Thorns Bloom into Blades, Faint Light Erodes Locks

Deep within the warehouse, the shadows were as thick as ink that could never dissolve. Lanling King and A Ke stood like two frozen shadows. The air reeked of rust and dust, cold and acrid. Xiang Yi stood in the second-floor control room, one palm pressed against the icy metal railing as he stared below. Ever since the Ancient One had crushed this dump with a single glance at the Kunlun Mountains, it had become as flimsy as papier-mâché. Worse still were the omnipresent Dimensional Shackles—The Ancient One's cold mark—twisting the primordial energy circulating through the base, their pitiful low-dimensional energy, under the crushing pressure of the deep sea. Every attempt to mobilize it felt like sinking into mud, doubling the cost and making it seem as though those damn blue-gold sparks could appear at any moment.

Begin. Xiang Yi's thought pierced the dead silence like an ice pick.

The instant the command fell, Lanling King dissolved completely into the darkness like ink dropped into deep water. A Ke moved at the same time, her blood-red shadow tearing through the stagnant air as she lunged at the thick load-bearing pillar on the left!

Clang!

Sparks flew everywhere! A Ke's figure shattered into an afterimage amid the sparks. Her real body had already flashed behind the steel pillar like a ghost, her dagger Flashstep stabbing like a venomous snake toward an apparently empty corner—exactly where Lanling King emerged like a phantom!

Fang of Shadow collided with the blood-red dagger, and an ear-splitting metallic screech exploded!

Bzzzz—!!!

In the control room, the virtual sandbox projection instantly erupted with blinding red light! Spiderweb-like cracks spread wildly across the blue membrane representing the base's energy field! The shrill alarm was drowned out by an even sharper roar inside Xiang Yi's mind:

Shrill Alarm: [Rule Rejection]! Energy frequency (7.3Hz) rejected by the local spatial baseline (9.8Hz)!

Root Cause: Dimensional Shackles (Ancient One's mark) have distorted the energy waves!

Solution: Xiao Yu's life waves are needed for harmonization, or Uru Metal as an anchor point!—Warning: We have jack shit!

[Energy Field Stability] has plummeted to 90%! Dimensional Shackles resonance rate soaring! Exposure risk: High!

The frequency was distorted by the Shackles! The icy thought flashed through Xiang Yi's splitting headache. He could "feel" his mental power being violently drawn out like blue threads, desperately holding together the primordial energy model that was on the verge of collapse. The data streams in his vision flickered and warped crazily. He clenched his teeth, swallowing the metallic sweetness in his throat as cold sweat instantly soaked his back. Change the coordinates... The test must be completed!

A Ke! Behind the forklift, seven meters to the left! Phantom Dance afterimage, compress the energy threshold! Lanling King, correct the spatial coordinates—lock the frequency for me! His thoughts were like needles precisely thrown into a pot of boiling oil.

The instant the orders were issued, his vision went black! A terrifying suction force erupted! Xiang Yi felt an invisible giant hand seize his mental power and life force alike, ruthlessly dragging them out of him! He groaned and slid down the cold wall to the floor. Every breath carried a heavy taste of rust, and a thread of bright red blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. Even more terrifyingly, a lock of black hair at his temple visibly faded to gray-white! Beneath his skin, fine dark-blue veins surfaced like a web, resembling overloaded circuits about to burn out!

His trembling hand pulled out the last [Basic Mental Recovery Potion] from the system space and gulped it down. The faint coolness was like a drop of water falling into magma, vanishing in an instant.

On the battlefield below, the blood-red trail suddenly bent! A solid afterimage nearly identical to a real person flashed into existence behind the forklift! At almost the same time, a dark blade silently pierced the afterimage's heart!

"Huff... cough... cough..." Xiang Yi leaned against the wall, breathing like a broken bellows, his gray-white hair glaring under the dim light. In the center of the warehouse, A Ke knelt on one knee, her chest heaving violently. Lanling King materialized while bracing himself on Fang of Shadow, beads of sweat smashing against the cold concrete floor.

Deathly silence descended.

Bzzzz—!

A string deep within their souls was violently plucked! An indescribable resonance slammed into the consciousness of all three! Xiang Yi's nearly extinguished awareness was forcibly lit for an instant by that resonance!

