Deep Sea Embers

The last corridor leading to the mechanical cabin is stuffy and dark. The disturbing mechanical vibrations and roars seem to be going into people's brains endlessly. The lights on the walls seem to have encountered problems with unstable airflow , the flame in the lampshade flickered and flickered.

But all of these are nothing compared to the depression caused by the increasingly strong sense of disobedience and tension, and the dizziness caused by the gradual tearing of the mind.

Belazov controlled his steps, controlled his expression.

The closer he was to the deepest part of the Haiyan, the more he kept his steps steady and his expression was as calm as usual.

There are crew members who stop and talk in the hallway, wearing weird leather... "coats", the skin folds on their faces are stacked, and the sound sounds like a humming noise.

Belazov walked towards them, his mind telling himself that these crew members were his soldiers, but he couldn't recall their names.

"General?" A soldier came up to meet him and looked at Belazov curiously. "What's your order?"

"Just to check the situation in the mechanical cabin," Belazov responded calmly to the strange soldier, "Stay at your post."

The soldier stared at him, then bowed and backed away: "Yes, General."

Belazov passed among these people, walking steadily as usual, he could feel that the eyes of these soldiers stayed on him for a while, but then turned away quickly.

Are they really their own soldiers? Are they really the crew of the Haiyan? Are they that hidden thing? Or some kind of minion? Did they notice? Or already vigilant? In the next second... Will these soldiers who can't remember their names rush towards him?

Belazov suppressed all his thoughts in his heart until he reached the entrance of the mechanical cabin and opened the unlocked gate.

More piercing mechanical noises hit the face.

The steam core is running at full power, an astonishing surge of power is brewing in the spherical container, the complex piping system is hissing on the ceiling of the mechanical cabin, and the huge connecting rods and gears are rotating rapidly in the steel frame at the end of the cabin.

The machine was running very cheerfully, even... cheerfully to the point of fanaticism.

It was as if a restless soul was pushing those heavy steel gears to spin rapidly, pushing the ship to sail towards the cities of the civilized world at the limit speed.

There seemed to be murmurs mixed with the hiss of the steam pipes.

Belazov's body shook a little, but he soon stabilized and walked towards the steam core.

A priest was shaking incense in front of the valve. He suddenly turned his head and looked at the general who was entering the mechanical cabin. The church emblem pinned to his chest seemed to be stained with oil, making the sacred symbols on it blurry.

"General?" The pastor looked curiously, "Why did you come here suddenly? Here..."

"Let me check...the situation of the steam core." Belazov said, his eyes fell on the incense burner in the priest's hand.

The little ball of meat swayed gently in the air, and a pale eye opened on it.

He looked up again, at the working steam engines, at the hissing piping.

The gas escaping from the steam pipe is blood-colored, and the edges of the fast-rotating gears are blurred and distorted. It seems that something is parasitic in this huge machine, replacing the original sacred steam with its malicious soul.

The machine has been polluted, it is in a state of desecration—the thought floated in Belazov's mind for a second, but then it was gone with the wind.

But he still walked towards the console of the steam core—even though the huge "steel heart" seemed normal to him at the moment, he slowly stretched out his hand towards the console.

"General," a mechanic with oil on his body suddenly came from the side, reaching out to block the control lever, "Don't touch these, machines are sometimes very fragile."

Belazov looked up and glanced at the mechanic.

The latter just responded to his gaze calmly with his eyes.

But suddenly, the mechanic's lips twitched a few times.

Belazov frowned slightly, and read a few words from the mechanic's lips——

"The machine is bewitched and cannot be shut down or destroyed."

Bellazov was taken aback for a moment, and then he saw the mechanic turned sideways, wriggling his lips slightly while fiddling with those joysticks.

"The pastor is not trustworthy...the situation is out of control...Procedure on the 22nd."

Process on the 22nd?

Belazov's heart tightened, but soon he knew what he should do.

A mechanic knows the "heart" of a boat better than anyone.

He turned and left the mechanical cabin, but did not go to any cabins, but continued to maintain a calm posture after leaving the bilge corridor, and returned to his captain's cabin all the way.

