Creepy Pharmacist: All my patients are scary!

Chapter 557: The God of All Machines Descends

The intense bombardment continued.

Dense missiles and beams rained down over the entire Cursed City as if they were free, a true saturation strike, even an act of extermination.

Ten minutes later, the first round of bombing ended.

The entire Cursed City had almost become a sea of flames. Apart from the massive trunk of the Desire Mother Tree standing in the center, all the Flesh and Blood Cult strongholds had been razed to the ground.

Immediately afterward, the second round began.

This was a ground attack aimed at the Flesh and Blood Cult forces hiding underground.

Dense bunker buster rounds and beams easily penetrated tens of kilometers below ground, disturbing the Cursed City from its geological layers.

This bombardment lasted a full twenty minutes.

But that still did not end it.

Next came the third round of bombing.This time, countless cobalt-blue warplanes took to the sky, scattering the black fog overhead. The spatial shock warheads they fired battered the spatial layers above the Cursed City until they were almost torn apart.

Lynn could even clearly see masses of flesh-and-blood corpses blown to pieces falling through the rifts in space, then consumed by the inferno on the ground.

The bombing continued for nearly an hour in total!

Ground, underground, sky, the seams of space!

Every hiding place imaginable was targeted by the Mechanical Cult with lethal precision.

Lynn roughly estimated the total energy expended during this hour of strikes to be at least equivalent to the combined yield of thousands of moderately well-off families’ small sons’ worth of explosives.

And that was only conventional weaponry.

The Mechanical Cult had not yet used truly large-scale nuclear weapons.

In fact, toward the end they too had to stay away from that tower, relocating to safer positions.

“This is madness! The Mechanical Cult is insane!”

Zuo Zuo stared at the city that had been flattened, her lips trembling and words failing her.

But Lynn knew they were not mad; they simply had the resources and the resolve to end this war. This was the sort of strike a Technological Civilization could launch when its resources were saturated.

Lynn looked gravely at the sea of fire and said,

“The Mechanical Cult must be about to launch the final assault.”

His gaze fell on the great tree that had endured an hour of continuous bombardment, its surface vines and flesh charred into a sticky wound, faintly giving off the stench of roasted, decaying meat. All the canopy and branches had been blown away.

At a glance, the Cursed City resembled a scorched, towering Gundam thousands of meters high standing amid the ruins.

Bare, thick, rigid, with viscous fluids bubbling out.

Sir Aiwen’s eyes flashed green. Leaning on his cane, he said,

“The Mechanical Cult is pulling out all the stops, but they clearly fall short trying to destroy the Desire Mother Tree by conventional means. Besides, the trunk likely shelters enough of their forces, and Leviathan still hasn’t shown itself.”

Clearly, they were searching.

Their prior spatial shocks and fog dispersal had a larger purpose aimed at flushing out the hidden Flesh Leviathan.

But evidently they still could not pinpoint Leviathan’s whereabouts.

That is war: the deterrent effect of hiding in the dark is far greater than playing your hand openly.

If Lynn hadn’t forced the God of All Machines into being earlier, the God of All Machines probably would not have descended so soon, because once it descends, your cards are exposed.

On this point, the Flesh and Blood Cult was clearly far better at concealment than the Mechanical Cult.

Even now, the Desire Mother Tree remained defensive and did not strike out, holding fast without advancing.

…

The Hive, Purity Council.

“Report, Sovereign, all sectors have been cleared. Except for traces of psychic fluctuations around the Desire Mother Tree and the battlefield perimeter, the Cursed City shows no signs of life.”

“Leviathan’s location remains untraceable. The enemy remains in silence, position unconfirmed. Detection also indicates numerous flesh units still hidden within the trunk of the Desire Mother Tree.”

“The outer defenses of the Colossus’s Tower have been breached by the Desire Mother Tree, but regarding internal defenses, current detection shows the Flesh and Blood Cult has not prepared further intrusion attempts.”

A vast three-dimensional holographic image was surrounded by Purity Consciousness units reporting the current theater situation with unnerving calm.

The projection of the God of All Machines narrowed its eyes, focusing on that towering trunk of the Desire Mother Tree in the 3D display that resembled a giant Gundam.

“What are they hiding?”

A Purity Consciousness hesitated to ask.

They were still defending without striking back.

That truly made one wonder about their intentions.

Most notable was the hidden Flesh Leviathan, representative of the Flesh and Blood Dominator — could it be hiding a trump card capable of changing the tide?

The God of All Machines’ projection stood and said coldly,

“Ignore it. Proceed according to plan. If they want a war on the Root level with me, I am happy to oblige. Let me see whether the two of them combined have the qualifications to challenge me.”

He had made his decision, which meant he had completely shown his hand.

No matter what conspiracies existed, he would push everything through with force.

In the face of absolute power, all scheming was redundant.

“Prepare to attack!”

…

Almost instantly, Lynn at the battlefield edge looked up and saw countless mechanical pods already prepped being projected from the black inverted pyramid floating in the sky toward the sea of flames.

Meanwhile, the numerous mechanical swarms and heavily armed machines waiting at the perimeter began slowly advancing toward the trunk of the Desire Mother Tree.

The Desire Mother Tree was now encircled.

Three black-star hives were steadily closing in. The immense pressure and the thunderous tremors from the sky heralded the beginning of the final battle.

And at that moment,

Lynn suddenly heard the grinding of gears and the tolling of a giant bell from high above.

“The God of All Machines?!”

Lynn’s head snapped up.

Yes — this was the God of All Machines’ entrance theme. Whenever this theme played, that man appeared.

Hum—

At almost that instant, Lynn saw a pale-silver beam pierce the endless black fog high above, striking heavily at the heart of the battlefield.

A terrifying presence spread outward.

A humanoid silhouette shimmering with data streams detached itself indifferently from the silver light and stepped out.

“Praise the God of All Machines—”