The purple mist of the mother nest was like a curtain being sliced open by a sharp blade when Lin Yi took his first step, revealing the space inside constructed of dark red metal.
A putrid aura assaulted his nostrils, like countless fine needles piercing his nasal cavity—the unique smell of an alien being's excrement mixed with mechanical lubricant. Long Wu's battle blade flashed golden flames beside him, scorching the aura into a burnt smell.
"Watch your step." The shadowy figure's voice was like shattered ice colliding. His dark blue dagger suddenly pointed forward, and several silver lines on the ground lit up abruptly.
Almost simultaneously, eerie green energy rays shot out from the honeycomb-shaped holes in the ceiling, grazing Lin Yi's ear and embedding themselves in the wall. Amidst the sizzling sound of burning metal, Chu Yao's terminal vibrated so hard in her palm that it became hot.
"Defense system triggered!" Her fingers flew across the holographic screen, her hair whipping wildly in the energy flow. "The Mother Nest Core has identified us as intruders. Level 3 alert activated!"
The roar of Long Wu resounded loudly.
The dragon scales on his neck suddenly glowed with golden light. His muscular arms swung their battle blades, and the golden flames-wrapped blade wind shattered three rays. But then more holes opened up—this time, it wasn't rays that emerged, but mechanical beetles half a person's height. Their shells were a cold, hard, dark blue, and crimson light danced in their compound eyes. The screeching sound of their shells scraping against the ground instantly filled the entire space.
"Well done!" Long Wu grinned, twirling his battle blade in his palm, and the golden flames suddenly surged three inches.
When the first beetle pounced, he neither dodged nor avoided it. His battle blade swept across, and the golden flames-covered blade melted the beetle, along with its core energy, into molten iron.
But the next second, his smile froze on his face—ten, twenty, hundreds of beetles poured out from the holes from all directions, flooding the ground like a torrent of metal, and even smaller flying insect-shaped machines began to fall into the air, their wings beating like a downpour hitting sheet metal.
"Something's not right." Xuan Mingzi's Li Huo condensed into a fireball at his fingertips, but he hesitated to throw it.
He squinted at the nearest beetle, his grey-white Taoist robe billowing in the energy flow. "The construction of these machines... is different from the extradimensional weapons we've encountered before; they're more like... the sophisticated creations of an advanced civilization."
"Su Qing!" Lin Yi's voice was low, the communicator pressed to his ear, his rapid breathing clearly audible. "Where is the energy core of the Mother Nest defense system?"
"Locating!" Su Qing's voice was crackling with static. "Based on the fluctuation trajectory, the core should be located at... the central altar 300 meters underground."
But now the reaction frequency of the defense mechanism... seems to have been manually increased!
"It's a night owl." The shadowy figure suddenly interrupted, a dagger precisely piercing the compound eye of a flying insect. A ghostly blue light spread along the insect's body, freezing it into an ice sculpture before it crashed to the ground. "He deliberately let us in, then locked the exit."
The space structure of the mother nest is currently closing; in five minutes, this place will become a dead zone where teleportation is impossible.
Before he could finish speaking, a metallic, rumbling sound came from above.
Everyone looked up and saw that the once spacious dome was pressing down at a visible speed, with dark red metal plates squeezing against each other and making a teeth-grinding friction sound.
Long Wu's battle blade shattered the last wave of beetles, and cold sweat seeped from his forehead—he could feel that the consumption of the True Dragon's power was 30% faster than usual. These machines seemed to be actively absorbing energy, and even his golden flames had been gnawed away in several strands.
"Chu Yao!" Lin Yi suddenly grabbed her wrist and pulled her behind him.
A beam of energy grazed the top of her head and burned a charred hole in the wall.
He could clearly hear his own heartbeat. The hourglass emblem was burning hot in his palm, reminding him of the limitations of using the power of spacetime, but he couldn't care less at the moment—Su Qing's background and the secrets of the Seven Keys of Creation were all behind this ever-approaching threat of death.
"The main program interface of the defense system!" Chu Yao's nails almost dug into the terminal shell. "The mother nest uses code that is a mixture of different dimensions and advanced civilizations. I need... three seconds!" She suddenly bit her tongue, and blood dripped onto the terminal's sensor area. Her pupils glowed with a dark blue data stream—this was her unique "blood pact decoding," the price of which was weakness for the next twelve hours.
At the same instant, Long Wu's battle blade suddenly dipped.
He looked down and saw that his calf was being held tightly by three beetles, their barbs digging into his muscles and frantically drawing out his dragon blood.
The excruciating pain caused him to roar, and golden flames erupted from the wound, burning the beetles to ashes. But then he saw more beetles crawling up his boots, and the sound of their metallic tentacles scraping against his armor sent chills down his spine.
"Get behind me!" Xuanmingzi finally threw out the fireball.
The crimson flames did not attack directly, but instead condensed into a wall of fire around the group, keeping the beetle swarm three feet away.
Veins bulged on his forehead. The Fire Blaze was his innate spell, but at this moment it was burning away his lifespan. However, looking at Chu Yao's pale face and Lin Yi's tense jaw, the sigh in his throat was swallowed by the flames.
"Found it!" Chu Yao's terminal beeped. "The main interface is in the energy hub directly above the altar. It requires... spacetime interference!"
Lin Yi's finger pressed on the hourglass emblem.
