Chapter 525: Amber Sacrifice

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####**Flesh Landing Site**

When the Starship wreckage pierced the blood‑colored permafrost of planet X‑09, it kicked up not dust but a viscous amniotic‑like fluid. Ao Li's dragon horn just touched the hatch, and dense cervical folds sprouted on the metal surface, each fold embedding a half‑melted clone youth face.

"The atmospheric composition is assimilating our genes!" Medical officer Ye Wanqiu's protective mask interior was coated with amniotic‑like material; the moment she ripped off the mask, a putrid‑sweet scent flooded her nasal cavity, instantly splitting her pupils into compound‑eye structures. Lín Jìn's watch fragment suddenly floated, its cracked dial oozing black blood, which solidified in the air into warning text: **"Breathing is surrender."**

Before the words finished, the assault team member Wang Meng who stepped out of the hatch first suddenly knelt. His tactical boots melted into flesh membranes, his toes transmuted into umbilical‑like tendrils that pierced the ground. When Ao Li swung her sword to cut the tendrils, the severed ends spewed not blood but boiling black‑blood fuel, corroding the alloy floor into cervical‑shaped cracks.

####**Hive Assassin**

The permafrost suddenly bulged with three hundred flesh tumors, each encasing a clone youth's mechanical remnants. These beings, fused of flesh and circuitry, burst from the ground; their left eyes were rotating quantum cores, their right eyes oozed amber mucus. When the first assassin launched its attack, everyone witnessed a terrifying hive consciousness—every creature's movements perfectly synchronized, seven hundred glowing umbilical cords weaving a net in the air.

"Three o'clock direction!" Lín Jìn's watch fragment shattered a hunter's quantum core, and the exploded parts reassembled in midair. Mechanical gears meshed with flesh; the destroyed hunter absorbed its comrades' remnants, mutating into a three‑meter‑tall Obstetric Forceps behemoth. Its chest cavity split open, revealing a pulsating ancient god cell cluster, each beat emitting a Pulse Wave that induced genetic mutations.

Technician Lao Zhang's mechanical arm suddenly rotated in reverse, a hydraulic tube piercing his own eye socket. "They're rewriting my neural code!" he screamed as he activated the Zihui Mijian, the splattered Brain Fluid turning into mucus that glued three team members into a symbiotic flesh mass. Ao Li's dragon horn emitted a purifying light wave, but the moment it touched the symbiote it was rebounded—those mucous strands were laced with memory fragments of the clone youths.

####**Amber Firewall**

When the sixth team member was devoured by the symbiote, the permafrost layer suddenly collapsed. Everyone fell into a kilometer‑deep cavern, where a pale‑blue amber vein illuminated a horrific truth: countless clone youths were sealed within crystals, their neural cords extending into the planet's veins, black blood surging through the vessels like rivers. At the cavern's center stood a bronze Zigong, its surface engraved with the bleeding God‑Slaying Code.

"This is... a reverse birthing altar?" Lín Jìn's watch fragment suddenly adhered to the Zigong's surface, its dial reflecting a live scene—hunters on the ground were collectively melting, their black blood seeping into the permafrost, flowing along the clone youths' neural cords toward the bronze Zigong. The God‑Slaying Code's fluorescence dimmed at a visible rate, while the ancient god cell cluster's pulsations grew ever stronger.

Ao Li's dragon horn pierced the amber vein, reading the dying memories of the clone youths. Deep within the hive consciousness, she saw 9527 inserting a neural cord into his own temple: "Mother needs a pure Firewall..." Three hundred Clones melted simultaneously, their mechanical prosthetic eyes turning into quantum locks, black blood solidifying into a gene barrier. At that moment, the barrier was inversely devouring the God‑Slaying Code.

####**Umbilical Cord Execution Pillar**

The bronze Zigong suddenly split open, sprouting nine hundred glowing umbilical cords. Ye Wanqiu's antibody serum boiled the instant it touched a cord, and a test tube displayed the complete genetic chain of a Star Sea fetus. "They intend to turn us into living keys!" Her warning was cut off by the sound of cords piercing, Lín Jìn's left leg was nailed to the amber vein, and the watch fragment was melting into his bones.

Ao Li swung her sword at the bronze Zigong, but the blade was blocked by afterimages of the clone youths' memories. In the instant of Quantum Entanglement, she linked mentally with 9527: "Mother... this is the true purification..." The foundation of the God‑Slaying Temple suddenly became transparent, revealing beneath it a curled new form of a Star Sea fetus—its skin woven from the God‑Slaying Code, each fissure oozing amber‑colored antibody.

When the final hunter lunged, Ao Li launched a desperate counterattack. She drove her dragon horn into her own Star Pattern birthmark, detonating every God‑Slaying Code within her. In the blast's intense light, the bronze Zigong shattered into three hundred Inverse Scales, the clone youths' neural cords snapping in unison. Yet as the light faded, the phantom of a Star Sea fetus was reassembling, and each drifting amber fragment reflected a new Chanfang coordinate…