Alarm

In that split second—so fleeting it was barely perceptible, yet so drawn out it felt like an eternity—Ji Jue felt his brain short-circuit for the very first time. It was like sitting in a hot pot eating a train, minding your own business, when suddenly some damn company hijacks you! Whether trains were edible, Ji Jue didn't know. But right now, an honest-to-god dog and an honest-to-god company were sitting right in front of him! He was stunned. With great difficulty, he lowered his head and scrutinized the insignia on his wristwatch, then raised his arm to compare it against President's dog tag. Unfortunately, no matter how many times he looked, his sight, cognition, and sanity all told him the same thing: the two were identical! Yet a voice inside told Ji Jue that right now, he ought to stand up, throw his head back, laugh three times toward the sky, and shout, "Hahaha, this is an illusion! What are you really trying to hide?!" Even if it wouldn't do any good. In the end, only one phrase was left echoing in his mind: *I'm so screwed!* He'd been freeloading off Celestial Rail every day, and now Celestial Rail had come knocking on his door! And it was a dog! No, maybe this was a warning... *If you don't show up for work, you'll end up like this dog!* At the thought, cold sweat poured down Ji Jue's neck. Forcing a strained smile, he gingerly tilted the dog's head up, leaned in close, and inspected it, trying to find a camera. "Hello?" he asked tentatively into the dog's mouth. "Anybody in there?" The shepherd dog tilted its head in confusion. It looked at him, completely unable to fathom what was wrong with him. Soon, however, its gaze seemed to soften with sympathy, brimming with pity. It gave his hand an affectionate lick. *Don't worry. Dogs are man's best friend.* *Even if you're a little slow, I still love you!* "..." After a long, long time, Ji Jue swallowed dryly and let out a sigh of relief. No one? Resting his chin in his hand, Ji Jue squatted in front of the dog, staring face-to-face. "You're... President?" At the sound of its name, the shepherd dog panted happily with its tongue out, licked his hand, and nodded. "You came... looking for me?" Ji Jue asked instinctively. President nodded again, its eyes sparkling like stars. Ji Jue instinctively looked left and right. Once certain no one was around, he took a deep breath, his thoughts inevitably spiraling down a dark slope. *There's no one around anyway. Nobody would ever know. The only vehicle here is mine to begin with. Why don't I just...* Yet as he looked down into the shepherd dog's bright, shiny eyes, he felt an unprecedented trial weighing on his conscience. President leaned forward. Its long snout nudged Ji Jue's hand upward, resting it atop its head, urging him to pet it. It felt like his conscience was interrogating him: *Are you really going to do something so cruel?* "Woof!" President barked suddenly and raised its head, looking behind Ji Jue. Ji Jue turned around, but there was only silence. Yet President lowered its head, clamped its teeth onto the hem of his trouser leg, and tugged, dragging him toward the Recycling and Disposal Department while wagging its tail impatiently. Ji Jue paused in thought, analyzed the situation calmly, and considered it carefully. It seemed like the dog was rushing him to get back to work? "We just met, and you're already telling me to punch in?!" Ji Jue's eyes widened. "I knew it. You executives are all the same! Even turning into a dog hasn't stopped you from lording over workhorses like us!" His fists clenched tight. *You inherently evil capitalists, I'm going to—* *Boom!* A thunderous crash erupted from behind him. Ji Jue spun around in shock, only to see thick plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky above the recycling workshop, streaks of inky darkness spreading outward, accompanied by piercing sirens. *Corruption leak—severe contamination!* "Woof!" President circled him, wagging its tail as if urging him on: "Woof, woof!!" It was as though it expected him to do something. Finally, it nudged his leg with its head. It seemed to take immense effort. Yet its form began to flicker, like an image on a malfunctioning screen. Even its barks grew faint and muffled. Slowly, it faded away. Ji Jue was left standing where he was, utterly baffled and bewildered. A dog had suddenly appeared, wearing a Celestial Rail Group dog tag and named President. It was as if an actual president had abruptly remembered he still had a run-down company somewhere and had made a special trip to inspect his beloved employee, checking to see if he was working hard or slacking off. Rushing him to go handle the emergency disaster response. And then, vanishing just as inexplicably. *What the hell?!* *What kind of company even does this?* *Can't you people just be normal for once?* But there was no time to dwell on any of that madness. Ji Jue sprinted forward, waved a hand, and leapt onto Little Niuma's running board. The armored vehicle whipped its tail around in place and roared forward, barreling toward the workshop! *** Outside the workshop, pure chaos reigned. Soot-covered apprentices slumped on the ground, drenched in sweat, staring at the dense smoke pouring from the workshop and listening to the relentless wail of the alarms. "It's over... It's all over! It leaked!" The supervisor's face was deathly pale, looking as if his parents' graves had caught fire. Once a corruption leak spread and coalesced, god only knew what monstrosity it would spawn; the entire temporary workshop would likely be blown sky-high. "What happened?! What happened?!" The supervisor paced frantically, shouting his fury amidst the weeping and wailing crowd. "How could an accident this massive happen?!" Everyone instinctively looked up toward the person at the front. Blasted point-blank by the explosion and drenched in blood across half his body, the apprentice sat in a daze, panic-stricken. "I followed every procedure... I did everything by the book... I don't know either!" "A perfectly good storage chamber just exploded out of nowhere..." The more he tried to explain, the more feeble it sounded. His face remained stark white, drained of every drop of color. Regardless of the reason, the accident had happened under his hands. He was finished. The Security Bureau's interrogation, the Association's reckoning, and the workshop's fury—even selling ten of him wouldn't begin to cover the damages! And not just him: everyone along this production line would likely bear joint liability... Despair hung over everyone; their faces were ashen. With a roar, Little Niuma smashed through the courtyard wall and barged straight in. Ji Jue leaped down from the vehicle, scanned his surroundings, and grasped the situation in an instant. But when he took a quick headcount, he froze. "Where's Old Lou?" "I think... he's still inside," the last apprentice to flee choked out, close to tears. "I tried to warn him! I really did! He wouldn't leave!" "All right, I get it. It's not your fault." Ji Jue sighed in frustration, gritting his teeth. *At a time like this, why is he still acting tough and being stubborn?!