He could feel the power of spacetime within his body like boiling magma, each circulation feeling like it was scorching his meridians, but at this moment his eyes were clearer than ever before—Su Qing had said three days ago that the fluctuations of the Seven Keys of Creation could unlock the blanks in her memory, and those blanks were fragments of her childhood about the Mother Nest that had been erased by the advanced civilization.
"Time and spacetime stand still!"
With a low shout, the hourglass emblem burst forth with a blinding white light.
Time seemed to be paused: the energy rays in mid-air solidified into eerie green arrows, the tentacles of the beetle swarm remained outstretched, and even the beads of sweat on Long Wu's face hung in mid-air, refracting a seven-colored halo.
Long Wu breathed a sigh of relief.
He moved his calves, which were numb from the beetle bites, but he didn't dare extinguish the golden flames on his battle blade—experience told him that this stillness wouldn't last long.
Chu Yao's terminal was burning hot in her palm. She quickly scanned the decoding results, and when she looked up, her eyes were surprisingly bright: "There is a vulnerability in the energy chain of the defense system!"
I need you to use a spacetime rift to sever the main energy source in a moment, for a maximum of... five seconds!
The shadowy figure's dagger suddenly turned to the left.
In the stillness of time and space, he saw a pair of scarlet pupils slowly contracting in the shadows twenty meters away—it was a night owl.
The guy's mouth stretched to his ears, and a ball of black flame was gathering at his fingertips. Although his movements were frozen, the cracks on the surface of the black flame indicated that once time resumed, this energy ball, enough to destroy half of the mother nest, would explode.
"Lin Yi." The shadowy figure's voice was as soft as a sigh. "Night Owl is gathering his killing move, positioned twenty meters to his left and slightly ahead, in the shadows."
Lin Yi followed his gaze.
In the stillness of time and space, the figure of Night Owl finally became clear—he wore dark purple armor, with a pulsating black crystal embedded in his chest, a fragment of the core energy of the Mother Nest.
At his feet, seven faint golden streaks of light appeared and disappeared, which were the fluctuating trajectories of the Seven Keys of Creation.
"Resume the freeze in three seconds." Lin Yi's voice was as steady as a precision instrument. "Long Wu, entangle Night Owl; Xuan Mingzi, use the Blazing Fire to seal his retreat; Black Shadow, seize the Seven Keys when you have the chance; Chu Yao, prepare to decode." He paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone. "Su Qing's background lies within those seven streaks of light."
Everyone nodded in unison.
Long Wu's battle blade spun in his palm, and the golden flames surged again; Xuan Mingzi's Fire Wall shrank into seven fireballs, each aimed at Night Owl's seven escape routes; the shadowy figure's dagger glowed with an even more eerie blue light, and even his breathing adjusted to synchronize with the release of the time-space freeze; Chu Yao's terminal lit up with a confirmation symbol at her fingertips, and although a bead of blood still clung to her forehead, she smiled like a child who had received candy.
"Time begins to flow."
The white light of the hourglass emblem suddenly receded.
The energy beams shot out again, the tentacles of the beetle swarm continued to extend forward, and the black flames of the night owl expanded with a "boom"—but the next second, Long Wu's battle blade, carrying golden flames, slashed at his face, Xuan Mingzi's fireball blocked his escape routes to the left and right, and the shadow's dagger grazed the black crystal on his chest, bringing with it a string of sparks.
"A bunch of ants!" The owl's roar shook the mother hive.
He shattered Long Wu's battle blade with a punch, and the black flames suddenly split into countless spikes. Lin Yi's figure flashed to his side like a ghost, his fingertip touching the black crystal on his chest—the entrance to the spacetime rift.
"Chu Yao, now!"
Chu Yao's terminal emitted a blinding blue light.
A muffled sound came from deep within the nest. The energy chain of the defense system was precisely severed by the spacetime rift. The beetle swarm instantly lost power and, like machines stripped of their souls, fell to the ground.
The downward pressure from the dome slowed, the frequency of the energy rays dropped to a minimum, and even the black flames of the night owl dimmed slightly.
"Let's go!" Lin Yi grabbed Chu Yao's wrist and rushed towards the central altar.
Long Wu and Xuan Mingzi flanked them, while the shadowy figure brought up the rear. The group ran frantically over the mechanical wreckage scattered on the ground.
The roar of an owl came from behind them, but by then they could see the outline of the altar—a platform surrounded by seven stone pillars, on which were engraved runes that were exactly the same as those in Su Qing's memory fragments.
"Watch your step," the dark figure suddenly called out.
His dagger pierced the ground, and a dark gold pattern spread from the direction of the altar, crawling across the metal floor like a living thing.
The group paused, then heard the rumble of gears turning overhead—the dome above the altar cracked open, revealing a dark hole from which some kind of viscous liquid dripped down the walls, splashing corrosive blue smoke onto the ground.
Lin Yi's hourglass emblem suddenly became intensely hot.
He looked up and met the shadowy figure's gaze—both of them saw wariness in each other's eyes.
The calm just now was too abnormal. The mother nest's defense system was clearly cut off from power, so why are there new traps?
"Keep moving forward." Lin Yi's voice was as steady as a pillar of strength.
He took a step, and the dark gold patterns on the ground suddenly lit up, forming a complex array under everyone's feet.
At the same time, the liquid dripping from the hole above their heads accelerated, and a pungent, sour smell began to fill the air—this was the ultimate defense hidden by the mother hive, and they had triggered it.
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