The quest for knowledge is our way of seeking liberation, but the absolute conceit of knowledge is nothing but the delusion of hubris.

Article 10 of the Mechanics Ordinance

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The scorching heat was deadly to flesh, but it was only a cool day for the cathars, who had no skin anymore, and when they had traveled through the chaotic wilderness, the clutter of rocks and craters, the cold was still terrible as night fell, enough to freeze the oil and freeze the joints.

On the road, there are about hundreds of mechanical creatures of all kinds of shapes walking neatly on the surface of the planet wrapped in heat, and this kind of thing is going on and on, and they are moving forward as usual under the command of the data craftsman in order to transport the materials.

And their operators, or maybe the creators, are only two new sages, and if Alan Baier was here, he would probably recognize the mechanical priest with a good personality, but now that his robes have been changed, he is in a higher position.

The huge barge beside them was also under the management of their thoughts, slowly moving forward, through the barbaric scorching earth, the mechism leaving the only trace of black or red on the ground.

The priest who had run Miss Poisonblade, a sage to be exact, his mechanical tentacles, chanted the seventh incantation of the Algebra Concord, trying to dispel the gloomy specter that haunted him.

But each time he tried to determine when the next heretic or xenomorph storm would come, his conclusions varied. Sometimes it's months, sometimes it's weeks, but it's also often days, or even decades.

Countless inconsistent conclusions invalidate every answer, and the variables are too complex and confusing even for a sage.

And for a sage, he needs to calculate far more than this, there are also news from the servants and chatter from his companions, although they seem to be quiet, but their thoughts are constantly conveying, updating information all the time.

The Alpha-level cathar in the team (more than 50 percent of the body is transformed) is looking at this place with his long-barreled rifle.

He assumed the ancient pose of a human archer, the butt of this ancient weapon tucked into the crook of his right arm, and he was scanning the wilderness.

Soon night will fall in this world, and his eyepieces transform the glitter of metal and petrified rocks in the moonlight at night into high-contrast images, white heat and the gray of plants introduced to transform the atmosphere, which are inconsequential distractions for the veteran.

He is looking for living movements, for example, enemies of the Empire.

His buddies were deployed around him at the same intervals, each responsible for a different direction of observation. Ignorant observers may mistake the cathars of the "Unification" squad for clones.

All of them wore crimson hooded robes with staggered dark armor, hiding their physical features behind protruding respirator masks and goggles, giving them a sense of relentless insect-like déjà vu.

Their lower limbs apparently suffered the same transformation, since from the knee down the legs of each fighter were replaced with titanium steel legs.

Only the initiates of the "Mechana" will recognize that this is the mark they deserve for swearing allegiance to the "Red Planet", that it is a sacred ritual to be enjoyed by all, that they are sacred warriors.

So they guided their path with the purity of Almighty God, and it was only fitting that they walked through the land.

[Investigation, reporting, no suspicious traces found.] The signal from the Ranger sounds like a random static sound, but to his companions, he contains an incomparably rich amount of data.

Three confirmations were immediately sent back, and a few seconds later, the fourth, fifth, such frequent reciprocations reassured the two sages that they even started chatting.

In order not to mix with the usual sound channels, the sages will choose to communicate with each other in human language, keeping in mind their few human natures.

"You adopted a human girl? Will she join our church? "Those sounds from the grille may have been a little faint to the Imperials, but now they look just right.

"Girl... Arya? She's pathetic, her parents are warriors, and I know she's going to be brainwashed when I refuse the Academy's request. The sage replied calmly, even though he did not have much human touch, but he was already more human-like than many of the upper echelons of the empire.

Scardy's influence and the girl's redemption gave him a new impetus, and he thought that those things would keep him academically at a standstill, but the emperor willing, he got to the point of being a mechanical sage, and his teacher joined the core of the church.

Maybe that's what good people are rewarded? The sage could not tell how full his wisdom was, and how his knowledge surrounded him, and he could not understand the changes that those things had brought to him.

And his colleague didn't understand, he didn't answer, just mechanically continued to move forward, and kept moving forward, in front of them was surrounded by huge cog-shaped mountains that were still continuous, and he accepted this mission to send supplies to the Skadi regiment as a reward for being rescued before, but this situation was still in his plan.

The Alpha Cathar is powerful and can continue to advance day and night, and the wet parts inside it are also at the level of veterans, so they are naturally assured of their safety.

The Mecha Cult walked along those jagged roads, with countless monitors staring at them, and servo skulls looking down from above, and there was no problem with safety.

Finally they took their positions on the jagged ridges, looking through the bloody, roaring whirlpool of storms into the valley below, barely visible to the average naked eye.

But the optical matrix on the cathar's helmet focused on the target, and the filter was circulating, but the vision was still only blurry in the cold storm that echoed at night.

An Alpha-class cathar raises his left arm, an enhanced appendage that ends in an armored bionic device, which he holds up like a feudal lord riding a bird of prey.

However, instead of a Raptor of Prey, the cathar officer was carrying an informational servo skull named Frinus ~361.

He commanded, and Phrinus~361 rose into the crystal-cold air.

The servo skull retracted its serpentine cable, and the Frinus ~361 flew to the side of the ridge.

The officer watched him fly away, and through its enhanced optical array, Frinus ~361 sent back a picture of its situation on the barren mountains.

The data from the servo skull was uploaded to the officer's visualization processor, but he saw a flash of light and an intense heat, and then the skull was never sent back again.

[Report, enemy, number unknown, recommended to activate the vigilance module protocol]

The sage sensed such a situation, and he asked his companion. "Damn, there are enemies."

The mechanical sage replied as well. "During this time, it seems to be true that an alien has landed in this world."

