Chapter 116: Gear Maze |
The harsh screech of metal grinding echoed through the underground tunnel as Jonas tightened his grip on the pulse rifle, his eyes cautiously scanning the surroundings. The damp air was thick with the acrid smell of rust mixed with machine oil. Overhead, intersecting pipes occasionally dripped corrosive liquid, burning black pits into the floor.
“Watch out!” Anna suddenly grabbed Jonas’s arm, yanking him sharply to one side. Almost at the same moment, a mechanical spider sprang from a vent in the ceiling, its sharp pincers grazing Jonas’s cheek and leaving five deep scratches on the metal wall.
This was their third hour inside the abandoned Gear Factory. As elite tech operatives, Jonas and Anna had been assigned an urgent mission by their superiors: to stop a mysterious organization from activating the ancient device here. It was said that once started, this device could unleash a disaster capable of destroying the entire city.
“Their core is in the abdomen!” Anna shouted. “They must be destroyed simultaneously!”
Jonas quickly scanned the area and spotted at least a dozen mechanical spiders advancing toward them. These machines resembled spiders, covered in jet-black alloy shells. Their dark red compound eyes flickered with cold light. He reached for the EMP grenade at his waist, exchanged a glance with Anna, and they threw their grenades at the same time.
The intense electromagnetic pulse rippled visibly through the air. The mechanical spiders emitted piercing metallic wails as their once agile limbs stiffened instantly, causing them to collapse to the ground. But Jonas knew this was only a temporary paralysis—they had to find and destroy the Gear Core as soon as possible.
Breaking through layers of barricades, they finally arrived at the underground chamber housing the Gear Core, with 20 minutes left on the countdown. Massive gear sets occupied the entire space, their meshing and turning producing a deafening roar. Six gears floated at the center, each burning with an eerie blue flame, while the spot for the seventh gear remained empty.
Jonas pulled out the badge he had found in the mission files—a uniquely shaped metal gear. Suddenly, the badge radiated a dazzling light in his hand, flying automatically to the center and slotting into the empty position as the seventh gear.
The gear assembly began turning clockwise, accelerating rapidly. The blue flames suddenly shifted to scarlet, dyeing the entire space in a sinister blood-red hue. Cracks opened all over the floor as black mist poured out, accompanied by faint ancient whispers that sounded like a call from the Abyss.
“Anna! Snap out of it!” Jonas dodged the incoming bullets, rolling behind the gear assembly’s control console. The data streams on the control panel flickered wildly, unfamiliar symbols flashing continuously. His fingers flew over the holographic keyboard, attempting to hack the system, but progress was slow.
Suddenly, a memory flashed back—before the mission started, their direct superior, Director Zhang, was seriously wounded during a raid. On his deathbed, Zhang had drawn a strange symbol on the floor with his blood. Jonas hadn’t paid much attention then, but now he was stunned to see that the symbol matched the encryption program on the console perfectly.
Taking a deep breath, Jonas input the symbol into the system. Unexpectedly, the chaotic data flow suddenly organized itself, and a countdown appeared on the screen—15 minutes remaining before full activation. More unsettling was the realization that Anna’s abnormal state seemed linked to the device’s startup.
Under the corrosive influence of the black mist, Anna’s mechanical limbs were undergoing a bizarre mutation, surfaces etched with the same runes as the gear assembly. Jonas realized that while destroying the device, they also had to find a way to restore Anna to normal.
He quickly scanned the system interface and found an option called “Purification Program.” Perhaps this was the key to saving Anna. However, activating it would consume a large amount of energy and might affect the plan to destroy the device.
Time ticked away. The gear assembly’s rotation grew more frantic, and the floor cracks widened. Jonas knew he had to decide. At that moment, Anna launched another attack. Bullets whizzed past his ear, shattering the display behind him.
“Sorry, Anna,” Jonas murmured, pouring most of the energy into the Purification Program. A blue light shot from the console, enveloping Anna. Her movements froze, her vacant eyes gradually replaced by pain.
“Jo… Jonas?” Anna’s voice was strained. “Quick… stop me…”
Jonas gritted his teeth and continued operating the console. The Purification Program began working, but the device’s activation was also accelerating. He had to find a way to destroy it while restoring Anna.
At that instant, he noticed an energy core at the center of the gear assembly—the convergence point of all power. Destroying that core would stop the device’s activation. But to reach it, he had to get past Anna’s defense.
