Suddenly, the tactical screen in the command center glowed with a faint blue light, and Lin Yi's closed eyelashes trembled slightly.
The swirling nebula of faith in his mind was now like a lake surface tossed with pebbles, with silvery connecting lines spreading out in layers, each one transmitting the temperature inside the nest—the scorching heat of the core area, the cold hardness of the defense towers, and even the frequency of the night owl's heartbeat in a certain hidden chamber.
"Su Qing, slow down the energy flow rate in Zone Seven by 0.7 percentage points." He suddenly spoke, his fingertip hovering over the air. The 3D hive model on the tactical screen immediately distorted and reformed. "The psionic vortex here is a false barrier; the actual power supply line is three layers below."
The data entity Su Qing's hair shimmered with tiny starlight. Her hand pierced through Lin Yi's projection in his sea of consciousness, pulling a strand of silver thread into the tactical screen: "Confirmed. The vibration frequency of this link matches the chanting of Buddhist scriptures by Grandma Wang in the shelter—her seed of consciousness is imprisoned in the 'cultivation chamber' on the east side of the core." Her voice softened, as if afraid of disturbing the shimmering points of light within the light network, "They are all waiting for us."
The hilt of the Breaking Boundary Blade left a heat mark on Lin Yi's palm.
He recalled the little girl who, three days ago, clutched his clothes and said, "I want to bring back candied hawthorns alive." Perhaps her consciousness was now trapped in some sticky container.
His knuckles slowly closed, and a blinding golden light suddenly burst forth from the tactical screen—he had used the Faith Link to tear open the Mother Nest's defensive data layer, revealing every fold of its internal structure.
"Long Wu."
The man who was inspecting the blade of the heavy axe suddenly looked up, his muscular neck taut like an iron chain.
His combat uniform collar was open, revealing a dark red faith totem on his chest, a "victory mark" tattooed on him with the blood of twenty-seven survivors late last night.
"I've marked the main attack route in red." Lin Yi flicked his finger, and a chain of light shot into Long Wu's tactical bracelet. "Avoid the psionic coverage area of the defensive towers. The faith link will increase your speed to three times your normal speed—but remember," his gaze swept over Long Wu's bandaged hand (a corrosive acid wound he took three days ago while saving civilians), "every step must be on their consciousness links."
Long Wu's thumb scraped heavily against the axe blade, the metallic scraping sound like muffled thunder: "Look, boss." He suddenly swung the axe with force, the wind it generated overturning half of the tactical table.
In the simulated projection on the ground, twenty "Hive Guardian" models were instantly cleaved into pieces, and Long Wu's figure left afterimages as he landed. "Just now, I used the explosive power boosted by faith—" He grinned, revealing bloodstained canines, "Now, even an epic-level guardian, I can pierce its core before it can react."
Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass came from the other side of the tactical screen.
Aizen supported himself on the experimental table with one hand, and the Hogyoku emitted a golden and red mist in his palm. Chu Yao's data stream was flowing down his arm and into the Hogyoku.
"The resonant frequency is still wrong." The AI assistant's voice carried an unusual urgency. Her projection condensed into a blue orb on the surface of the Hogyoku. "The Mother Nest's defensive field is absorbing faith energy; our detonation wave will be diluted by 30%."
Vertical serpentine stripes appeared in Aizen's pupils, and the golden patterns formed by the fusion of spiritual pressure and the Hogyoku had already crept up to the tips of his ears.
He suddenly slammed the Hogyoku onto the lab table, drops of blood from his palm sizzling on the metal surface: "Use my spiritual pressure as the anchor point." His voice was like sandpaper rubbing together. "After the Hogyoku recognizes its master, my spiritual pressure will be the coordinate—Chu Yao. Lock the detonation parameters to the fluctuation frequency of my spiritual pressure."
Chu Yao's data stream suddenly contracted into a thin line, piercing into the core of the Hogyoku.
The next second, the simulated mother nest model in the corner of the laboratory suddenly shook violently, and a beam of blue light pierced through nine layers of defense, precisely shattering the crystal ball representing the core.
"Success!" Chu Yao's projection suddenly materialized. She touched her cheek—this was her way of imitating humans to express excitement. "Now, even if Night Owl hides the core in the dimensional rift, as long as Aizen's spiritual pressure can reach it, the bomb can still follow and explode."