* *Did he really have to compete with me at an accident scene?!* *What's the point of proving who's better?* *Even if you win, you're dead, and my future is still bright as day... What are you trying to accomplish?!* *Boom!!* Amid another massive blast, billowing smoke spread, and a sharp, piercing shriek could be faintly heard. Even without manual control, the temporary workshop's quarantine containment measures were still operating. Ji Jue pointed a finger toward an external security camera, and instantly, the scene inside the workshop flooded into his mind. Inside the workshop's contaminant storage area lay complete devastation. Giant vats several meters high stood in ruins, torn open with gaping holes ripped into their hulls by something unknown. Enormous volumes of solution that had absorbed massive amounts of corruption during displacement reactions surged out like geysers, submerging the floor. And right at the center of the storage area, a shrill shriek erupted once more. Amidst the murky darkness where fluids pooled together stood a shattered containment unit, resembling a broken steel pillar. It had only been half-dismantled, yet beneath the detached parts flowed a scarlet liquid resembling fresh blood. It surged continuously. Beneath the flaking rust, grotesque, twisted eyeballs slowly emerged from the steel. Tendrils of thick scarlet flesh extended from its shell, thirstily drinking in the corruption from the solution. Like an embryo of catastrophe. At a speed visible to the naked eye, it catalyzed, completed itself, and grew! The sight made Ji Jue's hair stand on end. This truly wasn't a matter of human error. Long before it had been recovered, this containment unit had been completely eroded and transformed, birthing a seed of mutation. The recovery team hadn't noticed at all, hauling it straight back to the workshop. And so, within the heavily contaminated environment of the Recycling Department, it had taken root and rapidly sprouted... Fortunately, the workshop's quarantine seals were still active, preventing it from breaking out into the open in the short term. And inside... *Boom!* Lances of spiritus etched with circuits plummeted from above one after another, impaling the spreading, twitching scarlet appendages like nails, pinning the mutant entity firmly to the floor. It could only thrash and struggle, resisting Lou Feng's suppression. High above on the suspended control platform, Lou Feng's face was livid. Overdrawing his spiritus once more and disregarding the corruptive erosion around him, he activated Deft Craft creation. Spiritus lances covered in Tianyuan circuits plunged downward once more! *Crack!* With a piercing shriek, a tentacle shot out from the animated mutant device, seizing a spiritus lance midair and crushing it to powder! A barrage of booming impacts echoed endlessly. "Fuck!" Darkness encroached upon Lou Feng's vision. Disregarding propriety—there was no one around to hear him anyway—he swore freely. But right after, he felt the earth tremble. A massive hole had been smashed through the workshop's final containment barrier from the outside! Gales howled through the breach. The mutant entity let out a high-pitched shriek, thrashing madly as if in ecstasy, surging toward the exit... "What kind of idiot—?!" Furious, Lou Feng whipped around to glare at the widening breach. All he saw was a silver glow. Reversing forcefully, Little Niuma rammed straight into the workshop. Its cargo bed flew open, and heavy drum after heavy drum tumbled out. Gleaming quicksilver burst through the lids, surging and spreading into a raging tidal wave that crashed down upon the thrashing mutant. Like Mount Tai pressing down from above! Fracturing sounds rang out without pause. At Ji Jue's whistle, hundreds of kilograms of quicksilver flowed, hardened, wrapped, shackled, and spiked deep into the floor, instantly burying the entire mutant entity beneath it. Ji Jue waved a hand and stepped forward as Non-Offensive manifested across both hands. Spiritus circuits spread from his fingertips, rippling through the quicksilver and advancing like chains to wrap tightly around the corrupted equipment layer upon layer. With the dual pressure of material property reinforcement and Fluid Alchemy, he forced it down, sealing the mutant within. Muffled shrieks and violent tremors emanated ceaselessly from the hardened quicksilver at the center. The fierce recoil shook the ground continuously. Who knew how much corruption it had absorbed to grow to such a terrifying scale? In its violent thrashing, fractures began spiderwebbing across the hardened quicksilver. Soon, however, as Ji Jue freed his hands to catalyze it further, layers of crystalline luster surfaced over the quicksilver. Reinforced by Metallic Quality, it solidified into unyielding shackles. Instantly, it became as immovable as a mountain. In the dead silence, only the blood-red eyes on the exposed center of the equipment opened and closed frantically, shuddering as they reflected the figure steadily walking forward, along with his outstretched hand. "Out of all the things you could've turned into, why did you have to pick something like this?" Ji Jue sighed in wry lament. His raised index finger pressed down against one of the violently twitching bloodshot eyes. And then, an unstoppable surge of spiritus erupted! —Dissociation Art!