Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 260 - 180: The Eve

Chapter 260: Chapter 180: The Eve

Inside the Gear Hotel, the sick and injured were everywhere to be seen.

People were relatively silent, presenting a vision as if the end of the world were imminent.

This planet was undergoing "Cocoon"ization, information that the summit councilors had gathered from the injured nobles of Mechanical Star. According to prophecy, Mechanical Star would be destroyed by the plague known as the Flesh Curse, and every living being on the planet would transform into machinery; after that, no humans would survive.

The Owl also learned that the Empress had passed away, and there was no one left to curb the spread of the epidemic.

Worse news came that the roads leading out of the Royal Court, other than the road to the Mechanical Throne, had been blocked by the "Cocoon"ization, which was also why there had been a large number of flight equipment crashes. Only a few nobles had managed to rush out of the Royal Court before the roads were sealed.

Desperation was spreading quietly. The Owl picked up the camera and recorded everything he saw.

It was undoubtedly valuable news material.

The assumption, of course, was that they could leave the planet alive.

But before that, each "Cocoon"ization came with countless deaths and injuries, and no one had ever been able to stop the process of "Cocoon"ization.

The Ashen Church couldn’t do it, the Universe Company couldn’t do it, and the Shanqi Commerce Association was just as ineffective.

All resistance had ended in failure, and being able to leave the planet on a spaceship was already the best possible outcome.

However, the Royal Court of Mechanical Star was in a unique situation; they were situated within the "Mirage." The energy of the "Mirage" had protected them from the invasions of the Cosmic Pirates and adventurers, but now it had also become a barrier to their escape to the outside world.

Everything in sight seemed like the planet’s revenge on humanity.

The craftsmanship technology of the people of Mechanical Star was famous throughout the universe, and in the end, they would also be destroyed by their own creations.

The frequency of voices in his head was increasing, calling the Owl to embrace machinery, suggesting that there was nothing to despair about if one just looked at the issue from a different angle.

Discarding their flesh and blood bodies, they would be reborn in mechanical form and become an important part of this new planet.

Compared to the "Cocoon"ization methods on other planets, the Flesh Curse was much more benign.

There were no explosions caused by fusion, no radiation that extinguished life on the entire planet, but a quietly spreading disease instead.

When night fell, his entire right arm had turned into machinery. He even found that manipulating his mechanical arm was not so difficult after all; it was no longer stiff and was even more flexible than his original body of flesh and blood.

Compared to destruction and death, the Owl thought this notion was the most terrifying.

He observed that many people in the quarantine area had begun to adapt to their transforming bodies. The impact of the epidemic on the people of Mechanical Star was far more severe than on others; these people showed no emotion, and the Owl could not tell whether it was due to despair or if they had already begun to transform.

He received a number.

years and 4 months.

It was now 39 years, 3 months, and 26 days. There were only four days left until the entire planet’s completion of "Cocoon"ization.

The Gear Hotel was not safe. The security team could only single out one floor to quarantine all those infected with the Flesh Curse because when these people completed the transformation, they would become aggressive, viewing others as "aberrations" and tirelessly injecting the curse into their bodies.

But because of the peculiar status of these patients, Earth Wolf Twelve couldn’t exterminate the source of infection as decisively as they did with ordinary people.

Moreover, even temporarily extinguishing the source of infection would be futile.

Mechanized mosquitoes were everywhere, and ordinary methods of pest control could no longer inflict effective damage on them. Furthermore, it seemed that among them, there were leaders endowed with intelligence, commanding a large number of their kin to infiltrate the Gear Hotel through ventilation ducts and sewers.

Every moment there were councilors and accompanying personnel falling victim, even the security personnel were not spared from the ordeal.

To prevent further spread of the infection, Earth Wolf Twelve had to consolidate all uninfected individuals in one place, concentrating manpower to ensure that a few floors were free from the intrusion of mechanized mosquitoes. However, it was foreseeable that as more security personnel became infected, the fragile defensive line would sooner or later be breached.

The Owl looked around the deadly silent quarantine zone, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before the security personnel would face more than just mutant mosquitoes.

When the patients in the quarantine area were completely transformed and surged downstairs, it was only a matter of time before the survivors had to make a decision.

Earth Wolf Twelve immediately reported the situation on Mechanical Star to the Shanqi Commerce Association. It was the wisest choice to send a rescue craft to evacuate the survivors based on the current state of Mechanical Star. However, this time his report sank like a stone; the operator he communicated with responded indifferently that they were aware, and that the Chamber of Commerce had its own arrangements.

There were no detailed plans, nor any information about the number of rescue crafts or their arrival time.

This triggered some unpleasant memories.

The time he and the Ranger had requested assistance from the company while on a "Cocoon"ized planet, the operator’s attitude had been pretty much the same.

They never received a single rescue craft, nor did any forces come to support them on the "Cocoon"ized planet.

The Ranger held out for fifteen days under a wave of monsters, but eventually, the ceaseless horde breached the last defense.

It seemed to be the same now.

The Flesh Curse would sooner or later infect every person on the planet. The beleaguered nobility of Mechanical Star generally believed they had only four days left.