“Anna, hold on!” Jonas shouted, grabbing his pulse rifle and charging toward the energy core. Anna’s attacks grew fiercer, but Jonas used his years of combat experience to narrowly dodge each strike.
Finally, he reached the energy core. The scarlet glowing orb pulsed wildly like a heart about to explode. Jonas injected the last of his energy into his weapon and fired at the core.
A violent explosion echoed throughout the chamber. The scarlet light was replaced by a dazzling white flash. Jonas lost consciousness in the blast’s shockwave, but before passing out, he saw Anna return to normal and rushing toward him with all her strength.
When Jonas opened his eyes again, he found himself lying in a medical pod. Anna was at his bedside, a relieved smile on her face.
“You’re finally awake,” Anna said. “The device was successfully destroyed, and the city is saved.”
Jonas tried to sit up but found his whole body aching. Recalling the moments before losing consciousness, he asked, “How did you recover?”
Anna sighed. “That Purification Program… was actually prepared for me by Director Zhang before he died. He had discovered that my mechanical limbs were implanted with some kind of control program and had been secretly researching how to break it.”
Jonas fell silent. Director Zhang’s sacrifice had finally brought them victory. Yet this mission made him realize that in today’s rapidly advancing technology era, humanity must remain vigilant against hidden threats lurking in the shadows.
Outside the window, the city lights still glittered. Jonas knew that as operatives guarding this city, their mission would never truly end. And the secret of the Gear Core was likely just the tip of the iceberg; many unknown challenges awaited.
The alarm on the medical pod ceased. Jonas sat up, supporting his sore waist. The physiological indicators flickered on the electronic screen, causing him to frown—though the mysterious characters on his retina had disappeared, his brain’s nerves still showed abnormal fluctuations. Anna handed him a cup of warm water, her fingers unconsciously stroking the interface of her mechanical limb, where black corrosion marks remained.
“Message from headquarters,” Anna said, activating a holographic projection. The screen showed the ruins of the destroyed Gear Core. Among the charred gear debris, several military reconnaissance robots were scanning. “They discovered a larger mechanical network deep underground—seemingly remnants of an ancient civilization.”
Jonas’s gaze was drawn to an image in the corner of the projection—a metal fragment covered with runes, identical to the encryption symbols on the control console. Suddenly, he remembered the dream he had while unconscious: amid scarlet flames, countless gears formed a gigantic eye, the pupil reflecting the entire city turned to ruins.
Three days later, the two stood before the new entrance to the Gear Factory ruins. The military had set up a temporary base, searchlights piercing the underground darkness, mechanical arms moving boxes of testing equipment. A researcher wearing silver-rimmed glasses hurried over. His badge read Lin Shen, affiliated with a special research team.
“Agent Jonas, Agent Anna,” Lin Shen pushed up his glasses, his eyes shining with excitement. “We detected periodic energy fluctuations deep below—like… a giant gear is still turning.”
Descending a spiral metal staircase, the three ventured 300 meters underground. Black viscous liquid oozed from the damp rock walls, gleaming strangely under the lights. Suddenly, Anna’s mechanical limb emitted a piercing alarm. She grabbed Jonas and rolled backward just as a cold gleam zipped past their noses—a gear-shaped metal throwing star embedded in the rock wall.
The sound of meshing gears came from the darkness as countless scarlet compound eyes lit up. The mechanical spiders appearing this time were larger, their shells shimmering with dark purple metallic luster. Sawtooth blades extended from the tips of their pincers. Jonas fired his pulse rifle, but the bullets merely sparked off their reinforced shells.
“Their armor has been specially reinforced!” Lin Shen shouted from behind a stone pillar. “Aim for the joint connections!”
The battle intensified when strange characters again appeared on Jonas’s retina: [The sacrifice is ready; the cycle will begin]. He turned to look at Anna, whose mechanical eye started leaking black mist once more. In a desperate moment, Jonas threw out an electromagnetic binding net to trap Anna and pushed her toward Lin Shen. “Take her away! Find the Purification Program!”
Alone against the swarming mechanical spiders, Jonas retreated through a hail of bullets. Suddenly, the ground beneath him collapsed, and he fell into a deeper underground chamber. During the fall, he grabbed a protruding metal pipe on the wall and barely steadied himself. Below, an altar composed of gigantic gears slowly rose, its center holding a core pulsating with dark purple light.
The altar’s surroundings were inscribed with the same runes from his memories. Jonas pulled out his personal recorder to scan. Suddenly, the core emitted a powerful energy surge, and his body involuntarily floated into the air. As his consciousness blurred, images flooded his mind: in ancient times, a highly advanced civilization built this gear system to control time but lost control and sealed themselves in the Abyss.
