Chapter 1077: Chapter 1077

After a brief hesitation, Ruilin put down the machine gun, picked up the bronze sword in her hand, and fiercely struck at the glass.

A faint sound emanated from the entire glass, but nothing happened.

She looked carefully forward, only to see an extremely fine mark on the glass.

"Don’t waste your energy, you handsome... miss,"

A hoarse voice arose at the end of this corridor, "This glass wall has been blessed and fortified. You think it’s just a thin layer, but even if you and your friends exhaust all your strength and smash away here for years, decades even, you won’t be able to break through this glass wall."

Upon hearing this voice, Ruilin turned her head to look in the direction from where the voice came.

At the end of the corridor, a person dressed in a white shirt and black vest, like a ’butler,’ slowly emerged from beneath the radiance.

"I think I just heard an alarm,"

With a smile on his lips, he raised his head to look at Ruilin, "This is indeed the first time I’m seeing ’visitors’ from the ’lower levels.’ Welcome to my workplace."

He took steps, closing the distance step by step to the two standing before this glass wall, "I know you must be curious as to why no new ’pursuers’ have come after you,"

His voice was deep and carried a hint of gentle yet sharp mirth, seemingly proud of preaching his own achievements, yet it also felt like stating an objective fact, "Because you’ve entered this ’viewing area.’ Without my permission, no one from this station is allowed to enter this viewing area armed, after all, it concerns the livelihood of everyone in this city."

"What do you want to do?"

Ruilin gazed at him warily, gripping the bronze sword tightly.

"Don’t be so tense, my dear guest,"

The butler shrugged his shoulders, then turned to glance at the empty wall opposite the glass wall and smiled, "You see, my viewing area is currently short by two exhibits. You merely need to do me a small favor."

Step by step he neared, his silhouette stood in the light, but seemed to gradually fade. His hoarse voice echoed in the silent corridor,

"I just need the two of you, to drain your own blood and then remove the internal organs, so I have a chance to create two exquisite specimens.

"If the two of you really can’t bear it,"

That low voice suddenly sounded right by Ruilin’s ear, "I can do it on your behalf."

In that moment, Ruilin felt a kind of frigid Qi nearing, as if sharp claws extended from the darkness, ready to slice open her body, drain her blood, and scoop out her internal organs.

Sharp claws near enough to touch her clothing, and then about to split her body.

The next second, these sharp claws seemed to sense something and immediately retracted to dodge.

However, at this moment, the youth who had been standing by had withdrawn his gaze from the surging machinery.

An invisible sword blade appeared in his hand, twirled in the air, then with a casual flick.

Every moving body froze in that instant.

The butler’s silhouette that seemed to blend into the brilliance revealed a vague form at that moment, blood surged from his waist instantly, a sharp cut that bisected his body appeared, splitting him in half.

His eyes widened, his body collapsed into two parts.

He opened his mouth, looked at He Ao, as if he never expected to be killed so easily. With his mouth agape, he hoarsely shouted, "You—"

Then he realized that after He Ao swung that sword, his gaze never lingered on him; instead, he turned around, hand placed on that polished glass wall, exerting a little force.

With a crisp sound, the spacious glass instantly filled with cracks, then burst into shards, exploding into sparkling ’snowflakes’.

The servant lying on the ground had his mouth wide open, but he was no longer able to utter any words.

At this moment, he watched as He Ao turned around, stepping over to his side; under his final gaze, He Ao reached into his blood-stained clothes, fumbled around, and found a blue, long, metallic column, taking a careful look at it.

His eyes were wide open, losing the last bit of life.

The invisible ritual ’reclaimed’ his body, rapidly decomposing his remaining flesh.

Meanwhile, He Ao had already turned back and walked into the ’factory’ behind the glass curtain wall.

The huge pipes were still spraying food, and He Ao walked over, placed his hand on the edge of the pipe, and began to immerse some of his Divine Sense into it.

Almost the instant his Divine Sense entered, the twisted force of pollution also transmitted into He Ao’s mind.

This machinery used for ’producing’ food seemed to be the creation of some twisted force.

However, this degree of pollution was nothing significant to He Ao; he sunk the power of his Divine Sense deep into the ’machine’.

These machines, although carrying ripples of pollution, still vaguely revealed a material form, which allowed He Ao to smoothly extend his Divine Sense along the infrawork of the machine.

He Ao quickly ’penetrated’ the external pipe structure, and then, amid a slightly shattered spatial disturbance, his Divine Sense entered a much more ’open’ area.

It seemed through these pipes that he had transmitted his Divine Sense down to the ’lower levels’, and this open area was the ’food factory’ currently rumbling below.

Through this method, He Ao was able to observe this ’food factory’ from another perspective, from the ’inside’ of the machinery.

From a quick glance over some of the facilities He Ao passed by, this food factory was actually ’complete’ and in theory, it could run on its own to produce ’food’ without any external intervention.

And those waste outlets were in fact connected to the raw material entrances, undergoing secondary reproduction.

This entire food factory was, in essence, a large ’food production machine.’

But in actual operation, many parts of this machine were severely contaminated and could no longer function properly.

He Ao speculated that the ’food’ produced from these severely contaminated parts would also have bizarre properties.

Therefore, those who wanted to ’reuse’ this food production machine came up with an idea, which was to stop using the severely contaminated parts and replace those mechanical parts with manual labor to ’produce’.

This turned the high-speed automated machinery into a semi-automated and semi-manual one.

Of course, from He Ao’s experience, this practice had another ’purpose.’

The parts that were discontinued were only the most heavily polluted sections, other mechanical structures were still polluted, just not to such an extent, so in reality, the machine still produced food with significant pollution.

