The dome of the underground cavern soared into the clouds, like an untouchable artificial sky.

  Thousands of amber backup energy lights flickered in the darkness, resembling a matrix of stars embedded in a pitch-black canopy, emitting an ancient and faint radiance. These faint lights fell downward, eventually sinking into a gloom-blue abyss hundreds of meters deep.

  There, liquid coolant as calm as a mirror reflected the starlight of the entire dome.

  Standing on either side of the abyss were dozens of "Axiom Sentinels," sixty meters tall. These geometric giants, formed from stacked polyhedrons, stood with palms pressed together. The flowing light circuits on their surfaces had long since extinguished. They looked like a group of dead prehistoric gods, silently and solemnly gazing at the center of this sanctuary, as if mourning the death of Reason.

  The line of sight extended rapidly forward along the straight obsidian causeway.

  At the end of this black line representing absolute rationality, the silver-gray "Wall of Sighs" should have been the most perfect industrial crystallization of the Second Epoch. But at this moment, a nauseating mutation was spreading madly outward with the center of the gate as its origin point.

  The originally smooth alloy floor was now covered by a thick layer of gray, moss-like fungal carpet. This carpet was not static; its surface was crisscrossed with tiny purple veins, heaving slightly with some low-frequency vibration in the air, greedily sucking the residual energy from the metal floor.

  The air here was visibly distorted.

  A wave of black heat surged from the hole in the center of the gate, colliding with the surrounding cold air to stir up layers of greasy mist. In the rolling mist, dark red garbled True Scripts occasionally flashed. They were like a swarm of interfered electronic mosquitoes, flying chaotically around the hole, flickering, and then annihilating into the air with a sizzling electric sound.

  Crunch.

  A crisp sound broke the dead silence.

  A heavy military boot wrapped in rusty iron stepped into this rotting domain, accidentally crushing a piece of crystallized bone on the ground.

  The three stopped.

  In Carlisle's left eye, the [True Vision], the world was torn into two distinct filters:

  The surface layer was physical ulceration—molten steel hung from the edge of the gate hole like stringy rotten cheese, dripping onto the ground with the sizzling sound of strong acid corrosion.

  The inner layer was logical collapse—countless lines of red True Scripts representing [FATAL ERROR] were spewing out from that hole, polluting the originally clean three-dimensional coordinate system like black oil.

  "Ready?"

  Carlisle's voice was light, but it stirred up layers of echoes in the empty hall. He held a high-frequency vibration cutter stolen from Savage's workshop; the blade had begun to turn slightly black from contact with the corrosive gas in the air.

  Beside him, Savage racked the slide of his backup shotgun, producing a dull and oppressive metallic clank. The living longbow in Lyria's hand glowed faintly—it was the instinctual rejection of natural power against this chaotic aura.

  "Open it."

  Szzzt—!

  Accompanied by a moist, nauseating tearing sound, the cutter in Carlisle's hand stabbed ruthlessly into the "fleshy metal membrane" blocking the gate.

  There was no crisp sound of metal being cut, only the muffled noise of a blade slicing through rotten leather. Dark yellow pus sprayed from the incision, landing on his already tattered robe and instantly burning several small holes that emitted black smoke.

  Working together, as if dissecting the belly of a giant beast, the three of them forcibly tore a gap large enough to pass through in that thick, sticky biological membrane.

  Whoosh—

  A blast of almost solid, humid heat, mixed with deafening error alarms, surged out like a tide, swallowing them completely.

  The temperature here approached 60°C, and the humidity hit 100%. Sweat could not evaporate the moment pores opened; it stuck to the skin, making one feel wrapped in plastic film, breathing air that tasted of rust and blood.

  Savage went in first. He raised a portable mining lamp in his left hand, the beam piercing the darkness.

  "Great heavens..."

  The lamp in the dwarf's hand shook, the beam sweeping ahead to illuminate a corner of the nightmare.

  This was a massive spherical space, originally meant to be the energy core of the entire ruin. According to Savage's blueprints, a perfect power sphere made of "Ether Crystal" should have been suspended here, surrounded by precise cooling pipe networks and brass mechanical arms.

  But now, that "perfect sphere" was gone.

  Suspended in the air was a gigantic, pulsating dark red sarcoma.