Meanwhile, Lin Shen returned to the base carrying an unconscious Anna, frantically decoding the Purification Program. When blue light once again enveloped Anna, she suddenly grabbed Lin Shen’s wrist. “Jonas is in danger! The core is… the key!”
Elsewhere, Jonas was restrained at the altar’s center as the mechanical spider formation began circling him. The core’s light intensified while the runes on the ground lit up one by one. At the critical moment, Anna and Lin Shen arrived with reinforcements, pulse fire tearing through the spider formation. Jonas seized the chance to embed a specially made antimatter bomb into a crevice of the core.
“Run!” Jonas shouted, charging toward the exit. Behind him, the core violently shook, the entire underground chamber trembling. As they rushed out, a massive explosion unleashed a shockwave, and a rain of gear fragments fell like hail.
After the dust settled, Lin Shen’s detection equipment emitted a sharp alarm: “Energy fluctuations… are still ongoing! Although the core was destroyed, the deeper gear system is reorganizing!”
Jonas and Anna exchanged grave looks. Though this operation seemed successful, it had unveiled a greater secret. The ancient civilization’s gear system was still running, and they were merely two pawns in a vast game.
Back at headquarters, Jonas accessed all data on the mysterious organization. Among the yellowed files, he found an old photo—a gear factory’s foundation ceremony twenty years ago. A person wearing a gear mask stood at the core position, and the badge on their chest was identical to Jonas’s own agent badge.
Outside the window, the city glittered under the night sky, unaware of how many gears quietly turned in the shadows. Clenching his fist, Jonas knew this battle with the ancient mechanical civilization was only beginning.
Late at night in the agent headquarters’ archives, under cold white light, Jonas’s fingers rapidly swiped over the holographic projection. The yellowed old photo was magnified to the extreme; the badge on the gear-masked figure flickered in the shifting light, perfectly overlapping with Jonas’s current badge. Anna leaned against the doorframe, her mechanical eye emitting a faint hum as it scanned every pixel of the photo.
“This badge has been used by our agent organization for twenty years,” Jonas said in a low voice. “We thought it symbolized the city’s protection by the gears, but now it seems…”
His words were cut off by a sudden alarm.
The entire building shook violently; emergency lights on the ceiling turned red. Lin Shen’s holographic projection flickered in front of them, his lab coat stained with oil, his expression panicked. “The underground gear system’s energy waves are showing abnormal peaks! They… they’re consuming nearby electronic devices!”
Screams erupted from the streets. Jonas and Anna ran to the window, witnessing cars losing control mid-drive, their onboard screens flickering with eerie gear patterns. Street billboards glowed with scarlet light, forming massive runes. The city’s power grid collapsed amid the roar, and from the sewers and vents, tens of thousands of scarlet compound eyes crawled out.
“New model mechanical spiders!” Anna raised her pulse rifle. “Their shells… are reassembled from car parts!”
The moment bullets pierced the first mechanical spider, strange characters appeared again on Jonas’s retina: [The vessel is broken; the true god approaches]. He suddenly realized that the destroyed Gear Core was merely a decoy. The real threat lay much deeper.
“To the subway tunnels!” Jonas grabbed Anna and dashed toward the elevator. “The city’s underground transit is the most complete metallic network. They’ll definitely break through there!”
The subway station was pitch black, emergency lights flickering wildly. The sound of mechanical spiders crawling approached from all directions. Jonas switched on a tactical flashlight. As the beam swept the walls, his pupils constricted sharply—the original tiled walls were covered with dense gear patterns, slowly writhing as if metallic veins had come to life.
Anna’s mechanical limb suddenly moved uncontrollably, aiming her gun at Jonas. She gritted her teeth, veins bulging on her temple. “Go! My system… has been hacked!”
At the critical moment, Lin Shen and the research team arrived, carrying a massive device. “Electromagnetic pulse amplifier!” Lin Shen shouted. “It can temporarily cut off the mechanical spiders’ control signals!”
Jonas took the chance to drag Anna to safety and quickly connected the portable decoder. Flashbacks revealed the blood-drawn symbol by Director Zhang perfectly aligned with the circuitry nodes in Anna’s limb. Jonas decisively input the command; blue light flared again, and Anna’s pupils cleared.
“Thanks,” Anna panted, standing up and raising her rifle. “This time, I’ll cover you.”