The Guardian leaned half against the wall, his white hair draped over his shoulders as black aura seeped intermittently from his body.
Lu Yuan closed his eyes, focusing all his consciousness on the Symbiotic Link.
The infusion continued. The Worm of Knowledge wriggled forward inch by inch within that Fifth Order body, with the grayish-purple medicinal fluid following behind, slowly seeping through the gaps opened by the worm.
The old man spoke again, his voice hoarse and intermittent. Since Lu Yuan had known him, this was the most he had ever heard him say at once.
At first, Lu Yuan paid it no mind. Maintaining the Symbiotic Link already consumed all his focus, and his sanity was slowly declining as he watched the worm advance each time.
But as he listened, he gradually realized that the Guardian was trying to distract him.
The old man knew he was forcing himself to endure it, knew he was consuming his own sanity, so he deliberately began speaking, drawing some of Lu Yuan's attention away from the worm.
"After the Fifth Order, the city became a cage," the Guardian said quietly. "But that cage also protected me."
Within the Symbiotic Link, the worm edged half an inch along a dim Pathway foundation. When it reached an area densely packed with eyeballs, it stopped and waited for the medicinal fluid to seep through.
"Even a Sixth Order..." The Guardian paused. "Once sealed into the deepest part of this city, they cannot get out."
Lu Yuan's thoughts stalled briefly between the worm and those words.
The underground seal—the thing behind the Copper Wall in the Pipe Network Layer.
Q had said during the interrogation that it was best not to touch that Copper Wall.
The "deepest seal" the Guardian spoke of referred to the same