The black SUV, like a ghost blending into the night, weaved through the maze-like city alleys. Ling Mo's driving skills were nothing short of wild; with a few sharp turns and drifts, he easily shook off any potential tails and finally drove into a seemingly ordinary, even somewhat dilapidated, underground parking lot.
Deep inside the parking lot, a graffiti-covered wall silently slid open after Ling Mo pressed a hidden switch, revealing a dimly lit, sloping passageway just wide enough for one car to pass through. At the end of the passageway stood a heavy, metallic gate.
"Welcome to my little studio." Ling Mo stopped the car, his tone carrying a hint of barely perceptible smugness.
The gate slowly rose, and the scene inside left even Su Nian, who had seen vampire castles and immortal caves, slightly speechless.
This place is less a safe house and more a futuristic underground base. The spacious area is divided into several zones, with walls made of flexible screens that display data and images, on which countless lines of code and waveforms that Su Nian couldn't understand flow. Various sophisticated instruments flicker with an eerie light, and the air is filled with the smell of ozone and some kind of cleaning agent. Most striking is a transparent medical pod in the center, resembling a crystal coffin, surrounded by numerous pipes.
"Put him in." Ling Mo pointed to the medical pod, his tone becoming professional and swift. "This thing can temporarily simulate a low-rule suppression environment, which should alleviate his rejection reaction."
Su Nian hesitated for a moment, but seeing Xie Chen's increasingly weak breathing in her arms, she gritted her teeth and cooperated with Ling Mo, carefully placing Xie Chen into the medical pod. The pod closed, and a pale blue liquid slowly poured in, enveloping Xie Chen's body. The dark gold crack between his brows seemed to stabilize slightly in the liquid, no longer so glaring.
Su Nian breathed a slight sigh of relief, but all the strength seemed to have been drained from her body. She staggered and had to hold onto the cold cabin wall to steady herself. The tearing sensation deep within her soul, left by the forced activation of the Ice Soul Power, made her face pale.
[Host...soul damage...mild...rule backlash...ongoing...]
[It is recommended that you...adjust your breathing as soon as possible...to prevent...your power...from...further...getting out of control...]
[Detected... High-intensity... signal shielding... 'purification sequence'... tracking signal... interrupted... temporarily safe...]
088's voice was filled with static, but the information it conveyed made Su Nian's tense nerves relax slightly for a moment.
"Now, let's talk about you, 'Miss Ice and Snow'." Ling Mo, who had somehow appeared with a steaming cup of coffee, leaned against the counter, watching Su Nian with undisguised scrutiny in his eyes. "That last move was spectacular. That level of energy... it's definitely not from this world. You and the one inside, are you from the same place?"
Su Nian's heart tightened, but she forced herself to remain calm: "I don't know what you're talking about. I just... in a moment of panic, I might have triggered some potential."
“Potential?” Ling Mo scoffed, taking a sip of coffee. “Don’t treat me like a fool, Miss. That kind of freezing power, which is almost at the level of rules, can’t be explained by ‘potential’. It’s the power of origin, it’s… a trace of a higher dimension.”
He put down his coffee cup, walked to a huge flexible screen, and quickly swiped his fingers a few times. The screen immediately displayed the energy spectrum analysis chart of the chilling aura that Su Nian had unleashed, which he had previously captured at the abandoned platform. The chart was complex and bizarre, with peak values that were ridiculously high, completely exceeding known energy models.
“Look,” Ling Mo pointed to an energy mark on the diagram that was constantly pulsating and had a strange ice and snow rune shape, “this structure is stable, ancient, and full of… conceptual power. There is no similar record in the database of those ‘purification sequence’ guys. You are a completely new type of ‘anomaly’.”
His gaze shifted to Su Nian, tinged with the excitement of a mad scientist: "I am very interested in your world, your power system. Let's cooperate. Tell me everything you know, and I can provide you with protection, help you evade the 'purification sequence,' and even... research how you can better 'exist' in this world."
Collaboration? Research? Su Nian sneered inwardly. All that high-sounding talk, and they just want to use us as guinea pigs?
“We don’t need to cooperate,” Su Nian coldly refused. “We will leave once his condition stabilizes.”
"Leave?" Ling Mo seemed to find it amusing. "Where can you go? The 'Purification Sequence' has locked onto your energy signature. Unless you never use that power again, you'll be as conspicuous as fireflies in the dark. And..."
He changed the subject, his gaze falling on Xie Chen in the medical pod. "His situation is not that simple. The rule's rejection is just the surface; deep in his soul, there seems to be a more serious... trauma? Or rather, a defect? My medical pod can only temporarily stabilize him; it's not a cure."
Su Nian fell silent. Ling Mo's words were like needles, piercing the places she was most worried about. Xie Chen's origin was indeed broken and incomplete, each fragment of which carried different kinds of pain.
