The Mechanic(bl)

Chapter 87 - Boundaries (1)

"That's all fine. We have an engineer in town too." Todd turned back to one of his men, "Go find Chalita and have her prepare what he wants."

........................

The whole town of Rhino Horn was badly damaged, with many houses burning down. People brought in a sprinkler truck to try to put the fires out and there was chaos as some people who couldn't wait for the sprinkler truck kept going back and forth with buckets of water themselves. Diego walked in front with the broken Enoch on his back, followed by Zhang Xun and James, through the smoke that looked like a war was still going on, and there were still bodies lying on the ground that hadn't been collected yet, including young girls and teenagers of about 17 or 18 years old with their heads lying on the ground, and old men of about 70 or 80 years old with cloudy eyes and their lower bodies missing.

Zhang Xun felt his stomach turn sour and hastily turned his eyes away, not daring to look any further. James cursed in a low voice behind him, "Why is Eden killing these children and old people?"

"Hmph, they call themselves the Edenites, but they actually have nothing to do with Eden. They spout about Eden creating a heaven for all people in the future and putting the consciousness of all believers in it. As for those who don't believe in Eden and disobey its orders, they will have no way of entering heaven and will be left in the world that is about to be destroyed. They also developed a whole bunch of commandment rules and stuff of their own and then said that all those who didn't follow them were immoral heretics and were to be 'purified' by them." Todd shrugged his shoulders, "We exiles are their number one target."

Zhang Xun had heard of Edenism before, but hadn't come across it this close. He only knew that those believers regarded Eden as a god, but he never thought that they would do such crazy things in the name of an artificial intelligence.

And the so-called "heaven for all consciousnesses" seemed not to be empty talk?

From what Zhang Xun knew about Adam, Eden would never have ordered these so-called worshippers to commit such a senseless act of slaughter that wouldn't help mankind to achieve happiness, but where had those believers heard the rumours? And who was funding them?

This kind of killing and looting in the name of Eden seemed like a deliberate attempt to smear Eden and create an image of an evil super robot controlling the world and killing people, as described in countless literary works.

Zhang Xun recalled the whole incident, risking the sacrifice of one server to send Adam into Lost Paradise, but why? Why create a completely separate individual? Was it really just to understand human nature better?

There were rumours from many years ago that there would be a super virus that would completely destroy Eden. This claim has been popular for countless years and anyone who had ever heard it knew it was just an alarmist rumour. However, assuming that such a thing really existed, it could infect all other servers through any one of them. If Eden split itself off and disconnected, then if its main body was destroyed, the individual that was split off could still survive ......

Did Eden have an enemy, one they hadn't yet discovered?

The leader of Rhino Horn Town sat in a chapel with red hair similar to Todd's, the upper half of her body clad only in a halter top, her snow-white arms wrapped in thick bandages with patches of blood seeping through.

"Anya!" Todd called out.

The red-haired woman turned back to reveal a bright and compelling but fierce face with eyebrows that bore a resemblance to Todd's. Her dark blue eyes swept a faint glance at Todd and her eyes then fell on Zhang Xun and the other three.