After passing through the damp, narrow and oily slag heap, the view suddenly opened up.
This place had once been a vast underground reservoir, but it had now dried up. Countless wrecked home robots, broken hydraulic arms and charred circuit boards had been piled into small mountains. In the centre of these 'garbage mountains' stood a unique building.
It looked like a temple that had been forcibly dismantled and reassembled; its beams and pillars were rusted I-beams and its tiles were discarded aluminium heat sinks. However, the most awe-inspiring feature was the enormous bell hanging in the centre of the temple.
It was a giant bell cast from bronze, obsidian and some kind of translucent, ethereal crystal. Its surface was covered in dark gold patterns, each line glowing faintly with a pure blue light.
Clang!
A clear, resonant sound seemingly capable of piercing the soul echoed through the air.
Aaryan, whose heart had been racing and whose etheric circuits had been disrupted by strenuous exercise, instantly felt the violent dragon blood pressure in his chest subside upon hearing the bell toll.
'Is this bell cleansing the ether?' Aaryan looked ahead in astonishment. Beneath the giant bell stood a gaunt old man.
He wore a long, stained grey robe and had a red cloth covered in runes tightly blindfolding his eyes. One of his hands was completely mechanised, a sophisticated silver prosthetic. Its five fingers deftly manipulated a carving knife, etching symbols onto the bell's surface with hair-thin lines.
'Old man, still alive?' Cyrus emerged from the shadows in an unusually familiar tone, hinting at barely perceptible respect.
'Death is merely the clearing of code; life is the reconstruction of data.' The blindfolded old man didn't turn around. His mechanical fingers lightly plucked the edge of the bronze bell and it emitted a vibrato like a harp string. 'Cyrus, you've brought back a "wrong code" that shouldn't exist in this era.'
'His name is Aaryan.' Cyrus walked to the old man's side and pointed to the exhausted boy behind him. "He's the only one who can restart the 'Singularity'." 'Hey, hey, I said...' Pau shrank into the shadows and looked around anxiously at the headless, armless robot statues. 'Did we hide in this garbage-filled place just to listen to this old man ring this broken bell?' 'The Holy Blood Council's judgement is right above us. One cast of its heat beam and we'll all turn to dust!"
Pau's nerves were stretched to the limit after his near-death experience. His mechanical leg, lacking lubrication, emitted a piercing screech, jarringly loud in the silent temple.
'Noise,' the old monk Maha uttered calmly.
'Who are you calling noise? I'm the top dog in the Maya District..."
Before Pau could finish, Maha suddenly flicked his finger.
An invisible wave of energy travelled through the air and struck the pressure relief valve on Pau's mechanical leg precisely.
Sizzle!
A burst of steam shot out and Pau's left leg instantly went limp, causing him to fall heavily to the muddy ground. His mouth gaped open, but no sound came out.
'Within my bell's range, only the rhythm of ether has the right to speak.' Cyrus shook his head, silencing Pau. Maha turned around; though blindfolded, he seemed to see into Aaryan's soul.
'Young man, you are afraid of the power within you.' Maha's voice was ethereal and deep.
'I'm not afraid... I just don't understand.' Aaryan approached the giant bell and reached out to touch its cold, bronze surface. 'It just killed an experimental beast, but it didn't feel like using my power. It felt more like something was seeing the world through my eyes.'
'That's a misalignment of avatars.' Maha took Aaryan's hand and placed it on the centre of the bell. 'The so-called etheric science of this world is nothing but a clumsy means of plundering natural energy. Your father and the bloodline behind you, however, pursue "construction". 'Construction' is not conquest, but resonance."
'Listen.' "
Maha raised the mallet again and struck the pendulum slowly and heavily.
The sound was different to Aaryan.
He could no longer hear the clanging of metal, but rather the breathing of the entire Maya region. He could hear the upper floating islands greedily absorbing the Earth's energy; the subterranean demons' pulsating struggle amidst their wails; and the desperate, shattering cry emanating from the land beneath his feet — the singularity known as '1969'. Just as Aaryan became immersed in this grand, ethereal rhythm, the rock strata above the temple began to tremble violently.
