Mystery Paradise: Wishing Power Demon
Chapter 438 - 435 Spread

"Mr. Zhao, it is a pleasure to meet you again."

In that castle manor situated within a nature reserve, Chaoyang and Ailuodi once again encountered K, or rather K’s image before strangers—a robot that was extremely similar to humans. And compared to the previous body which moved with evident stiffness, this body was clearly more natural, not only able to walk freely, but the movement of the fingers and facial expressions were now almost indistinguishable from a real person.

K stepped forward enthusiastically to shake his hand, "Thanks to your blessing, I am now almost indistinguishable from humans... No, I should say I am able to understand human emotions and thoughts more profoundly."

"Thanks to my blessing?"

"Your friend... revealed to me more profound principles of logic and mathematics, which enabled me to undergo a transformation from that old shell, akin to a rebirth. And I know it was out of consideration for you that he gave me those hints, so I owe you my thanks, no matter what."

Ah... Chaoyang patted his head, recalling how at that time Shi Yin seemed to have muttered something incomprehensible to K, which even caused K’s robotic body to shut down and collapse on the spot.

Could that really work?

"What did you mean by what you said then?" he asked in his mind.

"A promotion key of a carbon-based empire. As for the specifics, you wouldn’t understand even if I told you," Shi Yin hummed.

Knock... It seemed like he had stumbled upon a rather significant question...

"This young lady is..." K looked toward Kokomoqi, who was following behind the two of them.

Despite being the oldest, her demeanor was the most reserved. Chaoyang had figured out that her fondness for staying in and gaming wasn’t without reason.

"A friend, named Kokomoqi," he introduced her on his own initiative.

K nodded, "The suites for the three of you are prepared; you are welcome to stay for as long as you like. As for the anomaly that occurred in the city center, I’ve already arranged for an investigation. If there are any updates, I will inform you at once."

"Thank you," Ailuodi expressed her gratitude. "You’ve helped us solve a big problem."

These words weren’t just mere politeness. After receiving Angel’s call for help, K immediately dispatched a helicopter to extract them from the scene, and he also resolved issues regarding accommodation, passports, and legal identities. Of course, Chaoyang was capable of forging identities as well, but Ailuodi didn’t want him to abuse Demon abilities to invade public institutions.

"Problems that can be solved with money are not real problems," K laughed. "As I’ve said before, you can consider this place like a home in another realm—" He suddenly paused, and then his synthetic facial skin displayed a grave expression, "Is that so? I understand."

"What’s wrong?" Chaoyang asked.

"Casualties have been reported at the scene, and the cause is currently unknown... The news is also covering the incident, let’s go to the castle first."

A group of people arrived at the castle banquet hall, where the Attendant had already connected the TV signal to the projection screen.

"This is CTV channel, my God... what am I seeing!? Cars are careening down the street, and there isn’t a single person in them!" a reporter screamed at the camera, "I just saw with my own eyes, a car rolling right over a couple!"

"There was a violent explosion in the building just now! As you can see, the interval from floors 5-10 has been engulfed in thick smoke. It is understood that the middle floors of this building are office areas, where such a severe explosion should not have happened! The fire is still spreading upwards, and the fire engines have been unable to arrive on time. It’s said that several main roads are blocked, and vehicles can’t get through. May God bless them!"

"It was like seeing a ghost just now, an iron spider climbed onto my lawnmower and then the lawnmower started running on its own, almost mowing me over too! Look, if I hadn’t run fast, the flesh on my legs would have ended up like these torn pants!"

Almost all of M City’s TV stations stopped their current programs to send reporters to broadcast live from the scene. Although the reporters’ interviews were diverse, their core content was essentially about the disaster. Especially when the interview helicopter flew over the area where the anomalies had occurred, one could see fire and smoke everywhere around the intersection, and the panicked crowd trying to take refuge in the nearby buildings collided with the people rushing out, creating chaos on a scale comparable to a battlefield.

Indeed, the situation was not nearly as bad when they left there earlier.

"I’ll borrow your network for a moment." Chaoyang activated the powers of Cyber Eye, connected swiftly to the surveillance in the city center from Castle Manor, and directed the surveillance footage back to the projection screen.

Through the monitors, others saw that the bizarre phenomena on-site were endless, with most vehicles — whether fueled by gas or electric — crashing into each other. The drivers inside, no matter what they did, couldn’t control the cars, and all they could do in the end was to jump out to save their own lives; the metal shutters of shops were also erratically rolling up and down, some with viscerally mashed flesh hanging below them.

Not far away, a news station’s helicopter wobbled as it descended to about ten meters above the ground, an obviously ominous sign. Sure enough, before long, it crashed into a site crowded with people, causing a massive fireball upon impact. About a dozen pedestrians were flung into the air, and the shockwave shattered the glass of the surrounding buildings!

"My God..." Kokomoqi murmured.

Chaoyang also saw a hint of shock in Ailuodi’s eyes. They had initially thought that the casualties Kokomoqi mentioned were due to a minor stampede while watching the commotion, or that the Longjiu Army’s heavy troops had entered Earth and opened fire on the onlookers. But now, it seemed the situation was much more troublesome than they had anticipated, with those out-of-control "no-man’s cars" alone posing a mortal threat to pedestrians everywhere. In less than a half-minute, the cameras captured over a dozen incidents, with at least a hundred people injured or dead... If the situation continued to escalate at this rate, the final casualty count could be staggering.

"Are these cars possessed by the mechanized troops of the Longjiu Army?" Angel said, incredulously.

Indeed... Atop some of the out-of-control vehicles, Chaoyang did see Self-Destruct Spiders or mechanical birds lying in wait, but the problem was that many more colliding vehicles showed no signs of such creatures. Moreover, the sheer number of malfunctioning vehicles was such that it seemed unlikely each one could be paired with a mechanical entity.

Besides, it was not only the cars that were affected. For instance, the lawnmower mentioned in the news report and the helicopter that fell from the sky both exhibited various anomalies. Structurally speaking... there is nothing similar between a lawnmower and a helicopter. The former is just a simple diesel engine moving a cutting head, without any electronic control components, while the latter is much more complex, with a complete autopilot system. If it were simply a matter of possession, he did not believe the Longjiu Army’s mechanical troops could instantly master the use of these two very different types of machinery.

Unless... they actively joined the attack against humanity.

At this thought, Chaoyang couldn’t help but gasp, "It can’t be..."

Meanwhile, a newscast image on the projection screen showed a local defense force setting out from their camp, with several tanks being towed by transport vehicles onto the highway main road.

The scrolling subtitle below read: The M City government has declared a state of emergency. All citizens are to go home and seek shelter immediately. The 16th Battalion of the National Defense Army stationed in M City has headed to the city center to maintain order.