The moment the medical pod door opened, it was as if a passage to the polar abyss had been opened. A chill several times stronger than before, mixed with the star power emanating from Xie Chen's berserk soul, filled with pain and destruction, instantly engulfed Su Nian, who was rushing towards them, like a tangible ice storm!

"Well--!"

Su Nian felt her thoughts, senses, and even soul freeze the instant she came into contact with this power! Her vision was filled with a blinding, chaotic white light and icy blue, and she heard the shrill screams of rampant energy and Xie Chen's suppressed, beast-like howls. Every inch of her skin, every nerve in her body, felt excruciating pain as if pierced by countless ice spikes and torn apart by the violent energy!

She felt as if she had been thrown into a high-speed meat grinder made of pain and cold!

[Host!!! Soul Link... Overload! Forced Disconnection... Failed!]

[Ice Soul Power... passively activated... defense mechanism... activated... but... cannot... completely resist...]

[Warning! Warning! Your consciousness... is about to be... invaded... and assimilated...]

The alarm sound of 088 shone so sharply in my mind that it was almost distorted, carrying a sense of despair that the system's core was about to collapse.

No…this can’t go on! In excruciating pain, Su Nian’s remaining consciousness cried out in despair. Xie Chen…will be utterly destroyed…and so will I…

Ling Mo watched in horror at the control panel. The energy readings within the base had skyrocketed, piercing alarms blared, and many instrument screens flickered before going completely black. He tried to activate a stronger suppression field, only to find that the force field generators overloaded and burned out the moment they touched the edge of the mixed energy!

"Damn it! Their energy level is too high! Technological means can't suppress it at all!" Cold sweat beaded on Ling Mo's forehead. He looked at Su Nian, who was enveloped by the ice storm, her figure appearing and disappearing as if she might shatter at any moment. For the first time, a sense of helplessness and frustration appeared in his eyes.

Just as Su Nian felt she was about to be completely torn apart by the violent torrent of energy, and her consciousness was about to sink into eternal silence—

The starry ice and snow brooch that she had been clutching tightly in her hand, almost frozen to her flesh, suddenly emitted a strange, no longer cold, pulse with a hint of warm power!

This force was weak, yet exceptionally tenacious, like a candle flame flickering in a storm but never going out. It traveled upstream along the forcibly activated, almost broken soul link between Su Nian and Xie Chen, gently yet firmly transmitting its power.

This is not confrontation, not suppression, but... a call, a resonance originating from the same roots, carrying endless sorrow and comfort.

At the same time, Su Nian's passively activated Ice Soul Power, used for self-protection, seemed to find its direction under the guidance of the gentle power from the brooch. It was no longer unconsciously resisting and freezing, but began to try to "understand" and "embrace" the star power from Xie Chen, which was full of pain and violence.

Ice is a symbol of ultimate silence and inclusiveness.

When Su Nian gave up resisting and allowed her Ice Soul Power to follow the guidance of the brooch, like the gentlest stream, slowly seeping into the raging star storm, a miracle occurred.

The chilling pain that was enough to tear the soul apart seemed to have lessened slightly.

It is no longer a head-on confrontation, but rather like ice and snow melting away all things, embracing and soothing the restless stars in a way that is almost "assimilated".

Su Nian's blurred "vision" began to change. She no longer merely felt the impact of energy, but instead "saw" a scene—

It was a boundless, shattered ice plain. The sky was a distorted, cracked, dark red, like congealed blood. Countless enormous, star-studded fragments stood like tombstones on the ice plain, each radiating endless sorrow, anger, loneliness, and… a destructive urge. And at the heart of the ice plain, a blurry, cracked figure made of dark golden energy clutched its head, emitting a silent roar. Its power was uncontrollably destroying everything around it, including itself.

This is Xie Chen's sea of ​​consciousness! It is a reflection of the core of his shattered soul!

That icy plain—was it the lingering echo of her icy soul power left behind when they perished together ten thousand years ago? And those fragments of stars—were his scattered origins, each carrying its own unique pain!

"Xie Chen..."

Following the gentle wisp of icy power, Su Nian's consciousness struggled to coalesce into an extremely faint phantom within this shattered sea of ​​consciousness. She called out to the raging figure at the center of the icy plain.

The figure trembled violently and slowly raised its head. It was a face completely distorted by pain and chaos, with only the eyes vaguely recognizable as Xie Chen's outline, now filled with a maddening storm of stars.

"Get...out!" he roared, and with a wave of his hand, a torrent of stars powerful enough to annihilate souls blasted towards Su Nian's phantom!

