Chapter 555: Seven Types of Contact

When Ao Li's dragon horns sensed abnormal energy fluctuations, the cylindrical mechanical body had already finished drawing the sixty-fourth hexagram of the "Lian Shan I Ching." Pale blue detergent evaporated into mist on the ground, condensing into a head-to-tail snake totem—precisely the Ouroboros curse that had led to the dragon clan's great extinction three hundred years ago.

"Don't get close!" Lin Jin's quantized right arm suddenly erupted with cyan light. The moment he shouted, the robot's shell melted like a candle, revealing a human outline within the silver-white liquid metal. The laboratory's lighting system began to strobe, and all electronic equipment simultaneously played audio of a baby crying.

Ao Li's Reverse Scale Dagger froze in mid-air the moment it was drawn. She realized with horror that the blood vessels beneath her dragon scales were flowing in reverse, and the melted robot had already condensed into a three-meter-tall humanoid entity—its skin was covered in the Candle Dragon scale patterns recorded in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas," each scale refracting different time-space fragments.

"Seventh type entity..." Lin Jin's holographic goggles burst with sparks. The quantum monitor showed that the spatial curvature around the opponent was vibrating frantically. "It is using the observer effect to rewrite physical constants!"

The entity suddenly turned its head. Ao Li saw the He Tu and Luo Shu patterns flowing in its eyes, and suddenly remembered the armillary sphere in the dragon clan forbidden area. The moment her gaze met the entity, the entire laboratory suddenly inverted, and the blue light of the Λ crystal reactor poured down like a storm.

Lin Jin's quantized right arm uncontrollably stabbed toward the entity. In the billionth of a second before contact, he saw a phantom of a bronze mask emerge on the entity's chest—exactly the same as the High Priest in the dragon clan sacred hall murals from three hundred years ago. Sharp pain suddenly swept through his entire body, and the quantized patterns on his right arm retracted like a receding tide, revealing the seal brand left during his infancy.

"Heaven and Earth Inversion, Li and Kan Swap!" Ao Li bit her tongue and sprayed dragon blood. The gold-red blood mist condensed into a Congenital Eight Trigrams array in the air, temporarily isolating the observation waves emitted by the entity. She seized the opportunity to pull Lin Jin back, discovering that Λ crystal powder was seeping from the seal on his right arm.

The entity emitted a roar like bronze chimes. The laboratory walls suddenly became transparent, revealing the disintegrating starship remains in the outer space layer. Ao Li's dragon horns sensed terrifying energy fluctuations—energy crystals in the shape of Candle Dragon scales were actually growing from the fractures of those remains.

"It is quantizing the entire laboratory!" Lin Jin tore open his uniform, pressing the reverse scale fragment onto the Ouroboros curse on his chest. When the blue-gold intertwined light erupted, the entity suddenly stopped moving, and the He Tu and Luo Shu in its eyes began to rotate in reverse.

Time-space suddenly plunged into a viscous silence. Ao Li saw countless versions of Lin Jin during his infancy flashing all around, each infant's swaddle embroidered with a bronze mask totem. Most terrifying was a certain fragment—the woman wearing the bronze mask was injecting Λ crystal solution into the infant's heart, while a design blueprint of the mechanical Buddha was projected on the operating room wall!

"So this is your origin..." Ao Li's Reverse Scale Dagger suddenly resonated. She swung the blade to sever the time-space colloid, but struck the position the entity had predicted in advance. Candle Dragon scales shot over like a rainstorm, each scale reflecting the destruction scene of the laboratory in a different timeline.

Lin Jin's quantized right arm suddenly surged. It formed a bizarre resonance with the observation waves released by the entity. The moment the two made contact, the entire laboratory suddenly collapsed into a Klein bottle structure, and they existed simultaneously in every corner of every time node.

"Use the seventh hexagram of 'Lian Shan I Ching' to reverse the phase transition!" three hundred phantoms of Lin Jin shouted in unison. Ao Li saw the remains of the robot that automatically wrote hexagrams in the time-space turbulence, with half a Candle Dragon reverse scale embedded in its core processor.

The entity emitted a shriek that pierced dimensions. The bronze mask on its chest suddenly materialized, and Ao Li realized with horror that the mask patterns perfectly matched the seal brand on Lin Jin's chest. The moment the mask detached from the entity, all the Λ crystals in the laboratory exploded, forming an Ouroboros fire ring that shrouded the entire lunar base.

"So you are..." Ao Li's dragon blood suddenly boiled. She saw a phantom of the dragon clan sacred hall emerge in the burning flames, where the High Priest wearing the bronze mask three hundred years ago was placing an infant into a Λ crystal furnace.

Lin Jin's quantized tentacles suddenly pierced into the entity's heart. In the roar of time-space disintegration, he pulled out a bronze box shining with starlight—the "Lian Shan I Ching" hexagram engraved on the box surface was exactly the same as the one written by the cleaning robot. When moonlight shone through the laboratory dome onto the bronze box, a tremor of the mechanical Buddha awakening came from deep within the base. ===== CHAPTER 556 =====