Chapter 676 ·Manual-Gear Breath

Beatrice slowly opened her eyes, her movements numb.

Her pupils shifted slightly. The cold, rigid surface beneath her body made her aware of her situation.

She was still inside the furnace.

Pain came like waves, one after another, without end. It was as if her entire body had been thrown into a millstone and ground to pieces, over and over again.

She could no longer distinguish reality from illusion.

Yes, the illusions came often. One moment she was still a little girl, chasing butterflies in the garden. The next, she was back in a rainy night in Rhine City, watching Hela walk toward her with the Triple Crown held in both hands.

Sometimes she saw Uncle Euler smiling as he crouched down to greet her. Sometimes she sat in the classroom of the Gear Sage, drowsily listening to the lecture.

Time, place, past, present—everything was mixed together. Her memories seemed to have been thrown into a great pot and boiled into a sticky porridge.

At times she even wondered whether this was the instant before death, merely the flickering montage before everything came to an end.

A tearing sensation suddenly surged up from her abdomen, carrying burning heat into her chest. It felt as if a sack filled with sharp blades had been forced through her flesh, tearing its way out uncontrollably from her mouth.

Beatrice’s gaze grew numb, then gradually hollow.

Her steadfast will had saved her—yet it had also pushed her into the abyss. She had to endure this unceasing torment.

But why?

Why struggle in such pain? Why not simply sink into it?

She seemed to have persisted until now because of certain obsessions, yet the things that had supported her appeared to be wearing away as well.

A growing confusion welled up in her heart. The overlapping illusions became indistinguishable from reality.

Her 【Anchor】 in the Sea of Unawareness began to tremble on the verge of collapse.

Her consciousness slowly sank into the deep sea. She closed her eyes.

Just as she was about to lose herself completely, a faint voice suddenly sounded beside her ear.

Like a whisper. Like a curse.

Instinctive curiosity stirred within her. With great effort, she roused her numb consciousness and focused.

She heard—

『.Is this really okay?』

『Don’t worry.』

『But. so many threads. first time.』

『With me. it’s fine. just speak.』

『But. speak what.』

『Those things.』

『.Alright.』

Beatrice listened in confusion, but the strange whisper suddenly became clearer.

『Ahem, today we’ll begin the first lesson.』

『The interaction of forces.』

『.』

『Go on, why did you stop?』

『Ahem, I just remembered this body—I mean, I don’t have the Holy Text on hand. Never mind, I’ll teach it my own way.』

『So this Pan Jinlian was holding a forked pole to lift the curtain, when suddenly a gust of wind blew the pole down. It fell and struck Ximen Qing right on the head. He looked at the pole, then raised his head toward the sky.』

『.This is universal gravitation.』

Beatrice listened, bewildered.

To be honest, at first she had suspected this might be another hallucination. But gradually, she sensed something was wrong.

Her hallucinations should not have been this absurd.

And—

For some reason, after hearing the bizarre and ridiculous whisper, the pain in her body seemed to ease slightly.

It was as if the pollution had been soothed by the whisper.

Gradually, the illusions before her eyes began to collapse. Beatrice opened her eyes in confusion.

She was still lying inside the Steam Engine. In front of her stood eighteen iron barrels arranged in a row, each filled with pollution.

Beatrice lifted her head and met the gaze of a sleepy-looking young girl beside her.

Beatrice: “.You’re Zoe?”

Zoe: “.”

Zoe suddenly sprang up from her chair and shouted, “It stopped, it stopped?!”

“Stopped what?” Beatrice froze.

“The fountain—I mean, you’re not expelling pollution anymore?!”

“Ah?” Beatrice looked startled. She suddenly realized what that meant, and a hint of joy appeared on her face. But before she could say anything, a familiar sensation surged up again—

“Blegh—”

Zoe instinctively ducked her head. A stream of pollution shot over her scalp. When Beatrice had lifted her head to look at her earlier, Zoe had already felt something ominous coming.

The Stoker and the Church Guard, who had been staring in shock, finally reacted. They hurried over in a flurry—some grabbing barrels, some trying to help Beatrice, some holding up umbrellas.

It was chaotic for quite a while.

After some time, the compartment finally calmed down. Gaia rubbed her temples and looked at Beatrice inside the boiler.

Her condition had clearly improved. Most of the time she was conscious now, and she could even occasionally control her expulsion.

But that was not entirely a good thing.

According to Gaia’s observations, whether Beatrice expelled pollution depended mainly on whether she noticed it. When she did not pay attention, everything was fine. The moment she became aware of it, she would start expelling again.

To put it simply, it was like breathing. Once she remembered it, it switched into manual gear.

The problem was that she was lying inside the furnace with iron barrels lined up in front of her—it was very difficult not to think about it.

To prevent directional breath attacks, the Stoker had now hung a barrel around her neck, just in case something like what had nearly happened to Zoe occurred again.

Zoe still felt lingering fear. She had almost been sprayed just now.

That was high-purity pollution. For mortals, it would merely cause some erosion. But for a Transcendent like her, taking Beatrice’s breath full in the face would not be much different from being hit by a Dragon’s Breath Cannon.

Gaia cautiously produced an avatar, keeping her main body far away. The avatar walked over and crouched in front of Beatrice.

“What just happened? Why did your condition suddenly improve?”

Beatrice, somewhat numb from expelling, turned her head with difficulty. “Pff—I think I just heard some kind of twisted whisper, pff—and then I felt a little better.”

“Twisted whisper?” Gaia frowned. “In what way twisted?”

“Oh, extremely twisted! It starts with the wife of a traveling merchant. She was inside a house by the street, holding a pole to open the window—”

Beatrice began excitedly recounting it, not even noticing that she had forgotten to expel.

Gaia and the others in the room gradually wore twisted expressions as they listened.

“.And that’s universal gravitation and the principle of the Steam Engine. After that there was the First Cosmic Velocity, but I didn’t quite understand that part.”

“Well…” Gaia turned to exchange glances with the other Church Guard.

“Heretical God! It must be a Heretical God! Who could make up such an outrageous story!”

“Indeed! It was clearly Lord Hughes who improved the Steam Engine. How did it become someone else in the Heretical God’s version?”

“Blasphemous knowledge. How terrifying!”

“No, I need to read the Holy Text and purify my mind.”

“That whisper is too twisted!”

“Though it sounds absurd, the knowledge actually seems correct…”

“Hmm?” Everyone turned simultaneously to look at the speaker.

“W-What? Did I say something wrong?” Zoe shrank back slightly. “I’ve studied elementary physics too. The basic concepts in those stories weren’t incorrect!”