Su Nian did not dodge, nor could she dodge. She simply stood there, unreservedly transforming the gentle power transmitted by the brooch, along with all her thoughts—that pursuit that transcended the world, that determination not to see him suffer alone any longer, that emotion that perhaps had long surpassed the mission and which even she herself had not clearly recognized—into the purest form of will, and faced that destructive torrent.

"I...I won't leave."

Her voice was soft, yet it seemed to carry the power of some kind of law, piercing through the raging energy and echoing clearly across the shattered ice plains.

The imagined annihilation did not occur.

The moment that torrent of stars touched her mind, it was like a raging beast being soothed by a familiar aura. Its speed suddenly slowed down, and the violent energy began to become docile, eventually transforming into points of brilliant but no longer aggressive starlight that lingered around her illusory figure, as if a lost child had finally found its way home.

The raging figure in the center of the ice field froze. The mad storm in his eyes seemed to subside for a moment, revealing a deep-seated confusion and vulnerability, like that of a wounded young beast.

“…Nian?” A faint voice, filled with uncertainty and immense pain, escaped from his mouth.

“It’s me.” Su Nian’s illusory figure walked towards him step by step. With each step, the icy plain beneath her feet seemed to become more stable, and the restless star fragments around her quieted down slightly. Her icy soul power, like the best adhesive, began to slowly nourish and repair this world of consciousness on the verge of collapse.

She walked up to him, stretched out her ethereal hand, and gently touched his cracked, energy-based cheek.

“Don’t be afraid,” her voice was gentle yet firm, carrying a power that could soothe any wound, “I’m here. This time, I’m with you.”

Xie Chen stared blankly at her, the madness and pain in his eyes receding like the tide, replaced by a huge, almost overwhelming sense of grievance and dependence. He suddenly reached out and tightly embraced Su Nian's illusory figure, burying his face in her shoulder, his body trembling violently, like a child who had finally found a safe haven after suffering so much.

"It hurts...so much..." he choked out, his voice breaking into a broken whisper, "It hurts...everywhere..."

Outside, Ling Mo stared in disbelief at the strange phenomena inside and outside the medical pod.

The violent energy storm that had nearly destroyed the entire base was subsiding and receding at a visible speed. The raging chill returned to Su Nian's body like a docile pet, the frost that had formed around her body quickly melted away, and her icy blue eyes returned to their normal color. However, her face was still frighteningly pale, and she slumped softly beside the medical pod.

Inside the medical pod, the blinding light between Xie Chen's brows completely faded, and the cracks became shallower, almost invisible. His tightly clenched hands relaxed, his body stopped trembling, and his breathing became steady and long, as if he had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep. The various readings in the medical pod quickly returned to a safe range, even more stable than when he first entered.

The piercing alarms within the base ceased, leaving only the faint hissing sound of equipment cooling down after being overloaded.

"It's...it's over?" Ling Mo rubbed his eyes in disbelief, quickly walked to the medical pod, and carefully checked the data and Xie Chen's condition. "The energy fluctuations are stabilizing...the rule repulsion reaction has greatly weakened...the soul fluctuations...are calm?! How is this possible?!"

He turned his head sharply and looked at Su Nian, who was unconscious outside the cabin. His eyes were filled with shock and fanaticism that almost overflowed!

"What on earth did she do?! That wasn't a simple energy neutralization... it was... a profound intervention and healing at the soul level?! My God... the value of these two 'anomalies' far exceeds my imagination!"

He carefully crouched down and checked Su Nian's condition. She had simply fainted from exhaustion, and her soul seemed somewhat weak, but there was nothing seriously wrong.

Ling Mo looked at the two people lying side by side—one sleeping peacefully inside the cabin, the other unconscious outside. There seemed to be an invisible, strong bond between them.

He stroked his chin, his eyes gleaming with calculation and excitement.

"It seems my 'investment'... might have an astonishingly high rate of return."

He stood up and began repairing the damaged equipment at the base, while simultaneously strengthening the perimeter's defenses and security.

However, neither Ling Mo, nor the unconscious Su Nian and Xie Chen noticed—

Deeper within the base, in a hidden data node that even Ling Mo might not fully grasp, an encrypted data packet containing the core spectrum of the energy storm was being silently copied, compressed, and then slowly transmitted out through an extremely concealed quantum channel independent of all networks known to Ling Mo…

The other end of the signal points to the top floor of a skyscraper in the city.

A man in a bespoke suit, his face hidden in shadow, looked at the strange spectral data he received on the screen, which represented an extremely high energy level, and a cold, all-powerful smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Found you... the 'key'."

(End of Chapter 85)