In his vision, the points of light representing Lanling King and A Ke exploded into two roaring galaxies of energy—countless fine, trembling dark-purple Shadow and scarlet Slaughter strings crazily intertwined, spiraling upward and scattering dark motes of light representing the embryonic rules of Shadow Erosion and Instant Kill!

Ding!!!!! [Soul Bond: Entrusting Life and Death] has broken through its limits! Combination skill unlocked: [Flashstep Shadow Kill]!

Effect: Two shadows merge as one, tearing spatial coordinates apart and doubling critical damage! Adds Shadow Erosion (ignores 30% Defense)!

Warning!!: [Bond Resonance] has triggered a high-dimensional energy tsunami! Mental power consumption skyrocketing! Risk of energy signature leakage: Low → Critical!! Dimensional Shackles (Ancient One's mark) resonance rate: 68%!! May draw tracking attacks!!

The terrifying suction force erupted again! Xiang Yi felt as though his soul, along with his life, was being drained dry! His vision was completely swallowed by scattered golden stars and glaring dark-purple, scarlet light. The exposure risk is high... but this power... is worth it... That final cold calculation flashed through his mind before his consciousness sank into darkness. His body suddenly arched backward, and he silently passed out completely.

Below the warehouse, a torrent of purple and crimson energy exploded!

The shadows around Lanling King compressed and condensed, transforming into wildly dancing, roaring streams of dark-purple shadow. Their low wails sounded like abyssal demons crawling forth. A Ke's blood-red killing aura condensed into thick scarlet flames, and Flashstep let out a bloodthirsty hum! Her fingertip swept fiercely across the blade, a thread of blood seeping into the dagger. The hum abruptly rose into a shrill, piercing scream!

The two figures spun at high speed at the core of their bond, drawing closer—pure concepts of shadow and ultimate killing intent crashing together!

Whoosh—!

A soul-piercing shriek like tearing silk cut through reality! In an instant, the two shadows overlapped and fused! A devastating blade mark was born—it was not light, but annihilation itself! Reality's space was silently torn apart like fragile silk! Along the edge of the blade mark, countless high-frequency, wildly collapsing dark-purple Shadow and scarlet Slaughter string-like energy beams intertwined and annihilated one another, scattering blue-gold sparks like a torrential rain!

More astonishingly, several resilient dark-purple strings did not vanish completely. Instead, they embedded themselves into the edge of the torn spatial breach like bone-eroding nails! A layer of spiderweb-like, faintly glowing dark patterns silently crept over the severed surfaces of the steel bars melted apart by the blade mark!

Ding! [Flashstep Shadow Kill] successfully released! Spatial tear confirmed! Detected [Shadow Erosion Rule Fragments] x3 remaining in the spatial rift (analyzable)!

Warning: Spatial tear frequency has reached a 68% resonance rate with the Dimensional Shackles (Ancient One's magical mark)! Risk of high-dimensional energy signature leakage: Critical! Dimensional Shackles activity surging!

The blade mark flashed across dozens of meters and silently branded itself onto the thick reinforced concrete wall.

A perfect semicircular gap five meters in diameter appeared out of nowhere! Its edges were smooth as mirrors, vitrified by instantaneous ultra-high heat and rapid cooling. The broken steel bars glowed with faint dark-red light, their spiderweb-like dark patterns flickering dimly. The stench of burning mixed with the acrid ozone smell of scorched space. Weak but distinct spatial ripples spread from the opening, and cold starlight from outside the warehouse shone directly in.

A Ke drove Flashstep viciously into the ground to steady herself. Behind her mask, her eyes were fixed on the terrifying breach boiling with blue-gold sparks, as well as the stubborn dark-purple strings embedded along its edge and the dark patterns on the fractured steel bars. Her bloodstained fingertips brushed the still-humming dagger, and her voice passed through the mask, cold but carrying a trace of strange excitement. "This thing... can tear open a ninja turtle's shell?"

Lanling King stood like a silent stone. His deep gaze swept over the deadly breach before settling on the spiderweb-like dark patterns on the broken steel bars. Without a word, he dropped to one knee and, with a rip, tore off a bloodstained strip from his sleeve. He carefully wrapped up several of the largest melted steel fragments bearing the dark patterns. Raising his head toward the unconscious Xiang Yi in the control room, his shock hardened into icy resolve. Veins bulged on the hand gripping his blade. "A blade bought with my lord's life... should sever more chains."

