Chapter 1 The Last Corridor

The last corridor leading to the engine room was stuffy and dim, the disturbing mechanical vibrations and roars ceaseless, like they were drilling into one's brain. The lights on the wall seemed to have encountered unstable airflow, the flames in the lampshades swaying and flickering.

But all of this was no match for the oppression brought about by the increasingly strong sense of disharmony and tension, and the dizziness caused by the gradual tearing of his mind.

Belazov controlled his footsteps, controlled his expression.

The closer he got to the depths of the Petrel, the more steady his pace became, and the more calm his expression, as usual.

Some crew members stopped in the corridor to talk. They were wearing strange leather... "overcoats," the skin on their faces was piled with wrinkles, and their voices sounded like buzzing noises.

Belazov walked towards them. His mind told him that these crew members were soldiers under his command, but he couldn't recall their names.

"General?" one of the soldiers came up to him, looking at Belazov curiously. "Do you have any orders?"

"Just checking on the situation in the engine room," Belazov replied calmly to the unfamiliar soldier. "Stay at your posts."

The soldier stared at him, then saluted and retreated. "Yes, General."

Belazov walked past them, his steps as steady as usual. He could feel the soldiers' gazes lingering on him for a moment, but they quickly turned away.

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

This even brought some terrible rumors—it was often said that pale lights were seen floating above the fence in the cemetery after nightfall, and that was the watchman's soul that had already left his body. Some also said that this terrifying old man would lie in a coffin himself at midnight, stopping breathing with the dead, and waking up when the sun rose the next day.

He locked the door to the captain's cabin and came to the safe by the desk, starting to turn the combination lock. His fingers grew paler from the force as the crisp clicks rang out.

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

He looked up again, looking at the operating steam engines and the hissing piping systems.

Belazov looked up and glanced at the mechanic.

The road leading to the cemetery was secluded and quiet, with few passersby, but even so, residents living in nearby neighborhoods often passed by this path.

These bizarre and terrifying rumors swirled around the cemetery and the watchman, but the reclusive and eccentric watchman never seemed to care—in fact, he hardly interacted with the residents nearby. Except for occasionally going out to buy some necessities like today, he spent most of his time in the watchman's cabin in the cemetery, and the only people he usually dealt with were the corpse deliverers from the church.

The knock was a little more urgent than before.

The old man looked up, looking at the cemetery gate, and suddenly stopped.

"The priests are not to be trusted... situation is out of control... Procedure Twenty-Two."

Belazov frowned slightly, reading several words from the mechanic's lip movements. Today's situation seemed a bit special.

The gas escaping from the steam pipes was tinged with blood, the edges of the slowly rotating gears were blurred and distorted, as if something was parasitizing this huge machine, replacing the original sacred steam with its soul filled with good intentions.

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

The machine was running very happily, even... happily to the point of being frenzied.

The hissing from the steam pipes seemed to be mixed with mumbled whispers.

They didn't like this watchman. Rather, they instinctively felt a trace of fear. This was not only because of the gloomy and eerie atmosphere of the cemetery itself, but also because of the old man's reclusive and indifferent personality—even in the entire cemetery area, compared with other watchmen who were also somewhat indifferent, this old watchman of Cemetery No. 3 could be described as the most daunting.

Belazov reached out towards the button, and almost at the same time, he heard a knock on the door: "General, are you in there? We have received orders from Frost, and we need you to handle it personally."

It was the adjutant's voice.

A trace of hesitation suddenly arose in Belazov's heart. "Fucking heretical scum!"

At the same time, in Frost City, far from Cemetery No. 3, the old watchman wearing a black coat and with a slightly hunched back was slowly walking back from the city.

The latter just responded to his gaze with a cold look.

The steam core was running at full power, and astonishing surging power was brewing in the spherical container. The complex piping system hissed on the ceiling of the engine room, and huge connecting rods and gears slowly turned in the steel frame at the end of the cabin.

They would unconsciously adjust their pace when they noticed the old watchman's figure, keeping a distance from the hunched, gloomy old man.

Next to the button was a small line of text: Procedure Twenty-Two, only for use in extreme circumstances.

To keep the living away from the world of the dead, the former should not have excessive curiosity, lest they be harmed, and the latter can enjoy peace after death, so that they can set off in peace. This is his responsibility.

What if he was wrong?

The machine was corrupted and in a state of desecration – this thought flashed through Belazov's mind for a second, but then it was blown away by the wind.

He turned and left the engine room, but did not go to any other cabins. Instead, he continued to maintain a calm posture after leaving the bottom corridor, and returned to his captain's cabin all the way.

"Let me see... the situation of the steam core," Belazov said, his eyes falling on the censer in the priest's hand.

It was like a restless soul, pushing those steel gears to spin rapidly, pushing the ship to sail towards the cities of the civilized world at its maximum speed.

What if there really wasn't anything wrong with the ship, and the problem was just him? He was suffering from severe pollution, resulting in cognitive and memory deviations, and even auditory and visual hallucinations all the way... If that was the case, then he was now going to bury an entire ship of people to accompany his nervousness!

There must still be clever humans among those soldiers—but Belazov had no way to distinguish them yet, and he had no time to contact or screen the eighty humans on board other than himself and the mechanic one by one.

He had been in this position for too long, to the point that he had even been infected with a trace of the "dead" temperament.

He had just gone to the distant streets to buy some necessities. It was now close to dusk, and he had to return to his "position" before the shift change.

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

"General," a mechanic with grease on his body suddenly came over and reached out to block the control rod. "Don't touch these. Machines are sometimes very fragile."

Belazov's eyes swept over the file storage slots, landing on the red button at the bottom of the box.

Procedure Twenty-Two?

Someone was injecting "impurities" into his mind!

Even more ear-splitting mechanical noise rushed towards him.

With the soft sound of the latch opening, the safe door opened.

This small meatball was gently swaying in the air, and a pale eye opened on it.

Soldiers came forward to greet him from time to time. Some of them gave him vague impressions, while others he couldn't name at all.

Belazov was stunned for a moment, and then he saw the mechanic turn sideways, wiggling his lips slightly while fiddling with the control levers.

A priest was shaking a censer in front of a valve. He suddenly turned his head and looked at the general who was walking into the engine room. The church badge pinned on his chest seemed to be stained with a layer of oil, making the sacred symbols on it blurred.

The mechanic knew the "heart" of this ship better than anyone else.

"Machine is possessed, cannot be shut down or destroyed."

"General?" The priest cast a curious gaze. "Why are you suddenly here? This place..."

Belazov was suddenly awakened by the knock on the door. He suddenly realized that those thoughts might not be in line with his personality... He was not the kind of person who would suddenly hesitate at the last step of an action.

Were they really his soldiers? Were they really members of the Petrel? Were they the hidden thing? Or were they some kind of minions? Had they noticed? Or were they on alert? Would these soldiers whose names he couldn't remember pounce on him in the next second?

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

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

But he still walked towards the control console of the steam core—even though this huge "steel heart" looked perfectly normal to him at this moment, he slowly reached out towards the control console.

Belazov no longer hesitated at all, and instantly pressed the red button.

After an extremely brief delay, a terrifying explosion swept through the entire ship—the mechanical clipper Petrel was instantly enveloped in flashes and flames, and was torn apart in the terrifying destruction brought about by the high explosives.

The wreckage of the Petrel, burning with raging flames, floated on the sea for a while, and was gradually pushed towards the northern sea by the currents. Then its floating began to reach its limit—this scorching wreckage began to sink rapidly, as if it was being dragged by some invisible force. Its sinking speed became faster and faster, and it finally disappeared completely from the sea.