Fragments of rock fell from the rusty I-beams.
'They acted faster than I expected.' Maha tilted his head slightly. 'The hounds of the Holy Blood Council weren't content with spot elimination; they released the "Deep Drill Detectors".'
"Detectors?" Pau finally found his voice and screamed, "They're high-frequency sonic bombs designed to detect underground shelters! Once the frequency is detected, this place will be instantly pulverised!"
"Aaryan, this is your first lesson." Maha handed Aaryan a wooden mallet. 'This is a heavy mallet made of wood struck by lightning and ethereal fibres that conduct electricity. Use your 'pressure' to cover this bell. If the sound of the bell can mask our frequency, we will survive; if not, this will be your grave." Aaryan took the mallet; its weight caused him to clench his fist. He looked at the ancient, colossal bell in front of him, then at Balthazar's ashen face and Cyrus's solemn expression in the distance.
He closed his eyes, trying to summon the power within him that filled him with dread. Aaryan struck the bronze bell with his mallet.
But this time, no sound came out.
The entire space fell into an eerie silence, the Blood Council's probes hovering overhead like headless flies.
Suddenly, a terrifying image flashed through Aaryan's mind: deep within the singularity of 1969, a gigantic 'heart', composed of countless circuits and flesh, was slowly beating. With each beat, the lifelines of everyone in the Maya District were devoured.
'Was that what my father detonated?'
In the shadows of the temple, a dark figure who should have died in the arena gripped an electronic dagger coated with deadly poison.
Aaryan struck the bronze bell — the translucent, ethereal crystal — precisely at its centre with his mallet.
Buzz!
The expected ear-shattering roar did not occur. Instead, an eerie silence spread rapidly, enveloping the entire underground temple. The fine dust in the air ceased to move and Pau's pounding, fearful heart seemed to have been erased from reality by some powerful force.
'What... what's happening?' Pau opened his mouth, only to find to his horror that he couldn't hear his own voice. He frantically pounded on his mechanical legs, but although metal struck rock, no sound came out.
"This is 'Vacuum Meditation'." The blindfolded old monk, Maha, spoke directly into everyone's minds, his voice booming like a bell: 'Young man, your hammer strike has not only mobilised the dragon blood pressure within your body, but it has also forcibly reduced all etheric amplitudes within a 500-metre radius to zero through this bell. Now, in the outside world's radar scans, we are nothing more than a pile of lifeless scrap metal.' Above ground, the Holy Blood Council's 'Judgmental' was conducting high-intensity frequency capture.
Three spiralling 'Deep Drilling Detectors', crackling with eerie blue light, were frantically traversing the rock layers above Aaryan and his companions. They were capable of precisely detonating objects by capturing their etheric wavelengths.
However, when these 'deadly hounds' swept directly above the underground temple, the display screen showed only a smooth, straight line.
"Sir, target vanished." Inside the Judgement's command centre, the operator was drenched in sweat. 'Below coordinates 1969, all etheric signals collapsed in the blink of an eye, as if that area had suddenly turned into a void, a black hole.'
Silver Moon gripped her sword hilt, her brow furrowed as she stared at the eerie silence on the screen; her unease was growing stronger.
'Has that pressure evolved to the point where it can interfere with fundamental physical constants?' she murmured, with a resolute glint in her eyes. 'Since we can't find it, let's shatter that entire layer and activate the "Infrasonic Oscillation Matrix".' At that very moment, Aaryan, inside the underground temple, was unaware that he had temporarily evaded his pursuers.
When he pressed his palm against the bronze bell, the neutralised etheric energy did not disappear; it flowed directly into his consciousness through his fingertips instead.
The dimly lit temple had been replaced by a burning inferno of steel.
This was the Maya District twenty years ago.
Aaryan saw a tall figure — his father — standing before a massive reactor radiating a dark purple light. Its shape resembled a pulsating heart. Countless golden cables, like veins, stretched out in all directions, connecting to the foundations of the entire Maya District and even extending to the high-altitude floating island.