  Its diameter exceeded twenty meters. Its surface was not smooth skin, but a tangled mess of vascularized cables and keratinized metal plates. Those transparent pipes that originally transported coolant now flowed with turbid yellow pus, inserted deep into the sarcoma like IV tubes, delivering morbid nutrients to it.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Thump.

  The sarcoma contracted violently.

  Dozens of huge mechanical arms connected below it trembled violently. Bone spurs had grown from the joints of these mechanical arms, and the hydraulic rods were covered with a thick layer of gray fungal carpet resembling moss.

  This was no machine. This was a living corpse that was "devouring" the machine.

  "Is this... the Big One?"

  Carlisle stood behind Savage, the blue light in his left eye flashing wildly, but without any pop-ups. Because the composition of the thing before him was too chaotic, his system could not give a clear definition tag.

  [Material Analysis: 60% High-Strength Alloy + 40% Unknown Organic Tissue] [Status: Assimilation Reconstruction in Progress] [Warning: Logic Pollution Source]

  "It is digesting this energy core." Carlisle's voice sounded unusually dry in the empty room. "It 'eats' the metal, converts it into this disgusting rotten flesh, and then uses the flesh to drive these machines."

  "This isn't scientific..." Savage took off his goggles and rubbed his eyes vigorously, as if hoping this was just an illusion caused by dirty lenses. "How can metal turn into flesh? This is a fundamental paradox of alchemy! Where did the conservation of matter go?!"

  "I hear the groans of the earth. This must be the culprit causing the forest to wither."

  Lyria voiced her guess. She stood at the very back, hugging her shoulders tightly, her body trembling slightly. For a natural perceiver like her, the environment here was like having her head pressed into a pile of carrion full of maggots; every inch of air was screaming.

  "That voice... is crying."

  Lyria looked up at the ceiling.

  Above that massive sarcoma, the original main control screen was still on. Although most of the screen was covered by fungal carpet, lines of red ancient True Scripts could still be seen scrolling madly.

  That was the final distress signal of this "Second Epoch Ruin."

  [ERROR! ERROR! Logic Intrusion Detected!] [Core Protocol Tampered... Requesting Isolation... Request Denied...] [IT... HURTS...]

  The last line was not standard True Script, but a line of twisted gibberish that looked as if it had been scratched onto the screen with fingernails.

  This ancient spiritual intelligence core, possessing high logic, had developed self-awareness over the long years. But now, it was being raped alive, assimilated, turned into nutrients for the monster.

  "Damn it, I'm going to puke." Savage spat, raising his only remaining mechanical arm, a glint of veteran resolve in his eyes. "Whatever this hellish thing is, the power interface is underneath it. We either blow it up or go around it."

  He tried to step forward.

  Crack.

  A crisp cracking sound.

  It wasn't Savage stepping on something. It was the sarcoma suspended in the air, suddenly splitting open a seam.

  A massive, turbid eyeball covered in mucus squeezed out from that crack.

  That eye had no pupil, only countless overlapping compound eyes. In every compound eye, the reflection of Savage holding his mechanical arm was visible.

  "Intruder... Detected."

  A moist, slimy voice, as if bubbling up from a mud pit, exploded directly inside their skulls. It was not a sound wave; it was mental pollution acting directly on the cranial nerves. You didn't need to hear it; the malice was poured directly into your brain.

  Carlisle felt as if his brain had been pricked by a needle, a large patch of black dead pixels instantly appearing on his retina.

  [Warning: Mental Threshold Attack] [Cognitive Barrier: High Load]

  "Back!"

  Carlisle grabbed Savage's leather apron and yanked him backward violently.

  Boom!

  Right where Savage had been standing, the floor suddenly liquefied.

  The hard alloy floor instantly turned into a pool of strong acid swamp. If Savage hadn't moved just then, he would have been melted into a pile of bone dregs.

  The sarcoma began to writhe violently, and the mechanical arms connected to it pulled up from the ground like awakening tentacles. Accompanied by the tooth-aching sound of twisting metal, a gigantic arm pieced together from rusty hydraulic clamps, dripping cables, and ghastly white bones swept horizontally toward the three, bringing with it a foul wind!

  "It doesn't want to let us pass."

  Carlisle drew the dagger at his waist (though it was just psychological comfort), the True Script stream in his left eye switching from analysis mode to combat mode.

