The thick, inky darkness enveloped everyone as if it were a tangible substance. Nothing could be seen but endless blackness; it was as if the entire world had been swallowed up by this darkness.
In the darkness, a suffocating silence hung in the air, occasionally broken by faint hissing sounds, like the darkness itself roaring in low voices.
The skin of the group could feel the dark, cold, and sticky texture, as if countless icy hands were gently caressing them, causing them to shiver involuntarily.
Long Wu's dragon scale armor was burning hot at his waist, but the sticky, corrosive sensation seeped into his bones through his pores. Veins bulged on his forehead as he gritted his teeth and groaned, "This thing... is even more sinister than that Shadow Bug from last time!" The scalding heat felt like it was burning the skin on his waist, while the corrosive sensation was like a cold snake crawling inside him, making him feel uncomfortable all over.
"Don't try to tough it out." The white-bearded voice came from the left. The old martial artist, who was nearly seventy years old, was breathing unusually steadily. "Shadow Erosion attacks the mind. The more you struggle, the easier it is for them to exploit your weaknesses." He placed his withered hand on the back of Long Wu's neck, and a warm internal energy flowed into the Dazhui acupoint, temporarily suppressing the chill surging under the dragon scale armor.
The warm internal energy flowed slowly through my body like a warm current, dispelling some of the chill.
Lin Yi's silver-purple light condensed into a thin sword in his palm, barely managing to draw a half-meter-wide area of light in the darkness.
Within this faint field of light, one could see the darkness being sliced by the lightsaber as if it were a tangible object, producing a hissing sound.
He could see fine black spots rising on the surface of his skin—the marks of the Shadow Erosion eroding the power of time and space.
The dark spots, like evil marks, spread rapidly across his skin, making him feel uneasy.
"Chu Yao, analysis progress," he said in a low voice.
"Scanning in progress." Chu Yao's voice rang in everyone's minds. As an artificial intelligence life form bound to Lin Yi's mind, she was currently infiltrating the dark domain in quantum form.
In the unseen void, countless streams of data burst forth from her fingertips, weaving a pale blue net in the darkness, emitting a faint buzzing sound as they flowed.
"The Shadow Erosion Origin is the manifestation of the Shadow Laws of another dimension. The erosion mechanism has three layers: the first layer strips away the five senses, the second layer devours life energy, and the third layer..."
The data stream suddenly trembled violently, emitting a sharp "hissing" sound, and Chu Yao's voice was briefly interrupted by static: "The third layer is to erase all traces of existence. Night Owl is in the compression field, and our time... is only seventeen minutes and three seconds left."
Long Wu gasped, "Seventeen minutes? That's not even enough time for me to smoke a cigarette!"
"Don't rush." Lin Yi's pupils shimmered with a starlight-like light. His perception as the master of spacetime pierced through the darkness, and he detected a faint tremor frequency within the Shadow Corrosion energy. "Chu Yao, what is the resonance frequency of the Shadow Law?"
"Detecting... 112.7 Hz".
"The frequency difference between my light vibration and that of my spacetime power is 0.3 Hz." A surge of silver light erupted from Lin Yi's fingertips, and the lightsaber suddenly exploded into millions of stardust fragments. Each fragment vibrated at a frequency of 112.4 Hz, emitting a slight buzzing sound. "The core of Shadow Erosion is the suppression of laws, but all laws have a resonance threshold. If we interfere with it using a similarly high-frequency light vibration..."
"It can tear apart the chains of laws!" Chu Yao's voice suddenly rose, a hint of excitement showing beneath the calmness unique to artificial intelligence. "I need to verify this inference—the mainframe database records that ancient trial participants used 'frequency interference' to counter similar law-based skills!"
The white-bearded man suddenly chuckled: "Young friend, are you looking to make some temporary equipment?" He reached into his waistband with his calloused hand and pulled out a dark lump of iron. "This is meteorite iron that I picked up in the Starfall Mountains years ago. I've kept it without using it, and now it's perfect."
Long Wu immediately ripped open his clothes, and a piece of dragon scale armor at his waist snapped open: "Use my dragon scale! This thing can't even be torn apart by spatial rifts, it's absolutely durable as material!" His fingertips traced the edge of the dragon scale, and blood flowed out but didn't drip; instead, it was absorbed by the dragon scale and condensed into dark red patterns on the surface of the armor. "My natal dragon scale, it's even more effective when stained with my essence blood!"
