The final hallway to the mechanical pod was hot and dim, the distracting mechanical vibrations and roars were as endless as if they were about to burrow into the human brain, the lights on the walls seemed to be suffering from unstable airflow, and the flames in the lampshades flickered.

But all of this is nothing compared to the depression caused by the increasingly strong sense of disobedience and tension, and the dizziness caused by the gradual tearing of the mind.

Belazov controlled his steps and controlled his expression.

The closer he got to the deepest part of the Petrel, the more he kept his steps steady and his expression as calm as ever.

There were crew members who stopped in the hallways to talk, dressed in strange leather ...... "coats", their faces folded and stacked with folds of skin that sounded like buzzing noise.

Belazov walked towards them, his mind telling himself that the crew were his own soldiers, but he could not recall the names of these men.

"General?" A soldier greeted him and looked at Belazov curiously, "What do you command?" ”

"Just to check the situation in the mechanical cabin," Belazov replied to the strange soldier with a calm expression, "stay at your post." ”

The soldier looked at him, then saluted and stepped back: "Yes, General." ”

Belazov walked through the men, walking in a steady and usual footsteps, and he could feel the soldiers' gaze lingering on him for a moment, but quickly moving away.

Are they really their own soldiers? Are they really the crew of the Petrel? Are they the hidden things? Or is it some kind of minion? Did they notice? Or are you already wary? Next Second...... Will these soldiers, whose names they can't remember, pounce on themselves?

Belazov kept all his thoughts to himself until he reached the entrance of the mechanical cabin and opened the unlocked floodgates.

An even harsher mechanical noise came to the face.

The steam core was running at full power, the spherical vessel was brewing with incredible power, the complex piping system hissed across the ceiling of the mechanical cabin, and the massive connecting rods and gears were speeding through the steel frame at the end of the cabin.

The machine was running very happily, even ...... Cheerful to the point of being a little fanatical.

It was as if a restless soul was propelling the heavy steel gears to spin rapidly, propelling the ship to the cities of the civilized world at extreme speed.

The hissing of the steam pipes seemed to be mixed with muffled whispers.

Belazov's body shook slightly, but soon he stabilized and walked in the direction of the steam core.

A priest was shaking incense in front of the valve when he suddenly turned his head to look at the General as he walked into the mechanical cabin, the church emblem pinned to his chest seemed to be stained with oil, blurring the sacred symbols on it.

"General?" The priest cast his gaze curiously, "Why are you here all of a sudden?" ...... here"

"I'll take a look...... The case of the steam core. Belazov said, his eyes falling on the incense burner in the priest's hand.

The small ball of flesh swayed gently in the air, and a pale eye opened on it.

He looked up again, at the steam traps that were running, and at the hissing ducts.

The gas escaping from the steam pipes was bloody, and the edges of the rapidly spinning gears were blurred and twisted, as if something was parasitic on the massive machine, replacing the sacred steam with its malevolent soul.

The machine was contaminated and in a state of desecration - the thought crossed Belazov's mind for a second, but then it went away with the wind.

But he still walked towards the console of the steam core - even if the huge "heart of steel" was normal in his eyes at the moment, he slowly reached out to the console.

"General," a mechanic covered in oil suddenly approached and reached out in front of the lever, "don't touch these, machines are sometimes fragile. ”

Belazov looked up and glanced at the mechanic.

The latter just responded to his gaze calmly.

But suddenly, the mechanic's lips squirmed a few times.

Belazov frowned slightly, and read a few words from the mechanic's lips -

"The machine is evil and cannot be shut down or destroyed."

Belazov froze for a moment, then saw the mechanic turn sideways, his lips squirming slightly as he fiddled with the joysticks.

"Pastors can't be trusted...... The situation is out of control...... Process 22. ”

Process number 22?

Belazov's heart tightened, but soon he knew what he had to do.

The mechanic knows the "heart" of the ship better than anyone.

He turned and left the mechanical cabin, but did not go to any of the cabins, but continued to maintain a calm posture after exiting the bilge corridor, all the way back to his captain's quarters.

