The bronze door emitted a teeth-grinding scraping sound, and the dark shadows emerging from the cracks suddenly surged like boiling water.
The first to rush out were three shadowy creatures, each as tall as two people. Their bodies were like crumpled ink cloth, with tiny scarlet scales floating on their surface. With each step they took, black asphalt-like liquid seeped from the ground, corroding the cement into honeycomb-like holes.
"Watch out!" Long Wu's dragon roar rang out first.
The dragon scales on his neck had completely covered his upper body. His crimson-gold dragon claws shattered the tentacles that were approaching Su Qing, but the scattered black shadows seemed to have a life of their own and re-coalesced, wrapping around his wrists instead.
Long Wu's pupils contracted sharply—he clearly felt the power in the dragon blood being drawn away from the point of contact, and the blood vessels under his skin turned a strange bluish-purple.
"Shadow Erosion!" Chu Yao's projection spun rapidly above the battlefield, and a light blue data stream burst forth from her fingertips. "Their energy fields are absorbing biological energy!"
Dragon Five's power attenuation rate has reached 37%, and Senior White's lightning attribute attack has been negated by 42%...
Whitebeard's greatsword struck the shadow creature's chest, but the thunderous roar that should have been deafening was muffled like a dull drumbeat.
Veins bulged on his forehead; the lightning sword, forged from meteorite iron, seemed to strike cotton. "This damn thing eats lightning?"
"No, it devours all positive energy." Aizen's ghostly flames suddenly turned a deep blue. He flicked his finger, and the flames accurately pierced the head of the shadow creature—this time, the shadow didn't immediately reform; instead, it emitted a piercing shriek. "My ghostly flames inherently possess decaying properties; their shadow erosion is inefficient at absorbing negative energy."
Chu Yao suddenly remembered a similar shadow creature she had encountered in the xx ruins. It had reacted to the attack of decaying energy. Considering the effect of Aizen's ghostly fire this time, it seemed that this was indeed the case.
"Well done!" Lin Yi's voice resonated through the vibrations of space.
He held the Key of Time and Space in his left hand and pressed down with his right, creating a semi-transparent purple barrier centered on himself.
Suddenly, Long Wu broke free from the shadow's restraints, and the dragon blood that had been extracted surged back in the opposite direction—Lin Yi had used "Time Reversal" to turn back his state for three seconds.
"Chu Yao, coordinates!" The vortex in Lin Yi's silver-purple pupils spun faster and faster. "Give me the location of the energy core of each shadow creature."
"Marked!" The girl's projection suddenly solidified, her fingertip touching the air, and twenty-seven scarlet dots appeared on the battlefield.
Almost simultaneously, Whitebeard's Thunder Sword suddenly grew three feet taller, and the lightning wrapped around its blade was no longer leaping arcs of light, but solidified into a thunder dragon—this was the "Thunder Soul Possession" he had just awakened in the ruins.
The Thunder Dragon opened its mouth and precisely bit the core of the nearest shadow creature. Amidst the splashing of black liquid, the monster let out a scream that resembled the twisting of metal.
Taking advantage of the moment, Long Wu shook off the last trace of the shadow, and crimson-gold flames rose from the surface of his dragon scales.
He had always thought that this "dragon flame" was too mild, but now he saw the shadow creatures licked by the flame vaporize instantly, without even a chance to regenerate: "So my dragon flame has a purification attribute!"
Chu Yao, you should have said so earlier!
Combining Long Wu's dragon flames and Lin Yi's spacetime power, Chu Yao could basically confirm the data. She pushed up her non-existent glasses and said, "It is now confirmed that Shadow Eclipse's resistance to purification, decay, and spacetime energies is less than 15%."
"Su Qing, Life Chain!" Lin Yi grabbed with his backhand, and a silver light ribbon flew out from his palm, connecting everyone present.
The jade necklace around Su Qing's neck suddenly emitted a bright light, and her previously pale face flushed with a healthy pink: "I have connected everyone's life energy; teammates whose energy has been eroded can replenish it through the chain!"
The battlefield situation reversed instantly.
Aizen's ghostly flames poured down like a torrential rain, burning through swathes of shadow; Whitebeard's thunder dragon rampaged through the enemy ranks, each tail swipe sending more than three shadow creatures flying; Ryugo transformed into a half-dragon form, and wherever his dragon flames passed, the corrosive black liquid on the ground hissed and evaporated.
As the battle progressed, the shadow creatures, which had been suppressed, suddenly became even more frenzied. Their movements became rapid and chaotic, and the shadows inside the bronze door churned violently like boiling water, with a powerful and oppressive aura emanating from the gaps from time to time.
