Metal shards were still floating in the air when Chu Yao suddenly laughed the moment the fragment of her terminal cut the back of her hand.
It was a smile tinged with bloodshot veins—in her pupils, the last data stream before the terminal exploded was being reverse-engineered.
As one of the world's top five AI manipulators, she had already planted a "shadow program" of quantum entanglement in the nest defense system.
At this moment, the code shattered by the owl was being pieced together into a golden matrix on her retina by the nanobots flowing through her veins.
"Lin Yi!" Her fingertips traced afterimages in the air, drops of blood trickling from between her fingers onto the stone bricks. "The core of the defense system isn't the program, it's the resonance frequency of the Seven Keys' remnant souls! I can now synchronize with its shockwaves—"
The alarm suddenly distorted into a buzzing sound.
Within the purplish-black vortex of the dome, a blinding white light suddenly cleaved through the darkness.
That was a vulnerability in the defense system where Chu Yao forcibly took over the Mother Nest's energy hub using a shadow program, injecting self-destruct energy back into the defense system.
"The passage is open!" Long Wu's dragon scales gleamed with a golden-red hue in the white light. He scooped up Chu Yao with his thick arm. "Your blood is dripping all over my sleeve!"
Lin Yi's spatial domain unfolded beneath his feet, and golden light streams licked every inch of air as if they were alive.
He could clearly sense that the stone wall thirty meters away was peeling away with a 0.3-second delay—a sign that the passage was about to open.
The owl's phantom was still frantically tearing at the shadowy figure's chains, but the shadowy figure's tattoos were already oozing black blood, and each chain was emitting a mournful sound of metal breaking.
"Shadow, hold on for ten seconds." Lin Yi grabbed Xuan Mingzi's wrist and channeled the power of spacetime into his body. "Old man, use your star chart to locate the coordinates of the Seven Keys' remnant souls."
Xuanmingzi's Taoist robe fluttered without wind, and his wrinkled hand suddenly pressed against his chest as he coughed up a mouthful of black blood—the astrological predictions he had obtained at the cost of his life.
“Northeast, twelve meters away, there’s the sound of a living being’s heartbeat.” His cloudy eyes suddenly shone with an astonishing light. “It’s not a machine, it’s… it’s an ancient god that’s been sealed away.”
"Nine seconds." The shadowy figure's voice was like the friction of shattered ice. His left arm suddenly shattered, revealing the writhing dark purple veins beneath—the forbidden technique he used to perish together with Night Owl.
But his right hand still gripped the chains tightly, pulling the owl's phantom toward the center of the vortex. "This body can't hold on any longer. You... have to go in."
The roar of the passage opening drowned out everything else.
Lin Yi saw a dark blue mist gushing out from the crack in the stone wall. When the mist touched Long Wu's dragon flames, it emitted a shrill cry like that of an infant.
He drew the Blade of Time and Space with a backhand motion, the blade drawing a semicircle in the mist, protecting the team in the center of the arc of light: "Long Wu, clear the way, Chu Yao, stay close to my back, Xuan Mingzi, pay attention to the stars."
Long Wu's dragon horns suddenly grew three inches, and he raised his head and let out a dragon roar, the sound waves shaking the stone walls and causing dust to fall.
Golden-red dragon flames erupted from his palm, like a giant, red-hot axe cleaving towards the entrance of the passage.
The metal door, shrouded in mist, emitted a melting hiss, revealing a spiral staircase leading downwards—each step engraved with twisted runes that gleamed with an eerie green light under the dragon flames.
“These runes…” Chu Yao’s breathing suddenly quickened as her nanobots burrowed into the gap in the steps. “They mean ‘end’ in ancient Elamite. Every three runes form a coordinate point. It seems the core area of the Seven Keys is arranged according to a star map.”
Ripples suddenly appeared in Lin Yi's spacetime domain.
He suddenly grabbed Chu Yao by the back of her collar and pulled her backward. A poisoned steel needle grazed her earlobe and embedded itself in the stone wall, instantly corroding a charred hole.
“A trap.” His voice was as cold as ice. “There’s a trigger mechanism at the bottom of each step, with an interval of 0.7 seconds.”
Long Wu's dragon claw slammed onto the steps, and the ground cracked open.
He bent down, picked up half a piece of gravel, and threw it toward the third step—the moment the gravel touched the runes, hundreds of crossbow bolts suddenly shot out from the entire wall.
