The ventilation ducts in the metal corridor still smelled of burning. Long Wu shook the scales on his neck, and a few pieces of molten iron fell to the ground with a thud, splashing tiny sparks.
Chu Yao squatted in the corner, a mechanical repair bee the size of a fingernail was crawling into the crack of her terminal, making a buzzing electrical sound.
Xuan Mingzi leaned against the wall, his withered hand covering the lamp, the ghostly flame flickering like a dying moth—but when Lin Yi looked up, the four people's eyes met at the same time, like four clusters of flames being swept by the wind, suddenly rising three inches higher.
"Same as always." Lin Yi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and gently pressed his fingertip on the Time-Space Badge.
The metal badge inlaid with star trail patterns immediately warmed, the heat seeping into his heart along his skin. "Long Wu, clear the way. Chu Yao, stay close. Xuan Mingzi, watch for energy fluctuations on both sides." He paused, his gaze sweeping over the ventilation shaft where Night Owl had been hiding. "Night Owl was able to track us down by following the traces of the spacetime rift, which means the Mother Nest's positioning system is more sophisticated than expected."
Long Wu let out a low growl, his muscles bulging beneath his tight combat suit, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists: "That's perfect, my dragon flames haven't burned enough yet." Before he finished speaking, a metallic twisting sound suddenly came from the end of the corridor, like countless steel needles scraping against his eardrums.
Chu Yao's terminal beeped with a red light. Her fingers flew across the holographic screen, her hair whipping wildly in the sudden surge of energy: "Boss, an energy barrier has appeared thirty meters ahead!"
The group paused in their tracks.
It was a wall of light with a faint blue glow, seamlessly connecting the ceiling to the floor, with tiny arcs of electricity flowing across its surface.
Lin Yi took two steps forward and reached out to touch the barrier. Just as his fingertips were about to touch it, a silver light suddenly shot out, drawing blood from the back of his hand. "A deflected attack." He narrowed his eyes. The blood droplet landed on the barrier, instantly swallowed up. "Energy attribute...it seems to be a fusion of dark matter and spatial fragments."
"This is the intruders' 'Annihilation Wall.'" Xuan Mingzi's lamp suddenly brightened, the ghostly flame condensing into a semi-transparent talisman on the wick. "I've seen it in ancient texts—they used this kind of barrier to trap the first master of spacetime." His withered finger pointed to the lower right corner of the barrier, where there was an almost invisible vortex. "The weakness is at the spatial anchor point; precise frequency resonance is needed to break it."
Chu Yao's terminal was already mounted on a tripod, and countless green codes were flashing on the holographic screen.
She bit her lower lip, beads of sweat forming on her forehead: "Dark matter frequency is 137.9 Hz... fluctuations from space debris... wait, there's interference!" She suddenly ripped off her headset and slammed it to the ground. A thin, hair-like mechanical worm crawled out of the debris. "Night Owl planted surveillance cameras inside the barrier!"
Long Wu's fist was already covered in crimson-gold dragon scales: "I'll smash it right now—"
"Don't move." Lin Yi pressed down on his shoulder, while pointing his other hand at the ceiling in a hand seal.
The power of spacetime spread like a spiderweb, and the previously still barrier suddenly rippled. "Chu Yao, the source of interference has been temporarily frozen. Find the anchor point within three seconds!"
"0.8 seconds is enough!" Chu Yao's fingertips left afterimages in the air, and the terminal suddenly emitted a piercing beep.
The blue light barrier trembled violently, and the vortex in the lower right corner suddenly expanded. She grabbed the high-frequency vibrator from the table and threw it in, shouting, "Resonance activated!"
\"boom--\"
The barrier, like a punctured soap bubble, shattered into countless points of light.
Long Wu charged forward first, his dragon scales reflecting a golden-red light in the shattered light: "That was exhilarating!" Before he finished speaking, ten dark figures darted out from the hidden compartments on both sides of the wall—elite guards of Night Owl, over two meters tall, with bluish-gray skin and ghostly green soul fire flickering in their eye sockets.
"Well done!" Long Wu raised his head and let out a dragon's roar, his dragon breath, wrapped in molten gold, gushing from his mouth.
The lead guard raised his hand and unleashed an energy slash. The blade collided with the dragon's breath, exploding into a blinding white light.
Lin Yi's pupils shrank to pinpoints—the movements of these guards carried a clear battle formation, and their advances and retreats even bore a resemblance to the spirit of ancient armies.
"Chu Yao, analyze their weaknesses!" He drew the Blade of Time and Space with a backhand stroke, its blade swirling with starlight. "Xuan Mingzi, seal off their retreat!"
"The Soulfire is the core!" Chu Yao's terminal projected the guard's skeletal structure. "They replaced the heart with Soulfire, but... the fluctuations of this Soulfire..." She suddenly paused, "...are exactly the same as Night Owl's mental energy frequency just now!"
