And so, Ciri got into the supercar Harry had created and rode with him toward Night City.
There was not much to see in the desert. The temperature was also scorching, but the inside of the car was perfectly comfortable, and Ciri did not sweat at all.
Because of that, she suspected there was some kind of temperature-control magic circle inside the car.
There were also sparse roads half-buried beneath the yellow sand in the Badlands. With Harry driving and magic supplying the vehicle's power, the car moved extremely fast, and in less than half an hour, they were already approaching Night City.
They stopped at a checkpoint, and several drones quickly scanned them. A few fully armed soldiers also came to their side and questioned them about various matters.
"Where did you come from? Where are you headed? What is your purpose? Please present your citizen ID!"
Of course, neither of them had citizen IDs from this world. Just as Harry was about to act, he suddenly noticed Ciri beside him snap her fingers. Immediately afterward, the soldiers who had come to inspect them went dazed for a moment, then nodded and left.
Harry asked curiously, "Is that a power from your world? It can confuse the mind?"
Ciri nodded, raised her head, and said with a bit of pride, "It's called a Sign. It's the signature power of witchers, allowing witchers who cannot cast spells normally to still control the power of magic!"
Harry nodded. Analytical runes rapidly analyzed it in his eyes, and then he said, "Mm, a rather clever structure, but it can still be improved."
Ciri's expression stiffened. She was indeed proud of possessing the power of a witcher, but she had forgotten that the person in front of her was an unimaginably powerful being.
Perhaps to him, this Sign system, perfected over thousands of years by mages and witchers, was nothing more than a somewhat novel but crude toy.
However, after learning that Signs could still be strengthened, joy appeared on Ciri's face. She asked expectantly, "To what extent can they be strengthened?"
Harry thought for a moment, then answered, "About ten times their original power, though the consumption would also increase severalfold."
Ciri: "!!!"
"Master, please teach me. I'll do anything you ask!"
…
After entering Night City, Ciri finally noticed the strangeness of this city.
However, she clearly did not think too much about it. She merely assumed that all of this was a unique feature of this world and praised it.
"What a special world. Almost everyone here has replaced their limbs with high-tech machinery. Even the most ordinary mortal here probably has combat power beyond a witcher master!"
Harry raised his head and looked toward the sky. After entering Night City, the enormous mechanical sphere in the sky became even larger, covering Night City like a canopy.
It constantly emitted an eerie aura, continuously polluting the people and transforming their flesh into machinery.
Harry said meaningfully, "Ciri, is there a possibility that this isn't a special feature of this world, but the scheme of some invader from beyond this world?"
Ciri: "???"
"Why do you say that?" Ciri asked in confusion.
Harry brushed his hand across her eyes. In the next instant, she also gained spiritual vision. When she looked toward the sky, her whole body froze.
"My God! What is that thing?"
The moment she saw the enormous mechanical sphere in the sky, Ciri felt the skin all over her body twitch. A silver metallic sheen even appeared on it.
Her skin was transforming into metal!
Harry tapped the space between her brows, helping her resist the erosion of the Demonic God's phantom above them, then explained, "A phantom of a Dimensional Demon God. It seems to control the authority of machinery and can transform everything into mechanical bodies. Don't look at it too much, or you'll be easily transformed."
"That's terrifying!" Ciri patted her heaving chest and took several deep breaths before finally calming herself down. Then she quickly asked, "Shouldn't we leave, then? This city is too strange and too dangerous!"
Harry shook his head and refused. "No need. This Demonic God projection is not that powerful. I can handle it."
Holy shit, he could even handle this?!
Even though Ciri had tried to imagine Harry's strength as high as possible, she realized that she had still underestimated him.
Wait…
Ciri suddenly realized something. If he could oppose a Demonic God, could Harry possibly not be human, but also a Dimensional Demon God himself?
Ciri did not dare continue thinking about it, because she kept feeling that the deeper her thoughts went, the stranger Harry's gaze toward her became, as if he could peer into her mind and read what she was thinking.
So Ciri hurriedly changed the subject and asked in confusion, "How are we going to deal with Him? Do we attack directly?"
