Chapter 691 Empty Hell (1/2)

”Looks like the Nursery is really fighting something.”

Joshua was calm in the face of the rapidly flashing lights and blaring sirens. In fact, Joshua had been calm whether it was the present unexpected circumstance or discovering that the Simboans were slaughtered like livestock. He was at most taken by surprise with the buildings and decorations made out of human body parts—he did not even care about anything else.

Because he still could not ascertain the truth about this world until now.

The Soul Puppets had certainly committed many unthinkable and revolting acts. Whether it was the brainwashed laborers who worked daily for dozens of years whose souls would be collected even when they died, breeding and slaughter humans as a resource, or even collecting their special souls and 'Ultra-powered Units', everything they did were things that Joshua felt uneasy and disgusted at as an intelligent being… And yet, even now, he could not find decisive evidence that the Soul Puppets were the worst factions.

Sounds unthinkable? But that was the absolute truth. Having gone to many worlds—Grandia, especially, Joshua had learned that many things cannot be decided through mere 'right and wrong'… What if the Simboan world collected and burned souls just to keep the world alive, how would he critique them then? What if everyone in the Nurseries were clones, while there are natural humans who pulled the strings externally—what could he say then?

Joshua was a Legendary champion of Mycroft, not Simboa.

For survival and for their world, Order and civilization would create a path for themselves. It was their choice no matter how bewildering or blasphemous it would be, and Foreigners from other worlds do not have the right to judge them from their ivory towers. All that he had seen remained excuses the warrior could accept grudgingly, because he was not enraged yet, and merely using a cool gaze to observe everything.

And now, there was conflict. The ones opposing the Nurseries has appeared, and Joshua intended to take a look.

The huge Soul Puppet moved, slowly heading toward the east, towards the explosion. As the huge steel body moved, its surface layer trembled—most of Joshua's body parts were shifting: some spare parts and constructs vanished while others augmented.

In a nutshell, his body was enlarging becoming denser. With Steel Strength, the warrior could improve and alter his body mechanisms at any given movement, strengthening with every step he took. However, he stopped halfway through and frowned, seemingly remembering something.

”My appearance now is still Soul Puppet… that still registers as a foe for the faction assaulting the Nursery. Simply going there would get me recognized as an enemy.

He could not communicate with any being in the Nursery, be it Soul Puppet or the humans bred—but he might get through to the assailants. Joshua did not want to miss a great chance to attain information about this world, but changing his own appearance remained a little difficult for the warrior. His body now still was not liquid metal that could freely transform, and even if he could, who would know if the assailants would pick up on it?

After thinking for a few seconds, Joshua quickly came up with a flawless plan.

Turning back, he made a detour to Sixth Repairs and entered the dark workshop. He walked to the unnamed technician's bed and crouched, pressing his hand on his skull.

In an instant, the Steel Shard at the chest of the Steel Puppet began to revolve, and silver radiance from Joshua as well as purple-green light from Simboa's shard began to emanate, streaming into the unnamed technician's body over his finger. As a faint light surfaced over the corpse, substantial lifeforce was converted from Steel Strength and unleashed, and that cavity over the technician's brain rapidly closed itself as if time was reversing.

In seconds, the wound over the head of the unnamed technician had very much sealed itself, leaving a little bloodstain while the rigid corpse became soft as if resurrected. Heartbeats were even ringing from his chest, but Joshua, dissatisfied, moved lifeforce so that it permeated every cell of the body.

The aged face and whited hair of the former cadaver thus began to change swiftly: his muscles protruded, his wrinkles vanished just as his white hair dropped, jet-black hair growing where they once hung.

It was ten seconds later, as Joshua looked on at the body of the unnamed technician, that he realized he overdid it.

”A little too young… But that's fine. He might just pass off as a child from Garden.”

Reviving the body of the unnamed technician, spiritually controlling him to fake himself as a Simboan and speak to the assailants of the Nursery—that was Joshua's plan.

The soul of the technician that Joshua absorbed into his Soul Pool was a feeble and almost shattered soul. There was no telling how long he would need to recover to the point that he could communicate, much less resurrected. Incidentally, Joshua intended to borrow his body—if the body remains after he had solved the Steel Python Simboa's troubles, he would not mind reviving the technician with the younger body… if he be willing.

At Joshua's present level, life and death, nothingness and existence were not absolute. He could resurrect the dead, create things out of thin air, create life, project mass or even create ecospheres. Therefore, to rebuild a mortal's body and return a soul was nothing too complicated: he had actually revived a few worlds after all.

On the bed, the black-haired youth slowly rose, opening his eyes that had a dull and dead gaze. But soon, as Joshua projected spirit, a flash of silver light crossed his eyes as they began to turn, promptly filled with vigor.

”Feels alright.”

Controlling the black-haired youth so that he got up from the bed and walked a few steps, the warrior felt that he was controlling a puppet… While it was most carbon-based creatures who pulled the strings of machines, things were reversed when it came to him.

Joshua accepted the fact that he was a robot rather simply.

”The clothes are a little large, but that's fine.”

