Under Jenkins's wary gaze, Diwo struggled to sit up in bed. His eyes darted to the strange man in the doorway, then to the dark shadow looming behind him.
"Twin Demons? That must be you," he rasped. "I rember the reports. That's your signature ability. Spare , and I can... cough, cough... give you treasures that could rival a kingdom's wealth. I can even offer you Bestowals the Orthodox Churches have never even heard of."
"If you'd be so kind as to offer your neck," Jenkins countered, "I'll guarantee you a proper burial."
Jenkins volleyed back with his own impossible proposition, all the while wondering what aces this terminally ill man could possibly have up his sleeve.
On the far side of the room, a steam furnace was chugging away, its copper-colored pipes of varying thickness sprouting out in every direction. They crisscrossed the floor, snaked through the air, and clung to the ceiling, leaving almost no place to set one's foot.
A sharp crackling sound echoed from within the furnace—an unusual occurrence. The coal used for these machines was typically free of impurities, making such sudden flare-ups almost unheard of.
The room was stiflingly hot. Even with the door ajar, Jenkins could feel a sweltering heat building within him after just a few minutes. He glanced at Diwo's face, pale as death from his illness, and his suspicion deepened. What else was this man capable of?
"It's true I ca to Nolan without any of my crew," Diwo admitted, "but that doesn't an I'm without allies here."
"But there's no one lying in ambush nearby," Jenkins stated. "I've already made sure of that."
"No... cough, cough... I don't need henchn. I've made so friends in Nolan. Very powerful friends. I've lived... cough, cough... on the sea for so long, I never imagined you land-dwellers could push mortal ingenuity to such heights. They... they are the ones who have seen this world's future..."
They stared at each other across the room. As Diwo's final word faded, the furnace's fuel door sprang open with a deafening clang. Instantly, roaring flas flooded the cabin with light, casting the tangled ss of pipes as a sprawling, spiderweb-like silhouette against the walls.
Clang!
The high-pitched clang of his cane striking a tal pipe was enough to set one's teeth on edge. No matter how strong Jenkins was, his slender cane was no match for a steam pipe as thick as his own waist.
The trendous force sent him flying back into the corridor, his body slamming hard against the opposite wall. Jenkins looked up, his gaze fixing on the cabin. Diwo, hunched over and twirling a small gear between his fingers, watched him with a faint smile. The grin split his face, revealing gums where a tooth was missing.
Screech... Groan...
Beside him, the steam furnace began to stir, accompanied by a grating screech of twisting tal. A delicate pattern of interlocking gears materialized on its surface, and then the entire furnace seed to dissolve into a swarm of tiny cogs.
Yet it didn't fall apart. Instead, this new structure allowed it to contort and reshape itself amid a cacophony of grinding noise. Simultaneously, the pipes connected to the furnace began to exhibit the sa transformation. It was one of these newly animated pipes that had thrown Jenkins from the room.
As the gear in Diwo's hand began to glow, the furnace and its connecting pipes accelerated their transformation, the rhythmic clatter intensifying as they beca fully animate. The process bore a striking resemblance to Jenkins's own chanical Light ability, with one crucial difference: his power shattered targets into inert gears, while this... this brought them to life.
For so reason, Jenkins recalled a conversation with Captain Bincy. The captain had ntioned the ergence of a new kind of exotic species, the "String-Pulling Marionette," born from human creation. He had even made a bold prediction: with the rapid advance of the steam industry, it was only a matter of ti before creatures like "gear-n" appeared.
But this was undoubtedly not the work of the Orthodox Church of Creation and Machinery. It almost certainly belonged to the Gear Artisans' Association, who had been suspiciously quiet lately.
The chanical Heart, owned by the Artisans' Association, was the target of the pirate king Femishue the Destroyer. It stood to reason, then, that Femishue's Ocean Heart might be the Association's target in return—the two artifacts were rumored to be capable of absorbing one another. If that was the case, it wasn't a stretch to think that Diwo, who also coveted the Ocean Heart, might have struck a deal with the Association.
Click-clack-click...
The dense clatter of transforming gears filled the cabin. As the machinery shifted, jets of scorching white steam hissed from cracks in the pipes. With the furnace as its heart, the network of connected pipes was rapidly coming to life. More terrifying still was the realization that this network extended to every corner of the ship. The chanical behemoth Jenkins had to face was far larger than just the animated tal before him.
He rubbed his aching wrist as he pushed himself to his feet. There was no point in holding back now. Tossing his cane aside, he summoned the White Bone Holy Sword.
Crash!
A tallic fist, ford from three thick pipes twisted together, smashed through the cabin wall, creating a massive hole. The shimring tal, glowing with intense heat, was upon him in an instant. With no ti to dodge, Jenkins swung his sword. To his surprise, the blade t almost no resistance, slicing clean through the flying tal fist and splitting it in two.
It seed that while the tal had been animated, its physical properties hadn't changed.
A shower of tiny gears and bearings rained down, clattering across the floor. But he had only severed the very front of the makeshift fist; the rest of the tallic mass continued its relentless charge, hurtling toward him like a battering ram.
Clang!
He took a sharp breath, turning the flat of his blade to et the massive construct. The impact was jarring. His body shot backward uncontrollably, slamming into the wall. A coppery tang filled his throat, and he nearly choked on a mouthful of blood.
The imnse force pinned him against the wall, threatening to crush him into paste. The construct, made of searing-hot gears, suddenly shifted. An opening appeared in its surface, and a blast of white steam erupted outward.
The scalding gas shot straight for his face. With a pained effort, Jenkins flicked the blade of his sword. His [Frost Punch] ability didn't fully activate, but it was enough to keep the superheated steam from scarring his face.
But it gave him an idea. Gritting his teeth, he pushed back against the crushing weight of the tal, then opened his mouth wide and unleashed a torrent of brilliant, orange fla.
The fire engulfed the tallic arm pinning him, and with an angry hiss, the tal began to lt and warp.
As the pressure lessened, Jenkins braced his right foot against the wall and, with a final, desperate shove, managed to push the half-molten construct away.
But as the mangled block of tal clattered to the floor, his view was filled with an even more horrifying sight. More tallic pipes, jagged and bristling with sharp edges, were bursting through the cabin walls. Even the gears that had been scattered across the floor were now being absorbed back into the surging, chanical tendrils.
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