The two of them communicated with each other for a moment and recognized that they had agreed to move on, but they needed to speed up, they carried a lot of supplies, and it would not be good if they fell into the hands of the enemy.

The two sages could only drive the servants onward, down the valley on a winding mountain road, where the terrain was not good, and if they were attacked, it would be a normal thing.

Restlessness and inner calculations, and prayers for the gods of all machines and gears, they chanted intricate incantations, mixing mechanical and gothic languages, to form a special sound, which enlivened the spirits and made the convoy faster.

"With your will, I will awaken you and give you energy," the sage chanted, happily leading his team through the seventh ritual.

[In the light you radiate, I fight side by side with you] They responded with respectful feedback.

"For your wrath, I will kill or die for you," the sage who adopted the girl concluded.

Neither the fear nor the suspicion brought by the unidentified enemies here will be variables affecting the cathars, and ordinary people may feel anxious, while the cathars will only feel anticipation.

The Alpha-level veterans had faced many terrible things in the eyes of mortals, but they were still victorious, but tonight was probably the blessing of the God of Chances, or maybe their rapid progress did not allow the orcs to notice, and after they crossed the last low clearing of the valley, the endless wilderness and the city in the distance were already looming.

"God of all machines bless, in the name of gears, we are safe." The sage could even see the glow of human civilization looming in the distance, and despite the dangers of the mountains, those things were made more beautiful by it.

But the cathar hummed sharply, and before the sage could come to his senses, the rough, crudely crafted, terrifying alien vehicles descended the hillside, rumbling engines and black smoke, and the green creatures that were ready to attack on them.

[Report, alien, it's an orc!] 】

[Shooting preview, shooting preview!] 】

The newly-minted sages were dizzy from the strong emotional feedback from the Afars, and they began to shoot frantically with their laser carbines, but the shots struggled to penetrate the thick armor of the dirty vehicles, leaving only shallow scratches on the fast-moving trucks.

The sage immediately lifted his spirit. [Activate the Heresy Engine Countermeasure Protocol.] 】

The Alphas quickly opened their guns and challenged the position and reflection amplitude of the glowing laser crystals in them, and then the fierce armor-piercing laser fired in the carbine, and although the overheating and firing rate were severely reduced, it actually pierced through the vehicle's armor and could even hit the engine and crew members.

The Blood Axe Kid in military uniform stood on the car and fired back with a sudden attack, and the automatic firearms made by the orcs, although not very accurate, were extremely dense, and the cathars had to take cover and hide.

It was said to be a bunker, but in fact, it was a teammate who had just been penetrated, and they put their corpses together to make a simple sandbag, which can be called a good use.

Although the equipment of the Alpha Cathar is obviously good, the damage caused by ordinary sudden attacks is not large, and the spirit of making the best use of things makes it difficult for them to be broken through, but the orcs are not in bad condition, only listening to the shouts of the Blood Axe Boy.

"Let the fart go for it!" The holes that were punched through those trucks were quickly blocked by the fart spirit with this scrap, and in this way, the mechanical sect was demolished, and the fart spirit was blocked, resulting in a rather troublesome perpetual motion machine, although they could probably reach this forty thousand years in the past, but the orcs obviously did not have that much patience.

In the brief interval between the cathar officers' shots, a thick and abrupt smoke rises.

The alphas reacted quickly. [Warning, Special Warfare Kid, urgently activate the Sage Protection Agreement]

The Mechanic Sect was devastated by the previous defeat at the Iron Gate, if it wasn't for the Sage being taken, they wouldn't have failed so quickly, and then the Cathar updated their personal information, and there was more tactical planning for the special unit of the Special Operations Kid, but its core is still!

At the moment when the smoke rose, dozens of alphas charged into the smoke rising from those aliens, since those things could hinder most of the detection methods, then the Mechanism used the most basic method, the naked eye.

Those crazy members of the Mechanics began to communicate information and coordinates with their own lives, relying on those extremely fast information transmission and computing power, and the neurons that were replaced by a large number of them gave them quite powerful abilities, and the next thing to reward the aliens was death.

Carbines fired, those weapons of death and restlessness pierced through the armor of the Special Operations Kids, and dozens of Mechanic Alpha class cathars were killed, but it was still worth it for the Mechists, because the wisdom of the Techno-Sages was priceless.

The veterans don't complain, they really want to say, they will even be proud of it, and after this victory, the orcs also realized that the Mechanic Cult is not something to gnaw on, especially after they have undergone tactical upgrades, but the orcs are not the same as before, they have a new alliance.

While the alphas were still judging the victory value based on the victory in the battle, there were still reports of the movement of living creatures from inside the smoke.

Bang, bang, bang...

[Report, alien, and... Activated...] The old Afar sent out the report as always, but the Ranger suddenly fell, his insect-like head was completely shattered, and the pure gold and terracotta steel were instantly cracked, and the sage and the officer looked at what came out of the smoke in disbelief.

And the Mechanics are extremely familiar with those finely crafted weapons, blasters.

"Brother Astarte... No, heresy, heresy! "Anger made the officer go from surprise to fear to anger, and those heretics were in the same league as the aliens, and he raised his power axe with all his might, and in the name of Om Messiah, he wanted to wipe the filth of humanity from this world.

"In the name of cogs and code, heresy!"

But the giant in front of him just lightly dodged the power and transformation that he thought was beyond mortals, and then kicked away, and with another shot, the officer was instantly shattered.

In front of the demigods, the cathars were no different from mortals, and in just an instant, death came to the servants of the god of all machines.

And those traitors slowly moved forward, the sage raised his weapon, no matter what, the defeat was now assured...

(End of chapter)