Harry shook his head and smiled mysteriously. "Of course not. First, we need to find a native of this world. After all, every world is an enormous treasure, and we need a native to help us manage it."
Ciri: "???"
"You're planning to rule this world?"
Harry shook his head. "Of course not. I will help this world break free from the rule of its current rigid class system. In exchange, I only need some of this world's technology and the detailed process of its reform."
Ciri did not know what Harry wanted those things for, but she did not ask further and obediently followed him.
Right now, she was clinging to a powerful backer. Knowing too much would only be bad.
…
Soon, through the combined use of Observation Haki and the observation Runic matrix, Harry discovered a special person.
Unlike the others, whose bodies had completely mutated into mechanical forms, this person still had more than half of her body made of flesh and blood. Only her surface skin and spine had become mechanical.
Moreover, her mechanical body was different from the messy bodies of those others, which looked like inferior machines cobbled together. Hers was more like an Iron Man suit, but even more precise, and it possessed activity.
After discovering this special person named "V," Harry immediately judged that she was probably one of this world's main characters.
…
Watson, Little China.
Megabuilding H10, 8th floor, apartment 0716.
Harry knocked on the door, but there was no movement inside.
If an ordinary person encountered this, they might think the owner was not home. However, Harry clearly sensed a life aura inside the room. The owner was obviously home, but her condition seemed a little off.
She seemed somewhat depressed.
So Harry spent a few seconds carving a magic circle onto the door, allowing the magic circle to vibrate automatically and make sound, achieving automated door-knocking.
After Harry and Ciri ate a plate of fries and drank two iced coffees in the hallway, heavy footsteps finally came from inside the room. Immediately afterward, the door was roughly opened, and a dispirited young woman appeared in front of the two of them.
She was a young woman in her twenties. The skin all over her body appeared intact, as if she had not mutated. However, Harry knew that it was skin simulated by machinery. In reality, although she had not fully mutated, at least sixty percent of her flesh had already transformed into machinery.
Right now, she looked as if the last trace of life had been wrung out of her. Her once bright, colorful hair was now greasy and stuck to both sides of her face, while a few strands were messily tangled at the corners of her mouth.
The makeup on her face had long since become a mess. Her eyeshadow had smeared into a single blur, leaving two dark patches beneath her eyes.
Mascara had run down her cheeks with her tears, leaving streaks of black marks. Her once sharp, spirited eyes were now bloodshot, staring emptily ahead as if she no longer had any expectations for the world.
However, there was now a bit of emotion in those hollow eyes.
It was anger.
At this moment, V was furious. The world was about to be destroyed, and she had already decided to lie flat and enjoy the final stretch of her life.
But damn it, why were there still some damn people bothering her at a time like this?
V decided that if the people in front of her door could not give her a reasonable explanation, she would send them to meet Satan. Harry would have replied, "Don't threaten me with a good time."
After opening the door, V saw that there was a young man and a young woman standing behind it. Just as she was about to lose her temper, she suddenly froze, because she discovered that the skin on these two young people was normal human skin, not mechanically disguised skin like hers.
What surprised her even more was that these two had not been polluted and mutated into mechanical beings. Their bodies had not even undergone any modifications. They were two completely natural humans!
V said in disbelief, "Fuck! Who are you people? How do your bodies not have the slightest mechanical trace at a time like this?"
Harry raised an eyebrow. From V's words, he determined that she indeed knew information related to the mechanical sphere above them. So he smiled gently and said, "Mm, you can call us outsiders. We come from beyond this world. As for why we came to find you, it's to discuss saving the world."
V: "???"
"Fuck! Are you fucking messing with me?"
V had not expected the two people in front of her to not only disturb her rest, but also lie to her with such an unbelievable excuse.
If they had only said they were here to save the world, she might have believed them a little, because she understood this world's current condition. It could be said that the end of the world was only a few months away now.
But these two actually said they came from beyond the world. How was that possible?
Did they think she was a child?
Without hesitation, V prepared to pull the pistol from her thigh and give each of these damn bastards a shot. But what she did not expect was that the moment she was about to open fire, she suddenly discovered that her body could not move at all.
