The entrance to the furnace was like the throat of a giant beast. As soon as Ryan's quantum symbiote's right arm touched the rock wall, the dragon bones embedded in the basalt made a friction sound like gears stuck. Fluorescent blue mucus oozed out from the bone joints and crawled along his mechanical lines in reverse, like some kind of cold tongue licking his memory.
"This damn place... is even more disgusting than the Vatican's laboratory." Selina used her crystal dragon wings to split the stalactites that blocked her way. The debris condensed into a miniature Vatican seal when it splashed on Ryan's face. "Don't touch the wall, idiot! Don't you see those bones are sucking your gene chain?"
(Pain in the gills—the mechanical claws of the 299th reincarnation pierce the chest—Gray's sneer on his face—Lyria's embryo screams in the incubator)
Ryan retracted his arm abruptly, and the symbiote's gears groaned with metal fatigue. Irene's remaining chip vibrated deep in the scar, and the star code spelled out a warning: "Gene siphoning protocol detected - it is recommended to cut off contact -". But before he could react, the entire cave suddenly trembled quantumly, and the roar of broken iron chains came from the bottom of the magma lake.
"Here they come!" As soon as the last vampire scout in the team shouted, the mechanized dragoons of the Holy See tore open the roof of the cave.
Those things don't look like living things at all - the dragon head is a collection of the Holy Light Cannon of the Church, and the spine is inlaid with 299 micro-cultivation chambers, each of which is suspended with the quantum afterimage of the Lyria embryo. The moment the dragon claw swung, Ryan saw the "III" type brand drill rotating in the claw center, facing his reverse scale scar.
"Left!" Selina's roar and dragon breath exploded at the same time.
Ryan rolled sideways, and the ground he was standing on was melted into a deep pit by the dragon's breath. Fluorescent blue mucus oozed out from the bottom of the pit, and in the blink of an eye, it condensed into an encrypted document of the Church: "Matrix Protocol v3.14 - Furnace Purification Program Started". He picked up the pulse gun infused with Xingyuan Core Fluid, but the bullet splashed strange sound waves on the dragon scales - the frequency of Liria's lullaby.
"Fuck... this thing is mentally polluting!" The vampire scout knelt down with his head covered, homologous mucus oozing out of his ear holes.
Selina's dragon wings entangled the neck of a dragon rider, and the crystal scales and mechanical armor rubbed against each other to produce quantum sparks: "Ryan! The core of the furnace is at the bottom of the magma lake!" Her fangs bit through the dragon head, but she was repelled by the scream of Liria's afterimage in the cabin, "Don't be in a daze!"
When Ryan rushed to the lava lake, the symbiote's right arm suddenly lost control. The gears rotated in reverse, tearing his shoulder blade - Irene's chip was frantically alarming: "Siphon Protocol Invasion - Homologous Rate Exceeds 60% -". In the severe pain, he saw 299 reflections of his clones floating on the surface of the lava, each holding a broken Lyria embryo.
(A mechanical finger inserted into the temple——The judge's voice echoed in the skull——"Container 001, execute decontamination"——)
"Wake up!" Selina's crystal tail pierced through the pursuing dragoon, and the mucus sprayed all over Ryan's face, "Your broken arm is charging the furnace!"
She was right. The symbiote's right arm had been inserted into the magma at some point, and the core fluid of the Star Abyss was being siphoned into the bottom of the lake. Ryan gritted his teeth and tore off his arm, but what splashed out when the mechanical tendon burst was not blood - it was the data fragments of Misha's cloud consciousness, spelling out an encrypted band in the air: "Run away... They are waiting..."
The magma lake suddenly boiled, and a bronze furnace rose from the center of the lake. The furnace body was engraved with reliefs of the dragon gene chain, but each double helix was pierced by the Holy Seal of the Church. What really suffocated Ryan was the object embedded in the base of the furnace - the fragments of the mask of the first judge, which was quantum entangled with the skull of the Dragon King in his backpack.
"I see..." Selina's dragon wings were torn apart by three dragon riders, but her voice was filled with a crazy laugh, "The old guys have already fucking gone along with it!"
As Raine lunged at the furnace, the last Dragoon's "III" drill pierced his flank. The drill's frequency suddenly switched to Gray's voice: "Failed products should be used as fuel..." In the severe pain, he saw the mark "Raine-001" engraved on the inner wall of the drill, exactly the same as the cloned heart in Gray's chest.
(Young Gray is tied to the operating table—Elena's tears drip onto the star chip—Liriya's embryo's tail slaps the culture medium—)
"Fuck your fuel!" Ryan's symbiote's right arm suddenly regenerated, and the gears bit the dragon rider's head and smashed it into the furnace.
At the moment of collision, quantum storms burst out from the Judge's mask and the Dragon King's skull. All the dragon riders froze in their movements, and their mechanical eyeballs popped out holographic images of Liria's embryos, and they cried out heartbreakingly in sync. The magma lake began to flow backwards, and the gene chain reliefs of the furnace lit up one by one, projecting a picture in the void that made everyone tremble.
Twenty years ago, in the Vatican laboratory, the young version of Elena was implanting a fragment of the Dragon King's skull into a baby's spine. The mask of the first judge was suspended next to the operating table, and the star code on the inside of the mask flashed "Project Lyria-α".
"No..." Ryan's symbiote gears were stuck, and Irene's chip was overloaded and screaming deep in the scar, "Protocol Invasion - Homologous Rate 99% -".
The core of the furnace roared with mechanical operation, and what came out of the furnace mouth was not flames, but 299 genetic chains wrapped with Liria's cries. Selina's crystal dragon wings completely collapsed at this time, and she fell beside Ryan, and her asphalt-like blood soaked the Holy Seal of the Church on the surface of the furnace.
"Take this... my patent fee..." She slapped a crystal scale into Ryan's symbiote interface. The scale contained the quantum key of the transaction with the demon.
The furnace was now fully awake, and the Judge's mask and the Dragon King's skull merged into a deformed mechanical dragon head. Its first roar shattered the cave dome, and the starry sky poured in from the cracks, revealing an even more terrifying truth at the bottom of the furnace -
There lies the complete embryo of Lyria, whose fish tail has mutated into the barrel of the Holy Light Cannon of the Church, and whose "III" brand on its forehead perfectly matches Ryan's reverse scale scar.
Branch Undercurrent:
Irene's remaining chip sent the last wave before overloading: it detected that Misha's consciousness was being introduced into the core of the furnace. Gray's reconstructed body suddenly appeared at the edge of the quantum storm, with a newly formed mechanical dragon claw holding half of the Judge's mask...