Chapter Thirty-Six: The Nightmare Returns

Zhang Shen quietly approached the national laboratory. When he passed through the gate, he also gave Kim Bradley a hard blow, and a mental impact made his body stiffen, and the words in his mouth stopped abruptly.

"Then if you can't figure it out, you can't blame me." Muttering in his heart, Zhang, who thought he was quite kind, took a turn around the laboratory covering an extremely wide area, and quickly determined the passage to the underground.

Refining a rope casually, Zhang Shen went down the wall of the elevator shaft to the basement floor. Before his feet hit the ground, a strange and distorted feeling came to him.

Alert for several minutes, no movement, most likely the special "atmosphere" of this place. Zhang Shen touched a corner, glanced at it from the corner of his eye, and several figures came into sight.

The most conspicuous thing is the dam-like figure of the fat foodie Gratoni and the familiar finger-sucking motion.

The basement floor was originally divided into many rooms, but now the middle partition wall has been removed, and at a glance, it is at least half the size of a football field, and the air is filled with a pale white substance like smoke, which looks a little hazy, and the outline can be seen but the facial expression cannot be seen.

In addition to Gratoni, there were several figures in the field, but strangely enough, several of them seemed to be controlled, motionless, surrounded by cylindrical silhouettes that felt like they had been put in glass bottles.

The white mist that filled the four voids made Zhang Shen a little uncomfortable. He is currently invisible, and when he discovers that the white particles in the air have some adsorption, he puts his hands and feet lighter, and presses his body down, almost lying on the ground, reducing the risk of detection.

His eyes fell on the ground, and Zhang Shen realized that there was something strange on the ground.

Several curves enter Zhang Shen's line of sight. These curves are probably painted with a tool such as a brush, and they have a dull mercury color, which is really difficult to spot without looking at them.

With Zhang Shen's attainments in alchemy, it can be seen at a glance that this is the lines and words of the alchemy array, and when it comes to the news that he got from Pride's memory before, it is obvious that this refining array is the center of the national refining array.

For another purpose, Zhang Shen did not have the slightest intention of destroying the flask villain to launch the land refining array, but just moved slowly in the room, and everything that came into sight gradually constructed a three-dimensional model in his mind, which was clear in his heart.

In addition to Gratoni, there are two other artificial humans in the field, one is Envi, who has been restored to his original form, and the other is the product of the Edward brothers' refining of their mother, the sloth of the seven deadly sins, Sloth. Sloth looks exactly like the Elric brothers' mother, Teresa Elric.

There are five people imprisoned in the glass cylinder, including von Hohenheim, who had a good conversation with Zhang only a few days ago, greed, the seven deadly sins of betraying the villain in the flask, and three hapless national alchemists.

Other than that, there are no other "human" shadows or soul fluctuations. Zhang Shen swept it several times, but he didn't see any trace of the main owner and the villain in the flask.

Zhang Shen noticed that the positions of the five "human pillars" were located at the five points of the refining array, and they were connected to each other by red lines. The red line, clearly human blood, exuded a faint, fresh smell of blood.

Among the five people, only the former sage of the West, von Hohenheim, was awake, and looked at Sloss with Teresa's face in a daze, his expression changed violently, as if he was crying and laughing, which was extremely strange.

Zhang Shen listened attentively, and could still hear the sound coming from the ground, Roy and the others should have the upper hand and were about to break in.

Just as Zhang entered the theater mode and watched the play patiently, there was a change in the venue.

In the center of the refining array, an object the size of a human head suddenly appeared out of thin air, with a sharp top and a round bottom, which was clearly an enlarged version of the flask commonly used in the laboratory. There is no doubt that this product is the mastermind behind the hundreds of years spent on completing the formation of the land - the villain in the flask.

Some people may wonder, isn't it just a broken formation, as for how long it will take? If you have this spare time to study other methods, you may have succeeded a long time ago.

This is to explain a little bit the meaning of the land refining array.

As mentioned above, the function of the refining array of this land is to use the tens of millions of people in the entire Amesteris as refining materials to refine the sage's stone in one fell swoop, and then open the door to truth.

Such a big deal has high requirements for the refining array itself and the initiator.

First of all, let's talk about refining into a formation. The Formation of the Realm, as the name suggests, envelops the entire region of Amestolis. This kind of large-scale project naturally cannot be like Zhang Shen usually draws a few strokes on the ground, but must be dug out with a hoe and hoe like building the Great Wall or digging a canal. You must know that Amestories is not an imperial autocracy, and it is not so easy to carry out this kind of work.

Secondly, the initiator. As we all know, the effect of alchemy is related to the initiator's spiritual comprehensive index, but there is no requirement for initiation, as long as the initiator understands the principle of the alchemy reaction. This is only suitable for small and medium-sized refining reactions. When you reach this level of land refining, you don't have a certain level of chaos...... It's going to die.

