At the very moment the Chaos Hand tore through liquid time, Lin Yue plunged the Star Scepter into the ground without hesitation. Instantly, the star tracks wrapped around the staff ignited, erupting with millions of dazzling silver rays. These rays streaked across the sky like meteors, quickly outlining a complete map of the Milky Way.
However, the fragments of the star map, tainted by chaos, began to spin in the opposite direction, as if trying to break free from the map's constraints. At the same time, the black mist seeping from the meteorite's core coiled around it like a venomous snake, engaging in a thrilling and fierce collision with the golden spell unleashed by the codex.
In this thrilling collision, the surface of the barrier exploded with endless space-time thunderstorms. These thunderstorms roared like raging waves, sweeping over and filling people with endless fear and despair.
"Calico Cat! Quickly use your collar to analyze the star map frequency!" Lu Li's voice sounded a little anxious amid the thunderstorm. His six afterimages struggled to reassemble in the thunderstorm, the light network originally composed of golden codes now riddled with holes by the chaotic energy.
Hearing Lu Li's call, the calico cat responded immediately. Its gear collar emitted a dazzling blue light, and the data stream seeping out from between the gears resonated strongly with the star map like a spirit.
Under this powerful resonance, the originally distorted liquid time began to solidify, eventually forming crystal clear star sand. These star sands were like stars in the universe, shimmering with faint light, giving people a dreamlike feeling.
Seeing this, the calico cat swiftly leaped onto the top of the scepter and used its sharp claws to firmly grasp the pulsating chaos crystal core in the meteorite's core. However, just as it was about to remove the crystal core, it was surprised to find that countless desperate faces had emerged on the surface of the crystal core. These faces were distorted, as if telling of endless pain and sorrow.
"These are... the consciousness of a devoured civilization!" The calico cat's pupils constricted violently, and its crystal core suddenly exploded, unleashing a torrent of consciousness swirling with corrosive chaotic energy. Lin Yue swiftly wielded the threads of time, weaving the light of seventeen-colored gemstones into a cage, attempting to trap the fleeing fragments of consciousness. But the moment the fragments touched the threads, countless fragments of memories flooded her mind—mages of the magical world reduced to stone statues in the entropy, the mechanical heart of the steampunk universe ceased beating, and the digital soul of Cybertron was torn into garbled code.
"So the essence of chaos is the resentment of civilization's demise..." Lin Yue's voice was filled with disbelief and fear, as if she had just uncovered a terrible secret. Her body trembled uncontrollably, and the thread of time began to twist uncontrollably, as if pulled by a powerful force.
Seeing this, Lu Li unhesitatingly injected the golden code into the time thread, attempting to stabilize the chaotic energy. His movements were swift and decisive, and the golden code flashed through the void like a flash of lightning, instantly constructing a powerful data stabilization field around Lin Yue.
"Don't let your emotions get the better of you! The artifacts need to resonate!" Lu Li shouted, a hint of anxiety in his voice. He knew that at this critical moment, any mistake could lead to disastrous consequences.
He concentrated his mind, forcibly aligning the energy paths of the Codex and the Staff. The two forces collided, emitting a deafening roar, like the Big Bang. The shockwave swept through like a violent storm, instantly shattering the approaching Chaos creatures.
At this moment, the dome of the space-time interlayer began to collapse, revealing the true form of the chaotic vortex. It was a rapidly shrinking dark green sphere, its wriggling tentacles already absorbing more than half of the universe in miniature. In the center of the sphere, the crystallization of the source of chaos expanded into a massive skull, its hollow eye sockets flowing with a corrosive dark green liquid. As the skull's maw opened, the liquid time of the entire space-time interlayer began to evaporate in reverse.
"We must activate the Ring of Order before it consumes all the universe!" Lin Yue raised the Star Scepter above her head. The meteorite core at its tip formed a quantum entanglement with the seventeen-colored gemstones. The calico cat's gear collar reassembled into a star disk, projecting the coordinates of the remaining artifacts. Lu Li's golden code constructed a teleportation matrix in the void, but Chaos Runes continuously emerged from its surface, twisting each teleportation attempt into a space-time trap.
"These traps...are predicting our actions!" Lu Li's golden armor experienced a massive data corruption, and his six afterimages began to repel each other. Lin Yue suddenly realized that the Chaos Origin could read their thoughts. She bit her tongue, using the pain to sever distracting thoughts, and stabbed the thread of time into her temple. "Calico Cat, disrupt my brainwaves! Lu Li, use code to construct a mind barrier!"
The calico cat's gear collar emitted a high-frequency noise, disrupting Lin Yue's neural signals. Lu Li, in turn, transformed the golden code into countless tiny thought probes, weaving a privacy matrix over the surface of her consciousness. When the Chaos Origin's sensory tentacles reached out again, they encountered only scrambled data streams and meaningless images. The three of them seized the opportunity to activate the teleportation matrix, and before the space-time trap closed, they fell into a mechanical maze of bronze gears and magical arrays.
At the center of the maze, the third artifact of the Ring of Order—a codex forged from the bones of an ancient dragon—hovered above a pool of lava. Its dragon-bone pages were inscribed with burning spells, but now, they were being consumed by the flames of chaos, reducing them to an ash-like black powder. As Lin Yue's thread of time approached the codex, it was entangled by tentacles extending from the lava pool. These tentacles were covered in dragon scale patterns, yet dripped with the unique slime of chaotic creatures.
"These are... fallen dragon guards!" The calico cat's gear collar sliced through the tentacles, only to find new limbs sprouting from the wounds. Lu Li's golden code decoded astonishing data: "Their core is within the Codex! All dragon skeletons must be destroyed simultaneously!" He dispersed the six afterimages into an attack formation, and golden blades of light simultaneously slashed at the Codex's twelve dragon-bone pillars. Lin Yue wielded the Star Scepter, its star-shaped trajectory projecting galactic power, temporarily suppressing the chaotic flames.
When the last dragon bone broke, the codex erupted in a dazzling white light. Countless fragments of dragon memories emerged from its pages, the clearest of which was the scene of the first generation of guardians signing a contract with the dragons. Back then, the source of chaos was still a pure seed of the World Tree. Absorbing the resentment of countless fallen civilizations, it gradually degenerated into an all-consuming monster.
“It turns out that chaos is not the enemy…” Lin Yue embedded the seventeen-colored gems into the codex, and the power of the three artifacts began to resonate. “What we have to do is not to destroy it, but to purify those resentments!” But before she finished her words, an earth-shaking roar came from the chaos vortex, and a huge crack appeared on the surface of the dark green sphere, revealing the chaos colossus that was taking shape inside. It was a terrifying existence pieced together from the debris of all the swallowed civilizations, and embedded in its chest was the crystal of the origin of chaos that was about to fully awaken.
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