Long Wu's crimson flames crackled above his head, casting flickering light on Ivan's face.
The pale blue lines that had been running along his skin suddenly began to surge violently, like countless small snakes racing under his skin, and in the blink of an eye they covered his neck and cheeks, even turning the whites of his eyes a deep blue.
"Cough!" Ivan staggered and crashed into the metal support of the signal tower, his knuckles digging deep into the bloody holes in his palms, black blood seeping from under his fingernails and flowing down his arm.
His body seemed to be pulled in two directions by an invisible hand, sometimes hunched over like an old man in his twilight years, sometimes taut like a javelin, a broken sob escaping his throat, "No...don't...stop..."
Chu Yao's projection suddenly flashed a red alarm, and the mechanical voice unusually trembled: "Abnormal consciousness overlap detected!"
The structure of goal consciousness is not singular; it involves a nested personality with two layers, primary and secondary!
The primary personality is being overwritten by a secondary personality!
"Dual personality?" Xuan Mingzi's Taoist robe fluttered without wind, and a few strands of white hair fell out of his hair bun. He took two quick steps forward and then suddenly stopped—tiny arcs of electricity seeped out from the light blue patterns, crackling and striking the surrounding air.
As the former embodiment of the game's mastermind, he knew all too well what this structure meant: "The brood has a backup inside him!"
Just like a hot update patch for a program, as long as the activation conditions are triggered...
Before he finished speaking, Ivan's pupils suddenly contracted into vertical slits.
His left hand rose uncontrollably, his fingertips slowly tracing across his temple, the movement as elegant as playing the piano, and the pained, contorted expression on his face was now replaced by a cold smile.
"Thank you." When he spoke, his voice sounded like it had been repeatedly pulled and strained in a mixer. The first half of the sentence was a hoarse male voice, the second half suddenly turned into a clear girlish voice, and finally settled into a mechanical tone without any emotional fluctuation, "Help me break free from the direct control of the Mother Nest."
The attacks from those tentacles, the struggle for anchor points—all were catalysts for the collapse of the dominant personality.
A chill ran down Lin Yi's neck.
He noticed that Ivan's right hand was pressed against his chest at some point, where there was a very faint golden mark—the purification mark he had placed on Ivan three days ago.
So the mother nest was already being built back then?
"Now," Ivan tapped his chest lightly with his fingertips, and the pale blue lines suddenly converged into a diamond shape, flickering at his heart, "it's time for me to take over this body."
Long Wu's flames suddenly shrank by half a foot.
He turned to look at Lin Yi, his crimson-gold eyes burning with anxiety: "Boss, these tentacles are pressing down even tighter!"
If this drags on any longer, my dragon flames won't hold up!
"Stabilize the defense first," Lin Yi's voice was as deep as lead.
On the back of his left hand, the newly acquired maple leaf mark was slightly warm with his heartbeat—it was the power of [faith resonance] stirring within him.
He stared at the deep blue in Ivan's eyes and suddenly remembered that three days ago in the spacetime rift, this man who called himself "restored to humanity" had said that he "wanted to see the sunrise over humanity."
So, from the very beginning, the so-called "restoration" was a trap set up by the mother nest?
"You think that by purifying the main personality, you've destroyed the pawns of the Mother Nest?" Ivan's lips curled into an unnatural smile. "Wrong."
The primary personality is the bait; the secondary personality is the real... key. His gaze suddenly locked onto Lin Yi's left hand. "And you, you helped me obtain the password to unlock this key."
Chu Yao's projection suddenly unfolded into a three-dimensional model, visually presenting Ivan's consciousness structure: two overlapping orbs of light, the original dominant warm golden primary personality was rapidly collapsing and being swallowed up by another secondary personality with a ghostly blue hue.
Red annotations flickered on the edge of the model: "The secondary personality is highly consistent with the core frequency of the maternal nest, suspected to be a fragment of the maternal nest consciousness."
"I see." Xuan Mingzi suddenly chuckled, but it sounded more like a sob. "The Mother Nest knew we would attempt purification, so it deliberately made the primary personality appear vulnerable, inducing us to stimulate our consciousness with purification techniques—this, in turn, became the key to activating the secondary personality." He looked at Lin Yi, his eyes filled with guilt. "It was my oversight; I didn't consider that the Mother Nest would use such... a method that turned the tables."
"Now is not the time to blame yourself." Lin Yi's thumb unconsciously rubbed the maple leaf mark on the back of his left hand.
He could feel the power of faith from the members of the Time and Space Legion slowly flowing into his sea of consciousness along the mark, like a warm fire burning in his dantian.
His gaze never left Ivan: the other man's movements became increasingly fluid, his previously unsteady steps became steady, and he even carried a certain composure of a superior.
