novelraw Chapter 205: The Church Cannon and the New Module
Chapter 205: The Church Cannon and the New Module
After Professor Petrie delivered his "symbiosis" diagnosis for the mark on the back of Lin Jie's hand, all operational plans for the Iron Triangle Team were forced to halt. They were detained at the I.A.R.C. Cairo Branch for an unknown and unsettling long-term medical observation.
The directive from the Geneva Headquarters was cold and resolute.
Until an effective method to suppress or understand the White Vulture's mark was found, Lin Jie, the core of the team who had created several miracles, was officially classified as a "mobile pollution source of unknown level."
He was forbidden from leaving the Cairo Branch and prohibited from contacting any non-core personnel.
He had become a "patient" under house arrest.
Time slowly trickled by in an atmosphere of anxious oppression and endless waiting.
A week could be very short, or it could be very long.
For Lin Jie, this was the most painful and longest week since he arrived in Egypt.
He was isolated in a sickroom. Every day, aside from undergoing the useless examinations conducted by the I.A.R.C. Logistics Department and the Department of Mysteries, all that remained was facing the four cold walls alone, and the "parasite" on the back of his right hand that was changing him.
Professor Petrie's diagnosis was being proven true, point by point.His "biological instincts" were being continuously strengthened.
His hearing became sharper, his vision became better than before.
But correspondingly, his "emotions" were slowly growing indifferent.
Lin Jie discovered that when he recalled those beliefs that had once made his blood boil and for which he was willing to pay with his life to protect, while his heart still recognized their correctness, he could no longer generate the same intense emotional resonance as before.
He was gradually losing the most precious part of his humanity—that which made him the independent individual "Lin Jie."
For the other members of the team, this week was equally torturous.
Ethan turned himself into an unfeeling "work machine."
With a mindset akin to atonement, he poured all his time and energy into researching ancient Egyptian UMAs and parasitic UMAs.
He slept less than three hours a day, relying on copious amounts of low-quality coffee and cigars to constantly squeeze his brain, which was on the verge of collapse.
Ethan attempted to use this method to share a fraction of the pain for the friend who was suffering in his stead.
He also tried to use this method to numb the immense guilt that was constantly gnawing at his heart.
One week later.
Just as the patience of all team members was about to be worn down to nothing by this despairing and powerless life of confinement.
An express package from the Fourth Equipment Laboratory in the Underground City of London, thousands of kilometers away, stamped with a high-level "Priority Passage" seal, finally arrived at this underground fortress located in the suburbs of Cairo after its long journey.
It was a massive crate wrapped in heavy-duty moisture-proof tarpaulin and tightly bound with tough leather straps.
On the surface of the crate, a line of signatures was scrawled in exaggerated Gothic-style cursive script—"To my poor friend eating sand in Egypt, and his 'old buddy' in need of salvation. —A.C."
When the logistics personnel of the Cairo Branch pried open the crate with its distinctly Arthurian style using crowbars, a unique scent—a mixture of high-grade gun oil, polishing wax, and the fragrance of ancient oak—wafted out, invigorating the hunters present, who were accustomed to being around firearms.
The interior of the crate was padded with soft velvet and shock-absorbent wood shavings and foam, arranged like a luxurious coffin meant to hold a rare treasure.
Within that soft "coffin" lay two works of art, quietly gleaming with metallic and warm wooden luster.
One of them was a rifle.
It was a classic firearm familiar to all the hunters present—a Winchester lever-action rifle representing the pioneering spirit of the American West at the end of the 19th century.
When William, with slightly trembling hands, caressed the gun body and solemnly lifted it from the crate, a wild joy and emotion of something lost and found again surfaced in the eyes of this hardened veteran.
This was it!
This was the "old buddy" that had accompanied him through the thick fog of London, the lakes of Scotland, and the Paris catacombs, and had ultimately sacrificed itself to cover the team in Germany's Black Forest.
It had been reborn in another form!
Arthur, referencing the design concepts provided by William, had redesigned a new weapon nearly identical to his previous rifle.
The barrel and receiver were made of the latest "M-03 type" reinforced steel specially supplied to the I.A.R.C. Munich Branch by Germany's Krupp armaments factory.
This new type of alloy far exceeded ordinary gun steel in strength. A small amount of sanctified mithril powder, gifted by the Root Guardians, had been alchemically blended into it, giving the entire gun body a natural "demon-breaking" property.
But the most genius modification came from the wooden components of this gun.
Arthur extravagantly used the core wood of a sanctified oak tree—a strategic-level resource typically only used in forging high-level Grotesque Armaments.
With this precious "divine wood," he custom-crafted a stock and fore-end for it.
The warm sanctified oak wood displayed a deep amber color, with naturally formed, elegant grain patterns resembling flowing water and stars.
