Chapter 122 Mechanical Faith

The chalk stopped at the lower right corner of the blackboard, and a full blackboard of questions appeared in front of everyone.

The extremely rough and templated faces on the seats were facing Li Ziyue and the other two. Their dark pupils filled their eye sockets, their cold eyes were matched with the corners of their lips that were forcibly pulled upwards, and the torn wounds on their faces were bleeding.

They were waiting for someone to come up to the podium and solve the problem.

A smooth and small pure white chalk was suspended in front of the three people. Huo Qianyun frowned: "I can't connect to the question bank system..."

Before she could finish her words, a broken mechanical finger suddenly appeared at her neck, and sharp iron spikes suddenly extended from the fingertips and pierced her skin.

The sounds of metal colliding rang out one after another, and Huo Qianyun frowned even more deeply. Fortunately, she was an artificial human, so these iron spikes could not cause much harm to her. However, Sun Yuancheng, who was standing aside, frowned.

He slowly lowered his head, looking at the iron needle that was almost piercing his palm. Its sharpest point had penetrated through the back of his hand into the outermost layer of his palm. Through the skin and blood vessels, a faint silver-gray metallic luster could be seen.

The blood mixed on the ground.

"Don't have any thoughts of resisting the test." Li Ziyue threw a bottle of healing potion to Sun Yuancheng in a deep voice, and then walked straight to the podium.

There were red waves rising and falling under his feet, which were thick puddles of blood formed by the blood oozing from the corners of the students' eyes.

As time goes by, the number of mechanical spikes increases, and they gradually turn the entire classroom into a hedgehog covered with spikes.

Bright red footprints stopped at the edge of the raised podium. Several students could no longer contain their excitement and were twitching all over. Sticky, transparent liquid flowed from the corners of their mouths, and the skin on their faces began to twist and deform, peeling off layer by layer like century-old wall, revealing the ugly mechanical assembly inside.

Li Ziyue had no time to think. He first wrote the word "jie" on the edge, and the attacking thorns instantly stopped growing.

He finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Li Ziyue took a quick glance. The questions on the blackboard looked scary at first glance, but the difficulty lay in the reading of the questions. The answers and calculations did not require much effort. They were simpler than many questions with only two or three lines of explanation. It was a reading comprehension exercise disguised as other subjects.

When he highlighted the key points of his understanding on the question, the things behind him would relax, as if all the machines were watching him answer carefully.

What is this doing?

Anthropomorphic learning again?

He frowned.

The questions seem to be endless. After you finish writing one, the next one will appear immediately, and the speed of answering must be gradually increased, otherwise the spikes will continue to grow.

Li Ziyue's palms were slightly warm, and the chalk paused on the blackboard for a moment with difficulty. Then he felt a chill on the back of his neck.

The lifeless mechanical fingers touched his skin, coiling around him like a cold poisonous snake.

Li Ziyue changed the direction of his wrist and changed the "ε" that he had subconsciously written backwards back to the correct "3", and the trembling of the mechanical finger stopped.

He had practiced writing with his left hand for a period of time before, which left him with the habit of writing the number "3" in a mirror image. He never expected that such a small mistake could cause changes in the NPCs in the classroom.

The task of "doing questions" did not have any time reminders, and there were too few clues given on the scene. He did not know how long this part would last. In the final analysis, doing questions was just a reprieve from the death penalty, and the essential outcome did not change.

The number of questions updated has been almost one minute, and Li Ziyue has to understand the questions and write out the solution process on two blackboards within this short minute. His handwriting has changed from neat at the beginning to so sloppy that only the general idea can be recognized. Not to mention the brain power, his wrist is indeed exhausted.

After writing "3" incorrectly again, Li Ziyue felt someone suddenly approaching him from behind. There was no human breath, only the silent chill of a machine swallowing people.

He felt that thing moving down and then up along his left earlobe, as cold as a knife, cutting across most of his face, leaving behind a stiff and burning pain.

I caught a glimpse of the thing's face from the corner of my eye.

Half of it is exposed wires, and half of it is a perfect human figure.

That kind of eyes, that kind of eye corners, that kind of mouth corners.

When a person faces something that is unclear but familiar, the brain will automatically fill in the blurred parts.

The moment the image took shape, Li Ziyue paused and his heart shrank in an instant.

"elder brother."

The android whose face was exactly like his called him in a familiar tone.

The chalk in Li Ziyue's hand suddenly broke into two pieces.

"bell--"

A loud bell rang from the outer corridor.

get out of class is over.

All the machines imitated the relaxing activities of human students during the break and no longer looked at Li Ziyue. At the same time, the questions on the blackboard disappeared automatically.

Li Ziyue stood there in a daze. He didn't know when his whole body was soaked with cold sweat.

It's gone.

The simulacrum that resembled him was gone.

A breeze blew in from outside, causing him to shiver in fear from the coolness brought by the sweat all over his body.

Huo Qianyun was treating Sun Yuancheng's wound just now, and did not notice anything unusual on Li Ziyue's side.

Li Ziyue could hear his own heart beating wildly. The sunlight outside the classroom was still glaring, and when the light fell on him, he felt as if he was falling into an icy cave.

Who is that...

Is it [Li Ziyue]?

No... not really...

However, before he could figure it out, the air suddenly became abnormally damp. Li Ziyue's brows twitched slightly, and he seemed to hear the sound of gurgling water in the distance.

In less than half a second, cold water stained with blood rushed in from the front door of the classroom, and Sun Yuancheng stroked his cheek with his fingertips again.

He looked up.

Dark red viscous liquid was oozing out of thin air from the milky white ceiling.

