Like Heaven

Boom! The rumbling tremors from afar echoed above once more. Inside the narrow tunnel, dust trickled down in showers, startling Little Niuma into freezing in its tracks. It glanced left and right in sheer terror, keeping its high beams brighter than ever, terrified that things might get even slightly darker. For a broken moped to be afraid of the dark was utterly ridiculous! Ji Jue was so annoyed that he stepped up and gave its wheel a kick, urging it forward. "Hurry up and scout ahead!" "The earthquakes seem to be getting more frequent." Xiao An pressed a hand against the wall, feeling the tremors pulsing from the distance. "It feels as if the entire Border Realm is collapsing." "A complete, healthy system must possess its own self-renewal mechanism. Beyond repairing errors when they occur, when burdens become insurmountable, it must destroy everything and create a new set from scratch." The Prophet said calmly, "According to calculations, the original reboot should have occurred eighty years from now. The arrival of outsiders has accelerated the distortions emerging within the workshop. It appears we must hasten our pace." The moment she spoke, the party fell dead silent. Even Little Niuma froze solid. Only Ji Jue gave two awkward coughs. "Uh, hey, Prophet... We all know having exposition at a time like this is important, but could you do us a favor and speak a little less?" "Hmm?" The Prophet asked, puzzled. "Did I say something wrong?" Mounted on Little Niuma's handlebars, the human head resting in the basket spun around, its bead-like, pitch-black eyes peering back at them. *That makes it even creepier, damn it!* *This is getting more morbid by the second!* Once both sides had reached a preliminary agreement to cooperate, the classic RPG 'character recruitment quest' was complete. If there were a notification box, it would pop up right about now to announce: *The Prophet has joined your party.* If this were a mobile gacha game, it would probably let you test-drive a powerful character first before suckering you into spending real money. But the reality was far more complicated. The problem was... the Prophet's body was already ancient, so old that parts dropped off if she moved even slightly, shattering across the floor at the gentlest nudge. She was essentially a quadriplegic ICU patient; walking was completely out of the question! Yet no one else could guide the way. With Xiao An already having mobility issues, adding one more would have turned Ji Jue's journey into the Border Realm into an outing for the disabled. To this, the Prophet had calmly suggested, "Don't you have a vehicle? Just chop off my head and hang it on the front. An obsolete model like me has no other function besides navigation anyway." She had offered it so crisply and matter-of-factly that one might think she was talking about someone else's head. Ji Jue was hardly a pervert who lopped off heads for fun. Though they weren't close, she was technically a teammate now; he couldn't bring himself to do it. In the end, the Prophet merely shook her shoulders slightly, and her head rolled off on its own. And so, with a bizarre lineup of two people, one vehicle, and one head, the party set out once again. Downward! Passing through a web of labyrinthine sewers, they reached the deepest recesses of the town. From there, they rode a lift straight down to the lowest level, as if on a spring picnic. Unimpeded the entire way! There wasn't even a guard. Having a local guide really made things almost too smooth. *Don't you think this is a bit too easy?* he quietly asked Ball Bro in his arms. *What did you expect? If Lord Ball decided to turn traitor, strolling through my master's workshop would be easier than a walk in the park too,* the puzzle ball replied flippantly. *Back at those fork junctions, if you'd taken a single wrong step, you'd pretty much be ashes by now. Don't take your blessings for granted, alright?* Boom! Before its words could settle, a colossal roar erupted from the deepest depths underground. The violent shockwave brought faint echoes of gunfire and agonizing wails, catching Ji Jue off guard. Xiao An pressed her hand against the wall, listening intently. "About two kilometers away. Four people, and another creature I can't identify—enormous and very terrifying." "Someone tripped the alarm, activating the perimeter defense protocol and waking the Guardian." The Prophet lifted her eyelids slightly, entirely unconcerned. "Fret not. The maintenance tunnel is outside the quarantine zone. You possess authorization, so those rigid tools won't obstruct you." Just as she finished speaking, agile, spider-like shapes seemed to scuttle across the ceiling. As they passed by, their compound eyes flicked over the group. But Ji Jue carried the Furnace's authorization, and Xiao An, seated on Little Niuma, was shielded by the Prophet. Detecting nothing amiss, the creatures moved on without a second thought. Ji Jue breathed a quiet sigh of relief, only to hear the puzzle ball's voice. *Watch out. The prettier the Celestial Craft, the better she is at lying.* The puzzle ball warned, *This dame definitely has issues. Keep your guard up so you don't capsize.* *She's a Celestial Craft?* *Possessing thought and reason, capable of defying base directives and spiritus circuits, and able to survive and evolve independently after severing ties with its user—meeting those criteria is the very foundation of a Celestial Craft. The others can at best be called conscious puppets, but her degree of completion is countless times higher. You haven't forgotten the alchemy history lessons I gave you, have you?