206: Chapter 206: Dissecting the Remains to Uncover the Mystery, Conclusive Evidence of Collusion

The smoke in Collapse Valley had not yet dissipated, and a layer of grayish-brown mist rose from the scorched earth.

Broken Puppets lay in the rubble like two skinned Iron Beasts, their shells burnt black, joints cracked open to reveal twisted wiring and melted gears.

Chen Wuwang stood at the entrance of the underground bunker's dissection room, the blue light of his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye flickering as a stream of extracted data scrolled through his vision.

He didn't speak, only raising his hand in a beckoning motion.

Six psionic mechanical arms slowly lifted the two wrecks and brought them into the room.

A metal platform slid open automatically on the floor, and coolant sprayed from the walls to suppress the residual high temperature.

The air was filled with the smell of scorched metal and an indescribable stench of rot, like rust mixed with stagnant water.

"This smell isn't right." Chen Tiezhu walked up from behind, his nose twitching, his brow immediately furrowing. "It's not the heat from our Artifact Refining Workshop, nor is it the blood Qi of the Yao Race... this thing smells like it's been soaked in a graveyard."

Chen Wuwang nodded, tapping his finger in the air to activate a holographic projection.

An internal structural diagram of the Puppet's chest cavity emerged, peeling away layer by layer until it reached the core.

A mass of dark red energy circuits occupied the center, their patterns twisting like living things, with faint ripples constantly dissipating from the edges.

"Residual Cthulhu whispers," he said. "The frequency matches the mental attack from Mo Yuan last time, but it's more hidden, tucked away in the power supply cycle like a parasite."

Chen Tiezhu stepped closer, squinting at the rune.

"You're showing me this? I don't understand anything about mental pollution. But this pattern..."

He traced the outline in the air. "I've seen something similar in ancient scrolls called the 'Abyssal Pact.' It's said to be a contract seal for sacrificing Souls to unspeakable entities."

"Now it's been engraved into the Puppet's core board." Chen Wuwang pulled up the footage recorded by his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye, freezing on a dark red symbol that flashed within a crack in the chest.

"It's not a temporary attachment; it's embedded casting. This means the creator intended for it to be a carrier of pollution from the start."

Chen Tiezhu gasped. "You mean someone refined sorcery into the mecha? This isn't a combat unit; it's a plague seed?"

"More than that." Chen Wuwang switched screens, importing an encrypted data packet. "I just used Nanoprobes to pierce the Memory Crystal Core and obtained the signal characteristics of three remote control instances. Protocol headers, checksums, frequency hopping patterns—all in the standard communication format of the Demon Race's Shadow Council."

He paused, lowering his voice. "But they used Cthulhu patterns as encryption keys. These two Systems should be mutually exclusive—one relies on Bloodline contracts, the other on mental pollution—yet here they are, mixed together and running stably."

Chen Tiezhu was silent for a moment, then suddenly sneered. "Crazy. Fucking crazy. Who would mix two wicked paths together? Aren't they afraid of backlash?"

"Afraid?" Chen Wuwang's mouth twitched. "Backlash is exactly what they want. Chaos is the best cover. While infiltrating under the banner of the Demon Race, they use Cthulhu pollution to disrupt Divine Sense, making it impossible to tell who the enemy is."

He walked to the console, his fingertips sliding across the control panel to start the psionic decoding program.

"I've reverse-engineered the energy model of that inscription. Next, I need to confirm one thing—whether this 'Abyssal Pact' can truly connect to the consciousness network of the Great Old Ones."

Before he finished speaking, the projection shook violently. The mass of dark red patterns seemed to come alive, slowly rotating and emitting a very low-frequency hum.

The decoding progress bar got stuck at 97% and stopped moving.

"Interference!" Chen Tiezhu slammed the emergency power-off button, and the entire System went black instantly.

A few seconds later, the backup power kicked in, and the room lights returned. The projection reloaded, the data was intact, but that sense of oppression had vanished.

"That moment just now..." Chen Tiezhu panted. "A few images flashed through my head—black tentacles, countless eyes, and... crying. Not human voices, but a resonance like thousands of people screaming at once."

Chen Wuwang stared at the screen, his eyes cold as ice. "It was trying to reverse-scan our System. This isn't a passive remnant; it's a living intelligence node."

He turned to a storage cabinet on the right and took out a sealed box.