From time to time, soldiers stepped forward to greet him, some of whom gave him a vague impression, while others could not be called by name at all.

There must be conscious and normal humans among these soldiers—but Bellazov has no way to distinguish them, and he has no time to contact or identify the thirty humans on the ship except himself and the mechanic.

He locked the door of the captain's cabin, came to the safe next to the desk, and started to turn the combination lock dial. Amid the crisp and pleasant clicking sound, his fingers became paler due to the exertion.

With the light sound of the lock being opened, the door of the safe opened.

Belazov's gaze skipped over the file storage compartment, and landed on the red button at the bottom of the box.

A small line of text is marked next to the button: Procedure No. 22, only used in extreme cases.

Belazov stretched out his hand towards the button, and almost at the same time, he heard a knock on the door: "General, are you inside? We have received an order from Frost, and you need to handle it yourself."

It was the voice of the adjutant.

A trace of hesitation suddenly appeared in Belazov's heart——

What if I made a wrong judgment?

What if there is really no problem on the boat, and the problem is only yourself? It was because he suffered from mild pollution, which caused cognitive and memory deviations, and even hallucinated auditory and visual hallucinations along the way... If this is the case, then he is now going to bury a whole ship of people to bury his nervousness!

"General, are you inside? We have received orders from Frost..."

The knock on the door was a little more urgent than before.

However, Belazov woke up suddenly at the sound of knocking on the door. He suddenly realized that those thoughts just now might not be in line with his personality... He is not someone who will suddenly hesitate at the last step of an action.

Someone is injecting "impurity" into their own thinking!

"You son of a bitch heretic!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Belazov pressed the red button instantly.

After a very short delay, a terrifying explosion swept the entire ship—the mechanical clipper Haiyan was instantly shrouded in flashes and flames, and was torn apart in the terrible destruction caused by high explosives.

The wreck of the Petrel, which was burning with raging flames, floated on the sea for a while, and was gradually pushed towards the frosty northern sea under the action of the current. Then, its floating finally reached its limit—the scorching wreck began to sink at an accelerated rate. , as if being dragged by some invisible force, its sinking speed became faster and faster, and finally completely disappeared on the sea surface.

...

At the same time, in Frost City, near Cemetery No. 3, an old guard in a dark coat with a slightly hunched back was slowly walking back from the city.

He had just gone to a nearby street to buy some necessities for life, and now it was approaching dusk, and he had to return to his "position" before the shift change time.

The road leading to the cemetery is deep and quiet, with few passers-by, but even so, residents who live in nearby neighborhoods occasionally pass the trail.

When they noticed the figure of the old guard, they would adjust their footsteps unconsciously, keeping a little distance from the stooped, gloomy old man.

They didn't dislike the guard, but instinctively had a little fear, not only because of the eerie atmosphere near the cemetery itself, but also because of the old man's withdrawn and indifferent character—even if he looked at the entire cemetery area, he was like everyone else Compared with the more or less gloomy guards, the old guard of Cemetery No. 3 can be regarded as the most intimidating one.

He has been in this position for so long that even he has acquired a "dead" temperament.

This has even brought about some terrible rumors - people often say that they see pale lights floating above the fence in the cemetery after nightfall, and that is the soul of the guard who has long been separated from the body, and some people say that this terrible old man Will lay himself in a coffin at midnight, he will stop breathing with the dead, and wake up when the sun rises the next day.

These creepy rumors haunt the cemetery and the caretaker, but the eccentric caretaker never seems to care about it—in fact, he hardly deals with the nearby residents, except that he occasionally goes out to buy some daily necessities like today In addition, he lived most of the time in the caretaker's cottage in the cemetery, and the only people he dealt with on weekdays were the church's corpse bearers.

He sees nothing wrong with it.

It is his responsibility to keep the living away from the world of the dead. The former should not have excessive curiosity to avoid harm, and the latter can enjoy the tranquility after death so that they can go on the road with peace of mind.

He guarded the cemetery, and he also guarded the city outside the cemetery.

The old man raised his head, looked at the gate of the cemetery not far away, and suddenly stopped in his tracks.

Things seem a little special today.

There was a little guest.