Ling PingAn walked upstairs, changed into his slippers, and slumped down on the couch.
Suddenly, the watch that the strange woman had left at his place two days before caught his eye.
The watch was baffling and mysterious. Ling PingAn picked it up.
There were various letters carved on the watch. He recognized some of the letters, but, as for their meanings when they were joined together, he had absolutely no clue.
It wasn't really his fault that he was ignorant of foreign languages. The Federal Empire didn't include foreign languages in its education programs.
If it hadn't been for Taizu and Taizong's cultural reformation, which had introduced 24 foreign alphabets and numbers and opened the door to modern chemistry, physics, and mathematics, Ling PingAn probably wouldn't have even been able to recognize those letters as belonging to an alphabet.
After looking at the watch for a very long time without understanding what the words meant, Ling PingAn put it into a drawer of the table beside the couch.
Then he groped for his phone.
"I guess it's time for some games...," he said, "...the heroes in the rift must be waiting for me..."
He went into the rift and began to wage war.
...
Elizabeth was dragging one of the massive descendants of Diablo with her as she traveled through a desolate, cold valley.
It was the Diablo descendant Nether Oculus, which had been entrenched on Jupiter.
It was one of the descendants that mankind was most familiar with.
Now, however, its colossal mouth had been completely shattered by some kind of gravitational force.
Its tentacles that were supposed to be hanging under its body had been severed one after another.
Its plump body was full of holes.
Its eye, which posed the largest threat to mankind, was completely smashed.
At present, this descendant of Diablo had been left with only the most basic twinges of vitality.
These were the most fundamental biological activities that every living being needed to have to maintain life.
Aside from those, everything about it had been destroyed.
In human terms, it was now in a vegetative state.
However, for something as weird as a descendant of Diablo, as long as they weren't completely destroyed, even if they'd only been left with a single cell, there was a chance for them to be reborn.
Especially these descendants of Nether Oculus: they were exceptionally good at regenerating themselves.
They looked like deep-sea jellyfish.
And, in terms of their vitality, they weren't much different.
Once, a descendant of Nether Oculus had been hit by a hydrogen bomb head-on and had been evaporated by its high temperature. Only one of its tentacles had survived.
And three years later, it had made a comeback.
Most certainly, this descendant of Diablo that Elizabeth was dragging now didn't possess exaggerated regenerative powers.
Because, like all of the other descendants of Diablo that had been abandoned on Earth, this one was a defect.
They had been abandoned, left on Earth to live on their own.
The descendants of Diablo that had true potential were all taken to space by the most terrifying Diablos.
All the ones that had been left on Earth were defects.
Even so, Elizabeth had paid a heavy price in order to capture this descendant.
Now, she looked like a withered corpse. There was not a trace of flesh or blood throughout her entire body.
Her arm had been completely shattered.
Her most severe injury was to her chest. It had been thoroughly destroyed, pierced through by the rays emitted from the Diablo's eyes.
So there was now a huge hole in her chest.
But she was still alive.
Because she was a Nun of Steel, a Missionary of Synth.
The almighty Spirit of Machinery was watching over her.
The sacred Gospel for Synthetic Beings was guiding her path.
And so, steel made her strong, and machinery gave her endless possibilities.
Therefore, even though she was almost totally destroyed and her body was torn into pieces, she was still alive.
And, not only was she alive, but she could also haul this descendant of Diablo of an astonishing weight as she walked amid the barren landscape.
However…
Elizabeth turned around.
Through her almost-shattered skull, her exposed electronic pupils saw that beyond the canyon, in the skies above it, many minions of the Diablos were racing toward her from all directions.
She had no path to retreat to and nowhere to go.
The descendant of Diablo that she was hauling was watching her cruelly and playfully with its still functioning eye.
However, Elizabeth suddenly laughed out loud.
Her chin, which had been almost broken off, shook eerily as she laughed. She looked like a broken doll.
"This is a feast." Elizabeth said. "A feast for the Lord!"
"All this machinery needs to be infused with new life."
"Steel is craving to be showered by flesh and blood!"
She stopped and stood in the middle of the canyon as she exhausted the last of her strength in order to haul the terrifying descendant of Diablo in front of her. Then she took out a book from under her torn clothes.
A book that was streaming with molten steel and vibrating with the sounds of mechanical engines.
The pages turned.
Elizabeth held it in her hands and recited it religiously and sacredly.
"The bell rang once. Impetus was given to the lever. Valves and engines were switched on!"
The minions of the Diablos that were coming from all directions immediately swarmed toward her like a tide upon seeing her stop walking.
However, this was a trap...
A trap that had been deliberately laid down by Elizabeth.
Because underneath her feet was the Federal Army's number A130 military reserve warehouse.
Ka-boom!
Following Elizabeth's chanting, the ground started to rumble and heave. It soon began to collapse.
And the hymn of machinery began to play. A sonata of steel sounded across the world!
Ka-chinkk, ka-chinkk!
A giant metal altar rose from the ground.
The Altar of Steel! It was the sanctuary of machinery.
Gun barrels descended from tanks and guns pointed in all directions. It looked like a peacock spreading it feathers.
Pieces of armor, layer upon layer, were laid down under the altar.
Engines began roaring with no operators in sight.
"A bell rang twice, and a button was pushed. Generators were ignited, turbines blazed to life, and energy was injected into the scene." Elizabeth knelt on one knee and looked up at the great altar rising from the ground.
It was so beautiful.
Each gun barrel represented ultimate beauty itself.
It was so sacred. Every engine seemed to be chanting the truth of the universe.
But, of course…
"This is not enough. This isn't big enough!" Elizabeth thought.
True beauty should have billions of turrets thundering across the universe.
True sacredness should be an infinitely large battleship with an infinite number of gun barrels.
It would breathe out the flames of truth and persuade its enemies and heretics one after another.
With these thoughts in her mind, Elizabeth hurled the descendant of Diablo she had been was hauling onto the rising Altar of Steel in this Church of Machinery.
The massive body of the descendant of Diablo fell onto the rising altar.
Its body was pierced by gun barrels.
Dark green-colored blood, fishy in stench, poured onto the altar along its plates of steel armor.
"The bell rang thrice…" Elizabeth ignored the innumerable minions of Diablos who had arrived close to her and chanted the last hymn aloud, "Sing your praises!
"Praised be machinery, praised be steel!
"The almighty spirit of all machinery!
"You are the Lord who has created all things, and the apocalypse who has annihilated all that exists!
"More is excellence. Big is beauty!
"Evaporate! Burn! Cast!
"Steel is forever. Machinery is life everlasting!"
As the last word was chanted...
Infinite light emerged on the altar.
It formed a huge beam of light, piercing through the earth and the skies, breaking through all the dense clouds.
A blue sky once again appeared on the planet after 102 years.