final shout from behind:
"Go to the Gear Station… activate… purification protocol…"
Before her figure was swallowed by the tentacles, she tossed something toward Rein—it was a rusted alchemical key, inscribed at the top with the Devourer's rune.
"The Gear Station is an underground transport hub built by dwarves," Ironbeard hobbled forward to lead the way, "If the purification protocol is still active, it might temporarily block the First's signal."
Rein's emerald vision noticed the dark green blood oozing from the old dwarf's wound. "You're infected too?"
"This is the alchemists' formic plague," Ironbeard grimaced. "I have at most three hours before I turn into one of those tentacle creatures."
Ravenna suddenly stopped, her purple-gold patterns flashing wildly. "Wait… I hear gears… from over there!"
She pointed to an abandoned mine tunnel, from which a faint hum of precise mechanical operation came. The three cautiously approached and discovered a perfectly intact Dwarven Underground Train, its carriages covered in anti-magic runes.
"This is the dwarves' usual escape tool," Ironbeard inspected the control panel, "But it needs the corresponding key to start."
Ironbeard pressed his hand onto the control lever.
In an instant, the entire train lit up, the engine roaring—but then, the control panel's screen flickered with the ghostly image of the Devourer's giant eye!
"It's tracking us back!" Ravenna smashed the screen with a fist. "We have to cut off the information!"
Ironbeard tore open his chest armor to reveal the main power source of his mechanical eye. "Use this… the last secret treasure of the Deep Rock clan…"
He violently pulled out the power core and pressed it onto the train's reactor. The emerald light flared, the Devourer's ghost shrieked and vanished, and the train began accelerating. But the old dwarf staggered backward, mechanical patterns appearing on his skin.
"You're not getting on?" Rein reached out to pull him up.
Ironbeard shook his head, his one eye gazing into the depths of the tunnel. "I'm going to activate the backup purification device… to buy time…"
His warhammer glowed with runes one last time. He turned and walked into the darkness. Just as the train doors closed, Rein saw dozens of mechanical tentacles hanging from the tunnel ceiling, while the old dwarf laughed wildly and activated The Endforge—
"Taste the fury of the dwarves!"
In the blast's shockwave, the train burst out of the tunnel, rushing into an underground canyon filled with glowing crystals. One by one, the Devourer's runes on the control lever dimmed, and the baby's breathing finally steadied a bit.
Ravenna slumped into a seat, murmuring while staring at the roof: "So where do we go now?"
Rein wiped the corrosive liquid from his Frostspeak Sword, the three types of energy quietly flowing on his arm.
"Find the remaining Watchers… before the Devourer finds us."
Outside the window, moonlight spilled through the canyon's cracks. The gear-shaped shadows had already swallowed half the sky.