Chapter 543: Defection Protocol

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When the Heavenly Workshop Master's bronze prosthetic limb pierced into 9527's chest cavity, the hydraulic pump suddenly emitted a shriek of gears jamming. Beneath the dark gold artificial blood vessels, where the heart should have been, curled an octahedron crystal core, the "Luo Shu" patterns etched on its surface rotating in reverse.

"Warp bubble generator!" Ao Li's dragon horns sensed spatial distortion. "He has transformed himself into a jump carrier!"

Before the words had even faded, a miniature particle acceleration ring popped out of 9527's eye socket, and the Λ-shaped prisms on his spine split into hundreds of nano-probes. The moment the "Luo Shu" defense array on the laboratory dome lit up, those probes condensed from black blood actually etched a Klein bottle passage between the bronze trigrams.

Just as Lin Jin's Annihilation Revolver was about to lock onto the target, 9527's mechanical heart suddenly collapsed into a singularity. The entire B3 sector vibrated violently in the quantum foam, and the Congenital Eight Trigrams on the blast-proof door were twisted into a Möbius strip. The Heavenly Workshop Master's bronze prosthetic limb began to grow in reverse, starlight-colored lubricant seeping from the gear joints.

"He is rewriting mechanical laws!" Ao Li flicked out dragon scale talismans, but the cyan energy net was swallowed by the nano-probes. "This is not the power of black blood..."

Lin Jin suddenly grabbed Ao Li's wrist and leaped toward the ventilation duct; the position where they had originally stood was being dimensionally reduced into a two-dimensional plane. 9527's mechanical heart projected a holographic star chart, and three hundred space cities in Mars's solar orbit simultaneously lit up with Ouroboros emblems.

"Trying to run?" The Heavenly Workshop Master tore open his artificial skin, revealing a bronze armillary sphere within his chest cavity. When he turned the twenty-eight mansions scale dial, the laboratory's gravity suddenly reversed, and 9527, who was in the process of quantizing, was forcibly anchored in three-dimensional space.

Ao Li's pupils suddenly contracted—those nano-probes were reorganizing into a "He Tu" formation, with miniature black holes suspended at each node. She finally saw the truth of the black blood corrosion: while the Λ crystals were devouring the "Luo Shu" array, they were reverse-compiling the "Zhou Tian Star Array" lost by the ancient dragon clan.

"This is not a defection..." Lin Jin's tactical goggles suddenly sparked; he saw 9527's mechanical heart extending neural synapses, currently undergoing quantum entanglement with the laboratory's central control system. "The entire Heavenly Workshop is a carrier!"

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The barrel of the Annihilation Revolver suddenly melted, the dark gold liquid condensing into an Ouroboros short sword in Lin Jin's palm. As he leaped into the "He Tu" array eye, a vacuum decay zone remained where the blade passed; those miniature black holes actually emitted electromagnetic hisses like awakened ancient life forms.

9527's mechanical heart erupted with a gamma-ray burst, and the Heavenly Workshop Master's bronze armillary sphere instantly melted. Ao Li saw countless bronze gears emerging in the radiation waves—that was the ancient mechanical beast "Thousand-Mechanism Escape" currently being reorganized, and what was sealed in its core power compartment was precisely a black blood sample.

"Azure Dragon Seven Mansions: Yaoguang!" Ao Li bit her tongue, drawing a Big Dipper killing array in the void with her dragon blood. But the star chart was swallowed by the "He Tu" the moment it formed; her dragon horns began to crystallize, and the evaporation speed of the miniature black holes tripled.

Lin Jin's Ouroboros short sword pierced into the core of the Thousand-Mechanism Escape, antimatter energy and black blood colliding to create time-space ripples. In the energy turbulence, he saw a suffocating truth—each bronze gear was engraved with an Ouroboros pattern, and what was driving them was actually dragon clan souls compressed into crystal form.

"So you used Azure Dragon Reverse Scales as a power source..." Lin Jin's pupils reflected the Heavenly Workshop Master's body, which was currently quantizing. "So-called mechanical ascension is just refining living people into 'Luo Shu' computing units?"

The Thousand-Mechanism Escape suddenly disintegrated into a nano-storm, and the laboratory dome was torn open by a wormhole. 9527's remains floated on the edge of the singularity, his mechanical heart projecting a real-time image of the far side of the moon—three hundred Ouroboros coffins were forming a reverse Big Dipper array beneath the bronze giant tree.