Since Joshua used the unnamed technician's body mass as a resource to recover vigor, the now youthful body was naturally smaller than its adult form, in turn making the gray repair uniform a little loose. Still, Joshua simply turned his clothes into one identical to the white robes of the children in the Garden. Having determined that his manipulation had no issue, Joshua nodded and extended his hand, put the body over his shoulders before leaving Repairs, heading towards the edge of Garden and the Eastern Nursery.

It was then that Joshua realized that Garden was actually quite small: the place itself was covered beneath a semi-circular dome, with a diameter of just over five kilometers. Apart from Repairs, Garden and Healthcare that were located at the centermost sectors, every other building was unusually rectangular and without doors or windows. Each of them had the exact same design, and stood aloft as if gravestones on the outer reaches of Garden, occupying three-fifths of the area. However, because Joshua could see electromagnetic signals and soul signatures, he quickly discovered that the gravestone-like buildings were information transit hubs for the Soul Puppets.

In the meantime, he reached the edge of the dome only to find that there were no doors. He hence made one with his fists, but when he stepped into the Nursery, he could sense the burning winds bombarding his face and indescribably bad air.

”Average temperatures are above thirty-five degrees, and given the density of dust in the air… Easy exposure to lung diseases.”

While being a machine, Joshua was fine with dust, but the youth's body that would act as his puppet was not immune. Sensing his incredible discomfort, it was after the warrior had made a barrier that he became better.

The Nursery and Garden beyond the dome were basically two different worlds: the temperature in Garden was between twenty-two to twenty-four, the air fresh and virtually devoid of dust or bacteria, while the luminosity was cozy. On the other hand, the average temperate beyond the glass dome averaged above thirty-five and was filled with dust—reaching the point of air pollution. While bacteria concentration was at normal levels, the light is that of dusky, which severely affects vision.

Now, having stepped out, Joshua gravely looked around and observed the world beyond the Garden.

There was an invisible border between Garden and Nursery that was about five hundred meters long. Although there were no obstacles or objects marking the border, completely empty and inconspicuous, beyond it were verdant croplands that swayed under the warm breeze, seemingly used to such environments.

Adjusting the focus of his mechanical eye, Joshua saw that those square lands were planned and adjusted for, with turbid drains separating each square tile of cropland like a spiderweb and passing through every inch of earth.

Each land was also identical—or, at least to Joshua's eyes, their length and width were almost the same, even the workers laboring over them… Joshua could see that there were figures patrolling the cropland or appearing to be fertilizing them. While those Simboan men had different visage, every single one of their movements were identical, their expressions blank, just as the clothes they wear were an indistinguishable gray-brown.

Joshua did not stop there. He moved further beyond the drains, realizing that the laboring Simboans did not react even when the Eastern Nursery exploded so brutally, or to Joshua's presence for that matter. Each of them worked synchronously like robots mimicking each other, just as the Simboan women behind him that were staying in the rectangular buildings managed various miscellaneous matters, such as moving harvested crops. The only difference was that there were the occasional women who had children, who would care for them instead.

'Too equal.'

That was Joshua's only thought.

The same land, the same drains, the same clothes, and the same house… even the men to women ratio was equal, with one man matched to one woman. Everyone was equally apathetic, their eyes identically blank and empty as if walking dead.

The Nursery was unusually vast, and there were farms of livestock apart from plants. Even so, Joshua felt a little relieved that he did not see human farms he imagined that he would see—instead, there were some fat animals that had six feet and resembled hippopotamuses. While the farmers there were Simboans who did not show any human presence as well, it was at least not the worst-case scenario: for better or worse, the Soul Puppets and their masters did not consider Simboans a source of meat, which allowed Joshua to breathe a sigh in relief after having prepared for the worst.

Of course, the reason for that might also simply be due to the fact that meat from Simboans were not enough or insufficiently nutritious.

***

Joshua could now hear the magical flashes resounding from the distance. Ignoring the Nursery, Joshua tightened his hold over the carbon-based puppet on his shoulder and cast a defensive barrier over him, and strode forward, causing the earth to cave in and the stream to split. As the air cracked from being torn apart, Joshua flew past the square tiles of cropland and arrived at the edge of the battle in minutes.

That was the frontier of the Nursery, where a black, twenty-meter tall imposing wall stretched as far as the eye could see. It wrapped around the entire Nursery and appeared indestructible, and yet that was a thirty-meter gap now blasted into it, with hot magma still flowing on its edges.

Both the interior and exterior of the city walls were visibly fortified, but every single one of the defensive mechanisms set in place had fallen. Joshua could already hear the violent sounds of battle—looking up in that direction, he saw dense formations of Soul Puppets and a party of Simboans who appeared special.

There were over five hundred Soul Puppets, each standing almost two meters and armed to the teeth: their bodies were protected by sturdy metallic armors and they wielded different weapons. Those on the vanguard were carrying sturdy anti-assault shields and metal blades, while those at the rear carried various projectile weapons such as Ray Dischargers and sorcery items, but they all moved in synchrony, showing a good command in both offense and defense.