The stardust within the passage swirled back into a vortex, further intensifying the black-gold storm enveloping Night Owl and Dark Blade.
The moment the storm crashed down, Lin Yi's pupils shrank to pinpoints—he could clearly sense that this attack contained the resentment of the remnant soul of the Dark Blade and the extradimensional energy of the Night Owl, enough to crush any class changer below the third rank into dust.
"Dragon Five!"
Protect the left!
Indigo dye!
"Right-side shield!" Lin Yi's voice mingled with the sharp whistling of the spacetime blade cutting through the air. He gripped the spacetime blade at his waist with a backhand, the silver patterns on his wrist bulging, and the blade hummed as it slashed out with a dark blue light, precisely striking the left side of the storm.
The moment the light blade touched the black mist, it tore open a gap like a hot knife through butter, revealing the dark purple energy core inside the storm.
Long Wu was already waiting on the left. The dragon scale patterns on his neck had covered half of his face, and his eyes gleamed with a crimson-gold light.
The moment he heard the command, he roared to the sky, his right arm fully transformed into a dragon's claw, covered in bluish-black scales, and slashed fiercely at the gap. "Smash it!" The dragon claw, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom, crushed the dark purple core to pieces.
The shockwave from the explosion made him stagger a couple of steps, but Aizen caught him just in time with his pale blue shield.
"Well done!" Aizen's fingertips swirled with an eerie rainbow light as the cracks on the shield healed at a visible speed.
He glanced at the Night Owl hanging upside down at the top of the passage, a cold sneer playing on his lips. "Just some charlatan from another dimension, daring to run wild in the laws of spacetime?" Before he finished speaking, the Hogyoku suddenly burst forth with blinding white light, forcibly sucking the Night Owl's newly condensed black mist into its body. "Taste the suppression of the rules—your energy is mine."
In the middle of the passage, the white-bearded man knelt on one knee beside Su Qing.
The old soldier placed his left hand on Su Qing's back, and his powerful internal energy flowed into her body like a warm current; his right hand held the heavy black iron sword that had been with him for twenty years, the tip of the sword stuck in the ground, the blade trembling and emitting a dragon's roar, and a circle of golden runes was set up around the two of them.
The runes flickered with the vibrations of the passage, yet they never dissipated. "Girl, save your energy," the white-bearded, hoarse voice held an undeniable gentleness. "The information you've given us is enough to hold out for three waves. Now, all we need is for you to stay alive."
Su Qing's eyelashes trembled, and a sickly flush appeared on her pale face.
She could feel her consciousness being pulled by some force, but at that moment, she forced her eyes open, her pupils reflecting countless overlapping afterimages—the trajectory of the Night Owl's next attack. "Twelve o'clock!" Her voice was as soft as a whisper, yet it made everyone pause. "The storm will split into seven streams, the weakest one... behind the third stream of stardust."
"Received!" Chu Yao's projection suddenly froze in front of everyone, and data streams pulsed on the surface of her virtual body. "Channel stability 15%, Dark Blade's spacetime interference intensity increased by 30%."
"I suggest Mr. Lin Yi use 'time-space anchors' to fix the key nodes, Mr. Aizen maintain the shield's coverage area, and Mr. Ryugo prepare for a second burst." Her fingertips swept across the air, and three golden marks appeared at the top of the passage, the left rock wall, and under everyone's feet—the very key nodes Su Qing had mentioned.
Lin Yi gritted his teeth and tore open the wound on his left shoulder. The blood dripped onto the ground, triggering the time-space imprint he had planted long ago.
The three markers lit up simultaneously, and an invisible force wrapped around the crack in the passage like chains.
He could feel his life force draining away rapidly with this "space-time anchor" technique, but when the distortion of the passage slowed by 20%, he chuckled softly: "Night Owl, you think I'll let you have your way?"
However, the next second, something unexpected happened.
A sound like bones snapping echoed from the depths of the passage. The severed remains of Dark Blade, which Lin Yi had previously cut down, suddenly swelled into a black shadow, from which countless crimson runes surged, piercing directly through Aizen's shield! "Hahahaha!" Dark Blade's voice was filled with dying madness, "Even if I die, I'll drag you all down with me—Space-Time Turbulence, charge!"
Chu Yao's projection instantly turned red: "Warning!"
Dark Blade activated Time Reversal Technique, causing the channel's stability to drop below 10%!
Aizen's Hogyoku cracked open with a "crack," and the shield shattered. Ryuu's dragon scales began to peel off, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead—the overuse of the True Dragon bloodline was backfiring on his body. A gap appeared in the rune array of the white-bearded man, and a wisp of black mist took the opportunity to sneak in, grazing Su Qing's cheek and drawing blood on her neck.
