55: Chapter 58 The Mechanical Serpent Entangling the World, Completed? Completed!

"Gulp..."

When the shock in their hearts reached its absolute limit.

Their first reaction.

Was not an outburst of profanity.

But rather.

Holding their breath so intensely they didn't even dare to breathe!

After a long while.

Did someone finally manage to snap back to their senses and couldn't help swallowing hard.

However, gazing at the phantom in the sky.

After opening their mouths a few times, they still couldn't speak.

It wasn't because their expressions were calm.

But rather, they had been shocked.

To the point where they completely couldn't find any words to describe it.

There were cities, signs of human habitation, a sun...

Entirely constructed from Gear, existing almost like a mechanical world, yet it was actually just a single snake scale on Its body.

It!

Was actually the Ancient Serpent coiled around the universe?!

The mere instant they gazed at It, an inexplicable power would invade their minds.

Causing them to unconsciously chant.

A prayer dedicated to It.

"It is the Logos, all understandable laws in the world..."

"The god who controls machinery and wisdom..."

"Weaving order and rules above the abyss, personally forging every single physical law..."

"Praise the Machine!"

"Allowing all things to operate..."

"Praise the Machine!"

"The source of endless wisdom and knowledge..."

——

As the phantom of the Gear gradually dissipated.

The crowd, slowly snapping out of their fanaticism, all felt a sense of loss.

As if their greatest inner sustenance had left.

Leaving an indescribable emptiness.

Some people even fell straight to the ground, wailing loudly over the departure of the god.

The scene was chaotic beyond compare for a moment.

However, correspondingly.

The emotional fluctuations they emitted outward also reached an unprecedented peak.

[Ding——]

[001 Mechanical?? Triggered massive emotional fluctuations, Emotion Points +138291]

[Emotion Points +231921]

[Emotion Points +109233]

[...]

The jumping of the Emotion Points.

Directly broke through the tens-of-thousands milestone.

Every single feedback reached the hundreds-of-thousands level.

In less than a blink of an eye, a small half of the investment was recovered.

This was definitely a top-tier investment.

However, Su Xiu's gaze unexpectedly did not linger on the data for long.

After confirming that the returns were good and showed an overall upward trend, he looked away.

His attention fell upon 001 beside him.

The vast phantom of the Ancient Serpent dissipated from the cosmic void, gradually returning inward.

Before his eyes, it transformed into the mechanical serpent.

Its true size was not particularly massive, and one could even say it was somewhat pocket-sized.

Yet it possessed an indescribably towering and vast presence.

Divinity flowed!

On every single snake scale of the Ancient Serpent.

It seemed to contain the divine afterglow of machinery.

Endless Gear intersected beside It.

Intertwining the truth of matter, as if expounding the ultimate Dao of physics!

However, this extremely high-profile posture.

Only lasted for a fleeting moment.

Hum~

An invisible fluctuation flashed.

The mechanical Ancient Serpent twisted and turned in a winding motion.

Click——

Click——

The direction of the Gear's rotation changed from never-ceasing forward movement to rewinding backward.

Reversal!

Retreat!

The towering shadow of the Ancient Serpent.

Quickly transformed into a small Little Snail gleaming with silver light.

"Eh?"

"Eh——"

The Mechanical Snail seemed not to have recovered yet from its just-now towering posture.

Huh? Where did my body that was so big, even bigger than a planet, go? Why did I become a palm-sized Little Snail again?!

Does this make sense?

This doesn't make sense!

001 shook its tentacles angrily, scattering stardust brilliance downwards.

However, instead of the ferocious terror it had in its Ancient Serpent form, it had an inexplicable dorky cuteness.

The editor in Su Xiu's hand flickered accordingly.

Lines of text.

Gradually took shape on the first page of the document.

[001 Mechanical Snail / Mechanical Ancient Serpent]

[Document Level: High-Risk / Divine]

[Traits: Meme / Machinery]

[Crafted based on a wisp of shattered afterglow as a base point, it is one of the thousands of shattered lights and shadows, possessing extremely high intelligence and dual forms. This entity is a superposition of material state and informational state...]