From time to time, he was greeted by soldiers, some of whom gave him a vague impression, others who could not be named at all.

There must have been a normal human among the soldiers - but Belazov had no way of distinguishing them, nor did he have time to contact or screen the thirty humans on the ship except for himself and the mechanic.

He locked the door to the captain's quarters, went to the safe by his desk, and began to turn the combination locker, his fingers turning pale with the crisp and pleasant click.

With the soft sound of the latch opening, the safe door opened.

Belazov's gaze skimmed over the compartment where the documents were stored and landed on the red button at the bottom of the box.

Next to the button is a small line of text: Process 22, use only in extreme cases.

Belazov reached out to the button, and almost at the same time he heard a knock on the door: "General, are you inside?" We have received instructions from Frost and need you to deal with them personally. ”

It was the adjutant's voice.

A hint of hesitation suddenly appeared in Belazov's heart-

What if you make a mistake in your judgment?

What if there really isn't any problem on board, and it's just yourself who has the problem? It is the person who has suffered from mild pollution, which causes cognitive and memory biases, and even auditory hallucinations along the way...... If that's the case, then he's going to bury an entire ship of people now to bury his nervousness!

"General, are you in there? We received instructions from Frost ......"

The knock on the door was a little quicker than before.

Belazov suddenly woke up at the knock on the door, and he suddenly realized that the thoughts just now were probably not in line with his character...... He is not one to suddenly hesitate at the last step of action.

Someone is injecting "impurities" into their own thinking!

"Son of a bitch's heretic!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Belazov pressed the red button in an instant.

After a very brief delay, a terrifying explosion swept through the entire ship - the mechanical clipper ship Petrel was instantly enveloped in flash and flames, and shattered by the horrific destruction caused by high explosives.

The flaming wreckage of the Petrel floated on the surface of the sea for a while, and was gradually pushed by the action of the current to the frosty northern seas, and then its float finally reached its limit - the scorching wreckage began to sink faster, as if dragged by some invisible force, and finally disappeared completely from the surface of the sea.

……

At the same time, in the Frost City-State, near the No. 3 cemetery, an old guard in a pitch-black coat with a slightly rickety back was slowly walking on the way back from the city.

He had just gone to the nearby street to buy some necessities, and it was approaching dusk, and he had to return to his "position" before the shift change.

The road leading to the cemetery is deep and quiet, and there are few passers-by, but even so, residents living in nearby neighborhoods occasionally pass through the trail.

When they noticed the figure of the old guard, they would unconsciously adjust their steps, keeping a little distance from the gloomy old man who was lying on his back.

They were not disgusted with the guard, but instinctively fearful, not only because of the eerie atmosphere in the vicinity of the cemetery itself, but also because of the old man's withdrawn and indifferent personality - even when looking at the whole cemetery, the old caretaker of Cemetery No. 3 was the most formidable of them all compared to the other more or less gloomy caretakers.

He has been in this position for so long that even he has a hint of the "dead" temperament.

This even led to some terrible rumors - it was often said that there was a pale light floating over the fence in the cemetery after dark, and that it was the soul of the caretaker who had long since left his body, and that the terrible old man would lie down in a coffin at midnight, and that he would stop breathing with the dead and wake up the next day when the sun rose.

These strange and terrifying rumors haunted the cemetery and the caretaker, and the eccentric caretaker never seemed to care—in fact, he had little to do with the people of the neighborhood, and he spent most of his time in the caretaker's hut in the cemetery, except for the occasional purchase of necessities like today, and the only person he dealt with on weekdays was the church's corpse deliverer.

He didn't think there was anything wrong with that.

It is his duty to keep the living away from the world of the dead, so that the former should not have excessive curiosity to avoid being harmed, and the latter should enjoy the peace of mind after death.

He guards the cemetery, and he guards the city outside the cemetery.

The old man raised his head, looked at the gate of the cemetery not far away, and suddenly stopped.

Today the situation seems a little special.

There was a little guest.

(End of chapter)