"Parasitization!" Xuan Mingzi's lamp burst forth with a ghostly blue flame, and the talisman transformed into chains that wrapped around the guards' ankles. "Night Owl has parasitized his spiritual fragments onto the guards; killing them is like tearing flesh from their souls!"
Long Wu's dragon claw tore through the chest of the third guard, and just as the ghostly green soul fire was about to escape, it was precisely pinned to the wall by Lin Yi's spacetime blade.
The ball of soul fire let out a shriek and began to devour the surrounding energy: "So that's how it is." Lin Yi's lips curled into a cold smile. "He's getting impatient."
"Boss, be careful!" Chu Yao suddenly screamed.
Lin Yi instinctively spun around, the Blade of Time and Space blocking his way—an energy spear grazed his shoulder and pierced through the wall, its tip still dripping with eerie green soul fire.
He looked in the direction of the spear tip and saw that the soul fire in the eyes of the guard deepest inside was particularly intense, and the armor on his chest was engraved with the same runes as the Night Owl.
"It's a Commander-level." Xuan Mingzi's voice held an unusual seriousness. "The purity of this guard's soul fire... is at least one-tenth that of Night Owl's true form."
Dragon Five's tail swept across, smashing the commander-level guard into the wall.
But suddenly the guard's hand pierced through the metal, grabbed the dragon's tail scales, and the soul fire drilled into Long Wu's body along the scales: "Scorch!" Long Wu roared, and dragon flames burst out from the gaps in the scales, instantly carbonizing the guard's arm.
"Chu Yao, locate the trap!" Lin Yi's temples throbbed. A distorted membrane of light formed around him from the power of spacetime—the trajectory of the energy spear from just moments ago perfectly matched the energy turbulence in the air three seconds earlier. "There's a space-type trap here!"
Chu Yao's terminal flashed frantically: "Two meters southeast, underground!"
Lin Yi kicked the ground hard, and the metal floor shattered, revealing a dense network of energy wires underneath.
The end of the wire was connected to a fist-sized crystal, flashing a dangerous red light: "Time-space bomb, detonating in three seconds." He flicked his finger, and the Time-space Blade precisely severed the wire. The crystal cracked open with a spiderweb-like pattern. "Retreat!"
As soon as everyone jumped out of the blast radius, a deafening roar came from behind them.
The shockwave made Long Wu's scales rattle, Chu Yao was dragged into a corner by Xuan Mingzi, and the terminal's maintenance mechanical bees were almost all shattered.
As the dust settled, the metal door at the end of the corridor slowly opened, and in the energy storm surging out from behind the door, the seven phantom keys became clearer than before.
"The Seven Keys of Creation..." Lin Yi touched the burning badge on his chest, the unique resonance of the mythical profession almost piercing his heart.
He could hear hurried footsteps behind the door, the crisp sound of metal boot heels striking the floor, and a familiar voice chuckling softly: "Finally here."
Long Wu wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth; his dragon scales were still stained with the guard's ashes. "Is that birdman waiting behind the door?"
"Wait." Lin Yi gripped the Blade of Time and Space tightly, and the star trails on its blade suddenly formed a complete circle. "He's waiting for us, and we're waiting for... his weakness."
The moment the metal door opened fully, a bluish-gray figure stepped out from inside.
The owl's pupils glowed with a sickly crimson, and the smile on his lips stretched almost to his ears. His right hand rested on the hilt of his sword, the patterns on which were identical to the runes on the guard's armor: "Master of Time and Space... let me see if you're tougher than that pile of rotten bones from three hundred years ago."
Lin Yi stared at the key pendant on Night Owl's waist—among the seven phantom keys, one of them had an outline that perfectly overlapped with the pendant.
His thumb rubbed the Time-Space Badge, mythical power surging within him: "Three hundred years?"
It seems you know more than I thought...
A roar of a colossal beast echoed from deep within the gate, as if some slumbering being had been completely awakened.
Night Owl's gaze swept over the crowd, finally settling on Lin Yi's face: "If you retreat now, you might at least leave with a whole corpse."
"Retreat?" Long Wu's dragon breath rolled in his throat. "I haven't known how to write the word 'retreat' since I was born."
Chu Yao's terminal suddenly popped up a new alert. She looked up at Lin Yi, her eyes shining brightly: "The energy fluctuations in the core area... have reached the critical point!"
Lin Yi gazed at the seven faintly visible key phantoms behind Night Owl, and the power of spacetime condensed into a vortex in his palm.
He could sense that this scheme, which had been brewing for three hundred years, was finally about to come to an end.
"Go in," he said, his voice sharp and incisive, "Let him see what...a true master of time and space is like."
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