The acrid smell of burning energy in the air suddenly became ten times stronger.
The owl's mutilated hand pressed against its chest, and dark purple light bands shot towards the dome like venomous snakes, weaving a twisted net above the mother nest.
In Lin Yi's sea of consciousness, the fluctuations of the faith link were cracking at a visible speed—the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of job changers around the world were being stripped away, like a string being snapped by an invisible hand.
"He's extracting the negative emotions of the invaders," Xuan Mingzi suddenly spoke, his robe billowing in the Shadow Erosion Storm. His withered fingers rapidly formed hand seals, cold sweat beading on his forehead. "Every warship carries soldiers corrupted by the Shadow Erosion. Their despair, resentment, madness... Night Owl transforms these emotions into weapons that corrode faith."
Lin Yi's pupils contracted into narrow slits.
He could clearly sense the trembling coming from afar: Xia, the healer in Donggang City, was trembling as she held her healing staff, and the wounds she had just healed began to bleed again; Lao Zhou, the mechanic in the Gobi Desert, slammed his wrench against his instep, the metallic clanging accompanied by his suppressed curses; further away, the newbie players in the beginner village were being cornered by the Shadow Erosion monster, their normally lit skill auras dimming by 20%.
"Long Wu." He turned to the burly man beside him, whose neck veins bulged and whose fist was already brimming with crimson battle aura. "Take a team to sever the connection point of the Shadow Erosion Light Belt." Long Wu was about to rush out when he was stopped again. "Remember to use your Flame Battle Aura—Shadow Erosion is afraid of high temperatures. This is data Chu Yao sent me half an hour ago."
Long Wu was stunned for a moment, then grinned and said, "Alright!"
"I'm going to burn ten holes in that lousy net right now!" Before he finished speaking, he had already led three fire-type job changers to rush towards the nearest band of light. His crimson battle aura was like a knife, instantly splitting the dark purple vines that were wrapped around the stone pillar in two.
A flicker of panic crossed Night Owl's red eyes, and more dark shadows suddenly emerged from the mutilated half of his face. These shadows condensed into countless sharp spikes, which shot towards Long Wu's back with a "whoosh."
Lin Yi's star map suddenly expanded, transforming into a golden barrier. The spikes struck it, producing a crisp sound and shattering into specks of black mist.
"My turn," Lin Yi murmured, his right hand resting on the Time-Space Badge on his chest.
He could feel the power of a mythical-level profession surging within him, like a sleeping dragon finally opening its eyes. "Time and space stand still."
Before the words were finished, the entire mother nest suddenly fell into an eerie silence.
Night Owl's raised hand froze in mid-air, the flow of the Shadow Erosion Light Band solidified into a purple ribbon, and even the flames that Long Wu had unleashed were suspended in the air, as if a pause button had been pressed.
Lin Yi's breathing was exceptionally clear in his ears. He could see the lingering fear in Night Owl's pupils and the viscous patterns that had formed on the Shadow Erosion Spikes.
"Three seconds." Xuanmingzi's voice came from behind. He had somehow sat down on the ground, with countless golden runes floating in front of him. "This is the limit of time-space freeze."
I need two seconds to analyze the core frequency of Shadowstorm.
Lin Yi's forehead was covered in a fine layer of sweat.
Maintaining a Mythic-level skill was no easy task for him, especially when facing interference from another Mythic-level being.
He could feel the spacetime power in his sea of consciousness flowing away at a visible speed, but his gaze remained fixed on Night Owl—within the other's fragmented consciousness, a dark blue light was flashing, which was the source of the Shadow Erosion Storm.
"Found it!" Xuan Mingzi suddenly clapped his hands, and the rune materialized into a stream of light that entered Lin Yi's brow. "The frequency of the Shadow Erosion Storm differs from the resonance frequency of the Faith Node by 0.3 Hz. Use spatial distortion to create an echo channel and connect the energies of nodes 17, 39, and 72!"
Lin Yi's fingers traced complex trajectories in the void.
He could feel the space distorting in his palm, like crumpled tin foil.
As the seventh distortion point was completed, a series of exclamations suddenly arose from afar—it was the job changers holding faith nodes simultaneously feeling the energy resonance.
"Chu Yao," Lin Yi called softly.
"Synchronized access to the global player consciousness network." The mechanical voice carried a hint of warmth. Chu Yao's projection appeared beside him, pale blue data flowing from her eyes. "What information needs to be transmitted?"
Lin Yi gazed at the stationary interdimensional fleet outside the window, and then thought of the little girl in the beginner village who fought against the Shadow Devourer with a wooden stick, of Old Zhou who spent three days and three nights building the war fortress, and of Xia's red eyes in the emergency tent.