But Lin Yi's Space-Time Blade had already drawn a golden net of light, and all the crossbow bolts froze the moment they touched the net, then were shredded into scrap metal by the net.
"Impressive technique." Xuanmingzi stroked his beard and exclaimed. His star chart suddenly emitted a buzzing sound. "Thirty levels down, there is an energy node. It should be the resonator of the Seven Keys' remnant souls."
The team's pace quickened.
The mist in the passage gradually turned blood red, and semi-transparent figures began to appear on the walls—the remnants of job changers devoured by the Mother Nest. Their mouths were open in exaggerated "o" shapes, but they could not make any sound. They could only scratch the stone walls with their fingernails, leaving harsh marks.
"Don't touch those shadows." Lin Yi's spacetime domain suddenly contracted, repelling the nearest figures. "Their resentment is mixed with extradimensional toxins; touching them will contaminate you."
Chu Yao's nanobots suddenly vibrated collectively.
She stared at the data stream on her retina, her fingertips trembling slightly: "Detected... detected the resonance frequency of the Seven Keys of Creation! It's... it's the fluctuation of the 'Key of Time'!"
Before he finished speaking, Long Wu's dragon flames suddenly surged.
He slammed his fist into the stone wall in front of him, and the entire wall collapsed with a crash, revealing a bronze key embedded in crystal. The key's surface shimmered with starlight, and seven pale purple streaks of light floated around it, the same seven purple lights that had risen earlier.
“The remnants of the Seven Keys.” Lin Yi’s pupils constricted. He could feel the Blade of Time and Space burning in his palm. “So they weren’t separate. They were sealed in the same core.”
"Alarm! Alarm!"
A sharp electronic sound suddenly ripped through the silence of the passageway.
Chu Yao's nanobots flashed red lights frantically: "We've triggered a hidden positioning system! Night Owl has locked onto the coordinates and is heading this way!"
"How fast?" Lin Yi's spacetime power began to condense under his feet, ready to open a spacetime rift at any time.
“Thirty seconds.” Chu Yao’s forehead was covered in cold sweat. “He used spatial jump, and now he’s... twenty meters away from us.”
Long Wu's dragon scales stood on end. He turned around and shielded Chu Yao behind him, saying, "Attack if you dare! My dragon flames haven't burned enough yet!"
Xuan Mingzi's star chart suddenly shattered into pieces, and black blood spilled from the corner of his mouth: "The aura of the Night Owl... carries the power of the Seven Keys. This time... he is not an illusion."
A harsh, metallic scraping sound came from deep within the passage.
The sound grew closer and deeper, like some ancient behemoth gnawing at rocks.
Lin Yi could clearly sense that a terrifying energy was approaching—that energy was a mixture of the madness of the Night Owl, the evil of the Seven Keys, and a coldness that did not belong to this dimension.
"Prepare for battle." Lin Yi held the Blade of Time and Space horizontally in front of his chest, golden light flowing along the blade to form a vortex. "Old Dragon, protect Chu Yao. Xuan Mingzi, find an opportunity to set up the formation. Shadow..." He turned to look at the back of the group, only to find that Shadow had already been standing at the entrance of the passage, his body gradually becoming transparent. "You?"
“I’ll hold off the first layer for you.” The shadowy figure’s voice was hoarse, and his tattoos suddenly lit up, forming a pitch-black barrier behind him. “Remember, the core of the Seven Keys is not the key itself, but… what’s inside the key.”
Before the words were even finished, the stone wall at the end of the passage suddenly shattered.
A purplish-black energy wave surged forth like a flood, and the figure of Night Owl materialized within it—this time, he was no longer a phantom, but a real, flesh-and-blood entity.
His eyes had completely transformed into the shape of seven keys, each line flowing with liquid starlight. His mouth stretched to his ears, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth: "Dear guests... are you ready for the final chapter?"
Long Wu's dragon flames instantly illuminated the surroundings as bright as day. Lin Yi's spacetime domain collided with the barrier of the black shadow in the energy waves, creating dazzling sparks. Chu Yao's nanobots were frantically reorganizing the defense program, and Xuan Mingzi's fingers drew the final star array in the void.
In front of them, seven beams of purple light enveloped the bronze key, slowly rising toward the outstretched palm of the Night Owl.
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