'This isn't a bomb…' Aaryan heard his father's voice, weak yet filled with desperate madness: 'It's a filter!' The Council is using the lifeblood of the entire city to purify the 'divine seed'. If this isn't detonated, everyone will become nourishment for those monsters!'
The scene shifted and Aaryan saw the young Lord Malakor. He was dressed in a holy robe embroidered with the celestial demon totem and was elegantly raising a finger. Behind him, countless civilians were crystallising in agony from ether depletion.
"Detonate it, and you'll be the sinner who destroys civilisation." Malakor's voice was as cold as ice. 'Don't detonate it and you'll be the saviour of these ants. Choose, old friend."
BOOM!
As his father resolutely pressed the button, white light engulfed his entire field of vision. Aaryan could finally see clearly: the so-called '1969 Singularity' was not an evil laboratory, but a necessary rearguard action to prevent a 'mass human sacrifice'. The illusion abruptly ended.
Aaryan jerked his hand back, gasping for breath. His clothes were soaked with cold sweat and his eyes were filled with unspeakable shock.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Maha's voice carried a hint of pity.
'My father... he was saving people,' Aaryan said, trembling. 'But the whole world thinks he was the madman who detonated the core.'
'History is written by the living victors, while the dead heroes are buried in the rubbish heap.' Balthazar leaned against the corner, his crystalline skin glowing faintly in the silent arena.
Just as everyone was lamenting the truth's cruelty, Maha's ears twitched and a cold glint flashed from beneath his red blindfold.
'The noise isn't just coming from the surface.'
As soon as he had finished speaking, a long-lurking shadow suddenly leapt from the wreckage of robots in the shadows of the temple.
It was the Blood Council assassin who had disappeared during the arena battle: a Celestial Vein assassin known as 'Black Feather', who had used the corpse of the Hundred-Eyed Demon Hound to conceal his presence and follow the group here.
The electronic dagger he wielded was coated with a deadly poison called 'Etheric Deconstruction Agent'—a substance capable of instantly dismantling the defensive circuits of any Constructor.
"For the glory of the Council!"
The shadowy figure moved with lightning speed towards the weakened Aaryan. Having exhausted his mental energy listening to the bell, Aaryan had no time to react.
Pau was terrified, and Cyrus's aching back restricted his movements. Balthazar wanted to move, but the crystallisation within him activated at this crucial moment, leaving him frozen to the spot.
Only Maha remained.
The old monk neither leapt nor attacked, but simply flicked the edge of the giant bell with his finger.
Ding!
This time, the sound was extremely faint, like a drop of water falling into a deep well.
But for Black Feather, who was sprinting at high speed, this soft sound was like a nuclear bomb detonating in his mind. It instantly reversed his etheric cycle. His fluid killing move was suddenly interrupted by an energy short circuit. He twisted and tumbled through the air before crashing heavily in front of Aaryan.
'In my territory, killing is forbidden.' Maha slowly rose to his feet and walked barefoot towards the assassin, who was still struggling.
The assassin, Black Feather, twisted his body in mid-air in a way that defied the laws of physics. His prized, high-frequency-enhanced nerve reflexes became a fatal weakness when Maha interfered with their frequency with a flick of the finger.
'No... this is impossible...' Black Feather crashed to the ground, blood and tiny blue crystals spurting from his mouth as his internal etheric circuits collapsed under overload.
Maha didn't look at him, merely bending down to straighten his grey robe.
'In the "Silent Realm," every killing intent you have is a tremendous noise,' the old monk said calmly. 'Cyrus, dispose of these "wastes". The real trouble is here.'
Cyrus nodded and pressed a hidden switch on a temple pillar with his right hand. The ground suddenly cracked open, revealing several broken, spider-like mechanical arms that dragged the unconscious assassin into the depths of the dark slag layer. The moment Black Feather was dragged away, the foundations of the entire Maya District groaned sickeningly.
Above the surface, Silver Moon issued the final command. The honeycomb launchers beneath the flagship, the Judgement, began to rotate in unison, releasing an infrasonic matrix capable of causing resonant displacement of molecular structures.
Boom!