Guiguzi appeared at the warehouse entrance as though the air had taken form. When he saw Xiang Yi unconscious, his gray-white hair, the dark-blue veins beneath his skin, and the breach crackling as blue-gold rule sparks leaped madly, his face instantly went pale!

Damn it! Kamar-Taj's seal has resonated! His sleeves billowed like sails as a surging torrent of Xuan Weizi rushed toward the breach, trying to seal that thin spatial membrane.

However, a sudden change occurred!

The blue-gold sparks leaping chaotically along the breach's edge no longer moved randomly. They suddenly contracted inward and spun, twisting into a miniature blue-gold Taiji diagram rotating madly in reverse! The yin-yang fish flipped, producing a teeth-grinding screech, like enormous gears forcibly jamming shut—crack! crack! crack! The moment the torrent of Xuan Weizi touched it, it vanished in sheets like snowflakes hitting boiling oil!

It can't be sealed! It's actively devouring our energy! Cold sweat streamed down Guiguzi's temples, and his voice carried unprecedented panic. Xuan Weizi annihilation rate: 90%! We need Vibranium or Uru Metal to recast the anchor point—immediately! Otherwise, the base will be locked onto within three minutes!

"Pfft—" Ming Shiyin's divination disk let out a piercing wail the instant the Taiji diagram formed! Its needle spun madly between the Gate of Alarm and the Gate of Death! He suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood, scarlet droplets splashing across the disk. A fine crack split across its surface with a crack! He wiped the blood from his lips, his voice hoarse and heavy with the despair of one who had seen through fate. "This move tore open more than the wall—it tore the backing fabric of this world's space... The ripples from the tear and the Shackles come from the same source! It's marking us! Heaven's rejection of anomalies like us... after this, it has become a monstrous tidal wave! The Shackles' backlash will cling to us like maggots on bone, never allowing us peace!"

"Cost?" A Ke's cold laugh scraped through the silence like a poisoned ice blade. She flashed onto the control platform like a ghost. Beneath her blood-red mask, her bloodstained fingers clenched Flashstep, which hummed from being fed blood. Her gaze swept over the reverse-spinning blue-gold Taiji diagram with its piercing grinding noise before finally locking onto Xiang Yi's paper-pale face, his gray-white hair painfully conspicuous. The mask reflected the blue light from the breach like two ghostly flames. Her exhausted voice was utterly resolute, carrying a reckless madness:

"Bleed dry?" She sneered. "When I taught that girl, I told her—my blade keeps you alive. That's enough to make it worth it!" "Tearing down this damn lock is what matters! Are we going to keep dithering around and wait to die?!"

Her heel crushed the dust on the floor, shattering every trace of hesitation. She turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving behind only a resolute echo and the hum of her blood-red blade.

Lanling King silently took A Ke's place, the fragments wrapped in his bloodstained sleeve pressed tightly to his chest. Under the starlight and the reflection of that bizarre spinning Taiji diagram, Fang of Shadow gleamed with an even colder, deadlier chill. The shadows were silent, but the blade had been sharpened. It pointed at the blue-gold Taiji diagram, like a cold eye locking onto this place, and toward the distant nest of light and clamor that was the Stark Expo.

"We must erase the traces immediately! Three minutes!" Guiguzi roared. The speed of Xuan Weizi's annihilation had him frantic, and the reverse-spinning Taiji diagram resembled a countdown hourglass demanding their lives.

Ming Shiyin struggled to support himself. The crack in his bloodstained divination disk was glaring, and its needle still trembled madly between ominous hexagrams. He stared at the blue-gold Taiji diagram spinning wildly at the edge of the breach, each revolution seeming to tighten the noose around their necks, every crack-crack foretelling the approach of catastrophe.

The shadows were silent, and the blades had been honed. At the breach's edge, the blue-gold Taiji diagram formed by the Ancient One's Shackles spun madly in reverse, like a cold eye of judgment locked tightly onto this dark space saturated with the aura of annihilation. The ticking countdown struck between everyone's bones.