Volume 2 Chapter 22 Mechanization

Chapter 22 Mechanization

I

Driving the flying obelisk, the four arrived near Le Meraviglie at the dusk of the next day.

Gradually, the city of Le Meraviglie came into their sights.

The instant they saw Le Meraviglie, they were shocked completely.

Le Meraviglie had become a huge system of machine. Everything had become metallic. The buildings had become huge mechanic cuboids, and infected by automaton viruses, the people had become automatons. On the surface of the walls of the buildings, there were some glowing circuits and turning gears.

What was worse, the city was spreading. It was corrupting everything around at a visible velocity, turning them into mechanic things as well.

All the things inside Le Meraviglie had been dyed dark golden. Under the twilight, their abominable metallic sheens were shimmering. Soon the sun fully set down and night was coming.

It would be a long night, and if they couldn’t stop Macchina Gloriosa, the darkness of the night wouldn’t end.

At the centre of the city lay the Pyramid of Macchina Gloriosa. It was the largest and tallest building of Le Meraviglie and now it had become mechanic as well. The Mother Matrix was hidden inside that pyramid.

Every machine had a core, and when the core was destroyed, the whole machine would stop functioning. Therefore, if they could destroy the Mother Matrix, the process of mechanization would stop.

With the help of Cuore Celeste, the Mother Matrix would keep evolving. Now it was only at an early stage but gradually it would really become a godlike device. So they should destroy it right now, before it grew into something really undefeatable.

From under the western horizon, the pale moon was coming out.

It was a crescent moon. Many people said that the crescent moon was a symbol of newborn beings, because it was the commence of the cycle of the moon.

“So this is the so-called mechanization …” muttered Yanni.

“Will we win this fight?” questioned Starsha.

“I’m not sure. Maybe mechanization is inevitable if a civilization wants to evolve,” replied Floria.

“We’ve defeated something inevitable before, haven’t we? Master Mortis said that necrology was inevitable too, but we’ve beaten him,” argued Yanni.

“Yes. We’re always doing stuff like this,” Floria nodded.

“Anyhow, we’re changing this corrupted world. Earthlings can see a few stars in the night sky now once again because the Grey Factory has been destroyed by us. We can do more for this world,” Starsha pointed out.

“Let’s go home after this battle. I’m homesick now,” proposed Yanni.

“So am I,” agreed Starsha.

“I’m missing the Dream Forest too. I want to see if it has recovered from the fire of the Grey Factory,” added Aislina.

“We can go back to Normania, but we can’t go back to our childhood. When we’re children, we don’t know how evil this world is so that we’re happy. In fact, I even used to think that the Grey Factory was great and Master Mortis was a great man. I had been brainwashed so much that I even thought that the Cube of Necrus was a bringer of hope,” recalled Starsha.

“It’s always hard to take the first step to fight against the darkness,” summarized Yanni.

“So why did you take the first step?” queried Aislina.

“It was because of you, Aislina. You told us what was right and what was wrong, and your power gave us the hope to fight against the wickedness,” answered Yanni.

II

The flying obelisk flew over the Pyramid of Macchina Gloriosa and the four jumped out of it onto the roof of the Pyramid of Macchina Gloriosa.

Aislina shot a spore bolt and it blew a great hole on the wall of the pyramid and the four went inside the pyramid through that hole.

The pyramid was not like before now. It used to be a building built of sandstone but now it was a pure machine. There were turning gears and glowing circuits everywhere on the wall.

All the corridors inside the pyramid led to the core of it, the Mother Matrix.

When the four arrived at the room where lay the Mother Matrix, Achnosiris was already waiting for them there.

Now Achnosiris was no longer a human. He had turned himself into an automaton. His blood had become oil and his bones had become lifeless metal. He was an automaton now and he had evolved.

“You need to be stopped, Achnosiris,” warned Yanni upon seeing Achnosiris.

“I knew that you would come here. You want to destroy the Mother Matrix, don’t you?” probed Achnosiris.

“Yes. Your ridiculous plan won’t work, Achnosiris! We will stop you,” threatened Yanni.

“You will never stop me, because Macchina Gloriosa stands for the higher civilization! The history of humans is a history of evolution. All those who wanted to stop the great evolution had failed. You will soon be one of those losers. It is the eternal rule of the history!” teased Achnosiris.

“Nothing is eternal, Achnosiris. Even the universe will perish one day. Rules can be changed, and in fact, we have already changed the rule. We’ve defeated the Grey Factory and broken your so-called inevitability,” retorted Aislina.

“The Grey Factory is weak. We mechanists are not like those necrologists. We’re stronger and smarter. We’re the real trend of history and civilization, but the Grey Factory is not. They’re just some ridiculous clowns. In fact, you’re like clowns too. You even have no idea what are you actually fighting for, right?” questioned Achnosiris.

“We follow our hearts,” argued Floria.

“Following hearts? That’s hilarious! You’re pathetic because you have no idea how the society functions and how the civilization develops. You’re just some silly feverish youths happening to get some powers, but you will fail, because you know nothing about the substance of this world and the substance of humanity,” sneezed Achnosiris.

“We’re silly feverish youths, but we can change the world,” blurted Starsha.

“The world can be changed by people like you four? It’s the most hilarious joke ever,” scoffed Achnosiris.

As soon as those words were spoken, the particles on the surface of the Mother Matrix began to move and formed a hole. Smirking scornfully, Achnosiris walked into the that hole and integrated with the Mother Matrix.

Drastically, the Mother Matrix commenced to transform. Tentacle-like bandages began to grow out from the core of the Matrix.

