The Master of the Strange Realm

As the ships continue to sail in, the trees on the island can also be seen. It was a plant that showed a silver-grey color of steel alloy. The color was consistent with the [Psychic Blocking Metal] that also existed in the real world. The trunk of this tree and part of the root system protruding from the ground occupy the entire area of ​​the island.

Therefore, there are no other ground structures on the island, and only the ups and downs of the root system can be seen. But Jenkins was not curious about where the refugees lived. After all, just the exaggerated diameter of the tree trunk was enough to build apartments in it. Not to mention the tall steel canopy that stretches outward. The dense steel obviously hides buildings and rooms that cannot be seen from the outside world.

"Only by taking this boat can you see the tree as you approach."

The metal head on the chair was introduced, and Jenkins glanced at it:

"So, in this strange situation, the difference machine already knew about the existence of this shelter?"

"Of course, my lord can do anything."

The head said in a very calm tone.

"It's really amazing. It can actually penetrate the mysterious environment to this extent."

Even Jenkins has to lament the omnipotence of some enemies.

"The higher the level, the more carefully designed it is by my Lord. This is the power of my Lord. Savior, you have the talent and ability, why are you unwilling to accept my Lord's kindness?"

The head puzzled again, but this time Jenkins didn't answer because the speed of the ship began to slow down.

Slowly approaching the dock at the edge of the island, the refugees on the boat also realized that they were about to reach their destination. Although people were still huddled there unable to move, they could still turn their heads and try to look at the bow of the ship.

Jenkins picked up his backpack, comforted the chocolate, and came to the old man with the magic sword in his left hand.

"We're about to dock. Are you sure that as long as I get you off the boat, you can tell me the information I want, right?"

"certainly."

He took out the pipe in his mouth and blew out another puff of smoke:

"I keep my word."

"But I can't leave the ship."

"It doesn't matter, just take me to the ladder and lower me down with the rope."

Jenkins nodded, that was reasonable.

So taking advantage of the last moment when the ship was preparing to dock, he found ropes and planks from the deck and made it look like a swing. Although the old man is missing one leg, both hands are still intact. After a while, he sat on the wooden board and held the rope with both hands to maintain balance, and he was able to land well.

Someone came to greet the boat at the pier of the island in the middle of the river, but there was only one person standing there with a kerosene lamp in his hand, shaking it constantly, as if guiding the boat to the shore.

Behind the thick fog, the man's appearance was not clear at all. Jenkins looked over and determined that the thick fog also existed on the island:

"Is this your first time here?"

He asked the old man holding a pipe in his mouth to see if there was any other information he could learn.

"No, I came two years ago."

"There was also fog on the island at that time?"

"Of course there is fog everywhere in the world."

"Don't you know, these fogs are..."

"of course I know."

The old man nodded and looked up at Jenkins:

"I know what you're trying to say, but so what? Whatever the reason, that thing allows this island and this tree to exist, and allows everyone who steps on the island to survive, that's enough."

The old man seemed to know more than Jenkins thought:

"When I first landed on this island, there were only a few people here. Over the years, I have been out there, trying to save more people and get more people here. So it doesn't matter what the purpose of this place is. Yes, as long as I can protect people for one more day, I will deeply love this place.”

"So, the so-called shelter is not a safe shelter at all, but just a corner where the survivors and the difference machine have a tacit understanding?"

"Yes, we don't have as much power as you. As long as we can survive, people don't care why we can survive."

This island was probably prepared by the Difference Engine for Jenkins. The purpose of not destroying humanity and preserving this island, and even having this ship, was so that in the context of the story, Jenkins could come here smoothly. Although these things may have never happened, to the people on this ship, they are all real. Their existence is just to let the disasters that come to the world and the outsiders that come to the world have fun. Just a game.

Thinking about it, these people in the strange world are indeed worthy of sympathy, but even Jenkins is not sure whether these mortals in the strange world are real or fake.

“What else is there on the island besides trees and people?”

"There are many other lives, both intelligent and unintelligent. Everyone is a survivor of this world."

As he said that, he stretched out his hand and asked Jenkins to help him up. The ship swayed slightly and docked.

As if some restrictions were lifted, the people who were huddled all started to move. They spontaneously found a ladder on the deck, erected it with the help of a usher on the pier, and then lined up to leave the ship.

Because the old man had limited legs and feet, both Jenkins and him were in the last position.

"Since I have stayed until the ship docks, can you tell me the first piece of information first?"

