Deep within the sea of consciousness, that strand of gray "root" had spread into a web. It was not physical, but pure informational contamination, like billions of hungry data worms madly devouring the Will of Chaos leaking from the Entropy Beacon while greedily copying and analyzing every logical pathway of the young dragon's Left Eye Star Vortex calculations.
[Heavenly Dao Spore derivative (mental state) assimilation progress: 1.7%...] [Analysis target: chaos logic algorithm... current cracking rate: 0.0003%...] [Concealment strategy: deep dormancy, avoid high-intensity Energy Scans...]
The icy warnings flashed through the young dragon's Consciousness Core, only to be battered until it was on the verge of collapse by even more surging waves of Will of Chaos. The pressure on the two-hundredth Heart Questioning Step suddenly intensified. The illusions on either side were no longer isolated scenes, but countless memory fragments churned by sword intent and twisted into vortices—the cold corner of the hostage residence in Handan, Zhao, and the deeply guarded glance the young Ying Zheng had cast his way; beneath Mount Li, his cold, inhuman face reflected in the dark-gold vertical pupils of the demon lizard; the glaring crimson that had seeped from Yan Lingji's chest when the Pangu Hall Imprint cracked... Polluted by the Beacon's entropy energy, those scenes took on desperate, gray ruinous hues. Like Bone-Clinging Maggots, they wrapped around his soul and whispered madly, "Lone ghost... neither human nor shaman... prisoner of the Beacon... destined to become kindling!"
"Noise..." The young dragon forced out cold electronic static through clenched teeth. The Left Eye Star Vortex spun at an unprecedented overclocked speed, forcibly suppressing the illusion storm churning through his sea of consciousness. Starlight pierced through layers of obstacles, shining through his skull and flickering beneath the crimson glow of the Beacon on his brow. He