Meanwhile, that damn scar-headed man naturally walked into her room and even started fiddling with the TV remote to change channels.
Damn it, who exactly were they?
What kind of ability was this?
Were they netrunners?
Or could they really be these so-called outsiders from another world?
After V calmed down, Harry removed the magic placed on her. While watching the TV program ahead, he said calmly, "Can we talk normally now?"
Hearing that made V even angrier. She roared, "This is what you call talking normally? You suddenly broke into my home and kidnapped me!"
"Ahem…" Harry was a little embarrassed. "Uh, sorry, but you were about to pull a gun and shoot us just now. Anyway, that's not the important part. The important part is, do you want to save this world?"
At the mention of saving the world, V forcibly suppressed the anger in her heart and asked, "Are you really from other worlds?"
Harry snapped his fingers, and fire burned at his fingertips. With the facts laid out before her, V had no choice but to believe him.
With mysterious people from two other worlds joining in, hope rose in V's heart once again.
Perhaps they really could pull this world back onto the right track.
Once V believed him, Harry finally asked, "So what happened to this world?"
With hope rekindled in her heart, V began to cooperate. She grabbed her hair and recalled, "A month ago, Jackie and I were hired by the fixer Dexter DeShawn to steal a chip from the 100th floor of Konpeki Plaza.
"There, I witnessed Saburo Arasaka murder his son, Yorinobu Arasaka. I also saw him use his son's corpse as sacrificial material, drawing a magic circle with blood as the dye, and he actually managed to summon a mysterious mechanical demon!
"After that, Jackie and I were hunted down. Jackie… was killed. Later, Dexter DeShawn ambushed me too and nearly killed me.
"But maybe because I was the closest person to the sacrificial ritual, I immediately gained this mechanical body. After killing Dexter DeShawn in return, I escaped and have been hiding until now.
"After that, something unbelievable happened. A mechanical sphere emerged from Arasaka Tower, hovered in the sky, and kept growing larger over time.
"But aside from me, no one else could see the mechanical sphere.
"Then, as time passed, the residents of Night City gradually changed from bodies of cyberware and flesh into complete mechanical bodies. But their mechanical bodies were different from mine.
"As they turned into mechanical bodies, they gradually lost their emotions and completely became robots. One month after their entire bodies were fully mechanized, they even started disappearing.
"Now, compared to the beginning, only seven-tenths of Night City's residents remain!"
"I see." Harry nodded, thoroughly confirming that the mechanical sphere above them was indeed a Dimensional Demon God. It had been summoned into this world, granting the summoner at the ritual site mechanized immortality while preserving reason and emotion.
But the price of the ritual had not only been Yorinobu Arasaka's corpse. It also included the corpses of every other person in this world.
In other words, Saburo Arasaka had sacrificed this world in exchange for eternity for himself and V.
After learning the truth of the matter, Harry stood up and said to V, "Let's go. We'll solve this problem completely and save this world!"
Seeing that Harry was about to act immediately, V froze and asked, "How are we supposed to do that? You know that thing is an evil god, right? Forget the evil god, Saburo Arasaka's mechanical army alone is enough to kill us easily!"
Ciri, who had not spoken since the conversation between the two began, finally pulled her attention away from the TV and looked at V, comforting her.
"Don't worry. Harry is very strong. Even if he isn't a match for that evil god, he can still take us away."
In reality, even Ciri did not think Harry could defeat that evil god. However, based on Harry's mastery over time and space, he should be able to take them and escape from the evil god's grasp… right?
Harry did not respond to V's doubts. The facts would prove his strength for him.
…
The three of them left the building and headed straight toward Arasaka Tower.
Along the way, it seemed Harry and Ciri's flesh-and-blood bodies drew the attention of the passersby, so the mechanized pedestrians all stared fixedly at the three of them.
Just as Harry's group was about to reach Arasaka Tower, a piercing siren suddenly rang out.
V looked toward the direction the siren came from and said in shock, "Holy shit, MaxTac!"
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