The metal floor of the mother hive core was vibrating rhythmically, the frequency increasing, causing molten slag to fall from Lin Yi's combat boots.
He stared at the slag heap where Seven Keys was, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end—the energy lurking deep within was now churning like boiling magma, even the air itself rippled with distortion.
"Su Qing, what is your current energy level?" His voice was steady, but his knuckles unconsciously tightened around the hilt of the light blade.
The lines on his palms fit perfectly against the anti-slip grooves on the sword hilt; those were calluses he had developed while being chased by monsters in the beginner village.
"Synchronizing." Su Qing's projection floated above the terminal, her hair slightly ruffled by the vibrating airflow. Her fingers flew across the virtual keyboard 30% faster than usual. "Core energy level has surpassed twenty times that of Night Owl when it was alive. Thermal imaging shows..." She suddenly paused, a blinding red light flashing in the data stream in her pupils. "A life form is penetrating the Mother Nest's armor layer, three times the size of Night Owl."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Long Wu slung his battle sword over his shoulder, the blade still dripping with the purple liquid of Night Owl's blood. "Let's rush over and chop that thing down, and grab the Seven Keys while we're at it—"
"No." Chu Yao suddenly pressed down on the terminal and took a half-step back, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. "I tried accessing the Mother Nest database to locate the Seven Key coordinates, but it was encrypted." Her fingertips traced across the terminal screen, where countless runes he had never seen before danced. "These encryption protocols use Night Owl's biometric code; it must have been the last line of defense he set up before his death."
"Night Owl?" Xuan Mingzi's phantom suddenly shimmered like a piece of paper soaked in water, his voice cracking, "That was nothing more than a puppet of the core will... Now that the puppet strings are broken, the puppeteer must step in himself."
Before the words were finished, the black robe of the shadowy figure suddenly surged like waves.
This law enforcement officer, usually shrouded in shadow, took a rare step forward, his arm out in front of the crowd, the fingertips peeking out from his sleeve gleaming with a cold, metallic sheen: "Stop."
Do you think destroying a puppet will reveal the truth?
This mother nest isn't a building; it's alive...
His words were cut off by a sharp, metallic cracking sound.
Everyone turned their heads at the same time.
The once smooth wall was cracking open at a visible speed, with spiderweb-like fissures seeping from the cracks. Then, countless mechanical tentacles as thick as an arm burst out of the wall.
The tentacles are covered with barbs, each tip dripping with sticky liquid. When they fall to the ground, they sizzle and corrode into charred pits.
"Defensive formation!" Lin Yi's light blade hummed as it unfolded, its pale golden light instantly enveloping the three of them. "Su Qing, mark the tentacles' weak points!"
Chu Yao, continue cracking the encryption, Long Wu—
"Understood!" Long Wu's battle sword was already drawn, the blade reflecting his reddened eyes. "Brothers, follow me and protect the girls!" He patted the shoulder armor of the job changers behind him, and the old brothers who had followed him since the newbie village immediately scattered. Archers drew their bows and nocked arrows, shield bearers raised their energy shields, and even the healers who usually stayed at the back of the team gripped their poisoned daggers tightly.
Suddenly, a tentacle broke through the defense and stabbed straight towards Chu Yao's terminal!
"Watch out!" Su Qing's projection lunged forward, but passed right through the tentacles—she was just a data entity.
Chu Yao gritted her teeth, hugged the terminal, and rolled around. Her hair tie snapped, and as her long hair fell, she caught a glimpse of the runes engraved on the tips of the tentacles: they were exactly the same as the encrypted symbols in the database!
"It's the Night Owl's mark!" she yelled, crashing into Long Wu's shield. "These tentacles are controlled by his encryption protocol; crack it and we can..."
"Let's survive this wave first!" Long Wu's battle blade sliced off a tentacle, the metallic scraping sound piercing the eardrums. "Boss, these things keep multiplying!"
Lin Yi's pupils contracted to thin slits.
He could sense that the energy fluctuations deep within the mother nest weakened as each tentacle was severed—it turned out that the core will was drawing energy through these tentacles.
He quickly waved his hand: "Su Qing, synchronize the tentacles with the energy link in the core area!"
Shadow, use your law enforcement authority to interfere with the link!
Xuanmingzi, didn't you say you knew the weakness of the core will?
"Weakness..." Xuan Mingzi's phantom was almost dissipating. "It relies on the Seven Keys to maintain its existence, but the Seven Keys..."
Another roar.
This tremor was even more violent, and even the slag heap where the Seven Keys were located collapsed by more than half.