Jenkins demanded.

"Can."

"So how much information can you provide?"

"Two. You can know the name of the most dangerous enemy on the island, and you can know where the control core of that indescribable thing is."

"How do you know this information?"

Jenkins asked, the information people knew matched their identities, and the other person clearly knew too much.

"Because I have lived long enough, I said that I am the first batch of refugees to come here. No one on this ship knows more than me..."

"Okay then, I'll choose the second one."

Choosing the first one means that it is possible to directly know the answer to leaving, but it is more likely to get the name "Great Wisdom".

"The core of control is the head."

Jenkins raised his eyebrows:

"Sure enough, only part of its combat body is here, and the real core is still hidden deep in the ninth layer."

"What did you say?"

The old man could not understand this sentence.

"nothing."

Jenkins shook his head, then turned slightly and said to the head:

"What's the point of doing this? You know very well that if you only have part of your body, you can't stop me at all. In this case, it would be better to save all your fighting power to fight me on the ninth floor."

"Of course this makes sense. I just want you to see what my ideal world looks like."

The head was still smiling:

"If I don't let you see it, you will never understand the world I want."

"What do you want is this dead world? I saw these cities behind the fog. The high-rise buildings and the houses along the river are nice, but they are too quiet."

"Dead silence? No, all you see is this ship, and all you see is the shadow of the river bank. When they all go down, I will show you what is going on here. Willamt, welcome to me In this world, I left the core on the ninth floor, fused the steam engine prototype and the mechanical heart, and fully invaded this world with a huge body used for combat, just to show you all this.

The world is so boring. In tens of thousands of years, you are probably the only person who can possibly understand my thoughts. So before you are killed by me, it is necessary for you to see all this. This is what the eighth level is all about. "

"I don't believe that the eighth level is just showing me, what is that thing that originally existed in the mysterious world?"

Even if the Difference Engine can make itself part of the mystery, it certainly cannot change the basic rules, otherwise it would have been a complete beast of disaster. In other words, there is no mystery in the difference engine. There was originally a disaster in the background of the mystery. That thing is the key that prevents Jenkins from leaving now.

Chapter 2185 Golden Ant

"I can remind you that there are many purposes for the existence of treacherous realms. Along the way, you have also seen many types of treacherous realms. There is one type that floats in the endless void outside the material world and is used to seal The space debris of some dangerous monsters will be led to repairs by people in the material world because of problems with the seal.”

"Like that blood therapy town?"

Jenkins thought about the town not long ago.

"Yes, you walked through the town, consumed and explained the [blood], which is equivalent to penetrating the blocked circulation of spirit and energy, indirectly strengthening the seal. And this strange situation is actually some kind of seal, What is sealed here is not an ordinary person, but a part of the past disaster. This time, my lord did not inject any external disaster into it, because the disaster itself is here.

In this way, won't the options left for you suddenly become much smaller? "

The head said, this sentence is completely true and contains no lies.

Jenkins turned his head and helped the old man continue to move forward:

"That way, I almost understand."

The cat on the shoulder tried to wiggle its little nose, and it understood.

By the time it was Jenkins and the old man's turn to approach the boat, the people in front had already left. The leader holding the oil lamp did not wait. Instead, when people were almost two-thirds out of the boat, he held the lamp high and led the people who had disembarked first toward the giant tree in the thick fog.

Although the light is not particularly bright, its light can penetrate the dense fog, so people who follow can also see the direction of the light and catch up.

"How are you going to catch up later?"

Jenkins asked the old man, who was holding on to the rope tightly, waiting for Jenkins to lower him down.

"You don't have to worry about this, I have my own way."

So Jenkins didn't ask any more questions. After saying goodbye to the old man, he carefully put him on the dock under the boat. He couldn't leave the ship, and he didn't want to leave the ship's range, so he couldn't stick his head out to see if the other party made contact with the ground.

Only after the old man shouted that he had "landed" safely did he loosen the rope. The old man also followed the agreement and told Jenkins the name of the most powerful creature that resided here, shouting from under the boat. Of course it cannot be the real name. The real name of the beast of disaster is not something people in the material world dare to mention. What the old man said was just a simple title:

"It's ants. The ants here are the most powerful!"

[Golden Ant that Eats the World Tree], this is the name of the disaster beast that Jenkins knew when chatting with his father a long time ago. Before he entered the nine-story tower in the city center, the church also found some information about it.