With brave battle-cry, Aislina, Yanni, Floria and Starsha charged towards Matrix-Achnosiris, their solarite weapons ready to destroy.

The lethal bandages of the Matrix-Achnosiris were dancing wildly. Though their moving patterns seemed chaotic, they were regular in fact. Every moves had been computed precisely by the Matrix to hit the vital parts of its enemies.

Luckily, with her dancing steps, Starsha not only dodged all the attacking bandages but also kept approaching the Matrix-Achnosiris gradually.

In order to dispel those annoying bandages, Yanni was brandishing his shield while Floria was wielding her bow as if it were a staff. Aislina summoned a mini barrier of vines which wrapped herself and protected herself from the those blade-like bandages.

Short bandages resembling darts were shooting out from the Matrix too. Aislina’s barrier of vines had been torn into pieces by those blade-like bandages. Therefore, she ran up behind Yanni who was holding up his shield, and so did Floria.

All those bandage-darts were either parried by the solarite composing Yanni’s shield or dodged by Starsha’s dancing steps. Anyway, to dodge those bandage-darts, Starsha moved backwards, pulling away from the Matrix-Achnosiris.

//

Glowing in red light, Matrix-Achnosiris was transforming and a hole appeared on the surface of it, which led to the core of the Matrix. Energy was gathering inside the hole.

Knowing that it was going to be something destructive, Yanni held up his shield, doing horse stance to prepare for the upcoming attack.

Sure enough, a formidable energetic beam composed of countless bandage-darts jetted out of that hole on the surface of Matrix-Achnosiris and blasted against the solarite shield of Yanni. It impacted heavily on Yanni’s shield, sending him hurtling out of the room.

After this beam of destruction, Matrix-Achnosiris cooled down, and while it was cooling down, Floria shot a forceful arrow towards it. The arrow stuck into the hole on the surface of the Matrix deeply and broke some parts of its inner structures. It start to shiver slightly.

Eager to protect itself, the Matrix brandished its tentacle-like bandages violently. In order to hamper those berserk bandages, Aislina summoned a bunch of vines and wound them round those mechanical bandages.

Obviously, Aislina couldn’t hold those tentacle-like bandages at all and she was dragged around on the ground by them.

Dart-like bandages were shooting out from the body of Matrix-Achnosiris towards Starsha. Fortunately, With her elegant dancing steps, she dodged all those darts easily, but Floria was not so lucky. A piece of bandage-dart was going to cut her into half.

When she was going to be slashed apart by the dart, Yanni threw his shield towards her. Grabbing Yanni’s shield and holding it up, Floria parried all the bandage-dart.

“Help Aislina!” commanded Yanni. Floria and Starsha nodded, ran up to Aislina and grabbed her vines in order to help her to pull and hamper those tentacle-like bandages of the Matrix-Achnosiris together.

Circumventing all the tentacles, Yanni dashed up to the front of Matrix-Achnosiris. There was an arrow shot by Floria stuck into the inner structures of the Matrix.

This Pyramid of Macchina Gloriosa was the core of Le Meraviglie and the Mother Matrix was the core of this pyramid. In fact, the Mother Matrix itself had a core too and it must be hidden inside its metallic shell.

Therefore, if Yanni pushed the arrow and make it stick deeper, he might be able to hurt the inner structures of the Mother Matrix and destroy it once and for all.

With this thought, Yanni seized the arrow which had already been stuck inside of the Matrix and pushed it with his full strength. The arrow was sticking deeper and deeper. Finally, it reached the core of the Matrix and pierced through it.

The Mother Matrix stopped moving. It was shut down.

Slowly, Achnosiris climbed out of the Broken Matrix, Cuore Celeste held in his hand.

“You lose, Achnosiris. The Matrix has been destroyed,” announce Floria.

“No, we haven’t lost yet. With or without the Mother Matrix, the age of machines will come one day and I will kill you four today, because you’re really a threaten to a higher civilization. You’re pests of our sacred society!” roared Achnosiris.

Achnosiris shot a stirp of blade-like bandage towards Yanni but he parried it with his solarite shield. However, Achnosiris didn’t give up and kept shooting. The energy from the bandages was penetrating through the shield and vibrating Yanni’s hand.

Yanni’s hand was shaking madly. His muscles were trembling in a crazy speed.

When Yanni was about to be not able to parry Achnosiris’ crazy attacks anymore and drop the shield to the ground or his hands would be shattered into pieces, Starsha rushed up to Achnosiris and cut off his right hand.

Ding-ding! The hand dropped to the ground.

Growling wrathfully, Achnosiris slashed his blade-like bandages against Starsha. He was attacking so fast that even Starsha found it difficult to parry or dodge his ferocious attacks.

Hastily, she was withdrawing awkwardly. Noticing that Starsha was about to be not able to hold on, Floria loaded her bow, charged it and unbent her finger, shooting a supersonic arrow.

The arrow hit Achnosiris on his chest. It impacted on him heavily and forced him to stop attacking. The instant he stopped, Aislina shot a spore bolt towards him, which exploded on him and blasted him into pieces.

Aislina was wearing the solarite ring and thus her magic was unstoppable now. Slowly, she walked up to that pile of slags which used to be Achnosiris and picked up Cuore Celeste from it.

Rapidly, the land was shaking as if it were an earthquake. The Mother Matrix had been destroyed. The Mother Matrix was the core of this mechanic city and since the core was destroyed, the city would stop function now.

Quickly, the four ran out of the pyramid.

Buildings were collapsing, and those automatons walking on the street were falling to the ground.

In the night sky, the crescent moon was shining beyond the grey sea of clouds …