[Snail Form: Informational state, possesses 100% immunity to physical-level attacks, can freely invade the virtual world, shuttle through the silver net, and is a god transcending the virtual...]

[Ancient Serpent Form: Material state, immune to mental-type impacts, possesses extremely high exemption to divine pollution, and holds absolute ruling authority over mechanical creations...]

[Flaw: The divine state is extremely incomplete; the second form cannot be maintained for long under high intensity, and overusing the power of machinery has a certain probability of causing it to drop out of the Ancient Serpent state]

[Status: Deployed]

[Note: Gods return to the whole! Gods shall return to the whole!]

[...]

"It's done."

Su Xiu's gaze fell upon 001.

He let out a long sigh in his heart, feeling a sense of relief.

001's carrier.

Was an interception of a wisp of shattered concept from his past life's memories, integrated into the compilation as a special material, building the sequential anomaly based on this.

001's special nature determined its peculiarity.

Ordinary materials, and even divine materials, found it very difficult to merge and intersect with it.

Not only would it fail to have any effect on 001, but it might also pollute 001's essence of power.

Tending towards a metaphysical concept, even divinity could not carry it, but 001's importance required it to ascend, so Su Xiu could only burn points to forcibly push 001's elevation.

Looking at it now, the result was quite good.

"Supreme divinity..."

Su Xiu said in a lingering tone, looking at the Little Snail beside him.

That's right, 001's essence was the supreme!

Divinity?

No! No! No!

Mere divinity could never make him fret over gains and losses.

Su Xiu's far-reaching gaze.

Had always been placed upon supreme divinity.

And 001 was one of the blueprints in his plan.

In his mind.

It was the materialized product of one of countless proposals, weakened downwards.

Right now... it was merely one of thousands of lights and shadows that were incomparably incomplete... shattered to the extreme...

But once life transitioned and divinity was reorganized.

001 would sooner or later become the existence he expected, it was only a matter of time.

Just like the footnote of the sequence document.

[Gods return to the whole! Gods shall return to the whole!]

By then, with 001's meme in hand.

It would no longer be just them waiting for invasion and resisting aggression, but rather the positions of offense and defense would reverse, blowing the horn of counterattack!

Simply taking beatings passively was not his personality.

"Old friends~"

"We will be meeting very soon, you guys should all be looking forward to it~"

Su Xiu's gaze was ice-cold.

His eyes revealed a bone-chilling murderous intent.

——

Of course, those were stories for another time!

At the current stage, the most important thing was still recovering the costs.

Su Xiu burning his savings and spending such a huge price to let 001 ascend and achieve a source transition wasn't just to stir up a grand scene and prove the association's infinite foundation.

But even more so to... expand the profit surface and the range of leeks...

As the sequence continuously took shape.

And their own side's power constantly increased.

The existing leeks were no longer enough to satisfy Su Xiu's appetite, and expanding the harvesting group was imperative!

As the largest source of income.

Live streaming!

It was naturally targeted by him.

Previously, it was because the level was not high enough to embed the 'live stream meme' infection into the whole world.

After 001's dimension ascension, this problem no longer existed!

——

"Time to work~"

"After eating so many resources, you've got to move around to digest it!"

Su Xiu curved the corners of his mouth slightly.

Revealing a mysterious smile.

The corner of his eye fell upon 001.

Causing a certain snail to shudder inexplicably.

But facing someone's PUA, the Little Snail completely ignored it.

Work?

Working is impossible!

It's impossible to work in this lifetime.

Can only rely on slacking off to barely maintain this kind of life.

Carrying its huge snail shell, it crawled upwards huffing and puffing.

Within the patterns of the white vortex, it seemed to contain the material truths of the world, where Gear and springs formed a great world inside.

You're exploiting me?

Then I'll just exploit other people!

Exploitation does not disappear, exploitation only transfers.

After evolution, 001's thinking obviously became much more active.

Just as its tentacles swayed.

A trace of a Gear phantom.

Was also slowly taking shape in the extreme distance, emitting divine radiance.

Waiting for the beasts of burden [crossed out]... waiting for the lucky ones to arrive...