He suddenly smiled, a smile with a warmth that could melt ice and snow: "Tell them..."
The next second, a voice resounded simultaneously in the minds of all job changers worldwide.
The voice was like a spring breeze sweeping across a barren plain, like sunlight piercing through dark clouds, carrying a reassuring tremor: "I am Lin Yi."
When you grip your weapons, when you heal your comrades, when you stand trembling before the front lines—your conviction is weaving a net that can support the entire world.
Xia from Donggang City suddenly looked up.
Her healing staff emitted a soft white light, and her trembling hand pressed steadily on the wound, which healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Old Zhou in the Gobi Desert picked up a wrench, and his mechanical arm suddenly lit up with golden patterns. The gears that were stuck turned with a "click," and the main cannon of the war fortress was recharged.
The novice player in the beginner village roared and swung his wooden stick. The Shadow Eater exploded into black mist the moment it touched the stick, and a pale gold badge appeared on its chest—the sign of the activation of the Faith Node.
The effect of time-space freeze is lifted at this point.
The owl's spike fell to the ground with a "clink," and he looked up in horror, only to see pillars of light shooting into the sky.
Those pillars of light were composed of countless starlight, converging from various cities, wastelands, and islands, weaving into a golden net above the mother nest.
At the center of the network, Lin Yi's star map was shining brighter than the sun, and his figure became clearer and clearer in the light, as if even time was standing still for him.
"This is impossible..." Night Owl's consciousness began to crumble, the shadowy figure dissipating like sand scattered by the wind. "How could their faith... be so strong..."
Lin Yi did not answer.
As he gazed at the ever-converging pillars of light, he could clearly sense the fluctuations of the faith link being repaired—the cracks were healing, the frequency was increasing, and countless points of light were connecting into lines, lines into a network, and the network into a sea.
In a remote starting village, a little girl with a ponytail is looking up.
A newly activated badge of faith lay in her palm, golden light emanating from it and flowing down her arm and throughout her body.
The next moment, her pupils shone with the same golden light as Lin Yi's star chart.
Meanwhile, at the center of the giant net atop the Mother Nest dome, an even more dazzling golden light erupted from Lin Yi's body, piercing straight into the sky.
As the golden light of the Mother Nest dome surged like waves, Xia was holding a treatment cane in the emergency tent in Donggang City.
The wooden staff now gleamed with a crystal-like luster, and the emerald at the top of the staff was split into seven petals, each petal shimmering with starlight.
The moment her fingertips touched the wounded soldier's festering wound, the healing light burrowed into the flesh like a living thing, and fresh skin grew back at a visible speed from the flesh corroded by the shadow—this was the effect of "Divine Protection." The skill description that had just surfaced in her mind read: It can clear 90% of the negative energy in the target's body and increase healing efficiency by 300%.
"Old Zhou!"
"The main gun of the War Fortress is charged to 100%!" came the scream of a mechanic apprentice from the Gobi Desert's communicator.
When Lao Zhou looked up, his mechanical right arm was oozing liquid metal, which was reassembling into six precision cannon barrels.
The main cannon, which originally required three minutes to warm up, now fired a plasma beam with a "boom" under his conscious control, instantly melting the Shadow Erosion warship three kilometers away into molten iron—this was "Starfall," his newly awakened mythical-level skill, which could draw upon star orbit energy for ultra-long-range strikes.
The little girl with the ponytail in the beginner village is even more exaggerated.
The wooden stick she swung, which could only leave white marks on the Shadow Devourer, was now wrapped in golden energy, and each strike exploded with a light burst two meters in diameter.
The most amazing thing was the star map that appeared beneath her feet, which was exactly the same as the star map pattern of Lin Yi's – that was "spacetime resonance", which allowed her to briefly borrow the space manipulation ability of the spacetime master.
She stared wide-eyed at her hands, then at the shattered Shadow Devourer in the distance, and suddenly jumped up, shouting, "I—I can take on ten of them!"
These images simultaneously flooded into Lin Yi's mind.
Chu Yao's data stream rolled before his eyes, providing real-time feedback on the attribute changes of 372,891 job changers worldwide: Strength, Agility, and Spirit generally jumped by 200%, 32% of them awakened their exclusive mythical skills, and the rest also received "Blessing of Faith" - all attributes +50% and resistance to negative effects +70%.
"Very good." Lin Yi's lips curled into a very slight smile.
He could feel the gathering power of faith feeding back into him through the spacetime rift. The star chart of the mythical profession was spinning wildly in his sea of consciousness. Even the spacetime power that originally required three days to recover was now being replenished in seconds.
But this calm lasted only three seconds.