For now, only the villain in the flask, von Hohenheim, and Zhang Shen have the ability to preside over the activation of the Territory Refining Array.

It's far away, back to the point.

The villain in the flask appears, although it doesn't come with its own BGM, it also comes with its own special effects.

After its appearance, the strange smoke around the confusion began to dilute and fade, and eventually, disappeared completely.

Zhang Shen stopped, his eyes narrowed, and he withdrew his gaze. As long as the soul reaches a certain strength, it will react to the gaze that falls on it.

Grunt grunt ~~~

With a strange sound, the black substance in the flask proliferated and spread rapidly, "overflowing" the mouth of the flask little by little, and dripping to the ground.

This is the first time that the flask villain has left the flask where he lives and descended into the world.

After leaving the flask completely, the black "silt" that flowed all over the ground began to retract and grow upward, eventually turning into a black tentacle monster that resembled Pryde.

The Pryde's version of the tentacle monster looks like a shadow with eyes and mouths overgrown on it; The flask villain's version is more advanced and has a sense of substance. In addition, his "tentacles" are not like octopus monsters, and the overall shape is more "sleek", like elongated water droplets.

The first time he walked, it took a little for the flask villain to get used to it, and then, standing in the center of the refining array, the two tentacles that probably served as arms were put together, and he was about to start launching the land refining formation formation to complete his long-cherished wish for hundreds of years.

Suddenly—

Several gray stone pillars burst out of the ground and struck the flask figure, smashing several holes in it.

The launching ceremony was interrupted, and the flask villain let out an angry scream, and the three Gratoni androids trembled and quickly rushed towards Edward and the others who had just broken through the door, as if they had a common vendetta.

During the assault on the lab's defenses, Scar was seriously injured and bleeding from a stray bullet, Lisa was slightly injured, and Alex, who had amazing defense, stayed on to take care of the two, and only the Elric brothers and Roy Mastan, who were also slightly injured, broke through the door.

Gratoni's massive body rushed over, and without thinking, Roy surged out with a blazing flame that rushed towards the three of them.

"Delicious, delicious ......" The hunger that never subsides, the grief that cannot be understood, the fear that comes from the soul, Gratoni fell into a rage, rushed up against the sea of fire, and slapped the three Roys who had not yet had time to separate.

Alphonse met him with an iron fist, and was swept away decisively, and his armor slammed into the air, almost falling apart.

Seeing this, Edward put his hands together on the wall beside him, and launched his alchemy, and the stone pillars rushed out from the walls and the ground on both sides one after another, blocking Gratoni's full force.

The rubble crumbled, the smoke filled the air, and the hastily refined stone pillars were smashed into pieces by Gratoni's big slap.

However, this block also bought Roy time, and he stepped back sharply, grabbing Edward's coat with one hand and tugging hard, and both of them were out of Gratoni's range at the same time.

As an artificial human, Gratoni is nervously sluggish, and even if he is burned by the fire, he will also be injured and feel pain. When he reacted, his body had been blackened and yellowed by Roy's high-temperature flames, and some areas were even more scorched, emitting a disgusting stench mixed with the aroma of roasted meat.

"It hurts...... Ruster, it hurts......" Gratoni opened his mouth and howled.

"Rubbish, shut up!" Sloth snorted coldly, and Envi looked disgusted as well. Of the seven deadly sins, no one except the dead Ruster liked this brainless, only food-eating Gratoni.

Including the villain in the flask!

Gratoni was the unsuccessful Flask Villain's attempt to get his hands on the Gate of Truth, probably because the Truth Gate's backlash injured the Flask Villain, or for some other reason, anyway, the Flask Villain didn't have a good face for this brainless guy.

The rebuke of the "kind" and the anger of the flask villain made Gratoni shut up aggrievedly.

"Mom, Mom, ......" The flame barrier went out, and Sloth's face entered the Elric brothers' sight, and the two were immediately stunned, and Alphonse, who had just gotten up from the ground, shouted out the words that he hadn't seen for a long time, and his soul trembled.

"Ed, Al, be careful, she's an artificial human, not your mother!" Roy was dumbfounded, but quickly reacted and grabbed Alphonse, who was about to rush forward.

Although Edward has always been regarded as a younger brother by the person he met for the first time because of his small size, he still showed his identity as an older brother at this time.

"You're not a mother! You were at that time...... She? In his mind, memories that had been deliberately forgotten for a long time rushed out of Edward's mind, hitting Edward's mind over and over again.

In the dimly lit warehouse, the two young brothers used the alchemy they had just learned to form a human body in a formation, wanting to exchange for their dead mother......

Result –

It became a nightmare that continues to this day.

Nowadays -

Nightmare, stepping into reality?