Just when everyone thought they had stabilized, an even deeper rumble came from inside the bronze door.
A figure five times larger than any of the previous shadow creatures slowly emerged—its body was composed of countless writhing shadows, and its head was a translucent crystalline structure with a beating black heart floating inside.
"Night Owl!" Chu Yao's voice was filled with panic for the first time. "That's a Shadow Lord, with an energy intensity twelve times that of an ordinary Shadow creature!"
Its appearance means...
"This means they are evolving." Lin Yi's Time-Space Key suddenly became hot to the touch. He could clearly sense the power of rules within this Lord-level Shadow—unlike the previous minions that only relied on instinct to attack, this thing already possessed rudimentary intelligence.
The Shadow Lord's crystalline head turned towards Lin Yi, and the voice of a night owl emerged from its dark "mouth": "Master of Time and Space?"
That's quite a troublesome character.
"But it doesn't matter..." It swung a giant fist formed from shadows, "Once my Shadow Erosion army has devoured the very essence of this world, your so-called power of spacetime will be nothing more than a drop of water in my energy pool."
"Bullshit!" Long Wu's dragon flames suddenly increased by three levels, and he transformed into a crimson-gold meteor that crashed into the Shadow Lord.
But the giant fist just slightly deflected, and Long Wu was sent flying as if slapped by an invisible hand, crashing into the wall ten meters away, coughing up a mouthful of black blood.
"Dragon Five!" Su Qing's life chain tightened instantly, and the emerald light enveloped his wounds, but the shadow energy in the black blood was still eroding his dragon scales.
Whitebeard's lightning sword surged again, this time gripping the hilt and thrusting towards the Shadow Lord's crystalline head: "Young friend, I'll hold it off, you find your opportunity!"
The roars of the thunder dragon and the shrieks of the shadows intertwined into a web, and the blue-dyed ghostly flames spread beneath the lord's feet, but could only barely slow its progress.
Lin Yi's forehead was covered in cold sweat—he could feel his spacetime barrier being corroded by the Shadow Erosion power, and every second he maintained it required more mental energy.
"Chu Yao, the data!" he gritted his teeth. "Where is the Lord-level Shadow Erosion Core?"
"Analyzing..." The girl's projection began to show snowflakes. "The black core inside the crystalline skull is the main core, but there is a rule barrier on the outer layer... Wait!"
"The meteorite iron in the secret chamber!" She suddenly pointed to the ruined buildings behind the battlefield, "The meteorite iron we collected earlier contains trace amounts of spacetime essence, and its frequency matches your spacetime power!"
Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.
He recalled discovering a pile of dark silver metal in the secret chamber of the ruins three hours ago. The color of this metal was darker than that of ordinary iron, and there seemed to be a faint halo on the surface. He didn't think much of it at the time and just collected it as ordinary material. But now he saw that one of the meteorite irons was spontaneously floating, and its surface was emitting the same silver-purple light as his Key of Time and Space.
The Shadow Lord's giant fist fell again, this time targeting Lin Yi.
Instead of dodging, he charged forward into the wind of the punch, the Key of Time and Space spinning in his palm.
Just as the fist was about to touch his chest, he turned sideways and grabbed the white-bearded man beside him, and the two of them disappeared from the spot at the same time—that was a "space jump".
"Everyone, retreat to the secret chamber!" Lin Yi's voice traveled through the spacetime link to each teammate's ears. "Chu Yao, activate the resonance program for the meteorite iron!"
The Shadow Lord sensed their intentions, and countless small shadows surged forth like a tide, attempting to block their way to the secret chamber.
Whitebeard's lightning sword danced up and down, each swing shattering a shadow; Ryuu's dragon flames burned on the flanks, carving a bloody path; Aizen's ghostly fire relentlessly attacked from behind, halting the shadows' pursuit; Su Qing's life chain tightly maintained everyone's condition, preventing them from collapsing in the fierce battle.
After a fierce struggle, they finally broke into the secret chamber.
As the last person rushed into the secret room, Lin Yi threw out the Key of Time and Space.
The key exploded in the air into thousands of silver-purple streaks, sealing the entrance to the secret chamber completely.
Beneath their feet, the array of meteorite iron resonated with the data stream projected by Chu Yao, emitting a buzzing vibration.
The Shadow Lord's roar crashed against the spacetime barrier, creating ripples.
Lin Yi stared at the still-hot Key of Time and Space in his hand, then glanced at the pile of metamorphosing meteorite iron in the corner of the secret room—he knew that the real counterattack had only just begun.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com