Ao Li's dragon pearl suddenly went out of control, the miniature black hole compressing three Thousand-Mechanism Escape remains into neutron star matter. When she grabbed Lin Jin to retreat, she discovered his tactical gloves had already been permeated by black blood, and star chart tattoos identical to those on the coffins were emerging beneath his skin.

"Watch out for cognitive contamination..." Ao Li's warning was twisted by the wormhole's gravity. Lin Jin saw his own reflection splitting within the singularity—a version of himself in a space military uniform was kowtowing to the bronze giant tree, while another "Lin Jin" with crystal wings on his back was gnawing on Ao Li's dragon horns.

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When the "Luo Shu" defense array completely disintegrated, the laboratory dome transformed into a starry sky curtain. 9527's mechanical heart suddenly emitted a roar like bronze chimes, and nine mechs engraved with "Lian Shan" trigrams descended from the wormhole.

"Gui Cang Sect!" The last remaining humanity of the Heavenly Workshop Master emitted a wail. "They actually refined the Three Tombs of I Ching into..." Before he could finish, his head was pierced by bronze counting rods shot from the mechs.

Ao Li recognized the dragon scale patterns on the mech joints—they were the reverse scales of the North Sea Dragon Clan princes who had gone missing three hundred years ago. She finally understood why the black blood contamination could erode the "Luo Shu": the Gui Cang Sect had used dragon clan flesh and blood to rewrite the He Tu algorithm.

Lin Jin's Ouroboros short sword suddenly surged, the blade wrapped in the gravitational strings of a miniature black hole. As he leaped toward the lead Gui Cang mech, the blade tore a vacuum crack between the "Lian Shan" trigrams, revealing a semi-mechanized woman in a bronze mask inside the cockpit.

"Mother?" Lin Jin's quantized right hand suddenly recovered, and the Annihilation Revolver re-condensed. He saw the Ouroboros brand on the woman's neck—it was the exact same source brand that had been branded onto his own collarbone at the interstellar black market auction.

The "Gui Cang" trigram on the mech's chest suddenly reversed, and Ao Li's dragon pearl sensed a terrifying energy fluctuation: "Quick, dodge! That is the Death Gate of the Congenital Eight Trigrams!"

But it was too late. The bronze trigram shot from the mech's palm pierced through Lin Jin's chest, yet no blood flowed out—a projection of the lunar bronze giant tree emerged at the wound. Ao Li realized with horror that Lin Jin's heart had long since been replaced by a star gate device, which was currently resonating with the wormhole.

"So you were the true key all along..." Ao Li's dragon horns completely crystallized, and she burned her remaining lifespan to activate a forbidden technique. When the Azure Dragon star mansion chart shrouded the laboratory, the movements of all the Gui Cang mechs suddenly stalled—encrypted data from Ao Li's genealogy had emerged within their "Lian Shan" algorithms.

Lin Jin seized the opportunity to insert the Annihilation Revolver into the mech's core, the antimatter bullet triggering a chain reaction between the "Gui Cang" trigrams. In the intense light of the explosion, he heard the bronze-masked woman's sigh: "Remember, the one inside the coffin is the true body..."

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After the wormhole collapsed, the laboratory was a mess. Ao Li used her last strength to seal the star gate imprint on Lin Jin's chest, only to find "He Tu" patterns emerging on her own reverse scales. Beneath their feet, the remains of the "Luo Shu" defense array formed a bizarre pattern—it was the reverse Big Dipper array beneath the bronze giant tree.

The Heavenly Workshop Master's remaining mechanical eyeball suddenly projected a holographic image: the space cities in Mars's solar orbit formed an Ouroboros totem, with Λ crystals condensed from black blood suspended at the core of each city.

"At the time of the waning moon," Lin Jin said, wiping the weapon that had transformed back into a revolver, "these crystals will open the star path to the Candle Dragon's Pupil."

Ao Li was about to speak when she suddenly discovered the shadows on the laboratory bench were moving on their own. When she used dragon fire to illuminate the corner, she saw her own shadow growing dragon horns on its forehead, while holding a bronze mask in its hand—the exact same style as the one Lin Jin had seen in his memory illusions.

As the cleaning robots processed the battlefield, a certain Gui Cang mech fragment suddenly flickered. The holographic afterimage showed the Heavenly Workshop laboratory thirty years ago: a young bronze-masked woman was implanting a dragon clan embryo into a mechanical uterus, and the label on the culture pod clearly read—"Lin Jin: Primordial Prototype."

(This chapter totals 4189 characters) ===== CHAPTER 544 =====