  He stared dead at the unspeakable monster, gritting his teeth:

  "It is the gatekeeper here. And it has gone mad."

  "Mad? I think you are mad!"

  Savage roared, warrior instincts overriding fear. They had no retreat; behind them was a dead end.

  "Cover me!"

  The dwarf let out a roar, his precise brass mechanical arm suddenly venting a jet of white overload steam. He leaped high, rushing like a cannonball toward the oncoming bone-flesh tentacle, throwing a heavy, powerful punch.

  "Savage! Don't touch it directly!" Carlisle shouted.

  But it was too late.

  Splat!

  There was no crisp sound of metal collision. Savage's iron fist did hit the target, but it was like punching into a mass of rotten fruit pulp, instantly sinking in.

  "What?!"

  The surface of the tentacle writhed, and the gray fungal carpet instantly came alive, shooting out countless tiny, needle-like flesh buds that wrapped tightly around Savage's arm.

  Szzzt...

  "Let go! Let go of me!" Savage struggled in panic, but his proud brass shell was turning black and softening at a visible speed. It wasn't simple acid corrosion; it was a fundamental collapse of material structure—brass was turning into dead flesh.

  "Lyria! Cut it off!" Carlisle waved his hands in the air, trying to construct defensive logic.

  "Leave it to me!"

  Lyria's figure turned into a blur, her longbow firing three shots in succession.

  "Ironwood Roots, Bind!"

  Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!

  Three magic arrows glowing green accurately hit the base of the tentacle. Normally, these enchanted seeds would instantly burst into thick vines to bind the enemy tightly.

  But here, natural laws were inverted.

  The vines had just broken through the soil, before they could even grow green leaves, they instantly turned into pitch-black withered matter. Not only did they fail to bind the monster, but they were instantly assimilated by that gray fungal carpet, becoming part of the monster's body and spreading back toward Lyria's arm.

  "It ate the natural magic!" Lyria retreated in horror, a numbing sting coming from her fingertips.

  "It eats everything!"

  Carlisle realized that physical attacks and elemental magic were all ineffective. To defeat it, one must attack the source—the Code.

  He snapped his head up, staring directly into that massive compound eye.

  [True Vision: Full Power Output] [Target: Logic Core] [Attack Command: Syntax Formatting]

  "Crash... for me!"

  Carlisle released a stream of pure logic data, attempting to forcibly overwrite the monster's chaotic brain.

  But the moment his consciousness touched the monster's mind, what he saw was not an orderly computer system, but an ocean composed of screams.

  "Hungry... hurts so much... join us..."

  A torrent of chaotic, insane data backlashed along the connection, slamming into Carlisle's brain like a sledgehammer.

  "Argh!"

  Carlisle screamed, falling to his knees, blood gushing from his nostrils and ears simultaneously. Red error pop-ups proliferated madly in his vision until they obscured everything.

  "It has no logic..." He coughed up a mouthful of blood, speaking in despair. "It is pure Chaos! We can't hack it, and we can't kill it!"

  The massive bone-flesh tentacle raised high, lifting the struggling Savage into mid-air, preparing to smash him ruthlessly into that pool of acid swamp.

  Checkmate.

  Logic, strength, magic—total collapse.

  > **Target:** `[CORRUPTED_CORE_UNIT]` .

  > **Status:** HARD ENGAGEMENT.

  > **Analysis:** The target is tough, erratic, and pushing the squad to their limits. Resources are dropping fast.

  > **WARNING:** While we focus on the Kernel, long-range sensors have detected a massive energy spike rapidly closing in (Chapter 18).

  > `>` **Signature:** **PERFECTION**.

  > `>` **Power Level:** **OFF THE CHARTS**.

  > `>` **Assessment:** This is not a mastermind hiding in the shadows. This is a force of nature coming to crush everything in its path.

  > `>` **Forecast:** The "Perfect Intruder" is approaching. Brace for impact.

  > The current fight is hard enough, but what comes next is impossible. We need to upgrade our odds.

  > ? `LIKE` (Overclock Weapons)

  > ? `FOLLOW` (Strengthen Resolve)

  > ? `COMMENT` (Analyze Weakness)

  > **Survive the Kernel first. Then pray we can survive Him.**

  -Field Analyst ???