Chapter 16: Superpower Farming 5200
After standing still for a few minutes, Joshua stopped his contemplation.
Soul puppets farming humans, extracting souls to create their own kind? Or was there another race behind the puppets, treating the Siberians like livestock to be herded? There were many possibilities; Joshua could think of many, but such speculation was meaningless. It couldn't solve any problems.
He had to take action, to find clues through practice.
The warrior slowly crouched down. The joints of the massive soul puppet let out a faint hum. He stopped in front of a little boy whose breathing was steady, but whose eyes held no light, like a piece of dead flesh. Then, calmly, he extended a finger. A silver radiance began to coalesce at his fingertip, eventually forming a semi-transparent 'light blade'.
The vast majority of Joshua's Steel Force was with his main body outside the void, but his soul had still stored a considerable portion of it through the Steel Shards of Siberia. At this moment, Joshua was manipulating this power, which could give rise to life, shaping it into a light blade, and carefully cutting towards the boy's head.
A slight sound of flesh being cut, too faint to even penetrate the wind, but Joshua could hear it. He controlled the light blade between his fingers, seriously cutting through the skin, muscle, and skull. He rotated his fingers, using Steel Force to slice open the cranium. Dense life force suppressed the blood vessels and nerves, maintaining the life of the boy whose skull had been opened.
The boy's exposed brain was now visible. Joshua focused his gaze, and at first glance, he saw something he had anticipated.
A pale blue, stamp-like runic array.
This stamp-like runic array, as if it were a product label, was precisely stamped onto the surface of the boy's brain. It was clearly visible that this runic array was constantly absorbing some peculiar power from the boy's body, then converting it into another force that permeated his entire being. Joshua extended the light blade at his fingertip, touching the runic array. He sensed a fairly clear resistance, as if it were rejecting the intrusion of Steel Force.
"So it can even resist modification by external energy." Joshua nodded slightly. "Quite meticulously made."
But Steel Force was an essential power that even Void Behemoths couldn't resist. No matter how exquisitely a small runic array was designed, it couldn't withstand Joshua's erosion and analysis. A few seconds later, the runic array stamped on the boy's brain surface dissipated into nothingness. The boy's lifeless eyes blinked, and then he completely fainted. At the same time, Joshua frowned deeply. He closed the boy's skull, and as life force surged, all the wounds he had cut healed completely.
And at that moment, he also understood the function of that runic array.
"A runic formation that seals 'imagination,' 'associative ability,' 'self-thinking ability,' and 'deep conceptualization ability'... by directly modifying and stimulating the brain's mechanisms related to 'judgment' and 'choice,' completely sealing 'wisdom.'"
Standing up, Joshua raised his head, looking around at the children sprawled on the ground. He murmured softly to himself: "'Thought Branding' that directly reduces enlightened intelligent life into fleshy crops... and it can also ensure the purity of the soul."
"The one who designed this is simply a genius. Without accident, if the Thought Branding isn't broken, then there would be no life in this world capable of resisting him."
How could they resist? Losing the ability to associate and think deeply, humans would become even worse than beasts. They wouldn't even have memories.
Although his words were appreciative, Joshua's tone was very cold. He didn't continue looking at the young children at his feet—it was useless. Even if he removed the Thought Branding from all of them, what then? A group of beings who were all newborn infants in terms of thought, suddenly granting them freedom was the same as not granting it at all.
Now, Joshua was going to the medical area mentioned in the nameless technician's records. He wanted to know how the so-called soul core was extracted, and what a superpower unit was.
He needed to thoroughly understand what was going on in this world.
The medical area was very close, right next to the maintenance area, diagonally opposite the unfinished white bone building. It was a low, rectangular building with a red pentagonal sign on its front. Joshua arrived at the entrance of the medical area. Unexpectedly, there were no soul puppets guarding it. He didn't even sense any other active life forms or puppets inside.
"Relocated?" Joshua thought briefly, then immediately understood what had happened. From the moment he left the maintenance area and destroyed four soul puppets, the command center for the soul puppets had probably already detected his presence. Then, when he cleanly destroyed the three puppets watching over the children, those commanders realized that ordinary puppets would be instantly defeated when facing him. To resist, they would need a large force to suppress him.