Upon opening it, there was a palm-sized black fragment with serrated edges—the physical inscription taken from the Puppet's chest.

"Verify it yourself," he said, handing over the box. "Use your 'Spirit Fire Authenticity Technique'."

Chen Tiezhu took it but didn't act immediately. He first put on a pair of specialized heat-resistant gloves and secured the fragment on a test stand.

Then he pulled a Small Bronze Furnace from his robes and lit a pinch of pale gold powder.

The flames rose, their color normal.

He slowly moved the fragment into the fire.

In an instant, the flame shrank violently, turning from gold to black, and then twisted into a spiral as if being torn from the inside.

A cloud of gray-green smoke rose, carrying a thick stench of decay, making a faint corrosive sound as it hit the ceiling.

"Fuck!" Chen Tiezhu quickly closed the protective shield and cut off the oxygen supply.

The fire went out.

The fragment was undamaged, but the rune on its surface was clearer than before, faintly glowing with blood-red light.

"It's real." His voice grew heavy. "A genuine product of Cthulhu pollution. When Spirit Fire meets a fake, it only changes color or goes out. But when it meets real pollution, it gets assimilated, twisted, and even erodes the practitioner in return. That fire just now... it wasn't mine anymore."

Chen Wuwang stared at the fragment, silent for a long time.

After a while, he spoke: "Can you determine what kind of ritual remnant this is?"

"Not a hundred percent." Chen Tiezhu shook his head. "But my Master's notes mentioned a 'Two-Faced Rite' that intertwines the forbidden powers of two opposing factions to form a cross-realm channel."

"The price is the disintegration of the practitioner's sanity, turning them into a walking corpse. But once successful, it allows the two forces to mask each other, bypassing the monitoring of the Heavenly Dao."

"So Mo Yuan isn't acting alone," Chen Wuwang whispered. "There's someone behind him helping him integrate Demon Race and Cthulhu technology. This isn't simple cooperation; it's deep Fusion."

He turned to a transparent crystal plate at the end of the room, pressed his palm against it, and entered an access code.

Hum—

The entire wall lit up, displaying a distribution map of the thirteen clans of the Eastern Wasteland Alliance.

Several red dots flickered, marking areas where abnormal events had recently occurred: rune remnants on the border of the Zhao Clan of Xiling, mental interference encountered by the Cangling Clan's mecha formations, and the Collapse Valley where they currently were.

"These incidents are not isolated," he said. "Someone is playing a grand game of chess. First, use rumors to shake the Alliance, then send Puppets to infiltrate key facilities, and finally establish hidden channels through dual pollution. Their goal isn't destruction; it's infiltration."

Chen Tiezhu felt a chill run down his spine. "Are you going to expose this?"

"I must." Chen Wuwang nodded. "But not just to catch a mole; it's to make everyone see the truth."

"We're not facing some Sect traitor or a single Devil Head, but a forming, cross-faction evil Alliance."

"If the various clans still maintain the mindset of 'only sweeping the snow from their own doorstep,' they'll all be swallowed sooner or later."

He walked to the main console and pulled up the encrypted channel interface.

"I'm going to send an emergency ultimatum to all members of the Eastern Wasteland Alliance, along with the entire chain of evidence: images, data, physical rubbings, and Spirit Fire verification records. Anyone who dares to doubt can come and try burning it themselves."

Chen Tiezhu looked at him and suddenly asked, "What if it causes panic? Some small clans are already wavering; hearing this news, they might just quit the Alliance altogether."

"Then let them quit." Chen Wuwang's voice didn't waver. "But before they quit, they need to know how dark it is out there. I don't expect them to be brave; I just want them to avoid being sold and still helping the buyer count the money."

His finger hovered over the "Send" button, not pressing it immediately.

The room was very quiet. Only the low hum of the cooling System and the faint "click" of the wreckage's metal cooling could be heard.

Chen Tiezhu stood beside him and said softly, "Add me to the list of co-signers. Even though I'm just an artifact refiner, I stand by this."

Chen Wuwang glanced at him, said nothing, but added a name to the sender list: Chen Tiezhu, Chief Craftsman of the Artifact Refining Workshop.

The cursor blinked at "Confirm Send."

Outside, the last sliver of the sunset sank behind the ridge, and night quietly enveloped the Eastern Wasteland.

His finger finally fell.