Sovereign of the Ashes

The Steel Ruins lay at the very heart of this subspace secret realm.

It had taken Sein and the others more than a year to reach this place, and the journey could only be described as arduous.

Unlike most regions of the subspace secret realm, which were dominated by endless yellow sands, this area was a boundless wreckage of steel.

Rusted frameworks and collapsed structures stretched as far as the eye could see.

It was easy to imagine how many towering edifices once stood here, and how brilliant the technological civilization that built them must have been.

Now, only scattered remnants remained as silent witnesses to the former glory of the Eiyurant Papillon Civilization.

Guided by HALL-E, Sein and his group pressed deeper into the Steel Ruins.

This had once been the robot’s primary workplace and living area. Millions of years had passed, yet it had still not finished clearing the debris of this massive ruined city.

To completely clean such a vast expanse of ruins, no one knew how much more time HALL-E would require.

Life within the Eiyurant Papillon Civilization had existed as a trinity of sea, land, and air.

Beneath the Steel Ruins lay an even more expansive world.

The underground realm surpassed the surface in both scale and structural complexity.

After all, while the skyscrapers above had collapsed and decayed under countless years of erosion, many underground facilities remained relatively intact.

HALL-E’s modest dwelling was located along the outer perimeter of the Steel Ruins.

The reason was simple. Fierce sandstorms raged constantly in the surrounding regions, and for nearly a million years, HALL-E had rarely ventured beyond this boundary.

Its choice to avoid the heart of the Steel Ruins was just as practical. With the cleanup of the outer perimeter still unfinished, there was no reason to increase its daily commute by relocating deeper inside.

A small shack pressed against the side of a towering garbage mound served as HALL-E’s home.

Despite its humble appearance, the dwelling was arranged with care.

The space was small and cramped, yet everything inside was meticulously organized.

HALL-E had even gathered small, interesting trinkets to decorate the interior.

In one corner of the shack stood a lone silver flower, crafted from twisted steel, adding a touch of liveliness to the space.

Before Sein and the others could get closer to it, an extremely tiny figure suddenly leaped out.

It was an electronic cockroach, no larger than a thumb.

The tiny creature darted straight toward HALL-E, clearly harboring a trace of fear toward the newly arrived strangers.

This was an electronic cockroach that had awakened a rudimentary form of intelligence.

The fact that HALL-E had developed self-awareness had already surprised Sein, but he had not expected even such a tiny construct to possess intelligence as well.

However, due to its size and material, the electronic cockroach was unable to speak or translate.

It could only emit an extremely faint hissing sound produced by its electrical current. Only HALL-E, who had been by its side for millions of years, could understand what it was trying to convey.

During their time traveling together, Burning Flame had also become friends with HALL-E.

Noticing the tiny electronic cockroach retreating into the crevices of HALL-E’s metallic frame, she retrieved a small Energy Amethyst from her storage compartment.

Though it was small by her standards, the Energy Amethyst was still far too large for PAL, the electronic cockroach.

Still, the unique energy fluctuations radiating from the crystal caused PAL’s two metal antennae to twitch.

Summoning its courage, PAL leapt out and clung tightly to the surface of the Energy Amethyst, absorbing its energy in its own peculiar way.

A faint purple glow flowed from the amethyst into PAL’s body.

The electronic cockroach, originally no larger than a thumb, suddenly expanded in size.

At the same time, a dim red glow flared within PAL, and the cockroach began to sway unsteadily.

It looked either stuffed or drunk.

In the next second, it collapsed onto HALL-E’s mechanical palm. Its belly rose and fell in a steady rhythm, as though it had fallen asleep.

“Huh?” Sein, who had been observing the electronic cockroach closely, let out a soft gasp of surprise.

What caught his attention was not the mechanical design of the cockroach, but something far more unexpected.

Within its mechanical body, PAL seemed to hold a trace of the unique blood essence belonging to the biological beings of the Black Merlot Civilization.

This was not a purely mechanical cockroach at all, but a hybrid.

The faint red glow radiating from its body was the direct response of that blood essence.

Recently, Sein had explored numerous ruins of the Black Merlot Civilization and refined many batches of genetic mucus for Black Oblivion and the others.

As a result, he had a pretty solid understanding of the Black Merlot Civilization’s ancient lifeforms. There was no chance he would misidentify them.

Standing nearby, Gilbert, Grethel, and the others also stared thoughtfully at the electronic cockroach, which was now slowly drifting into sleep in HALL-E’s hand.

Sein took out a vial of highly concentrated genetic fluid from the Black Merlot Civilization.

As Black Oblivion and his cousins turned their curious gazes toward him, PAL’s metallic antennae suddenly twitched before it sprang back to its feet again.

When a single drop of the concentrated serum touched PAL’s surface, the crimson glow within its body intensified.

The already enlarged cockroach underwent yet another transformation, with the most immediate change being its newly sharpened metallic claws.

Compared to HALL-E, the garbage-cleaning robot, PAL looked far more suited for combat now.

“Interesting. It can undergo upgrades, yet it still retains traits of a living being made of flesh and blood...?” Sein murmured to himself.

“How was something like this created? The technology feels similar to that used by the Norman Federation’s androids,” he continued, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Naturally, no one could answer his question. HALL-E had found PAL deep within a trash heap; it had not created it.

As for PAL’s origin, such questions were far beyond HALL-E’s processing capabilities.

Though it frequently recalled its owner, it had never given any thought to how it had come into being.

Its memory contained no trace of such events.

After spending some time inside HALL-E’s dwelling, Sein found little of real value.

It was clear that HALL-E had not deliberately collected any fragments of world-class secret treasures scattered throughout the Steel Ruins.

The items inside its home were ordinary objects gathered over countless years, chosen simply for decoration.

After all, what difference was there between a fragment of a world-class secret treasure and a piece of scrap metal for someone who had lived alone within this secret realm for tens of millions of years?

Perhaps, in HALL-E’s eyes, they were all just “junk”.

“Take us to where you work and to the place where you found PAL,” Sein said to HALL-E.