Beginning with the Ubume Bird-Chapter 567 - 63 Mechanical Ascension (Part 4)
The Tri-Orb Device of the Ascender twisted along their spine like a dragon. A crimson pattern ignited the orb at the very bottom and then spread upward to the second, the third...
Thirteen, fourteen... the red steam emanating from the Ascender’s body grew increasingly thick and sticky,
Giant Ymir was being pushed back, the thick silver armor on his body corroded into large pits by the red steam, clearly struggling to hold on.
At the same time, the sharp white facial features formed by flames on the Ascender’s face wore a more reckless smile, while the black flames gradually weakened.
Li Yan’s heart jolted; he felt an indescribable connection with the Ascender being stretched and crumbling apart. The Ascender was gradually slipping out of his control.
"Stop."
Li Yan’s mind moved, and the number of illuminated orbs on the Tri-Orb Device decreased by one, halting at thirteen.
The white features first paused, then began to howl in frenzy, as the crimson pattern on the Tri-Orb Device’s spine again showed a tendency to rise.
Without a second thought, Li Yan flicked a drop of Soul-forgiving Water directly onto the Ascender’s spine. The crimson patterns vied to swallow up the Soul-forgiving Water completely, then abruptly dimmed. The Ascender’s black flame features lifted their head with renewed spirit, whereas the white flame features blurred, and the ignited orbs on the spine also remained at thirteen.
Li Yan understood that this was the maximum intensity he could suppress the Black Rider Ghost. If he continued to ignite the Tri-Orb Device, he would not be able to control the unique-quality Ascender with just one drop of Soul-forgiving Water that he could produce each day. The master-servant summoning contract between him and the Ascender would also be broken.
Boom!
Giant Ymir’s shoulders exploded with two towering plumes of black smoke, and the treads frantically scraped the ground. Suddenly, with a surge of power, he began to advance with slow but resolute speed.
Limited by Li Yan and unable to exert more strength, the Ascender was pushed back step by step by the suddenly powered-up Giant Ymir, even interrupting the "Ruyi Tricks". The Ascender now appeared even shorter than Giant Ymir.
The black flame features seemed to be infuriated by Ymir, as a massive amount of red steam burst forth from all parts of the Ascender. The might of the "Supreme Power" surged through every joint of the Ascender, and its clenching fingers directly crushed Giant Ymir’s three-fingered mechanized arm. But before the white flame features could take pride, the Ascender’s torso began to crack inch by inch, with some sections of the metal skin glowing red-hot, molten iron even flowing down. Those already damaged parts couldn’t withstand the "Supreme Power’s" devastation. If the struggle continued, the Ascender’s shell would likely be scrap before Giant Ymir collapsed.
The black flame features immediately settled down, stamped their foot forcefully to shrink their body bit by bit, and then using Ymir’s mechanical arm like a large rat, leapt right into the shoulder chimney of Giant Ymir.
Giant Ymir looked around in bewilderment, no longer able to see the Ascender. Only then did he cast his gaze toward Li Yan.
"What the devil was that? Was it an illusion of mine?"
A police officer exclaimed in shock; he witnessed the bizarre solo unit, initially trampled and wrecked, inflated like a balloon by the flames and steam. Everything that followed was beyond his imagination.
Suddenly, inside Giant Ymir’s carcass, a grating metal sound horrible to one’s ears rang out. It lurched and crashed around like a drunk brute, and a gush of steam jetted out from behind its head, the urgency of the steam reminiscent of a boiling kettle.
However, this was just the beginning. Previously when Chang Yu was involved in developing Giant Ymir, the team approved a design that, in the event of Giant Ymir’s overload or the destruction of critical parts, it would revert to its original form— a huge iron box with a V-shaped fracture. Now, Ymir’s mechanical arms retracted, and its head sank back into the casing, reverting to the original, gigantic iron box. But the harsh screeching hadn’t ceased, and the entire box shuddered intermittently.
"What’s wrong with it?"