Aizen ripped off his lab coat to wipe his hands, the golden markings flowing beneath his skin with the movement: "Time to go meet that coward who's always hiding in his sea of consciousness." He walked towards the door, then suddenly stopped, turning to look at Lin Yi: "Those imprisoned consciousnesses..."
"Their faith links have formed a network." Lin Yi lightly touched his temple, where silver light flashed. "Once we tear through the core, this network will pull their consciousness back on its own—" His gaze swept across the densely packed dots on the tactical screen, each dot corresponding to the name of an ordinary person, "like a mother pulling her lost child back."
The alarm suddenly pierced the air.
Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.
He sensed countless tiny black dots gnawing at the silver threads at the edge of the light network of the faith link—those black dots carried a putrid stench, like a pack of hungry, vicious dogs, searching for the source along the link.
"Night Owl..." Su Qing's projection suddenly distorted, and for the first time, a crack appeared in her voice, "He's summoning the mind-hunting hound."
The lights in the command center went out instantly.
In the darkness, Lin Yi's eyes shone with golden light. He could clearly see that in the dark clouds in the direction of the Mother Nest, millions of eerie green eyes were opening.
"Notify all squads." His voice was as calm as an ice blade. "Move out half an hour earlier—" The hum of the Boundary-Breaking Blade echoed throughout the base as it was unsheathed. "Let those bastards know that daring to touch humanity's faith..."
"I'll have to pay with my life." As the alarm pierced the air in the command center, Long Wu gripped his heavy axe tightly, his palms sweating.
He stared at the black dots gnawing at the silver lines on the tactical screen, his Adam's apple bobbing—the little girl he rescued three days ago was still waiting for candied hawthorns. If these consciousness hounds dared to touch a hair on her head, he could cut down the walls of the mother hive.
"Su Qing, locate the source of the hunting dogs." Lin Yi's voice was as cold as steel tempered with ice, but the golden light in his pupils burned even brighter.
He could clearly feel those putrid consciousnesses climbing along the faith link. The first few had already touched the edge of Grandma Wang's consciousness in the shelter. The old woman's chanting of Buddhist scriptures suddenly stopped for half a beat, as if someone had choked her.
“Reverse tracking in progress.” Su Qing’s projection suddenly transformed into a data stream, the starlight at the tips of her hair exploding into tiny specks of light. “Night Owl has hidden the core consciousness of the hounds in the ‘Consciousness Forge’ of the Mother Nest’s Twelfth District—he’s betting we won’t dare to split our forces.” Her voice suddenly rose, and a few streaks of crimson seeped into the data stream. “But these hounds’ attack patterns are too urgent, as if they’re in a rush to sever all connections…”
"In a hurry?" Aizen's spiritual pressure suddenly surged, golden lines creeping up his neck and cheeks. "Of course he's in a hurry." He pulled a tactical knife from the lab table, the blade reflecting the cold light in his snake-like vertical pupils. "Three days ago, when we tore through the defense layer, his source core was exposed for 0.3 seconds—" The tip of the knife slammed heavily into the core area of the mother nest model. "That thing is frantically absorbing consciousness energy. If we can hold on for another half hour, he can complete the first stage of evolution."
"Evolution?" Chu Yao's projection suddenly condensed on Lin Yi's shoulder, her fingers rapidly tapping on the virtual keyboard. "I've detected that the mother nest's communication frequency is shifting towards a higher-dimensional band!" The AI's voice trembled for the first time. "Su Qing, bring me the communication logs you just intercepted—"
Su Qing's data stream was suddenly injected into Chu Yao's core, and the lights in the command center instantly turned an eerie purple.
As the garbled text scrolling on the tactical screen suddenly rearranged, a line of scarlet text stung their eyes: "Absolute Order Network Construction Progress: 47%"
"Assimilation." Lin Yi's temples throbbed, and the image of the little girl's upturned face from three days ago suddenly surfaced in his memory. "He wants to turn everyone's consciousness into programs..." His fingers dug deeply into the tactical console, the metal surface groaning in a twisted way. "Long Wu, go to the communications team."
"Boss?" Long Wu had already shouldered the heavy axe, his muscles taut like cast iron.
“Spread false intelligence.” Lin Yi’s gaze swept over the nibbling silver lines on the tactical screen. “Just say we’re going to break out from District Seven, and include the coordinates of the backup energy depot in it too—” A cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth. “Night Owl is in a hurry to cut off the link, so he’ll definitely send hounds to block this fake gap.”