Seven beams of starlight rose from the ruins and hovered above everyone's heads. Each beam of light trembled as if it were alive. One of them suddenly turned towards Lin Yi and gently touched his light blade.
"The Seven Keys are responding to you!" Su Qing's voice was filled with surprise. "They are establishing a connection and need your mental power—"
A tentacle suddenly pierced through Lin Yi's defenses, its barbs grazing his left arm.
Blood splattered onto the Seven Keys, and the brightest light instantly surged, burning the tentacles to ashes.
"I see." Lin Yi licked the blood from the corner of his mouth, a sharp glint in his eyes. "The Seven Keys have recognized their master and need my blood..." He suddenly raised his voice, "All of you, listen to my command!"
Long Wu and his fellow trainees formed the first line of defense, delaying the tentacles' attack; Chu Yao, I'll use my blood droplets to help you crack the encryption; Su Qing, pinpoint the exact location of the core will; the shadowy figure, prepare to cut off its energy supply—
"Boss!" Long Wu cleaved away two tentacles with a single strike, cracks already appearing in the armor on his back. "The defenses can hold for another three minutes!"
"That's enough." Lin Yi plunged the light blade into his palm, and blood dripped down the blade's spine onto Chu Yao's terminal.
The encrypted runes began to crumble the moment they touched the blood bead, like an ice sculpture being roasted by fire.
He looked up into the depths of the mother nest, where the scarlet eyes shone even brighter, almost burning his retina.
"Core will, is that it?" He wiped the blood from his face, twirling the light blade in his palm. "You chose the wrong opponent."
More tentacles surged in from all directions, the sounds of metal scraping, swords clashing, and the shouts of those who had changed jobs weaving an impenetrable net within the core.
But Lin Yi knew that on the other side of the net, the starlight of the Seven Keys awaited; and deeper within the net lay something belonging to humanity, something that would never be crushed—
will.
The metal dome of the mother hive's core module was oozing a dark blue viscous liquid, which rose up as it dripped onto the ground, creating a pungent white mist.
Lin Yi's light blade vibrated in his palm, making his tiger's mouth numb—he could clearly sense that the severed mechanical tentacles were regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the silver liquid gushing from the cuts was clearly absorbing the Seven Keys Starlight floating in the air.
"Long Wu, two minutes left on the defensive line!" He yanked open the communicator, his voice laced with the hum of mechanical friction. "Have the shieldbearers divert the breach to the southeast, archers focus fire on the crystal clusters at the tentacle joints—those are the energy transmission nodes!"
Long Wu's heavy breathing came through the communicator, mixed with the dull thud of a battle blade striking metal in the background: "Received!"
"Old Zhou's shield cracked, so I'll use my battle sword to block it for him!" Before he finished speaking, a muffled groan came from behind, clearly indicating that Long Wu had blocked a thrusting tentacle for his teammate.
Lin Yi's Adam's apple bobbed.
He remembered that time in the beginner village, when Long Wu shielded him from the tusks of the wild boar king, leaving a deep wound on his back that exposed bone, yet he still smiled and said, "Brother has thick skin and tough flesh."
At this moment, he looked at the defensive line thirty meters away. Long Wu's battle sword was already chipped, and dark red blood seeped from the crack in his shoulder armor, but it still stood like a small mountain at the front.
"Su Qing, have you found a breakthrough?" He turned to look at the projection beside him.
Su Qing's hair was no longer fluttering virtually, but was being blown onto her face by the strong magnetic storm of the Mother Nest. The beads of sweat on her forehead gleamed under the blue light of the terminal—data entities shouldn't have physiological reactions, which meant that she was forcibly intervening in the Mother Nest network with her consciousness, enduring the pain of nerve burning.
"Scanning..." Her fingertips suddenly stopped, and the data stream in her pupils abruptly condensed into a golden ball of light. "Twelve meters to the right front, behind the ventilation duct!"
"A data node is reverse-devouring the mother nest's defense protocol!" Her voice rose, sharp and shrill, "It's like...like someone deliberately left a backdoor!"
Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.
He recalled the shadowy figure saying that the mother nest was "alive"—living things have weaknesses, and weaknesses are often hidden in the most dangerous places.
He grabbed Xuan Mingzi's wrist with his other hand, the touch from the illusory figure chilling to the bone: "Lead the way!"
Xuanmingzi's illusory figure swayed amidst the vibrations, yet pointed with unwavering determination at the ventilation duct: "That's the nerve center of the core will. The resonance frequency of the Seven Keys can interfere with it... but it requires three seconds of absolute stillness."
