Chapter 1720 - The North (1/2)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Looking at the broken device on the group, Rheia tapped her foot lightly in slight frustration, “Took me so much effort to get that out, and only have two lines to show. Would be lying if I’m not frustrated…”

They’re still clues regardless.” Hao Ren shrugged as he opened his Dimensional Pocket and pulled out the ‘metal egg’ that he had managed to salvage at the very last minute, “I had managed to take something out as well, something from the control center. I’m suspecting that it is a ‘pilot’s’ cockpit, but its inside is a little weird.”

The odd silver egg was displayed before everyone else, and it still had traces of the heat while it was within the Gorgon Lord, and one could feel the heat standing before it, and Lily was dumbfounded the moment she saw the egg, and no one knew what actually went inside her head as she blurted out, “Mr. Landlord, this egg would need an even bigger pot no?”

Hao Ren, of course, could not keep up with the werehusky’s thought process. “Huh?”

Lily started gesturing with her claws, “Didn’t the last egg you brought back had Lil Pea hatching out of it, so you need me to boil this egg too right?”

“Can you actually remember something more important?!” Hao Ren said as he slammed a karate chop on the werehusky’s skull. “I had just said that was a cockpit right?”

He then waved his hand and used the same method he used earlier to activate the egg’s outer shell, and as the intricate transformable shell folded away, and a transparent composite material inside the shell was exposed and that black cloud sealed within the cavity ‘woke up’ as well.

It started writhing violently as it crashed against all directions. Its form swelling and shrinking as it took many forms unseen before, and even without a sound, once could tell how what sort of maddened state it was in with its movements.

“Ugh… what is this…” Lily frowned hard, “Disgusting!”

“The thing written on the outer shell is probably a name…” Vivian recalled the lines on the eggshell, “Logically speaking, it should refer to the pilot in the egg-shaped cockpit… but why did the pilot become like that?”

This was something Hao Ren was intrigued as well, he turned to Rheia who had not spoken since, “Rheia, what do you think?”

“Interesting…” Rheia’s voice was so soft it seemed like she was talking to herself. She took half a step forward and placed her hand on the transparent composite interior, “It seems real and yet not, it straddles the Inbetween… how did this world have such a thing?”

As she spoke her fingers touched the transparent interior, and the fog-like black material soaking within the container seemed to be greatly agitated as it started thrashing about violently, as it tried to escape the protective layer that was supposed to protect it, but its struggle lasted barely three seconds as it dissipated into tiny fragments and dissolved into the mysterious liquid inside the container.

But that was not the end. After the black material dissolved, a pinkish, flesh-like component appeared within the container, they were reforming and growing swiftly and in a matter of moments turned into a human-form.

Charlemagne, Awenna, and Graeme who were observing by the side were absolutely gobsmacked.

There lay a female with short light brown hair clad in a tight-fitting silver battledress. She curled up as if she was in a deep slumber, both her arms and one of her legs had clear signs of being replaced by machine as many cables and tubes extended out from the openings on her back and were connected to a spinal-cord like structure inside the egg-shaped container. A nametag hung by the left side of her chest, and her name was written on it. Eli Gneer.

The ancient person named Eli Gneer lay curled up silently in the container before suddenly opening her eyes.

Her golden eyes bore flames of fighting spirit and a very strong will, but she did not react to Hao Ren and the rest outside the container. As if she was a projection from another world, ignoring everything around her, as she wore a grim expression as her hands moved about like she was operating something.

“This is a phantom,” Rheia explained, “This is the pilot’s last memory, she was participating in a battle.”

The phantom did not last a long time, or rather, Eli Gneer did not last very long in that final battle. Her body suddenly shuddered as she curled up in extreme pain while the cables and tubes at her back overloaded and exploded as blood spurted out from the torn tubes and dyed the liquid in the container red, her final expression was contorted and savage, but her bright eyes were burning with an undying flame. Even when the blood from her body had totally consumed her expression, the pair of eyes lingered in Hao Ren’s mind.

What was left in the container was a glob of corrupted blood, but Rheia did not stop her divine art and waited patiently and finally she reached the point of transformation.

Strands of black suddenly appeared within the container and rapidly consumed and assimilated the flesh and metal within the container, and the warrior’s stubborn will could not prevent the virulent virus from infecting it and within half a minute, then everything within the container was consumed, and in place of it was swirling darkness…

Only then did Rheia lifted her hands away from the egg-shaped container. With a gentle sigh, she said, “That’s all of it.”

Hao Ren blinked, “That’s really…”

“A battle against the Mad Lord… And the last part was the corruption of the Mad Lord.” Rheia nodded grimly, before changing into a language in the Plane of Dreams, “But that’s weird… the Mad Lord’s powers are very weak, and it is showing obvious sluggishness, it did not expand after fully corrupting the host. It is not the strength I fought against years ago.”

Hao Ren rubbed his chin, as he spoke in Holettean. “Perhaps, just a minion?”

“Or it is possibly weakened by something,” Rheia looked at Hao Ren in the eyes, as she said that.

“Weakened…” Hao Ren repeated the word reflexively before a eureka moment struck him: A vaccine!

Perhaps for Charlemagne and his sister who had never come into contact with the Mad Lord, what happened within the egg-shaped container would be almost too terrifying for them. But for Hao Ren, that was nothing, the power of the Mad Lord, even if it was just its minions had enough power to tear the stars apart and to distort space, and if it infects a mortal that could no longer resist it, not only the infected will be consumed clean, and even the ship or the fleet that she was on would be warped into monsters of metal and flesh. But those Gorgonian Demons did not have that sort of mutation. While they were indeed out of control, the only contaminated part was the core area, and from the outside, they still looked very normal.

That means the power of the Mad Lord within them had been weakened.

And that was the purpose of Hao Ren and the team’s visit to L’Haronne: Vaccines!

Vivian too had quickly made sense of it and excitedly, she said, “So the Gorgonian Demons are the vaccines?”