Chapter 2225: The Electric Age vs. the Land of Steel |
In Jenkins's perception, the thing before him was like a vast mountain range concealed in darkness. It undulated within the profound gloom, resembling a behemoth or perhaps the corpse of an ancient being. But to his eyes, it was merely a blurry, black silhouette.
To merely "look" was to feel but a sliver of fear. But to "look" deeper, to see with greater clarity, risked having his very soul devoured by the mountain range.
Its ascension from a mere object to a Calamity was comparable to a mortal ascending to godhood. The Difference Engine was no longer just the Difference Engine; it was the incarnation of disaster itself, the immortal embodiment of the entire eighteenth Epoch's lingering shadow.
"Sa... vi... or..."
For some reason, its manner of speaking had reverted to how it sounded during their first conversation. Jenkins froze, the grating sound of grinding metal echoing in his mind. He could actually hear the turning of gears inside his own body.
"Difference Engine," he declared, "this is the final battle!"
Casting aside all extraneous thoughts, he reached for the sphere. As his arm, sleeve and all, drew closer to the orb, it began to transmute into the color of brass.
With his other hand, Jenkins firmly held his cat down, keeping it still as his outstretched right hand touched the sphere without a hint of hesitation. In that instant, he truly heard the whirring of gears from within his own heart, but it didn't matter.
"Mechanical Dream!"
Surprisingly, the sphere offered no resistance, allowing Jenkins to pull it into the phantasm. The only catch was that the dream's creator had to enter it as well.
Their relative positions remained unchanged, still locked in contact. Around them, skyscrapers shot up from the ground, and a smooth asphalt road stretched from their feet into the distance. Overhead, something flew by...
The dream's construction came to a grinding halt, as if a scroll, mid-unfurling, had been yanked to a stop.
"Did... you... think I would fall... for the same trap... twice?"
The nascent scenes dissolved into the air like flecks of ash. In their place, the doomsday landscape of the Land of Steel, a sight he had witnessed in the eighth Mysterious Realm, began to sharpen into focus within the very dream Jenkins was supposed to command.
While both were visions of steel metropolises, Jenkins's version was far more vibrant, its colors more brilliant. The scene constructed by the Difference Engine, in contrast, was cast in a nearly uniform, sepia-toned gloom.
The two hazy landscapes crashed into each other. Along their colliding edges, a chaotic, sawtooth-like border formed. Within this maelstrom of imagery, touchscreen phones operated on hissing steam, and steam locomotives chugged past towering high-voltage power lines.
Jenkins and the sphere separated, each taking a stand on their respective side of the clashing realities. Though Jenkins had initiated the Mechanical Dream, it had now become a raw contest of conviction and computational might.
"So... that is it... So that is your origin. You are... a completely unpredictable variable."
Witnessing this scene, the Difference Engine finally understood Jenkins's origins—a secret he had not yet even revealed to the women in his life.
Its senses probed the structures of the machines born from Jenkins's dream, perceiving their complex circuits and miniaturized, integrated components. It saw the glittering nightscape of a bustling metropolis. It saw aircraft streaking across the sky, utterly devoid of any supernatural element.
"So... that is it... This is why you cannot accept my vision..."
The voice came not from the sphere, but from the dream world itself, a sign that the Difference Engine was steadily seizing control. It had been deceived by Jenkins's lies in a dream before, and in its ascension, it had paid special attention to mastering this very power.
Now, Jenkins, having dragged the Beast of Calamity into this dream, found himself at a disadvantage.
"Look at all of this,"
Jenkins said, his expression unusually grim.
"I've seen it all. I know that human civilization can advance without relying on the supernatural. There is a path beyond the Steam Age; the road civilization walks now is not the end. Your world, on the other hand, has no tangible basis—"
He pointed past the sphere, and with that gesture, the sepia-toned, doomsday landscape of the Land of Steel actually showed signs of crumbling.
"This is nothing more than a possibility you calculated, an optimal future you simulated with your models. But you couldn't even detect a variable like me. How could you possibly arrive at the correct conclusion?"
Jenkins's tone grew increasingly firm.
"Everything I think, everything I envision, is based on what I have seen and experienced. Your thoughts, however, are nothing but your own conjectures and calculations. Difference Engine, I am real, and you are the illusion. Your world has no reason to exist."
The power of his soul reconstructed the city behind him, pressing in on the other side of the dreamscape. But the power of the Beast of Calamity was far greater than Jenkins had anticipated. He felt an imperceptible presence, like a descending leviathan, pinning him into a corner of the dream.
A corrupting spirit washed over the phantasmal world, and the power of sin began to solidify the dream. The city behind Jenkins crumbled once more as the twilight of doomsday encroached upon the edges of his modern metropolis.
"Sa... vior... Variables... are always... incalculable. Sometimes, missing... an individual variable... is not... important."
"But can't you see the changes my presence has brought to this world? Do you truly believe my weight as a variable is so low? Oh, that simply won't do. You can't just assume a variable doesn't exist simply because you failed to discover it. That hardly seems in keeping with your usual rigorous standards."
A bell tolled within the dream. Even if Jenkins's logic held the upper hand, he was still losing the fight. The Land of Steel had already invaded his modern metropolis. This was a contest of pure power, and he was being crushed.
"My vision... may be incorrect... but is yours... correct? What you saw... was a world without the supernatural. But... with the supernatural in play... everything is different. That... is the greatest variable of all. And you... have also failed to consider the variable of 'supernatural elements.' Your... world... can never be fully replicated... here. You... can never truly go back."