Indescribably shrill screams echoed through the cage! Her frail body arched, twitched, and spasmed violently, as if thrown into a furnace of purgatory! The dark blue energy burn marks beneath her skin were like a lit fuse, instantly becoming blindingly hot! Countless tiny droplets of blood were forcibly squeezed out of her pores, instantly evaporated by the terrifying heat! Her long, silver-white hair stood upright like burning flames! Her eyes widened to their limit, and deep within her pupils reflected the cold metal ceiling, and... a blurry, constantly spinning projection of a cold, metallic vortex on the ceiling!
The core coordinates of the projection were like a brand engraved deep in her soul! Carrying boundless hatred!
"Stripping progress 15%... 30%... Energy core fluctuations abnormal... Suppression program activated..."
The cold electronic voice broadcast mercilessly.
Deeper pain washed over her! The probes piercing her body began to extract in reverse, forcibly stripping away some fundamental power deep within her body! Her body shrank at a visible speed, her skin clinging to her bones like a skeleton covered in skin! Only those eyes, filled with endless pain and overwhelming hatred, stared fixedly at the cold, swirling projection on the ceiling!
"Cradle... Stardust... Key..." She uttered a broken, curse-like mutter in extreme pain, "Hate... I hate... Everything... Destruction..."
At that moment, as if sensing the devastating hatred deep within her soul, the cold metallic vortex on the ceiling seemed to faintly... ripple? Like an invisible stone dropped into a calm lake?
The memory fragments came to an abrupt end!
Like a power source being forcibly cut off, the transmitted thought, filled with extreme pain and hatred, was instantly cut off! The cold, chaotic, corrosive energy flow within the Thorn Brand Channel seemed to have lost its core support, and was completely torn apart and annihilated by Pei Du's violent final annihilation force like fallen leaves swept by an autumn wind!
Within the passage, only Pei Du's cold, furious power of the End, and Xu Shuangyao's faint yet pure aura of life essence, slowly flowed. The light of the Thorn Brand quickly faded, returning to a gentle flickering state, and the burning sensation subsided.
Pei Du's hand, covered in dark gold patterns, trembled violently, and he pulled away from Xu Shuangyao's wrist as if struck by electricity. His molten-gold pupils contracted violently, and deep within them, a turbulent sea of thought surged! The silver-haired woman trapped in the cold metal cage! The inhuman torture! The hatred that pierced through her bones! And... in the final moments, the abnormal fluctuations in the projection of the cold metal vortex!
It was her! The formatted existence in the Hunter's memory fragments! She was still alive? Imprisoned deep within the "cradle," a "specimen" for the stripping away of higher-dimensional energy? What was the "key" she spoke of? Xu Shuangyao? Or... a star core?
What shocked Pei Du even more was that, in the final moments of the memory fragment's transmission, he clearly caught a glimpse! When the silver-haired woman's hatred reached its peak, triggering the fluctuations of the metal vortex projection, an extremely faint aura, yet identical to the cold, chaotic energy lingering deep within the cracks of Xu Shuangyao's soul imprint... was emitted like a beacon in the darkness!
The source! The true source of the icy, chaotic energy that the brand was consuming wasn't Xu Shuangyao herself! It was... the imprisoned silver-haired woman! Through some unknown, strange connection that transcended time and space, at the moment when Xu Shuangyao's soul was wounded and her defenses were at their weakest, it flowed back through the channel of the thorn brand...
"Uh..." Xu Shuangyao on the platform let out a faint moan, her furrowed brow seemingly relaxed a bit, and the spasms in her body subsided. After Pei Du forcibly annihilated the corrosive energy and severed the strange connection, the golden flame mark between her brows, though still dim, was no longer in danger of extinguishing at any moment, and her breathing steadied. The vast life energy channeled by the War Banyan Tree continuously nourished her depleted essence.
Pei Du slowly stood up, his body, covered in dark gold patterns, casting a cold silhouette in the soft light. His molten-gold eyes swept across Xu Shuangyao's pale, sleepy face, finally resting on the warm, flickering thorn mark on the back of his hand. Deep within the mark, a trace of the soul-shattering hatred emanating from that cold prison seemed to linger.
"Coordinates..." Pei Du's deep voice echoed through the silent medical center, as cold as the ice of deep space. He slowly raised his hand, his fingertips, covered in dark gold patterns, swishing across the void. A phantom star map, condensed purely by thought, appeared and magnified above his fingertips! The core of the star map was the azure light of Gaia, and in the unimaginably distant, icy star field, the shadow of a swirling, all-consuming, icy metallic vortex was clearly marked!
It was exactly the coordinates projected on the ceiling from the silver-haired woman's memory! It was also the coordinates that the stalker's fragment of thought pointed to—the "cradle"!
"Find it." Pei Du's voice was resolute, brimming with undeniable murderous intent. A cold fire burned beneath his molten-gold eyes. Deep within that fire, besides a deep hatred for the Cradle, there was also a touch of... a shared, destructive impulse stemming from the silver-haired woman's desperate memory.
However, just as the shadow of the star map on his fingertips was about to solidify—
Buzz——!!!
An extremely sharp, chaotic, and malicious spatial fluctuation, like a huge rock thrown into a calm lake, suddenly erupted from the depths of the southwest of the City of Thorns!
This fluctuation didn't come from an external attack, but... from within the city! It came from the deep nodes that were forcibly introduced into the earth vein network to buffer the turbulent energy of space!
Boom——!!!
The entire Emerald Tower—no, the entire City of Thorns—shaken violently, like a magnitude 10 earthquake! The soft light in the medical center was instantly replaced by a glaring red glow! A sharp alarm ripped through the newly restored peace!
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com