Three seconds.
Lin Yi's temples throbbed.
Time Freeze is his ultimate skill as a mythical class. Each use drains 70% of his mental energy. After using it in the Void Battlefield last time, he was unconscious for three whole days.
But at this moment, two shield soldiers on Dragon Five's defensive line had already fallen, and the healers' healing orbs began to flicker with dark patterns—they couldn't hold out much longer.
"Su Qing, you must connect to the node within three seconds." His voice was deep and heavy, like a weight of lead. "I'll count to three."
"One." His fingertips touched his brow, and the starlight unique to mythical-level professions seeped from his pupils, projecting a silver net of time and space lines onto his retina.
"Two." The tremors of the mother nest suddenly slowed down, the barbs at the tips of the tentacles stopped in mid-air, Long Wu's action of raising his knife froze into a bronze sculpture, and even the beads of sweat on Su Qing's eyelashes remained suspended in place, like a string of diamonds that had not fallen.
\"three.\"
The instant the time-space freeze was activated, Lin Yi felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck, a warning that his mental energy was being forcibly extracted.
He staggered, but in the process, he dragged Xuanmingzi towards the ventilation duct.
Su Qing's projection suddenly materialized—this was the price she paid for forcibly squeezing her consciousness into reality. Burnt blue smoke rose from the ends of her hair, but the moment she touched the data node, the terminal screen emitted a golden light even more dazzling than the Seven Keys.
"It's a success!" Her voice was strained, "The defense protocol is collapsing; the tentacle regeneration rate has decreased by 60%!"
But then the unexpected happened.
Suddenly, the ground cracked open with spiderweb-like patterns, and black energy pillars gushed out from the cracks, like inverted black holes, their edges crackling with scarlet lightning.
The tentacles, which had been imprisoned by the freeze of time and space, suddenly trembled collectively. The silver liquid at the broken ends surged wildly into the energy pillar, even pulling the seven suspended keys off course. The brightest starlight collided with the energy pillar, splashing up dazzling sparks.
Cracks appeared in the silver net that had frozen time and space.
Lin Yi's nose started bleeding uncontrollably; he knew this move wouldn't last ten seconds.
"Retreat!" he roared, grabbing Su Qing, but as he turned, he bumped into a dark shadow.
It was a dark figure that appeared behind them at some point. The metal fingertips under the black robe were pressing against the energy pillar, and the splashing black light burned scorch marks on the back of his hand: "This is... the Annihilation Core."
The owl is just a shell; the real one is...
"Boss!"
"The defenses can't hold!" Long Wu's roar exploded through the communicator. "The tentacles are going berserk! Old Zhou's shield is shattered!"
Lin Yi's light blade automatically unsheathed, its pale golden light slicing through the approaching tentacles.
He saw that Long Wu's battle sword had broken in two, and he was using the broken blade to prop himself up in the ground. The job changers behind him formed a circle, the healers' healing orbs formed a cocoon of light, and the archers' quivers were empty as they picked up their shields and smashed them at the tentacles.
"Everyone, retreat behind me!" His voice, mixed with the buzzing of the light blades, made the communicator vibrate loudly.
Suddenly, all seven keys disappeared into his light blade, which instantly expanded to three times its original size, its surface shimmering with starlight like a living galaxy.
But at that moment, Xuanmingzi's phantom suddenly solidified completely—a state he had never been in before, with even the folds of his clothes becoming terrifyingly clear.
He stared at the energy pillar, his eyes surging with a fear Lin Yi had never seen before: "It's absorbing the power of the Seven Keys... no, it's absorbing..." He suddenly grabbed Lin Yi's wrist, his nails almost digging into the bone, "Run!"
This is not the end...this is just the beginning!
The silver net, which had frozen time and space, shattered with a "crack".
The black energy pillar emitted a deep rumble, like the yawn of some ancient being awakening.
Lin Yi's light blade was burning hot in his hand, and the starlight of the Seven Keys was dimming at a visible speed.
He gazed at the gradually clearer outline at the center of the energy pillar—a human figure composed of shadows and particles of light, with a rhombus-shaped crystal embedded in its forehead, resonating with the Seven Keys.
Long Wu's battle sword clattered to the ground.
Su Qing's terminal screen suddenly went black, the last data stream reading: [Unknown civilization code detected...]
At the same time, a hoarse whisper, like the scraping of metal, rang in everyone's ears:
"Finally... it's here."
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