When William's hand grasped the ergonomically perfect curved stock, a warm power slowly flowed from his palm throughout his entire body.
This made this great weapon of destruction now look like a sacred exorcism artifact displayed in the Vatican Pope's collection room.
And this was precisely the core concept behind Arthur's creation this time.
He had ingeniously combined the "sacred amplification" property inherent in sanctified oak with the Winchester's ammunition platform.
This meant that when this rifle fired exorcism alchemical rounds like "Salt-Core Bullets" or "holy water rounds," the attached purification, demon-breaking, and other positive effects would receive a slight amplification.
This "Winchester Mark II type" had now been elevated into a 【Church Holy Cannon】 specifically designed to purify the world's filth and chaos!!
"Good! Good gun!"
The muscles on William's face twitched slightly, ultimately squeezing only these two words full of admiration and gratitude from his throat.
What Arthur had given him was not merely a weapon, but a craftsman's respect for a warrior.
While William was immersed in the awe brought by the 【Church Holy Cannon】, Lin Jie's gaze fell on the final remaining "work of art" in the crate.
It didn't look like a complete armament.
It was only a palm-sized, precise "replaceable module" consisting of a thick circular brass base and a crystal-clear crystal cover.
Its shape precisely matched the reserved interface on the 【Cursebreaker Vambrace】 on Lin Jie's left arm.
Encapsulated beneath that crystal-clear cover was a miniature work of art showcasing the beauty of Victorian-era precision mechanics and alchemy.
It was a precise mechanical structure composed of numerous miniature gears, escapements, and balance wheels made of brass and ivory, its intricacy rivaling the movement of a top-tier observatory pocket watch.
These miniature mechanical components meshed and operated at high speed. At the center of the entire precise structure, suspended, was a drop of "liquid ether" imprisoned within a vacuum crystal sphere, slowly flowing.
Several blue fibers, thin as spider silk, extended from around the module and precisely connected to that drop of "liquid ether," providing it with spiritual energy.
The entire module looked like a "mental metronome" jointly created by an alchemist and a master watchmaker.
Lin Jie took this brand-new module, bearing Arthur's personal style, out of the crate.
A letter written in Arthur's scrawled handwriting, folded into a small square and fixed to the module's base with a wax seal, was attached.
Lin Jie broke the wax seal and unfolded the letter.
The pride bordering on madness present between Arthur's lines entered his view.
"My dear Lin: Reading this is like seeing you. I hope Egypt's sand hasn't clogged your brain."
"Let's get down to business first. The stuff you sent back from the Brotherhood of Light is a masterpiece! I swear, this is the most subversive heretical thinking I've seen since your modularity theory! I love these heretics to death!"
"I successfully reverse-engineered their interesting ether resonance technology from those burned-out wrecks."
"Oh my God, those Americans are a bunch of geniuses! They actually thought of using frequencies we haven't mastered yet to directly interfere with the stable connection between the material world and the Sea of Ether!"
"Of course, this crude technology has little effect on elite, strong-willed individuals like us, but the 'thought frequency modulation' and 'forced logic synchronization' theories behind it gave me a brand-new inspiration!"
"So I conducted a little experiment with this technology."
"Now, congratulations. You've become the first and only clinical test subject for my brand-new great invention!"
"This is the third replaceable module I've crafted for that piece of scrap metal of yours. I've named it 【Mental Staircase】!"
"Don't be fooled by its artistic name;
its effects are anything but artistic."
"When you install it onto your vambrace and activate it, those miniature differential engine gear sets will start operating at high speed, emitting an ultra-high-frequency 'thought synchronization beat' to your brain via the 'ether fibers.'"
"This beat will temporarily force your emotional and cluttered biological brainwaves to synchronize with its clockwork-precise, cold mechanical logic!"
"In this state, the world in your eyes will become very slow, like a high-speed steam engine where the movement trajectory of every piston inside becomes visible!"
"According to my theoretical calculations, your perception speed can be increased by five to ten times!"
The main text of the letter ended abruptly here.
However, below the signature, Arthur had added an additional postscript.
"P.S."
"Also, I heard from Barton that you seem to have picked up a little trouble from Egypt?"
"I must remind you, based on my superficial understanding of the heretical discipline of spiritual symbiosis, the essence of any parasitic behavior attempting to modify a mortal's body is an unstable energy invasion."
"So before you try any heroic foolishness next time, I suggest you activate this 【Mental Staircase】 module first."
"At the very least, its cold mechanical logic might, before your sentimental brain, addled by cheap guardian emotions, gets assimilated by that centuries-old relic..."
"...buy back for you even 0.01 seconds of your self."
"Good luck, my clinical test subject."
"And my friend."