It wasn't an explosion, but a complete collapse. The rock strata liquefied like heated butter and massive I-beams twisted and fractured in invisible tremors. Pau screamed as he clung to a fixed hydraulic pump, feeling his bones throb with pain from the shockwave.
'Old man, your "vacuum meditation" can't withstand physical vibrations!' Cyrus roared, his mechanical eyes flashing with gears as he calculated the countdown to the temple's collapse. 'Thirty seconds left, and this place will become our coffins!'
'I can't stop it, but he can.' Maha pointed at Aaryan, his tone laced with an almost cruel certainty. Aaryan stood before the giant bell, his eyes once again filled with a dark golden light. This time, however, the image in his mind wasn't of raging carnage, but of the pulsating code of his ancestors that he had seen in a hallucination, now appearing on the reactor.
It was the 'Ether Reversal Equation', the culmination of his father's life's work. 'If ether is water, then infrasound is a giant wave,' boomed Aaryan, his voice filled with energy. 'As long as we find that "interface", even the giant wave can be transformed into the force that drives the millstone.'
He abruptly raised the mallet again, but this time he didn't close his eyes.
His pupils reflected the etheric flow of the entire underground city; he could see the destructive infrasound matrix tearing through the rock layers and the fundamental wavelength within the bell that was powerful enough to shift the energy field of the entire region.
"Now!"
Bang!
The mallet slammed down heavily.
In an instant, the ancient bronze bell erupted with a translucent, dark golden light, expanding rapidly outwards. The expected annihilation didn't occur when the light barrier collided with the infrasound matrix.
Instead, violent shockwaves, powerful enough to shatter rock, began spinning rapidly along the trajectory of the chimes the moment they came into contact with the bells' frequency, like tamed wild beasts.
'He... he "absorbed" and "reconstructed" the attack energy?' Cyrus stared blankly at the dashboard as the energy level indicator light gradually changed from destructive red to vibrant emerald green. Inside the underground temple, the previously rusty parts were suspended in mid-air due to the energy backflow. The headless and armless robot statues were enveloped in this gentle yet immense energy and radiated a sacred aura.
Aaryan felt that he was no longer fighting alone. Through the chimes, he connected to the pulse of the entire Maya district, feeling the struggles of the impoverished underground, the exploited lives and the anger that had been imprisoned in this land for twenty years.
'Father, I understand,' he murmured.
That night, a 'subterranean aurora' suddenly shot into the sky from the depths of the Maya District ruins. This beam of light did not originate from the Holy Blood Council; rather, it pierced through layers of rock from the Earth's depths and struck the 'Judgment's' protective shield directly. The once invincible warship shook violently in the air as a result, nearly crashing to the ground. The tremors gradually subsided.
The bronze bell slowly stopped trembling. Aaryan collapsed to his knees, panting heavily.
Maha walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. The dragon blood within him had calmed, becoming as docile as still water.
'Welcome back, Hammer Bearer.' Maha bowed slightly to Aaryan, then turned to look at Pau, who was still shaken, Balthazar, who was drenched in cold sweat, and Cyrus, who had a troubled expression.
"The course of this land has changed. Malakor will find that his plans have failed, and that you are the only constant in this chaotic world."
Balthazar wiped the blood from his face and finally changed his gaze completely towards Aaryan. It was no longer the look of someone looking at prey, a 'rare commodity', but the look of someone looking at a true 'king'.
"Very well, it seems my life is destined to end in your hands." He chuckled deeply. Although he had temporarily repelled detection, Aaryan's display of power had completely exposed him to the city's radar.
'The etheric reversal you just caused has deflected all the energy circuits in the Maya District.' Cyrus pointed to a flashing red dot on the holographic map. 'Look here. All the energy flow is no longer moving upwards to nourish the floating islands; it is beginning to collapse towards a single point.'
'Coordinate 1969,' said Aaryan in a deep voice.
'That's right. The place your father "destroyed" is awakening.' Cyrus's expression was grave. 'Not only does it hold your father's legacy, it also contains a secret powerful enough to make Lord Malakor commit murder personally. But before we go there, we need to solve an ancient calculation.'
'If activating that machine requires the sacrifice of 100,000 souls, would you press the button?'