This beast of disaster is not a single individual, but an entire group, 666 in total. The number will never increase or decrease. Even if one of them is eliminated, the remaining golden ants will breed a new one; even if only one is eliminated, that one can reproduce the entire population. .

This kind of disaster beast that exists in the form of a population can never be completely eliminated, which is reflected in their "unpredictable" characteristics. That is to say, it is never possible to know the number of existing golden ants in any way. In other words, the upper limit of the total number of golden ants can be known, but the remaining number can never be determined.

The church has very few records about this dangerous creature. Even among all the disaster beasts, except for the disasters in the first three eras, which are completely unrecorded, the records about golden ants are the least.

Even for the most mysterious moon-swallowing civet, the church at least knows about the disaster characteristics, knows that it is sleeping and waiting outside the material world, and knows that it has had conflicts with the lost butterfly population. But for the golden ant, the church only knows that it is extremely dangerous and is After it was sealed, there was no more news.

Although the information provided by the church was very vague, when Jenkins thought about this creature at this moment, the gift of a leaf given by the World Tree suddenly lit up in his spirit, and then he learned about a past event.

[The golden ants that gnawed the World Tree] were originally just a group of ordinary ants living near the roots of the World Tree. Their existence coincided with the decline of the World Tree itself in order to completely get rid of all the power of disaster.

The World Tree has declined, but some branches and leaves contain the power of disaster and turned into strange objects. It was during that period that the group of ants unconsciously absorbed the power of disaster by eating the roots of the World Tree, and thus slowly ate away most of the World Tree's body, leading to the tree's early demise.

Of course, this is also voluntary for World Tree, otherwise it would take a lot of effort to separate itself from the power of the original beast of disaster.

In short, the appearance of [Golden Ants Devouring the World Tree] is different from most disasters. It is not transformed from the disasters of its era, but after absorbing the disasters of past eras, it has the ability to devour the disasters of this era. Calamity becomes the official beast of disaster, which is somewhat similar to the Difference Engine.

Because they gnawed away most of the World Tree, and those ants possessed the "golden disaster" of their era, they were named [Golden Ants that gnawed the World Tree]. Moreover, devouring the World Tree is something they have indeed done, so this group of ants really has a special damage effect on the World Tree.

This effect is not only useful for the real World Tree, but also for the World Tree seedlings, namely Jenkins.

Jenkins did not know whether the savior of that era was successful. He only knew that when sealing these ants, in order to prevent the gathering of racial power, 666 ants were specially sealed separately. The number of ants in each individual seal is not fixed. In this way, even if a small number of ants escape, it will not cause too big consequences.

Obviously, this treacherous place is one of the seals, and the last refuge of mankind is called the "Steel World Tree". I am afraid it is not a bad taste of the Difference Engine, but this is the name in the background of the treacherous place. After all, the residence of the golden ants is the World Tree.

"So you understand?"

the head on the ship asked.

"Understood, the Difference Engine that claims to be 'Great Intelligence' fell from the sky, and together with the golden ants that already existed in this world, transformed the world into a complete metal form. Flesh-and-blood creatures became gear robots, and other inanimate substances were transformed into Metal, cities turn to brass, jungles are no longer alive, the earth and ocean are frozen into shining metal. Steel engulfs everything, and gears transform everything. This world is the "land of steel" where mechanical gears and golden ants coexist. ...Speaking of which, golden ants are not really made of gold, right? That’s why they are willing to cooperate with the differential engine, which is also made of metal.”

"Savior, you are smarter than I thought."

The head said.

"I'm done. I think I'm right. Where's the door?"

Jenkins asked, looking at the metal head on the chair, which gave the imaginary answer:

"Just like what you've been through, I'm going to cheat again this time."

Chapter 2186 Jenkins and Ants

Of course, the exit door did not appear because Jenkins completed the task. Instead, something strange appeared on the ship.

As the ship's deck shook, it slowly sank toward the water. When the ship's deck reached almost the same height as the dock, Jenkins quickly jumped over the deck guardrail and arrived at the dock.

The pier is real, not a phantom backdrop. The human head sank to the bottom of the water with the boat, but its voice seemed to come from all directions:

"Of course you have to fight with those ants in this strange situation. But before that, just like I said, how about visiting my ideal world?"

The human-headed voice asked, adding in passing:

"Before you finish the tour and express your opinions, I can guarantee that no one will disturb us. Although you understand what happened here on the ship, you have not yet fully read my masterpiece and understood my thoughts. This is very important to you." It’s such a pity for me.”