The police chief gazed down from the top of the tower, asking the officer beside him.
"I don’t know," 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞
the officer was just as unable to explain what was happening before their eyes.
Suddenly, the whole iron box burst open forcefully. To the disbelief of all onlookers, a steel monster enveloped in flames and steam tore through the iron box, ripping apart several cumbersome power-supply tubes from its body, and reemerged before everyone with an air of unmatched arrogance.
One could vaguely make out the structure of an Ascender’s body, with six mechanical arms and two hands resembling those of humans all preserved; four sets of treads were inserted behind its body. In the chest, a V-shaped armor with a piece of black crystal in the middle was visible, appearing much leaner than the cumbersome Giant Ymir, looking like a hybrid of an Ascender and Giant Ymir.
Craft Instinct.
"Order it to cease all operations immediately,"
a steam officer said grimly to an Enfield staff member.
The latter shook their head, "We can only control Ymir’s behavior by adjusting the power input through the pipelines. Right now, I don’t know how to make it stop."
"Good Lord."
The steam officer lamented.
The newborn Ascender began to shrink until it was about the height of an average adult male.
Li Yan pointed upward and the Ascender looked up at the tower, leaped, and climbed up, nimbly moving toward the spire.
"It’s coming at us!"
The officers at the pinnacle of the tower screamed in terror, dominated by unknown fear, they fled in complete disregard of everything else.
The inspector pursed his lips as he chambered a round. The Ascender’s head soon emerged above the rooftop, and without hesitation, the inspector fired at the demon before him. Bullets passed through the black facial features formed by Boxun’s flames, failing to harm the Ascender in the slightest.
The Ascender steadily advanced, and upon realizing bullets were ineffective, the inspector activated the steam chainsaw mounted on his suit, striking at the Ascender’s torso. He was then slapped to the ground, his steel suit caving in grotesquely.
The black flame visage looked down at the inspector for a while but didn’t kill him. Instead, it turned towards the oil barrels and cardboard boxes not yet moved from the top of Cupid Tower and breathed out a jet of black fire.
The inspector, his face covered in blood, closed his eyes in despair, anticipating the oncoming scorching heat. Then there was a loud snap!
The inspector’s body shuddered violently as the sound of flames crackling filled his ears, followed by a series of sharp, staccato explosions. Notably, the inspector was still alive.
He opened his eyes in disbelief only to see the sky filled with red, yellow, and green fireworks. Circular flames expanded in rings below the moon.
Fireworks popped everywhere on the pinnacle, and the pink glow grazed the inspector’s face, but he did not blink.
The inspector’s previous judgment hadn’t been wrong; nobody could bring a massive quantity of explosives into Cupid Tower without drawing citywide attention, but fireworks were another story. These specially processed fireworks had almost no lethality, especially since San Francisco’s square held firework shows every weekend.
Chang Yu, who swore to blow up San Francisco’s railway, ultimately left the city with such a prank, naughty and foul.
The Ascender gazed upward, fixated on the beautiful blaze filling the sky. The fireworks seemed to cover the entire sky, and compared to them, even the moon over San Francisco no longer seemed as bright or clear.
Whether in the new districts of San Francisco, the docks in the old town, whether they were famous hemisphere actors, mechanical elite graduates from prestigious academies, or girls ironing clothes for passersby in the square, whether they were old gangsters and witches who had spent half their lives struggling on this precious yet cruel and violent land, or the laborers who had recently arrived in this extravagant and dreamy city, called "onion heads," barely able to clothe themselves, at this moment all instinctively craned their necks, mesmerized by the grandeur of the fireworks.
"What in the world are you trying to do?"
The inspector exclaimed desperately.
The Ascender withdrew its gaze, ignoring the inspector, and jumped down from the pinnacle. The inspector mustered the strength to chase to the edge of the rooftop, but the Ascender had vanished. His eyes caught only a fleeting glimpse of mysterious blue lights that hadn’t quite dissipated...