Long Wu suddenly grinned, revealing his bloodstained canine teeth: "Understood." As he turned around, a gust of wind arose, causing the victory totem on his combat uniform to whistle. "I'll have the communications team use Grandma Wang's chanting as background noise. That old lady's voice is the best at fooling these bastards."
"Su Qing, continue analyzing the communications." Lin Yi turned to the data body. "I need to know where the construction nodes of the 'Absolute Order Network' are located."
Su Qing's data stream suddenly contracted into a silver line and drilled into the Faith Nebula in Lin Yi's sea of consciousness.
The next second, a sharp pain shot through his temple—countless fragmented images flooded in: in the sticky incubation chamber, the little girl's consciousness was curled up in a ball; Grandma Wang's chanting was distorted into a mechanical sound; and even his own face was there, calmly saying, "Obey order."
"The node is in the source core." Su Qing's voice came from the depths of her consciousness, tinged with a few cracks. "Night Owl has bound the source core to the network hub. As long as the source core remains..."
The communicator suddenly beeped.
A holographic projection of a shadowy figure coalesced in the center of the command center. His face remained shrouded in shadow, but blue light patterns of an advanced civilization could be seen dancing on his fingertips: "The evolution progress of the central consciousness has been detected at 49%." His voice was like the sound of metal scraping together. "Destroying the source core is the only way—it is hidden in the 'Well of Eternal Silence,' the innermost layer of the Mother Nest, protected by twelve spatial barriers."
"A spatial barrier?" Aizen's spiritual pressure suddenly enveloped the Hogyoku, and golden patterns darted about beneath his skin like flames. "I can tear a crack with my spiritual pressure."
"Chu Yao," Lin Yi said, looking at the artificial intelligence, "calculate the duration of Aizen's spiritual pressure rift."
“0.8 seconds.” Chu Yao’s projection flashed rapidly on the surface of the Hogyoku. “Enough for Long Wu to rush in and shatter the source core—but he needs the acceleration of the faith link.”
"I'll do it." A Blade of Destruction appeared in Lin Yi's palm, and the patterns on the blade suddenly lit up with a silver light that resonated with the Faith Nebula. "The Faith Link will increase his speed to five times its normal speed." His gaze swept over everyone: Long Wu's heavy axe was polished to a shine, Aizen's spiritual pressure condensed into a tangible form at his fingertips, Su Qing's data stream stabilized back into human form, and flames composed of code danced in Chu Yao's eyes.
"The little girl's candied hawthorn," Long Wu suddenly spoke, his voice low and deep like muffled thunder, "I want to give it to her in person."
Lin Yi's finger gently touched the little girl's name on the tactical screen, and the dot of light was trembling slightly at the end of the silver line.
He could feel the power surging within the faith connection, the belief of millions of ordinary people: Grandma Wang's chanting of Buddhist scriptures, the crying of babies in the shelter, and even a worker shouting "Fuck this other dimension!" in the ruins.
These voices wove together in his mind, each silver thread burning his palms.
"Let's go." He raised the Boundary-Breaking Blade, its blade reflecting the tense faces of the crowd. "Let Night Owl see..."
The faith link suddenly resonated within him.
Lin Yi gazed at the churning dark clouds outside the window, where countless eerie green eyes were closing in.
He could sense the fear of those hounds of consciousness—they crashed and bled in the net of light of faith, yet they could never break through the silver threads woven from human beliefs.
"Human faith..." His voice spread with the hum of the Boundary-Breaking Blade, "is never meant to be destroyed."
The doors to the command center were flung open with a loud crash.
Long Wu charged forward first, his heavy axe drawing a golden arc above his head; Aizen's spiritual pressure stirred up a shockwave, and the Hogyoku burned red in his palm; Su Qing's data stream wrapped around Lin Yi's wrist, transmitting the latest source core coordinates into his sea of consciousness.
Lin Yi stood in front of the tactical screen, gazing at the still-flickering lights.
He could feel the faith link surging within him, like a volcano about to erupt.
He raised his right hand, and the Boundary-Breaking Blade in his palm suddenly emitted a dragon's roar—
The next second, all the lights in the base turned on at the same time.
(A violent tremor came from the direction of the mother nest in the distance. Lin Yi's shadow was stretched long, and the silver threads of the faith link intertwined into wings of light behind him.)
He stared at the "Absolute Order Network Construction Progress: 50%" message on the tactical screen and gently pressed his fingertip on the "Source Core" location.
)
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