"Lin Yi," Ivan suddenly spoke in standard Chinese, pronouncing each word very clearly, "You think you are the darling of fate?"
They're just guinea pigs in the selection mechanism of advanced civilizations.
"The Mother Nest doesn't want your life, it wants..." His fingertip suddenly pointed to Lin Yi's brow, "...the authority of the Time-Space Ruler within you."
Long Wu's dragon flames surged three feet with a "boom," burning the approaching tentacles to ashes, but also consuming more spiritual power in the process.
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and the veins on the back of his hands, covered in scales, bulged: "Boss!"
I can only hold on for two more minutes at most!
Lin Yi took a deep breath.
He could hear his own heart pounding like a drum, and the sound of the vortex of time and space in his mind suddenly became clear—it was the power of the [Time and Space Dominator] responding to his will.
He stared at the increasingly intense deep blue in Ivan's eyes, and the maple leaf mark on the back of his left hand suddenly lit up with a dazzling golden light, as the power of faith surged through his body like a hot current.
"Chu Yao," his voice was as steady as an inscription carved on bronze, "locking in the core frequency of the secondary personality."
Xuanmingzi is preparing to seal the passage to his sea of consciousness.
"Dragon Five, concentrate the flames within three meters of Ivan—I'm going to sever his connection to the Mother Nest."
Ivan paused, a hint of surprise flashing in his deep blue eyes: "You...you can actually analyze things calmly at a time like this?"
"Because what I do is never to be led by fate." Lin Yi took a step forward, the Blade of Time and Space automatically unsheathing itself, its silvery light swirling in his palm. "And I will never let you destroy the people I cherish."
On the back of his left hand, the golden light of the maple leaf mark shone even brighter, and a few fine strands of light could be faintly seen drifting out from the mark, wrapping around Ivan's ankle like gossamer threads.
At this moment, Ivan was staring down at the threads of light, and for the first time, a flicker of emotion appeared in his deep blue pupils—a genuine fear belonging to the Mother Nest.
The maple leaf mark on the back of Lin Yi's left hand suddenly burst into dazzling golden light. Those wispy threads of light suddenly transformed into golden chains, which "whooshed" around Ivan's ankles and wrists, and even burrowed into his skin along the pale blue lines on his neck.
This is the ultimate application of [Faith Resonance] – he condenses the faith power of 30,000 members of the Time Legion into shackles, directly anchoring the target's soul essence.
"Do you think I'd let you possess me so easily?" Lin Yi's voice was icy, the silver light of the Time-Space Blade danced at his fingertips, and the time ripples flowing on the blade precisely cut through the space around Ivan, imprisoning him in a transparent cocoon of light two meters in diameter.
He could clearly sense the spiritual power under the maple leaf mark surging like a tide—when he planted the purification mark for Ivan three days ago, he deliberately buried an anchor of faith power in the spell, which was now flowing upstream along that pale golden light mark, like a steel nail driven into the soft flesh of the mother nest consciousness.
"Secondary personality core frequency detected: 0.72γ-9." Chu Yao's projection suddenly unfolded countless data streams, condensing into a pale blue spectrum above Ivan's head. "If forcibly separated, the primary personality's survival probability is 37.2%."
"37%?" Long Wu's crimson flames suddenly exploded, burning the approaching tentacles to ashes, but also causing the signal tower support to groan.
He wiped the sweat from his brow; fine beads of blood seeped from the scales covering the back of his hand—his dragon blood was being rapidly depleted to maintain his defense. "Boss, the odds are too low!"
Xuanmingzi's white hair moved without wind, and his withered fingers suddenly pressed against his brow.
As the former avatar of the game's mastermind, he could "see" the turbulent undercurrents churning within Ivan's consciousness: the warm, golden primary personality was tearing at the azure orb of light, the former like a piece of wax being roasted, the latter like a giant python swallowing a whale, tearing off large chunks of gold leaf with each coil. "Use the Faith Reconstruction Technique," he suddenly spoke, his fingers trembling slightly beneath his Taoist robe—this technique required transforming the power of faith into a scalpel of consciousness; the slightest deviation would cause both consciousnesses to perish together. "The fragments of the Mother Nest's consciousness rely on external energy. We can use Ivan's primordial memories as anchors to peel away the secondary personality, leaving it rootless."
Lin Yi's pupils contracted slightly.
He recalled the gentle light in Ivan's eyes three days earlier when he sat by the campfire and said, "My sister loves watching the sunrise."
At the time, he thought it was just a normal expression of human nature, but now it has become the sharpest weapon. "Ivan!" he shouted, and the silver light of the Blade of Time and Space suddenly entered his palm. His left hand pressed on the cocoon of light, and the power of faith poured into the other's sea of consciousness like a hot current. "Think of your sister!"
Think about the nights you spent with her studying in the Blue Star University library!