Just then, Xie Chen inside the medical pod suddenly trembled violently! The pale blue liquid churned incessantly, and the crack between his brows, which had just stabilized, burst forth with a blinding light once more, even more dazzling than before! Extreme pain was revealed in his tightly closed eyes, and his hands clenched unconsciously, his nails almost digging into his palms.
"What happened?!" Su Nian rushed to the medical pod and asked anxiously.
Ling Mo frowned, rapidly manipulating the control panel: "The rule rejection reaction is intensifying! The energy within him is spiraling out of control! Strange... the external environment has been shielded, why..."
Before he finished speaking, Su Nian suddenly felt that the Ice Soul Imprint deep within her soul, which shared the same origin as Xie Chen, was being strongly drawn, and began to throb and heat uncontrollably! A cold, destructive power seemed to be trying to surge from Xie Chen to her through this soul link!
[Warning! Detected... Mission target... Soul rampage... Energy leak...]
[The same-origin link... is being forcibly activated... the host... is about to be... affected...]
[Activation... Emergency Interruption... Failed... Insufficient Energy... Buzz...]
The alarm on 088 was filled with the noise of despair.
Su Nian felt as if her consciousness was about to freeze, her vision began to blur, and her body trembled uncontrollably. She could "see" Xie Chen trapped in an endless, shattered dream—stars were falling, ice and snow were collapsing, and endless darkness and loneliness were engulfing him…
"Xie Chen! Wake up!" With her last bit of strength, she pounded on the transparent shell of the medical pod, her voice trembling with tears, "Control your power! You'll destroy yourself!"
However, her call seemed to agitate the soul on the verge of collapse within the dream. A more violent and icy torrent of energy, flowing through the soul link, surged into Su Nian's body like a river bursting its banks!
"Ugh—!"
Su Nian let out a painful groan as she was violently slammed away by an invisible force, crashing heavily onto the cold metal ground! The air around her instantly condensed into fine ice crystals, and the ground, centered on her, was quickly covered with a thick layer of frosty white frost!
Her eyes turned uncontrollably ice blue, and icicles began to condense at the ends of her hair! The aura of the Ice Soul Saintess, though faint, began to permeate the technologically advanced underground base with undeniable realism!
"Holy shit!" Even the usually calm Ling Mo couldn't help but swear. He stared in shock at the scene before him, at Su Nian curled up on the ground as if she was about to transform into an ice sprite, and then at Xie Chen, whose energy fluctuations in the medical pod were becoming even more violent.
"Resonance rampage?! Their soul connection is deeper than I imagined!" He instantly understood, his expression turning extremely grave. Xie Chen's loss of control directly triggered a chain reaction of suppressed power within Su Nian's body!
Ling Mo quickly entered a series of commands on the control panel, attempting to strengthen the stable magnetic field of the medical pod and activate the energy suppression device inside the base. Invisible force fields enveloped Su Nian and the medical pod, trying to suppress the out-of-control icy power.
However, the power of ice emanating from a higher dimension, even if only a trace was unconsciously leaked, was far beyond the comprehension and control of this world's technology. The force field and the chill clashed fiercely, emitting a crackling electrical sound; the lights within the base flickered wildly, and many sophisticated instruments issued overload warnings!
Su Nian curled up in the frost, feeling as if her soul and body were being torn apart by these two opposing forces. On one side was the icy torrent of pain and destruction brought about by Xie Chen's out-of-control origin, and on the other side was the merciless suppression of the world's rules and technological field.
[Host... vital signs... rapidly declining... soul damage... worsening...]
[System energy... is about to run out... unable to... provide... effective support...]
[Final suggestion... Try... actively guiding... the power of ice... to soothe... the target's... berserk soul... otherwise... mutual destruction...]
088's voice was as faint as a candle flickering in the wind, offering a final, almost suicidal suggestion.
Actively guide? To soothe a broken soul of extremely high status that is in a rampage? That's like a moth flying towards a burning star!
But... are there any other options?
Looking at the figure in the medical pod consumed by pain, and feeling the despair and madness of a drowning person coming from the other end of the soul link, an indescribable courage and determination, mixed with profound emotions that perhaps even she herself was unaware of, surged into her heart.
She struggled to lift her head, her icy blue eyes fixed on Ling Mo, and with her last strength, she hoarsely cried out:
"Open...the hatch..."
Ling Mo's pupils contracted: "Are you crazy?! He's in extreme danger right now!"
"Open it!" Su Nian's voice was resolute and unwavering, her eyes filled with a terrifying determination. "Let me... in!"
Ling Mo looked at her eyes, which seemed to be burning with ice flames, and then at the increasingly unstable energy readings in the base, and gritted his teeth.
"Damn it! Let's go all out!"
He abruptly pressed the emergency activation button for the medical pod!
The moment the hatch opened, an even more violent chill, like a tangible shockwave, spread out with a deafening roar! The temperature throughout the base plummeted!
Without the slightest hesitation, Su Nian used her last strength to lunge towards the figure enveloped in extreme pain and icy energy...
(End of Chapter 84)
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