* It was referring to the ruthless clashes of the ancient high-tier masters. Ji Jue had etched those lessons into his bones; heaven knew just how remarkably sentient the tools left behind by Quicksilver could be. The more human-like a construct was, the more deceitful it tended to be. Though thinking so felt slightly unfair to the Prophet, who was currently sparing no effort to assist him, one could never be too cautious. The closer something was to a human, the more one had to be on guard. For now, the Prophet was just a severed head resting in the basket right by Little Niuma's mouth. If anything seemed remotely off, Little Niuma would treat itself to a snack without Ji Jue even needing to give the order. Unless they truly came to blows, Ji Jue didn't want to rashly use his ability to seize control of her. Deus Ex Machina was not omnipotent. At least, not yet. Moving forward in silence, they finally reached the end of the corridor, where only a sealed hatch, resembling a bulkhead door from a ship, blocked their path. "We are almost there," the Prophet said. "Once this opens, the core should lie beyond." With that, she looked back at Ji Jue, making her intentions unmistakably clear without another word. Xiao An leaned on her crutch, intending to get down, but Ji Jue held her back. "Is there a passcode?" Ji Jue leaned down to inspect the rust-encrusted sealed door. He knocked on it, listening to the hollow echo. The moment his hand touched the surface, the resonance of Deus Ex Machina allowed him to perceive its entire structure. There were no traps or mechanisms to beware of; it was merely an ordinary door, nothing more. He reached out, gripped the handle firmly, and turned it with all his might. A series of piercing screeches erupted, echoing far into the darkness. Flakes of rust rained down from the helm-like handle as it turned stiffly, finally cracking open a sliver. A dazzling shimmer spilled through the narrow slit, reflecting in Ji Jue's eyes. Involuntarily, he caught his breath. There was no ambush and no hidden contraption—only a tide-like gleam of rippling luminescence, brilliant and multicolored, quietly drifting in the air... That was spiritus. True liquid spiritus, an actual sea of it, rolled ceaselessly across the unimaginably vast expanse beyond the door. It surged through the gap, washing over their boots and kicking up countless ripples of fractured light. It was a bona fide ocean. Little Niuma spun its wheels, inching forward inquisitively to gaze at the bottomless sea of spiritus on either side of the straight path, which was shallowly submerged beneath the glowing liquid. The road stretched straight toward the dead center of the subterranean realm, leading to a solemn palace as grand as nearly half a city. "Welcome to the lowest level of the Quicksilver Workshop, the Spiritus Operation Zone." From inside the basket, the Prophet let out a soft sigh, gazing toward the distant, colossal structure enveloped in prismatic radiance. "Ahead lies the workshop's core." "Have you been here before?" Ji Jue asked out of curiosity. "Yes, I have. Many times." The Prophet chuckled softly, casting a glance at the deep sea of spiritus beside them. "Everyone in the workshop has been here more than once." She said, "This is where we were born." Amidst the roaring tides, a massive vortex suddenly formed on the surface of the sea... It was as if the water were boiling! A torrent of crimson spiritus poured down from the vaulted ceiling like a rainstorm, plunging into the ocean and staining vast swathes in startling blood-red. Those fractured shards of spiritus still held fleeting glimpses of memories, slowly drifting loose. The wind rushing against their faces seemed thick with wails. Yet in the next moment, lines of spiritus circuits manifested in the void, lifting the vortex from the sea and twisting it into a raging waterspout that swallowed every last spiritus fragment. Those synthetic souls were torn apart in an instant, pulverized to dust. All that frenzy and anguish swirled downward into the colossal vortex beneath the sanctuary, vanishing without a trace. Then came severed limbs and broken remains. Heads, arms, legs, torsos, internal organs... Debris fell like hailstones, alongside the carcasses of mutated monsters, cascading downward as a massive breach ripped open in the ceiling above. They tumbled into the boiling sea of spiritus, rapidly decomposing until nothing remained but ash-like dust, silently settling into the deepest abyss of the sea and piling into sprawling mountain ranges. Endless and boundless. The rainbow light remained as radiant as ever. Nothing betrayed how many bones and remains lay buried within this fairyland-like world, nor could any cries or wails be heard. Ji Jue felt a chill seep into his very bones. "Damaged tools and runaway puppets are sent here after being recycled. The spiritus is crushed, filtered, and purified into its most pristine state. Once the shells are broken down, only unusable ashes remain." The Prophet spoke slowly. "Soon, along the production lines below, new hollow shells will be fabricated—first the skeleton, then overlaid with flesh and blood, then enlightened with spiritus, and finally infused with memory. A brand-new tool will step off the conveyor belt to carry out its next mission... until it realizes what it truly is once again..." She gave a soft, mocking laugh. "If an afterlife exists for tools, then this is our hell." Hell lay right before their eyes. Yet it looked just like heaven. *Crack!* *Crack, crack...* Amidst wave after wave of tremors, a fissure abruptly tore across the vaulted ceiling. Dust rained down like a shower. An earthquake. "Steel yourself, Mr. Ji Jue," the Prophet said at last. "This is as far as my abilities can take you. If you still wish to fulfill your desires from here on out, I fear what awaits you is a grueling battle..." *Ding—* A crisp chime seemed to ring out from the void.