The air inside the bubble seemed to have been sucked out of the oxygen. Su Qing's ice crystals shattered into stardust halfway through condensing in her palm. She staggered back half a step, her lower back slamming heavily against Lin Yi's sword sheath.
"Watch out!" Lin Yi grabbed her wrist with his other hand and drew his longsword to sweep across her neck—the tentacles of the monster covered in bone armor grazed Su Qing's hair and cut a bloody gash on her shoulder and neck.
The pale pink blood droplets had just seeped out when they were enveloped by Lin Yi's spacetime force field and suspended in mid-air.
Su Qing gasped, not because of the pain, but because Lin Yi's body heat burned her fingertips through her palms.
Her image was reflected in his silvery-blue eyes, and even the curve of his eyelashes fluttering was clearly visible.
Their breaths mingled together, and she could hear her own heart pounding like a drum, louder than Long Wu's roar.
"Don't get distracted." Lin Yi's voice was low and hoarse, yet strangely calm.
He tore off the silver chain from his collar, and placed the pendant, engraved with a time-space totem, on Su Qing's wound. A pale blue halo spread out, and the blood droplets were absorbed into the pendant's patterns.
Su Qing then noticed that his palms were covered with bloodstains left from cutting the bubble walls earlier, mixed with monster slime and forming dark red scabs.
"Mr. Lin's spacetime healing technique..." Chu Yao's projection suddenly appeared beside the two, but the data stream at the tip of her hair was more chaotic than usual. "Miss Su's vital signs are stable, but the spatial suppression of the cage is intensifying—Mr. Long Wu's dragon blood loss rate has increased by 20%, and the strength of the job changer's faith link has decreased to 43%."
A muffled groan came from the darkness outside the bubble.
The golden figure was entangled by three mythical monsters. The bone spikes on the dragon's tail pierced the head of one of them, but were hooked by the tail hook of another.
Fresh blood dripped from the gaps in the dragon scales, splashing golden blood flowers on the ground.
"Hold on!" Lin Yi shouted in Long Wu's direction, a sharp glint in his eyes as he turned back.
Chu Yao's hint exploded in his mind—when he used the spacetime rift to cut the bubble wall just now, he sensed an abnormal energy fluctuation in a certain place, like a thread that was deliberately concealed.
"The energy hub is thirty degrees southeast, at chest level with me." Chu Yao's voice rang out directly in his mind. "It's a pseudo-core created by Night Owl using Shadow Erosion power. The real hub is hidden inside the pseudo-core."
You need to use your time-space confinement technique to lock it down before I can break it.
Lin Yi gently tapped the time-space pendant in his palm with his fingers.
He could feel the surging of the spacetime origin within his body, and the 70% of his suppressed power was reviving with a burning pain—this was the price of forcibly breaking through the suppression, but he couldn't care less about that at the moment.
"Su Qing, hold me tight." He suddenly shouted and pulled Su Qing to his side.
Su Qing's face bumped against his shoulder and neck, and she could smell a faint scent of rust mixed with the aroma of pine.
Before she could react, Lin Yi's silver-blue pupils suddenly contracted into vertical lines, and a silver mist rose around him.
"Time-Space Imprisonment - Ninth Rank"
This was the first time he had forcibly used a ninth-tier skill while under suppression.
The light mist spread as if it were a tangible substance, and wherever it passed, the monster's tentacles froze into sculptures, Long Wu's dragon claws hovering in mid-air stopped, and even the blood droplets floating in the air froze.
The ripples on the bubble walls were frozen in place, like a curtain adorned with crystals.
"A great opportunity!" Long Wu's roar made the bubbles buzz.
He shook off the monster's tail hook, and suddenly, blinding golden light burst forth from the cracks in his dragon scales—a sign that the true dragon's bloodline was burning. "Lin brat, watch me pop this damn bubble!"
Golden dragon breath spewed from his mouth, three times thicker than before.
The moment the dragon's breath struck the bubble wall, Lin Yi clearly saw a dark purple light flash at the location of the energy hub—that was the pseudo-core activating its defense.
However, Long Wu's dragon breath was unstoppable, and spider web-like cracks appeared on the bubble wall, even the pseudo-core showed spider silk-like fine lines.
"Trying to escape?"
The owl's voice was like a steel needle tempered with ice, piercing through the crack.
His figure suddenly appeared outside the bubble, his black cloak billowing like waves, and the blood crystal in his hand bursting out with dazzling red light.
The original cracks healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, the bubble walls became transparent again, and even the spacetime confinement loosened.
"Lin Yi!" Su Qing instinctively hugged his waist tightly, their bodies almost pressed together like a painting.
She could feel his heart pounding wildly fast, yet he was trying to remain calm amidst the trembling.
When the owl's blood crystal red light swept over, she even wanted to shield him—but the next second, Lin Yi's arm wrapped around her back like an iron hoop, carrying her to the deepest part of the crack.
"Stay close!" His voice pierced through the loosened spacetime confinement and reached the ears of every teammate.
The shadow of the dark figure suddenly thickened like ink, enveloping the nearest job changer; Long Wu's dragon claws grabbed the necks of the last two monsters and slammed them against the bubble wall; Su Qing's ice crystals re-condensed in her palm, this time carrying Lin Yi's spacetime power, and pierced towards Night Owl's blood crystal.
\"boom--\"
The cracks in the bubble wall completely shattered with everyone's combined efforts.
Lin Yi felt a warm liquid splash on his face, unable to tell if it was his own blood or Su Qing's.
When their vision cleared again, they were standing on an open ground outside the ruins, with dissipating bubble fragments behind them.
But the owl had vanished.
Only the blood crystal pendant landed where the bubbles had burst, its surface covered with dark purple patterns, as if it were sneering.
"Mr. Lin." Chu Yao's projection suddenly stabilized. She lightly tapped her fingertip, and a beam of blue light entered the blood crystal fragment. "Within the residual Shadow Corrosion energy of the cage, fluctuations not belonging to Night Owl were detected." Her brows furrowed slightly, and data flowed in her eyes. "It might be related to that 'adult' from before."
Lin Yi wiped the blood off his face and his gaze fell on the blood crystal.
Within the silver-blue pupils, dark purple patterns were twisting at an extremely slow speed, like characters from some unknown language.
"It seems there's an even more troublesome character behind Night Owl." He chuckled softly and turned to look at Su Qing.
Her temples were streaked with blood, yet she smiled at him, her eyes shining like stars.
Long Wu flicked the blood off his dragon tail and patted Lin Yi on the shoulder casually: "Next time you play a life-or-death situation like this, let me know in advance—my dragon blood is very precious!"
The shadow of the dark figure thinned again, turning into a wisp of black smoke and disappearing into Lin Yi's sleeve.
The job changers helped each other to their feet, and the golden light patterns shone brightly again, even more intensely than before.
The wind swirled the dust from the ruins, brushing against everyone's hair.
Chu Yao's projection suddenly vanished, leaving only one sentence in Lin Yi's mind: "Blood Crystal Fragment has been collected and is being analyzed."
Lin Yi looked up at the sky.
The darkness had receded, but dark purple spots of light still flickered in the clouds, like a pair of unseen eyes.
He gripped the longsword tightly, the essence of time and space flowing within his body, burning his palms with heat.
"The game has only just begun."
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