Chapter 101 Still eating? Take them away!
Ten breaths.
For an ordinary person, it's just the time it takes to take two deep breaths.
For a soldier like Cheng Gan, that's enough time for her to deliver three fatal blows or replace a magazine.
For Zhou Jue at this moment, these ten breaths represent the entire duration of her race against death.
Without the slightest hesitation.
The moment the old tree roared, Zhou Jue closed his eyes and focused all his attention on his own sea of consciousness.
There is no way out, and there is no need to choose again.
The moment Cheng Gan said "I'll be with you" without hesitation, Zhou Jue's greed for "immense wealth" was extinguished by her own hands.
Wealth and honor are precious, but life is more valuable. For the sake of comrades, however, both can be cast aside!
What's more, this wealth is poisonous.
She didn't want her hard-earned wealth to eventually become a mobile biohazard breeding ground.
"Buzz—"
The scene in the sea of consciousness was very different from before.
No longer is that stable and vast starry sky; at this moment, the sea of consciousness is simply a pot of boiling, chaotic data porridge.
The system was devouring and merging the "core data" that had been absorbed from the US base.
[System upgrade... 99% system usage...]
[Buzz...buzz...core module...offline...]
The sporadic, intermittent system notifications flickered in the depths of her consciousness, like an old radio with a faulty connection.
Zhou Jue's heart sank.
As expected, the system was unreliable.
On the other side, the "Starry Secret Box" that emitted a faint light was quietly floating there.
But at this moment, it gave Zhou Jue a completely different feeling.
In the past, the Starry Casket was like an obedient, emotionless tool. Now, it's like a hungry beast awakened by a feast.
Waves of greed, longing, and eagerness emanated from the secret box itself, constantly being transmitted to Zhou Jue.
Eat it!
[Origin... Energy... Delicious...]
[Devour! Devour! Devour!]
That wasn't language, but a more direct, instinctive impulse. Zhou Jue felt as if she were standing in front of a ferocious beast that had been starving for thousands of years, and in her hand, she was holding a top-quality meal that the beast couldn't refuse.
Now, not only can she not give the meat to it, she also has to force this ferocious beast to destroy the meat with its own hands!
This is incredibly difficult!
"Shut up!" Zhou Jue used all his strength, twisting his will into a single rope, and slammed it fiercely against the desire of the Starry Sky Box: "Listen to my command!"
【Hungry……】
The Starry Box's response was simple and blunt, even tinged with a hint of grievance.
Zhou Jue almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
What time is it?! You're still acting cute here!
"Listen to me! Destroy it, and I'll find you something even better to eat later!" Zhou Jue could only shout in his mind like he was coaxing a child.
Just then, a pure, gentle green light, carrying the fragrance of grass and trees, pierced through the data storm in her sea of consciousness and projected precisely into the core of her consciousness.
It's an old tree!
The point of light rapidly unfolded, transforming into a three-dimensional, ever-changing star map. At the very center of the star map, an extremely tiny yet undeniably bright coordinate point was pulsating violently.
That is the very essence of the "Heart of Life"!
"Now!" The old tree's aged yet urgent voice resounded deep within her soul.
"Lock it down! Think of 'decompose'! 'Erase'! Make it disappear from this world completely!"
Zhou Jue dared not delay any longer and immediately focused all his attention on the green coordinate point.
Then, she gave the most difficult command of her life to the Starry Secret Box.
"Starlight Casket! Target locked! Execute... 'Disintegrate'! 'Erase'! 'Return to Nothingness' commands!"
[Returned to... ruins?]
The Starry Mirror Box seemed to pause for a moment.
Instinct and command were completely opposite; for the first time, that frantic hunger stopped.
Outside his sea of consciousness, Cheng Gan was experiencing the longest few seconds of his life.
The green light emanating from the old tree formed an absolute domain approximately twenty meters in diameter. Within the domain, all was calm. Outside the domain, demons roamed wildly.
Those twisted trees had completely transformed into monsters. Painful, wailing faces grew from their trunks, and countless sharp branches, like arms, lashed and rammed against the green light shield.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Each impact caused violent ripples in the light shield.
The old tree's massive body trembled slightly. The projection of the Heart of Life, which served as the "controller," on its chest was dimming at a visible speed.
"Little girl... I can't hold on much longer..." The old tree's voice was weak for the first time.
"roar!"
A monster made of countless vines and silt broke through the weak point of the light barrier and pounced in!
It resembles a cheetah in shape, but its size is comparable to a truck. Its body is covered with barbs and venomous fungi, and its open mouth has no teeth, but instead rings of sharp blades that rotate like a shark!
Cheng Gan didn't even have time to remind Zhou Jue.
Her body reacted faster than her brain!
Instead of retreating, she advanced, sliding forward to meet the monster, her body pressed extremely low, almost touching the ground.
In the instant she brushed past the monster, she switched her assault rifle to single-fire mode.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three crisp bursts of fire.
Three bullets, arranged in a triangular pattern, accurately struck the core of the monster, a faint red dot of light!
That's the monster's core!
"Awooo—!"
The monster let out a shrill scream, and its massive body collapsed with a crash, turning into a puddle of black smoke and mud.
Without even glancing at the results, Cheng Gan immediately turned around and stood in front of Zhou Jue again, his eyes scanning warily at the restless monsters outside the light barrier.
Her forehead was covered with fine beads of sweat.
The monsters here are too bizarre. They have no fixed weaknesses; their only weakness seems to be the energy core within their bodies.
But the core position is uncertain.
"Xiao Jue! Hurry!" she growled.
She could feel that the old tree's vitality was rapidly slipping away.
The light shield could shatter at any moment!
Within the sea of consciousness.
Zhou Jue's will and the instinct of the Starry Secret Box were locked in a final struggle.
[Command...conflict...]
[Instinct: Devour...]
[Command: Return to Ruins...]
Zhou Jue felt like his head was about to explode: "I order you to execute 'Return to the Void' immediately!"
[Command 'Return to Nothingness'... Begin analysis... Decompose, erase, reduce to nothingness...]
On the ancient surface of the Starry Secret Box, the intricate patterns began to rearrange and recombine in a completely new and eerie way at this moment.
An aura, even more terrifying, ancient, and unreasonable than when it "devoured," slowly awakened from the depths of the secret box.
It was a kind of... absolute "nothingness".
It was as if, the moment it appeared, everything around it would lose its meaning and turn into the most primordial void.
It's done!
Zhou Jue was overjoyed.
However, just as the Starry Secret Box was about to aim at that green coordinate and unleash this ultimate attack!
[WARNING! WARNING! System upgrade encountered an error!]
[The "core silver-blue data stream"... is out of control!]
"boom--!"
The core data that was being absorbed by the system seemed to be stimulated by something, broke free from all restraints, and crashed hard into the "Starlight Secret Box" that was being activated!
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