The abandoned hall was cold, dead silent, and filled with the stench of rusted metal and the burning smell of overloaded energy. The towering dome was lost in the lightless darkness. Broken pipes resembled the carcasses of enormous beasts, and exposed circuit boards flickered with dying sparks, casting ghostly shadows in the thick dust. The air was thin and biting, and every breath carried the scent of rust. Every heartbeat echoed like a drum in the utter silence.
Pei Du's body, covered in dark gold patterns, stood like a rooted rock, beside the central metal platform, stained with dried dark red blood and the shattered remains of his restraint suit. His molten-gold pupils, like two perpetually extinguished searchlights, coldly scanned the ruins where the nightmare of Source Key G-7 began and ended. Every broken restraint ring, every congealed bloodstain, silently denounced the coldness and cruelty of the "cradle." The Source Key's final, extinguished blue light seemed to linger on his retina, overlapping with the lifeless wreckage before him, forming a heavy, cold lead mass, a mixture of anger and respect, weighing heavily on his End Star Core.
His gaze finally fell back to his arms.
Xu Shuangyao lay quietly in his arms, patterned with dark gold. Her pristine white vine-covered dress was stained with dust and barely visible specks of dark gold blood (from his ruptured wound). Her face remained as pale as fresh snow, and the golden flame mark between her brows was completely dim, like a dust-covered star, devoid of any radiance. Her long lashes cast a fragile shadow beneath her bloodless eyelids. Her breathing was so weak that it was almost imperceptible, and each faint rise and fall strained Pei Du's tense nerves. The breath of life was like a candle in the wind, sustained only by the last embers of energy injected into the mighty earth veins of the City of Thorns after her soul mark suffered severe damage.
Pei Du slowly bent his knees, his movements, etched with dark gold lines, a gentleness almost reverent. He carefully placed Xu Shuangyao flat on the cold, hard metal floor. He raised his right hand, etched with dark gold lines, his palm hovering just an inch above her brow. A stream of extremely pure, gentle, spring-like energy, like an invisible trickle of final life force, flowed from his fingertips and carefully poured into the depths of the dim golden flame mark.
The moment the energy flow entered, Pei Du's golden pupils suddenly shrank!
He clearly "saw" that the depths of Xu Shuangyao's soul brand weren't simply dry. The once warm, majestic, and star-core-like source of planetary will was now covered in fine, spider-web-like cracks! At the edges of the cracks, lingering strands of extremely stubborn, dark blue energy embers, emitting a cold and chaotic aura! These were the most vicious remnants left behind when Source Key G-7 was forcibly severed, backfired along the thorny brand channel, and was forcibly annihilated by Pei Du! Like a cancer, they clung to the soul cracks, constantly eroding new vitality and preventing the brand from self-repairing!
Pei Du's final life energy, like the most delicate probe, attempted to envelop and dissolve these cold embers. However, these residues were incredibly stubborn, deeply entangled with the rifts in Xu Shuangyao's wounded soul. Each gentle attempt at dissolution felt like scraping against fragile glass, ineffective and causing Xu Shuangyao to unconsciously spasm in pain, her brow furrowed, and she let out a barely audible groan.
Forcefully increase the energy? No! Her soul at this moment was like thin ice covered with cracks. The slightest impact could cause a complete collapse.
Pei Du's hand, patterned with dark gold, hovered in mid-air. Deep within his molten-gold eyes, a cold, burning intensity surged like magma. For the first time, he felt a sense of restraint, born of the very nature of power. The order and annihilation of the end excelled at destruction, but struggled to delicately repair a wound so fundamental, so fragile, and so tainted by alien taint. He needed time, a gentler force, more in tune with the essence of life... But within the cold ruins of this "cradle," there was only deathly silence.
Just then!
Buzz——!!!
A faint but clear wave of thought, like a firefly lighting up in the darkness, suddenly emerged from the depths of Pei Du's consciousness!
It was the Source Key! It was the core data fragment that Source Key G-7 had forcibly stripped away and injected into him before its utter annihilation! This cold, massive database fragment, branded with the "cradle," seemed to be drawn to some shared, cold, chaotic energy (the embers left in Xu Shuangyao's soul crack) the moment Pei Du attempted to repair the wound. It activated itself!
The huge data stream washed over Pei Du’s core of consciousness like an icy waterfall!
Not attack! Rather… search! analyze! locate!
As if possessing a sense of its own, the cold fragments of data instantly locked onto the faint blue embers lingering within Xu Shuangyao's soul rift! Countless analytical processes raced through Pei Du's mind! The embers' energy composition, their corrosive properties, their entanglement with the soul rift... all this information was instantly analyzed and quantified!
Analysis Completed. Target: Low-Level Formatting Program Remnants. Characteristics: High Adhesion, Strong Mental Pollution, Energy Inertia. Weakness: High-Frequency Order Resonance Waves, Specific Frequency: Ω-7. A cold, emotionless message box popped up in Pei Du's consciousness.
High-frequency ordered resonance waves? Specific frequency Ω-7?
Pei Du's molten gold pupils instantly lit up! The fragments of the Source Key's data not only revealed the enemy's true identity (the remnants of the "Cradle" formatting program), but also provided a precise elimination plan! This required an extremely precise, ordered energy fluctuation of a specific frequency, like a key inserted into a lock, to disintegrate these stubborn embers without harming the soul itself!
Order…high frequency…resonance…
Pei Du's right hand, covered in dark gold lines, clenched violently! The core of the Apocalypse within his chest suddenly pulsed faster! The cold, pure force of annihilation, representing the ultimate order of the universe, surged, compressed, and condensed within the core! He attempted to adjust and "tune" his own violent Apocalypse power according to the frequency parameters provided by the data fragments—Ω-7!
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