But if a large-scale battle was indeed occurring in the farming area at this moment, then the soul puppet side probably didn't have enough personnel to return and suppress him. Because of this, the commander cleanly evacuated the other nearby soul puppets and workers to reduce losses.
A very mechanical logical judgment. Joshua nodded; this was a compliment. On one hand, it saved him the time of cleaning up trash, and on the other, it allowed them to preserve their strength. Thinking this, the warrior strode into the medical area. He casually pointed at the floor and ceiling, and Steel Force shot out, paralyzing and eroding over ten linked hidden energy traps.
Since they didn't have time for a frontal confrontation, using traps to delay his progress was also a very wise judgment.
Entering the interior of the medical area, Joshua surveyed the monotonously decorated hall. The hall was spacious and clean. Along the edges of the walls were glass cabinets, filled with silver-white metal boxes. In the center of the hall, a few experimental tables were scattered, equipped with mechanical arms that seemed to be used for mixing chemical agents. At the end of the hall was a cold steel door, which should be the 'operating room' mentioned by the nameless technician.
Joshua's sensory devices could detect a faint smell of blood and disinfectant. He didn't pay it much attention. The warrior strode towards the operating room door. The door was locked. When it sensed someone approaching, it projected a light screen, seemingly requiring a specific soul wave to unlock. But how could Joshua have such a thing? Why would he need a key or a password? A warrior never needed them.
So, Joshua clenched his right fist, pulled it back, and then, cleanly, he threw a heavy punch, bringing with it the sound of air being torn.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three rapid and intense roars sounded in succession. After the three sounds, accompanied by the creaking of twisting steel, the incredibly sturdy steel door slowly fell backward, scattering a shower of ceramic tile fragments. Stepping over the door, Joshua entered the operating room. Inside, he could sense more blood, and more souls.
It seemed that because it wasn't activated, the operating room had no light source and was very dim. But the warrior's modified puppet eyes had built-in lighting. He turned on the light, scanning the interior of the operating room. Joshua saw many things he had anticipated.
Corpses. A large number of corpses. Incomplete, with brains hollowed out and souls stripped away.
In the center of the operating room were twelve operating tables arranged in three rows of four. On the tables, a bright blue magical light was flickering intensely. Joshua could tell at a glance that this blue magical light could draw human souls out of their bodies. On both sides of the operating room were two conveyor belts, piled with corpses. It was clear that when the conveyor belts started, they would transport the numerous children's corpses to the other end like an assembly line.
He didn't find the suspected 'doctors' or 'soul puppets,' and Joshua couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. But soon, he noticed something strange about the corpses. Extracting a soul from the body didn't require creating wounds, but these corpses were covered in wounds of various sizes, and not even in the same locations.
Some had their brains removed, some had no hearts, some had their arms cut open and arm bones taken, some had lost their eyes, and their ears, along with the inner ear cartilage, were also missing.
There was no pattern. Every corpse had wounds and missing body parts. After a moment of confusion, Joshua immediately understood.
"Superpower units..."
He murmured, then turned and walked back towards the medical hall. In the hall, Joshua approached the nearest glass cabinet. He shattered the cabinet door, which also required a soul password, and took out a silver-white metal box. Joshua pried open the metal box, which also needed a password, with brute force, and looked at what was inside.
It was a pair of eyes, floating in a glass jar filled with a pale yellow liquid, shimmering with a strange purple magical light.
"Just as I thought."
Joshua shook his head, his tone heavy. "So this is what they call a superpower unit... a part of an organ with transcendent traits."
These magic eyes were scanned by Joshua's Steel Force, and he already knew the ability they possessed. These were magic eyes that could directly modify human memory with a glance. They could even directly control wild beasts and insects, making simple-minded beasts serve them as masters for life.
Raising his head, the warrior looked at the walls lined with silver boxes, at least several thousand of them. Joshua felt a strange coldness spreading through the entire room.
