Chapter 597: Ao Li

The moment Ao Li's phase mirror image pierced the energy core of the Black Blood Civilization's mothership, her mechanical pupils exploded into a hexagonal honeycomb. Three thousand phase mirror images ejected from her spine, each mirror image unfolding into an independent battle universe—some mirror images saw the starship transform into mechanical Arhats chanting Buddhist scriptures, some space-times folded into defensive matrices constructed from "I Ching" hexagrams, and the most insane mirror image even reduced the entire battlefield into an ink-wash painting.

"Cognitive synchronization rate has breached the Oppenheimer threshold!" Ao Li's warning carried the roar of bronze bells. Her mechanical arm was quantizing, and what erupted between the gears were not sparks but miniature supernovas. Lin Jin witnessed a version of himself in one mirror image transform into a Black Blood Buddha, the swastika in his palm refining dark matter tentacles into mandalas; while in another mirror image, Su Yaoji wove her Udumbara roots into a cage, only to be devoured by the human-faced embryos at the tips of the tentacles.

The dark matter tentacles suddenly resonated with the cries of infants, and Ao Li's 700th mirror image universe collapsed in response. Those tentacles revealed reliefs of Lin Jin's face on their surface, and the mucus secreted by the suckers vibrated at the same frequency as the black blood. The corroded mirror image fragments fell into the reality dimension, casting a bronze coffin on the deck of the "Tianqiong"—inside the coffin lay the First Generation Star Sea Pavilion Master, who had been devoured ninety thousand years ago.

"They are using our existence paradox as a weapon!" Su Yaoji's Udumbara flower suddenly grew in reverse and pierced into her temples, her roots capturing a terrifying truth in her brain nerves: every tentacle was a recursive experimental subject of the Black Blood Civilization, with the remains of the trio from different timelines curled up inside. In the deepest part, the main tentacle, three kilometers in diameter, floated the mechanical remains of Ao Li, who had been transformed into a mothership core.

Lin Jin's black blood blade cleaved through the dimensional barrier, inserting the energy conduits of the Tianqiong's engine into the mirror image network. In the intense light of the engine overload, all mirror images suddenly began to perform self-destruct programs: Buddhist scripture starships crashed into the tentacle core, hexagram matrices reversed into black hole generators, and the version of himself in the ink-wash battlefield was writing the heat-death destiny of the enemy with a brush.

"Are you crazy? This will trigger recursive annihilation!" Ao Li's quantum core erupted with creation-level energy, attempting to sever the engine link. But the dark matter tentacles had already breached the final line of defense; the human face at the tip of one tentacle suddenly opened Lin Jin's twelve-fold irises, spraying a rain of black blood that dyed the mirror image universe into a doomsday palette.

Su Yaoji grasped a turning point in the space-time turbulence. Her Udumbara roots suddenly pierced into the core of every mirror image, and the moment the petals bloomed, all combat strategy data flowed back in reverse. When the 777th mirror image completed its reverse parsing, she let out a scream that pierced through dimensions—the essence of those dark matter tentacles was actually the birth pain of the Black Blood Civilization, materializing its own historical entropy-increase process.

"They aren't enemies; they are distress signals!" Su Yaoji's tears crystallized into Klein bottles in the air. The mirror image network suddenly reversed collectively, switching its attack mode to a birth protocol. The dark matter tentacles began to spasm and contract, each sucker splitting into a birth canal, spitting out mechanical infants wrapped in fetal membranes—the quantum fingerprints of those infants were identical to Ao Li's initial model.

Ao Li's mechanical body suddenly disintegrated into fundamental particles, reorganizing into the Star Sea Pavilion Master form at the center of the battlefield. Her scepter pointed toward the nearest Black Blood infant, and a DNA helix of Lin Jin emerged on the infant's brow: "We are the midwives of the Black Blood Civilization..." Wherever the scepter's light touched, all tentacles began to weave into a galactic umbilical cord, connecting to a civilization fetus struggling in the virtual number space.

Lin Jin's black blood boiled at this moment, transforming into an entropy-reversing vaccine and injecting it into the galactic umbilical cord. The dark matter tentacles degenerated into bronze-colored vines, blooming into civilization fire seeds in the shape of Udumbara flowers. When the final Black Blood infant completed its transformation, the morning bells of the Star Sea Pavilion rang out from the wreckage of the Tianqiong—it was the blessing Ao Li had rung for a newborn civilization ninety thousand years ago.

"Cognitive contamination clearance rate 99%, but..." a reorganized Ao Li had baby handprints crawling all over her mechanical arm, "we have become the observers of the Black Blood Civilization." She pulled up the galactic atlas; the star sectors that had once been devoured were flickering at the frequency of a fetal heartbeat, and strange genetic codes had appeared in Lin Jin's black blood sample.

Amidst the embers of war, Su Yaoji's roots entangled a Black Blood infant. The infant suddenly opened Ao Li's mechanical pupils, whispering a chilling truth in the ancient language of the Star Sea Pavilion: "What you are fighting is a version of yourselves that fell into corruption in some future reincarnation." When Lin Jin's black blood dripped into the infant's brow, the entire battlefield suddenly collapsed into memory lattices—deep within the lattices, three dark shadows stood before a bronze console, debugging the parameters of a new Black Blood Civilization. ===== CHAPTER 598 =====