The slime vortex suddenly made a strange sound like a gear jamming, and clear water oozed out from the cracks on the dial of Mou Xuan's timer.
He threw the mechanical arm parts towards the center of the vortex with his backhand, and the scattered screws burned scorch marks of the DNA double helix on the surface of the mucus layer - exactly the pattern engraved on the assassin's dagger last week.
"There's something wrong with the coordinates of the vertical shaft in the southwest corner!" Prospector Lou suddenly emerged from the ruins, the dark green epaulettes on his protective suit fading. "When I followed the ice spike to a depth of 80 meters, the drill bit suddenly started to reverse..."
Before he could finish his words, the frozen ground beneath their feet suddenly cracked into spider-web-like cracks.
Mou Xuan quickly grabbed the ice spike covered with runes painted by Qu Gong and pressed the timer dial with his bloody finger.
At the moment when the green light suddenly increased, a red dot in the 3D projection of the safe house suddenly turned into a bronze gear, locking the collapsed area firmly in a circle with a diameter of 30 meters.
Inspector Hu suddenly splashed the corrosive liquid onto the spectrometer, and the jumping data stream condensed into the pattern of the ice mirror armor in the air: "The spectral data left by Team Leader Shen is being reorganized! These molecular chains are imitating the gear structure of the timer..."
The crisp sound of ice chains shaking came from the depths of the mucus vortex, and Mou Xuan's pupils suddenly shrank - that was clearly the unique resonance frequency of the barbed ice chains modified by Chen Yao.
He tore out the blood-stained document from the secret pocket of his combat uniform and discovered that the red dots on the safe house structural diagram were devouring the forbidden totems, and each devoured totem would generate a new bronze gear on the surface of the mucus layer.
"It's not a mutation." Engineer Qu suddenly knelt down in front of the ice spike, and the hyphae spelled out ancient characters on the surface of his wound. "These substances are... evolving!"
Lou's prospector's drill suddenly shot out from the ground, with icy blue slime on the tip.
Mou Xuan's timer suddenly flipped over on its own, and three bronze gear fragments popped out from the secret compartment on the back of the dial - they were the spare parts that Chen Yao had taken away this morning.
The fragments were suspended above the collapsed area, and the projected beams of light actually resonated with the forbidden totems on the seventh floor underground of the safe house.
"The countdown has restarted!" Inspector Hu screamed, pointing at the timer.
The clear spring seeping from the cracks in the dial suddenly flowed backwards, outlining the outline of Chen Yao's ice mirror armor in the air.
In those cracks that should have healed, one could vaguely see tiny gears rotating in the opposite direction.
Mou Xuan suddenly inserted the robotic arm into the frozen soil and adjusted the particle oscillator to the lowest frequency.
When the ground began to vibrate at a specific frequency, the mucus crystals in the collapsed area suddenly turned collectively, revealing a fist-sized transparent core in the center - half of a blood-stained bronze gear was sealed inside, and the tooth marks were exactly the same as the hands of the doomsday clock that Mou Xuan had seen on the night of his rebirth.
"Use dark matter resonance..." Chen Yao's voice suddenly came from inside the ice spike, accompanied by the noise of metal friction.
Prospector Lou suddenly stabbed the drill into his left arm, and the gushing blood drew a bloody Möbius strip on the surface of the mucus layer.
Upon seeing this, Engineer Qu tore open the wound violently, and the mycelium carrying dark green liquid was injected into the center of the ring.
The timer suddenly made a sharp sound of gears getting stuck, and Mou Xuan felt a burning sensation on the back of his neck.
When he touched the gear-shaped lump under his skin, the holographic projection of the safe house suddenly materialized, enveloping everyone in a bronze force field.
The transparent shell on the surface of the slime core began to crack, and the speed at which the internal gears rotated was completely synchronized with the speed at which the cracks in the timer healed.
"It's not restraint..." Mou Xuan suddenly tore the front of his combat uniform, and the dark green marks had spread into a gear totem, "They are using us..."
The warning sound was swallowed up by the sudden burst of green light.
When everyone regained their vision, they discovered that the surface of the collapsed area was covered with a strange substance mixed with ice crystals and mucus, and the transparent core that should have been in it was missing.
The cracks on the timer dial have mostly healed, but tiny bronze gears are protruding from each healed area, and those gears are slowly swallowing up the original scales on the dial.
Suddenly, there was a sound of ice chains breaking through the air from the southwest corner. Fragments of Chen Yao’s mirror armor shot out from the ground, forming an incomplete star map above everyone’s heads.
Inspector Hu rushed to the nearest spectrometer and found that the data stream jumping at the missing part of the star map was exactly the same as the sound wave frequency of the last three rings of the Doomsday Clock.
Mou Xuan pressed down the mechanical arm that began to vibrate autonomously. In the newly appeared dark compartment on the back of the dial, half of a blood-stained gear was emitting fluorescent powder with clear water vapor.
When his fingertips touched the edge of the gear, he vaguely saw Chen Yao's ice mirror armor shattered and reassembled in the torrent of time, and each fragment reflected the doomsday scene of a different timeline.
The muffled sound of gears meshing came from deep within the slime layer, and this time the sound was mixed with the crisp lingering sound of shattering ice.
Mou Xuan suddenly pulled off the energy valve of the robotic arm and pressed the sparking interface towards the timer. At the moment when the bronze and ice-blue lights blended, he heard the echo of the shaking ice chains three hundred meters underground. The rhythm was clearly the Morse code agreed upon by Chen Yao and him.
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