Seeing the blood, those machines seemed to go crazy and started beating indiscriminately against friend or foe. Their movements were extremely consistent, they all grabbed the opponent's neck first, then pressed on the skull, and then crashed straight into the extremely hard wall.

There were continuous bangs and damaged parts fell into the blood.

This scene was too familiar. Li Ziyue almost without stopping thought of Wu Tian's violent attack on the NPC in the bathroom at the beginning.

They seemed to be using Wu Tian as a sample and imitating his attacks. Li Ziyue dodged several mechanical attacks and pulled back Huo Qianyun and Sun Yuancheng.

"If the bell can change the actions of these things..." he said in a deep voice, "First leave the classroom and find the broadcasting room. No matter what, we must ring the bell in advance."

The scimitar in the palm of his hand rotated, and the sharp blade quickly scratched the surface of the machine, causing only a slight scratch.

Li Ziyue wasn't sure whether his judgment was correct, but based on the information he currently had, this was the only thing he could do.

What no one expected was that just as they ran to the back door of the classroom, they heard another strange noise coming from the corridor.

A string of small bells rang one after another, and at the end of the long and dim corridor, a figure in a long robe and a wide round hat emerged.

He walked slowly, the tail of his robe sank into the deep red blood, dyeing the dark yellow circle into a deep black. He held a string of Buddhist beads in his hand, and a bell hung on his waist, swaying with his movements.

The brim of the hat covered his face, causing Li Ziyue's eyes to narrow slightly.

This person...

The students seemed to be attracted by the bell. They stopped beating each other and rushed out of the classroom like orderly swimming fish. They then pressed their bodies against the wall and bent their knees.

The sound of people kneeling down could be heard one after another. They seemed to regard that man as a god, and they all knelt down quietly and devoutly.

"It's really strange that robots have to rely on humble body movements to express submission," Sun Yuancheng said jokingly, breaking the dull and depressing environment. "What is this called? Cyber prayer?"

Huo Qianyun shook his head hesitantly.

"…We, the simulated humans, follow scientific principles…"

She didn't look very good.

After walking in, Li Ziyue heard the man muttering something. The sound of the bell gradually became blurred and was replaced by a long series of rhythmic mechanical knocks.

He stopped one meter in front of Li Ziyue, raised his head, moved the brim of his hat, revealing that familiar face.

Chapter behavior.

Zhang Xingzhi quickly made a "hush" gesture to everyone. He exerted a little force with the hand holding the Buddhist beads, and the chain broke instantly. The beads fell into the water one after another. The sound of splashing water was accompanied by the collapse of the entire environment. When everyone opened their eyes again, they had returned to the dimly lit underground area.

However, as soon as one wave subsided, another wave arose. The machinery in the underground area and the ground seemed to be activated. Loud rumbling noises came from the underground one after another, as if dense mechanical tracks were generated, driving everyone forward.

All around, the remaining machinery of the main trunk kept moving in the direction of the tracks in a strange and stiff posture, like black and fat caterpillars.

There were more and more insects, and their crawling on the ground created a rustling sound that gave people goose bumps.

Li Ziyue felt as if something was pulling on his ankle. He looked down and saw a simulated human with only the upper body left looking at him coldly.

"you……"

It felt like an electric current was passing through its throat.

"Why, no, worship, God."

[Congratulations to the player for triggering the main quest "Cold Faith"]

[Mission Difficulty:? (Do you think a mechanical sheep would dream of an executioner?)]

[Task requirements: Pay homage]

Haven't we already left the dungeon? Why are there still quests...

The more Li Zi looked over, the more Huo Qianyun just shook his head.

"I'm trying to reconnect to the main system." Huo Qianyun gestured to him.

Just like before, if they didn't follow the mission, they would be attacked by the machines around them. The four of them had no choice but to bend down temporarily and let the tracks under their feet take them to a distant, gray place.

"That is..." Sun Yuancheng's pupils shrank slightly, "Thousand-armed Guanyin..."

The huge monster that all the machines were kneeling down to worship devoutly was exactly the god or Buddha he had seen in the underground area a few days ago, which was made up of countless mechanical remains.

Countless electric wires were wrapped around its side, stretching outward endlessly like old tree branches, forming densely packed slender "arms". It seemed to have come completely alive, with its long black mouth wide open, gnawing on the simulated human that was brought to its mouth by the conveyor belt.

Some simulated human versions are close to Huo Qianyun, and have bones and flesh that are very similar to real people. Therefore, the closer you get to it, the stronger the smell of blood around you.

There was a sound of machines crying all around, not out of fear or terror, but out of happiness.

"God," the simulated man with only half of his body left suddenly fell to the ground, "We are willing to do anything as long as you tell us."

"We will support you, strengthen you, and sweep away all forces that stand in your way."

"No matter where we come from, no matter which player we belonged to, as long as we are here, we are under your protection and at your command."

"Please show us the way, and please...give us a chance to live again..."

This was what Huo Qianyun was most worried about.

Mechanical mutations and the desire for reproduction are not something to be feared. The most deadly thing is that machines give birth to something that is completely contrary to their design concept - faith.

Huo Qianyun once again received the feedback that [Unable to establish connection with the main system, please try again].

She closed her eyes in despair.

The number of machines around them was far beyond what the four of them could handle. If they waited any longer, they would be sent into the mouth of that thing along the tracks.

what to do?

Li Ziyue held her hand, lowered his brows, and shook his head lightly and heavily.

Huo Qianyun's eyes flickered slightly, and he felt something in his heart tremble.

The dark clouds of despair dissipated, and the bright moonlight shone through.