Lin Yi's gaze softened slightly.
He raised his hand and tore open a spacetime rift, taking out several azure crystals from it—these were collected during his last raid on the Starry Sky Ruins, specifically for storing light vibration energy.
"Chu Yao, calculate the optimal fusion ratio."
"60% meteorite iron, 25% dragon scales, and 15% azure crystal. It needs to be fused at 1300°C with an error margin of no more than 5°C." Chu Yao's voice transformed into tangible blue light, projecting an equipment design blueprint into the void: it was a rhombus-shaped pendant with complex spacetime inscriptions engraved on its surface. "Upon completion, it will activate a light vibration frequency of 112.4 Hz, which can form a protective field."
“I’ll control the temperature.” The white-bearded man flicked his finger, and a crimson-gold flame rose from his palm—it was the “True Qi of Separation Fire” that he had cultivated for thirty years. The flame made a “whooshing” sound as it burned. “Meteorite iron is hard to melt, but the True Qi of Separation Fire can burn it.”
Long Wu handed over the dragon scale: "Old man, don't burn my treasure."
"You brat." The white-bearded man chuckled and took the dragon scale. He then enveloped the three materials in the flames, causing sparks to crackle and pop.
Lin Yi then flicked his fingers to draw spacetime inscriptions in the void. Each inscription glowed with a silvery-purple light and, like a living thing, burrowed into the molten metal, emitting a soft "sizzling" sound.
Time passed by, second by second.
The sweat on Long Wu's forehead evaporated in the darkness, and the flames on his white beard gradually turned blue—a sign that the fire had reached its peak.
When the three materials were completely fused into a liquid state, Lin Yi suddenly grasped the design blueprint projected by Chu Yao, and the power of spacetime in his palm erupted, compressing the liquid metal into a rhombus-shaped pendant.
"It's done!" Chu Yao's voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement.
The diamond-shaped pendant floated in the middle of the crowd, its surface shimmering with interwoven silver-purple and dark blue light patterns, which emitted a faint "humming" sound as they flowed.
Lin Yi raised his hand and the pendant "whooshed" into seven streams of light, which entered the foreheads of the seven people respectively. This was a "one person, one frequency" mode that he customized with the power of spacetime to ensure that the frequency of each person's protective field was accurately matched.
The next second, a ripping sound came from the darkness, as if something was being torn apart.
Long Wu could suddenly hear his own heartbeat; the "thump-thump" of his heartbeat was exceptionally clear in the silence.
Whitebeard smelled a faint, slightly acrid, burnt odor in the air.
Aizen even touched the hilt of the sword at his waist, and the cold touch of the hilt put him at ease.
Aizen, as the team's sharpest weapon, possesses superhuman agility and swordsmanship. At this moment, he grips the hilt of his sword tightly, his eyes resolute, ready to face the impending battle at any moment.
"Shadow Erosion...it was blocked?" Long Wu pinched his face in disbelief, wincing in pain. "Damn it, I can feel the pain again!"
"The protective field strength is 97%." Chu Yao's voice became clear again. "The erosion rate has dropped to 0.3% per minute, which is expected to last for two hours."
From the depths of darkness came the Night Owl's cold laugh: "Interesting, you actually found the Shadow Erosion's weakness." His voice was no longer ethereal, but carried a tangible sense of oppression, like a heavy hammer striking everyone's hearts.
"But do you think you can win like this?"
Lin Yi looked up towards the direction where the darkness was deepest.
He could feel the Night Owl's primal power surging wildly, like a sleeping giant awakened, its jaws wide open.
"Get ready." A burst of silver light erupted from his fingertips, and everyone's expressions instantly tensed, their muscles taut, and fine beads of sweat appeared on their foreheads.
"Night Owl is about to flip the table."
Before the words were finished, the darkness beneath their feet suddenly surged.
It was no longer just darkness, but transformed into thousands of shadow tentacles, shrieking and sweeping in like a surging tide. The shadow tentacles cut through the air with a whooshing sound, sending chills down one's spine.
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