At this time, those ’lower-class residents’ working in the ’food factory’ could become a kind of ’spiritual firewall.’

While they handled the ’intermediate materials’ produced by these machines, they could use their own bodies and souls to ’absorb’ some of the pollution, thus achieving a ’partial’ cleansing effect.

However, as a consequence, these ’residents’ who were in contact with pollution for extended periods and working at high intensity, might be completely mutated by the contamination.

Could this be the origin of the Variants?

He Ao withdrew his hand resting on the pipe, gazing at the piping that continuously spewed out packaged food.

The pollution in these foods had already been ’washed’ out quite significantly by the time they emerged.

From the overall situation of the lower-level factories, this is how the food factory operates. Then it’s highly likely that the fiber factories, cement factories, spinning mills that operate alongside the food factory follow a similar principle.

This situation also implies two other things.

First, the upper and lower layers are not different spaces, but rather have been ’split’ apart due to some reason, yet these contaminated machines are still able to connect the two spaces.

Second, these machines, including the ’City of Rong Guang’, are most likely not built by the Rong Guang Society. The machines they created themselves would not likely be ’applied’ in such a patchy manner.

Is this city hiding some deeper secrets?

In fact, this city is no longer in the Main World. Based on past experiences, it’s likely floating somewhere in the universe.

Is the relic involved in this?

But, how does this relate to K?

Collecting his thoughts, He Ao looked at the nearby lever.

Ruilin had also walked up to his side by now and looked at him with curiosity.

"This machine has been running for too long."

He Ao raised his hand and brought the blue metal rod he had picked up from the waiter’s body close to the lever.

Quickly, an opening unfolded from the middle of the lever.

He Ao inserted the metal rod into the opening, and the whole lever trembled, seemingly docking with some sort of control structure.

"Do you intend to stop this machine from operating?"

Ruilin looked at him with puzzlement.

He Ao shook his head.

He looked at the lever in front of him and immersed his Divine Sense into it.

This lever was simply a switch, but it was directly connected to the entire machine’s control panel.

Despite the machine’s contamination, it still exhibited the characteristics of a physical machine. Theoretically, it still functions as a physical machine.

At least, that’s what the machine itself would believe.

Thus, He Ao’s manipulation of the machine’s control panel could still affect the entire machine.

During the immersion of his Divine Sense just now, He Ao had gained a general understanding of the machine’s structure and could deduce the function of different circuits on the control panel from these structures.

Next, it was time to attempt according to his hypothesis.

He directly used his Divine Sense to quickly dismantle some circuits on the control panel for contact. After failing seven or eight times in a row, he short-circuited a red wire and a blue wire, and the whole machine suddenly trembled.

Subsequently, the machine, which had been furiously ejecting food, jerked and began to absorb food inward, and the conveyor belt that moved the food away below also started to retreat frantically.

The conveyor belt led to a fully automatic warehouse, which was also part of the entire food machinery.

Ruilin watched this scene with wide eyes, then her gaze shifted to the monitor beside her. She saw the machine, originally producing ’waste’, suddenly activated, and the packaged food that she saw being absorbed was directly spit out from the opening.

Those people standing by the waste outlet were initially startled, then as the food kept being ejected, they began to cheer loudly.

Ruilin turned her head to look at He Ao.

"I simply reversed this machine."

He Ao replied casually.

After the reversal of the food machine, theoretically, it should break food down back into raw materials, but He Ao also ’blocked’ the mechanical structure at the last packaging section of the lower-level factory.

At this point, the machine would directly spit out the food from the original inlet.

People would need to manually move the food to the previous process to continue decomposition.

However, the individuals in the food factory who got the food, were highly unlikely to send it for decomposition. They might not even think of this layer.

He Ao pulled the metal rod out from the lever and turned around to walk outside, "Let’s go, continue to the prison cells."

Ruilin turned her head back, took one last glance at the monitor, and then hurried to catch up with He Ao.

It seemed the ’waiter’ indeed had some status here, without his permission, indeed no one dared to run this way.

The two walked deeper along the ’factory district’, not encountering any Guards.

During this process, they came across two display areas, and both were food factories.

With one experience already, He Ao imitated the previous operation, almost in the blink of an eye, he also reversed these two ’factories’.

According to Ruilin, there were a total of three food factories in the lower layer.

Soon, the two reached the end of the factory district, a ’Control Room’ covered with monitors.

He Ao quickly found the control console of the main control room. Unlike the display areas, the console didn’t directly connect to the factory’s operation panel; it could only control the switches.

Thus, he inserted the blue lever into it, shutting down all factories except for the food factories.

As long as these factories continue to operate, people would keep getting contaminated to a critical state, turning into Variants, while the city was ’absorbing’ these Variants.

Aside from the food factory that had been modified by He Ao to only absorb food from the upper-level warehouse and then spit it out in the lower level, turning on any other factory right now would be more harmful than beneficial.

After his operations last night, Ruilin looked into the monitors, seeing people frantically scrambling for the ’food’ being spit out by the machines and her ’colleagues’ from the Ordinance Department, who had heard the news and were now maintaining Order, and she fell silent for a moment.

Among those maintaining order, she spotted her companion who had carried a flame gun before.

Clearly, her companion had won the final victory, with neither the head priest nor the Ordinance Department present, the lower layer had gained a brief period of peace.

Everything was so dreamlike yet so real.

He Ao took his hand off the control panel and walked towards the ’prison cell’ sign not far away.

Ruilin withdrew her gaze from the monitor and quickly followed He Ao’s pace.

"Remember something?"

He Ao glanced at her and asked casually.