The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 50

The sound of the steam core suddenly rose in pitch.

Perfit turned his head and saw that Belfast had pushed the power output of that steam knight armor to its limit.

After maintaining low-speed standby for most of the day, the residual calorific value of the compressed anthracite in the furnace was no longer sufficient to support long-term high-power operation, but Belfast clearly judged the current situation as an urgent threat in her differential engine logic.

Driven by steam pressure, the hydraulic linkage emitted a dull metallic hum, and two thick, rapid plumes of white mist shot out from the exhaust grille on the back of the armor. The teeth of the chainsaw sword finally began to rotate—at first slowly, then faster and faster, the boundary between the teeth blurring into a grayish-white band of light as it rotated at high speed.

Belfast stepped past her, her massive metal feet shattering a patch of frozen earth, and she crashed into the infected swarm in the crevice at a speed completely disproportionate to the size of her armor.

The chainsaw sword swept horizontally from left to right, the hoarse cutting sound drowning out all the gunshots and shouts on the battlefield. The infected who were squeezing out of the gaps were cut in half at the waist by this sword. The upper and lower halves fell to the ground at the same time, and black blood splattered on her breastplate, instantly evaporating into a cloud of charred black mist on the metal surface due to the high temperature.

She stomped on the head of the nearest infected, then turned and rammed another infected that was trying to go around her with her left shoulder. The ram on her shoulder armor dented the infected’s chest cavity, sending it flying backward and crashing onto the frozen ground. It twitched twice and then lay still.

In a short while, the infected in the front row that had rushed into the gap were wiped out. The corpses piled up at the narrowest part of the gap formed a temporary flesh barrier, allowing infected who tried to squeeze in from behind to be killed one by one by the chainsaw sword as they climbed.

But the casualties have already occurred.

Perfit loosened one hand from the handle of his cane and strode toward the clearing that the knights had temporarily cleared on the inner side of the position.

There were at least a dozen torn corpses lying on the ground. Some had their throats bitten off, some had their chests ripped open, and there was a young Ross soldier whose abdomen had been ripped open with a huge gash, his intestines spilling out and freezing to the ground. He was still in the position of stabbing an infected person in the eye socket with a bayonet before he died.

His bayonet was still stuck in the head of the infected man who had been beheaded by the knights, the tip of the blade protruding from the back of his head, frozen white.

More than twenty soldiers knelt or sat on the other side of the open space. Some covered the bite wounds on their forearms, while others had scratches on their shoulders from which blood that had begun to turn black.

Rahman crouched between them, used his dagger to cut open the sleeve of a wounded soldier, revealing a forearm from which black veins were beginning to emerge, then looked up and silently shook his head at Perfit.

The infection in these people has entered its early stages—after the divine abomination was sealed, Perfit's perception of the filamentous things became more acute than ever before. She could feel the black filaments slowly spreading deep within the wounds, not yet invading the deep organs, but time was running out for these people.

"Gather them around the magic circle," Perfit said to Shabel, his voice still steady. "First, stop the bleeding. Tie a tourniquet tightly around the wound near the heart, then rinse the area around the wound with hydrogen peroxide."

"I'll perform the stripping technique after I regain my mental strength. For now, let's stop the bleeding. Judge—how much longer can you hold on?"

Sabel did not answer, but simply opened the Book of Words, placed her hand on the page, and began to softly recite the Requiem Prayer.

Her face was as white as paper, and her lips were cracked and bleeding, but her voice remained steady and clear as she recited the scriptures.

A faint golden light flowed from between her fingers, which were resting on the pages of the book, and covered the foreheads of the infected soldiers one by one, temporarily suppressing the filamentous substance's corrosive effect on their souls.

Perfit didn't look at the wounded anymore. She knew she couldn't devote her remaining energy to treating them.

She walked to the firing port on the wall just in front of her and looked out through it.

Night had completely fallen, but the wilderness was not yet plunged into utter darkness. The snow reflected the faint moonlight seeping down from above the clouds, illuminating the entire horde of corpses as a grayish-white, writhing hell.

The earthen cone formation was almost flattened—only a few of the dozens of huge, spiked earthen cones were still standing; most had their tips broken off by repeated impacts, or simply collapsed onto the frozen ground, to be trampled underfoot by the subsequent influx of infected.

After the trenches were filled in, the horde of zombies surged directly to the base of the ramparts, and the front row of infected could almost touch the outer wall of the ramparts with their bare hands.

The horde of corpses behind them still stretched as far as the eye could see.

Can't wait any longer.

Perfit closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into the depths of his heart lake. In the heart lake, the Emerald Book still floated on the surface, its second page emitting a verdant glow.

The potion she had taken had already taken effect, restoring some of her mental strength. Although it was not enough to support a magic array of the same scale as before, she now only needed a passageway.

She mentally considered several escape plans.

The first method is to use earthen cone formations to slam into the zombie horde again, pushing the infected in front of the barrier back a distance, and then let the team rush out during the gap.

However, the density of the zombie horde was too high, and the gaps created by the earthen cone formation could only be maintained for a short while. Given the current size and fatigue of the team, it would be difficult for them to pass through in such a short time.

The second method involves using massive explosive alchemy to create chaos and attract the infected's attention, then breaking out from the opposite direction.

However, there is no terrain along this route that can provide cover. Even if the infected are temporarily lured away, the wilderness is still full of roaming hordes of corpses, and they will be surrounded again before they can run far.

Then there's the third type.

She didn't think of this solution immediately because it required her to do something she had never tried since she came to this world.

It's not about changing the shape of a small patch of ground, or creating earthen walls or spikes, but about causing the frozen soil of an entire area to lose its solid rigidity in a short period of time, turning it into a soft, quicksand-like substance under the influence of gravity, liquefying the entire soil, swallowing everything on the ground, and then re-solidifying it.

Alchemy of this scale can only be theoretically deduced by any alchemist. To actually activate it means being prepared to consume all one's mental energy and face unpredictable consequences.

Perfit opened her eyes and took out the last dose of mental energy restoration potion she had prepared in the Langdon laboratory before leaving from her medicine bag.

She had originally planned to take it after breaking through to prepare for possible future attacks by infected individuals, but now there is no "later," only "now."