"Su Qing!" Lin Yi's pupils contracted, and he slashed out with the Space-Time Blade again, but it was entangled by the Night Owl's black mist.
He could feel his spacetime power being torn apart by Dark Blade's evil magic, as if an invisible hand was trying to pull his abilities out of his soul.
"Hold on." A hoarse voice suddenly rang in Lin Yi's mind.
He turned his head sharply and saw Xuan Mingzi standing at the end of the passage, his white hair moving without wind, and his eyes shining like glass.
The game's mastermind placed his right hand on the bronze door, his left hand loosely clenched into a fist. "I will help you stabilize the timeline—but only for ten breaths."
Is ten breaths enough?
Lin Yi didn't speak. He bit the hemostatic pill in his mouth, and blood mixed with the medicine flowed down the corner of his mouth.
He could feel Xuanmingzi's power surging in like a tide; it was the power of the rules belonging to the origin of "Infinity," filling the cracks in the passage.
Almost simultaneously, he grabbed Ryuu's wrist and transferred his life force to him; he then tossed Aizen a spacetime crystal, and the cracks in the Hogyoku healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Dragon Five, cover the left flank with Dragon Breath!"
Aizen, fully unseal the Hogyoku!
"Whitebeard, use your greatsword to cast the final talisman for Su Qing!" Lin Yi's voice carried an undeniable pressure. Behind him, the phantom of the Time-Space Ruler appeared, twelve time-space rings rotating in the void. "Chu Yao, calculate the weakness of the Dark Blade Evil Technique—now!"
"In 0.3 seconds, the core of the evil magic will appear between Dark Blade's eyebrows!" Chu Yao's voice was mechanically calm. "Requires a single-target burst attack of over 2000 points."
"That's enough." Lin Yi laughed, and his spacetime blade suddenly grew three inches, with star-map-like patterns appearing on its blade.
This was the first time he had used the "Time-Space Origin Slash" in actual combat—at the cost of burning a third of his soul, but at this moment, he didn't care.
"Night Owl, Dark Blade—" He gazed at the distorted face at the top of the passage, a cold smile curving his lips. "Time to pay the debt."
The instant the Time-Space Blade was unleashed, Long Wu's dragon breath, wrapped in crimson flames, blasted towards the left flank, burning away the black mist that was trying to fill the gap; Aizen's Hogyoku burst forth with dazzling light, and the shield once again covered the entire field; Whitebeard swung his greatsword, and the last golden rune entered Su Qing's body, temporarily locking her life at the critical point.
The light blade, imbued with all of Lin Yi's power, pierced precisely through the center of An Ren's brow.
"No—!" Dark Blade's roar came to an abrupt halt. His mangled body turned into a rain of blood, but a single thread of blood suddenly burrowed into a crack in the passage and disappeared.
But nobody noticed this.
At this moment, everyone in the passage breathed a sigh of relief as they watched the stardust flow gradually stabilize.
Before they could even catch their breath, Chu Yao's alarm sounded again: "Channel stability 5%!"
An abnormal fluctuation in extradimensional energy was detected, and the oscillation frequency increased to a critical value.
\"boom!\"
The crack at the top of the passage suddenly widened tenfold, and countless spatial turbulences poured down like a waterfall.
Lin Yi looked up at the collapsing rock wall and heard Su Qing's rapid breathing, Long Wu's low groan, and Lan Ran's muffled cough.
He could sense that Xuanmingzi's power was waning, while Night Owl's black mist began to condense again—this time, there was a hint of mad pleasure in the other's eyes.
"Is it over?" Night Owl's voice mingled with the whistling of the turbulent currents. "Even if you entered the core area, you'd only be nourishment for a higher being—"
"Shut up." Lin Yi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and his spacetime ring spun even faster.
Beneath his feet, three spacetime anchors were emitting their final rays of light.
He could feel Su Qing's hand gently grasping the hem of his clothes, the white-bearded greatsword being plunged into the ground once more, Long Wu's dragon scales regrowing, and a faint light seeping from the cracks in Aizen's Hogyoku.
"It's not over yet." He gazed at the bronze door at the end of the passage, where the rumbling had transformed into a clear heartbeat. "The core area...we've arrived."
Before the words were even finished, the vibrations in the channel suddenly reached their peak.
Countless streams of stardust exploded into fragments, and the turbulent flow of spacetime formed a giant vortex, sweeping everyone's figures toward the bronze gate.
Lin Yi gripped Su Qing's hand tightly, staring at the approaching bronze door, when he suddenly heard Chu Yao scream: "Stability 0%!"
The passage is about to collapse—
The next second, the bronze door roared deafeningly, and blinding white light seeped out from the cracks in the door.
The walls of the passage are beginning to crumble at a visible rate.
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