Undoubtedly, souls were not the only thing being farmed by the soul puppets and the existence behind them. These children, continuously sent from the farming area, possessed another important resource worth anyone's effort to collect—transcendent organs.
Joshua's eyes swept over all the cabinets. With his unique perception, he could sense that these boxes contained leg bones that could make one as light as a swallow, robust hearts that could grant endless stamina, brains capable of using telekinesis, and special organs that could spew flames and ice.
These organs, if slightly transplanted or simply used as tools, could unleash effects comparable to magic scrolls or permanently fixed spells. Joshua even saw an arm bone that could allow its host to release a powerful ray magic. This ray magic, even in the Mycroft World, was considered quite threatening, difficult to use below the Gold-rank. But here, by simply transplanting this arm bone, the recipient would gain the equivalent of a terrifying magic spell that could be used at least six times a day.
But this was not the reason Joshua was so focused on these things.
Lowering his head, staring at the magic eyes before him, Joshua felt as if he were meeting the gaze of the eyes preserved in the nutrient solution.
The next moment, he reached out his hand. A silver light flickered in the center of his massive steel mechanical hand... At the same time, the light of the magic eyes in the glass jar began to rapidly dim. Soon, a barely visible purple 'particle' appeared in Joshua's palm.
Not just this magic eye. As the silver radiance in Joshua's palm grew larger and brighter, all the metal boxes placed in the cabinets throughout the medical hall began to shake violently, as if an earthquake were occurring. Then, within a few breaths, when the silver radiance in Joshua's palm was dazzlingly bright, reaching a point where it could be considered a leap to the heavens, granting the capital to walk the path of the transcendent, just like the young 'sorcerers' taken in by the Sky-Piercing White Tower. But in the Siberia World, this kind of 'luck' was truly a path to death. The souls of those lucky ones would be stripped away, their abilities would be collected, and their flesh, blood, bones, and skin would all become part of this enormous ranch. They were precious human resources, fleshy crops.
Joshua silently retracted the nebula formed by the Steel Particles in his hand... Each particle represented the death of a Siberian child who had gained a superpower but had their soul extracted and ability separated. In his hand, there were nearly ten thousand particles, meaning the deaths of nearly ten thousand Siberians who had just come of age, slaughtered like livestock.
And this was only the superpower units stored in this one medical hall. He didn't believe there was only one such facility, or that there were only this many storage cabinets.
But the warrior's heart was surprisingly calm at this moment. He wasn't even very angry, because Joshua knew that in this situation, anger was useless, even harmful. When a person's heart becomes flustered, that is when they are about to face defeat.
Joshua had a vague guess in his heart: the reason the Siberia World had transformed from a low-magic world into its current mid-magic state over a thousand years might be related to its location at the center of the Void Great Maelstrom, being scoured by countless Steel Particles... Perhaps even the fact that the Steel Serpent Siberia was expelled from its own body, and the world became what it is now, was inextricably linked to the existence of the Void Great Maelstrom.
He hadn't forgotten the purpose of his arrival in this world.
However, just as Joshua was about to turn and leave the medical area to check the situation in other parts of the garden area, the ground suddenly shook violently, even causing many cracks in the low, sturdy surface of the medical area. Then, an intensely loud explosion, louder than thunder, sounded from afar. It rapidly approached, stirring up waves of violent sonic booms in the air.
"What's going on?"
The warrior was quite surprised by this. He strode out the door, looking towards the direction of the explosion, which was the east. Joshua saw that in the eastern farming area, extremely far from the garden area, as if at the end of the experimental zone, colorful lights were flickering. A huge mushroom cloud was slowly rising from there, straight into the sky.
And at that moment, the originally white dome lights quickly turned red.
"Warning, warning: The enemy has broken through the fourth column defense line of the eastern farming area. The outer defense line has been completely breached."
Accompanied by the abruptly sounding alarm and the rapidly reddening warning lights, a completely emotionless, inorganic voice echoed throughout the entire garden area: "All guard puppets, assemble! Proceed to the eastern farming area to join the battle!"