Think back to the day she got into medical school, when your hands were shaking so badly you couldn't even press the shutter button!
Ivan inside the cocoon of light suddenly trembled violently.
His left hand gripped the purification mark on his chest so tightly that his nails almost pierced his skin, and he let out a beast-like howl.
The previously dominant blue orb of light suddenly cracked, and a few warm golden fragments of memory burst forth from it—the girl with a ponytail standing on tiptoe to tie his scarf, the two sharing a broken umbrella in the downpour, and the last trace of concern in the old man's cloudy eyes on the sickbed.
"Xiao... Xiao Rou..." Ivan's voice suddenly became hoarse, like a piece of iron polished by sandpaper.
His right hand slowly rose and pressed against his left chest, where the pale blue diamond symbol was crumbling. "I promised Dad... I would take her to see every sunrise..."
Chu Yao's spectrum suddenly started to fluctuate wildly.
Within the model, the erosion rate of the pale blue light cluster plummeted by 30%, while the golden light cluster of the dominant personality began to retaliate, like a flame fanned by the wind. "Emotional resonance intensity detected increased to 89%!" Her mechanical voice, unusually sharp, added, "Continue to strengthen the memory impact!"
"Long Wu, raise the flame temperature to the critical value!" Cold sweat beaded on Lin Yi's forehead—maintaining the Chains of Faith required 30% of his spiritual power, and his back was already soaked with sweat. "Use dragon flames to scorch the Mother Nest tentacles and cut off the energy supply to the secondary personality!"
"Understood!" Long Wu roared to the sky, and the crimson-gold flames suddenly surged five meters, condensing into a ferocious fire dragon in mid-air.
The moment the flame touched the tentacles, a pungent, burnt smell exploded in the air. The originally resilient black tentacles shrank and broke off at a visible speed, as if they had been splashed with sulfuric acid.
Ivan's body suddenly tensed up like a bow.
In his pupils, a fierce tug-of-war was raging between deep blue and warm gold. Finally, the last wisp of deep blue condensed into a sharp spike, piercing fiercely towards the core of his personality. "No—!" he roared, staggering half a step, only to be pulled back to his original position by the chains of faith.
The next second, he pressed his hands hard against his temples, and beads of pale blue and gold blood seeped from between his fingers. "Get out!"
This body... is mine!
A crisp sound, like shattering glass, filled the air.
The pale blue light finally gave way, turning into countless tiny blue dots, like stardust scattered by the wind.
Ivan's body slammed heavily onto the metal floor, his violent cough causing his chest to heave, yet he still managed to lift his head and force a weak smile: "Th...thank you."
This time... I'm truly myself.
Lin Yi immediately removed the chains of faith and quickly stepped forward to help Ivan.
He could feel that the other person's heartbeat was gradually stabilizing, and the originally chaotic spiritual energy fluctuations were also calming down.
Long Wu breathed a sigh of relief. The crimson flames receded from the top of his head, transforming into a small fireball that hovered above his shoulder. He himself knelt on one knee, the skin beneath his scales flushed an unnatural red—his all-out effort had left him exhausted.
\"bite--\"
A faint, crisp sound suddenly came from Lin Yi's palm.
He looked down and discovered that the rune fragments he had picked up in the spacetime rift three days ago had somehow floated up, and the dark patterns on their surface were glowing with an eerie red light.
Even more bizarrely, a line of golden text slowly emerged from the center of the fragment, seemingly written in liquid metal: "Warning: The ultimate mother hive has not yet been born."
Lin Yi's breath hitched.
He could feel the heat from the fragments piercing through his palm and into his sea of consciousness. The spinning sound of the spacetime vortex suddenly became rapid, as if warning of some impending crisis.
He looked up at the sky, where large patches of lead-gray clouds had gathered in the clouds that had been burned through by the dragon flames. He could vaguely hear a rumbling sound like muffled thunder—the sound was somewhat similar to the tremors that had occurred when the space-time rift opened three days ago.
Ivan followed his gaze and looked up, his face instantly turning deathly pale: "That's... the summoning cloud of the Mother Nest."
I saw it when I was being parasitized.
Long Wu struggled to his feet, a flame rekindling in his crimson-gold eyes: "Boss, should I go scout out the situation now?"
"No." Lin Yi clenched the rune fragment in his palm, red light leaking through his fingers and casting a distorted shadow on the ground. "Take Ivan back to the time-space base to heal first." His voice was soft, yet it struck everyone's hearts like a heavy hammer. "There are some things... we need to prepare for."
The wind suddenly picked up.
The metal supports of the signal tower creaked and groaned, and the cries of startled wild birds could be heard in the distance.
Lin Yi stared at the red-glowing rune fragment in his palm, his brows furrowed—he knew that this battle with the Mother Nest had only just entered its most brutal phase.
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