The owl's roar shook the dome of the mother nest, causing dust to fall.
His fragmented consciousness suddenly expanded three times, and dark purple Shadow Erosion energy surged out from every crack like boiling magma, scorching black holes in the air within a ten-meter radius: "Dare to touch my Shadow Erosion Source?"
I will crush your beliefs, skin and bones!
His right hand suddenly plunged into his chest, pulling out a dark blue core—the very essence of the Shadow Erosion civilization.
Countless bizarre runes appeared on the core surface, and the interdimensional fleet below the mother nest simultaneously emitted a piercing shriek. Hundreds of main cannons turned their muzzles and aimed them all at the last faith node located in the China region.
"That's his trump card." Xuan Mingzi's voice suddenly became hoarse.
The golden runes before him had dimmed considerably, clearly indicating that they had exhausted their divine power analyzing the Shadow Erosion frequency. "Using the Origin Crystal to trigger a fleet volley—even a Mythical-level being couldn't withstand that—"
"No need to carry it." Lin Yi interrupted him.
His star map suddenly rose from behind him, transforming into tangible golden wings of light.
The power of faith surged through his veins like magma, and even the end of his voice carried a deafening roar: "He thought our faith was a shield."
No, this is a spear.
He raised his right hand and pointed his fingertip at the owl's brow.
The air suddenly distorted at a distance of 0.1 meters from my fingertips, as if it had been crumpled into a ball by an invisible hand.
This is the starting move for "Time Shatter," a mythical-level skill that can compress the three-dimensional space in which the target resides into two-dimensional fragments.
"Give me—shatter."
With that low shout, the space around the night owl suddenly cracked open like a spiderweb.
The dark purple shadow energy was swallowed by the cracks, and his consciousness was first stretched into a thin line, and then exploded into a sky full of black mist with a "boom".
Just as the black mist was about to reform, it was scorched by the light of faith surging in from all directions, making a sizzling sound.
Simultaneously, a chain of explosions occurred in the interdimensional fleet outside the mothership.
The main guns, which were originally aimed at the faith node, collectively turned and blasted at their own command ship—this was because Chu Yao had hacked into the fleet system while Night Owl was injured.
A mechanical voice announced from afar: "Enemy commander's vital signs detected as zero. Self-destruct procedure initiated."
The remnant soul of the night owl struggled in mid-air.
He gazed down at the humans enveloped in the light of faith, then suddenly burst into hysterical laughter: "Even if you win this round... the enforcers of advanced civilizations won't let you off—"
Before the words were even finished, seven brilliant beams of faith shot into the sky from seven faith nodes around the world.
They converged above the mother nest, transforming into a golden mark with flowing star trails.
The mark revealed Lin Yi's star map pattern, which was then combined with Su Qing's water spirit pattern and Xuan Mingzi's Bagua pattern before finally "whooshing" into everyone's forehead.
Xia from Donggang City touched her forehead, where a warm sensation still lingered.
She suddenly realized that this "Faith Link" mark was not only a symbol of power, but also a bond of consciousness for all job changers—she could vaguely sense Old Zhou adjusting the robotic arm, hear the little girl's cheers, and even touch the surging spacetime power within Lin Yi's star map.
"Link complete." Chu Yao's projection suddenly gained a human-like breathing quality. She gazed at the mark, her blue eyes glistening with tears. "Now, all job changers share 10% of the Mythical-level class abilities, and..." She paused, her voice as soft as a sigh, "...can sense each other's vital signs."
Lin Yi looked up at the mark.
He could sense that Earth's fortune was rising at a visible rate—the sky, previously polluted by the shadows, was beginning to clear; tender shoots were sprouting from the ruins of destroyed cities; even the previously silent system notification sounded: "Civilization Trial Progress: 97%."
"It's time to close the net." He turned to look at Long Wu, whose fiery battle aura had now turned molten gold, with even his eyebrows covered in sparks.
Then he looked at Xuanmingzi, who was wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth with his Taoist robe, but was laughing like an old rascal.
Finally, his gaze swept over the holographic map below the mother nest, which marked the seven core defense points of the interdimensional mother nest.
"Long Wu leads the Flame Team to storm the Northwest Core, while Lao Zhou's Mechanic focuses on the Southeast Energy Warehouse." His voice traveled through the faith link to every job changer. "Xia and the Healer follow behind the assault team, ready to heal at any time." He paused, a star map unfolding behind him. "Remember, we're not on defense—"
"Yes, it is about reclaiming the world that belongs to us."
Outside the mother nest, hundreds of figures carrying the light of faith have already taken to the air.
Their battle cries shattered the clouds, and golden light spread like wildfire in seven directions toward the extradimensional mother nest.
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