Chapter 100: The Sanctuary's Faint Light, the Elven Mark, and the Doctor's Gaze

Darkness wrapped around the narrow pipe like thick ink. Copper Whiskers dragged the wrench behind him, every step leaving deep pits in the cold sludge, his ragged gasps sounding like a broken bellows in the dead silence. Each breath tugged at the tearing wounds all over his body; the searing pain in his left eye socket and the dizziness from blood loss crashed against his fading consciousness like waves. His mechanical prosthetic hand had fallen completely silent after the earlier burst, now nothing more than a heavy, cold slab of scrap.

Behind them, the hissing of the worms never stopped. Though held back by the emerald halo radiating from the withered branch cradled in Sister Ai Li's arms—daring not approach the halo's range for now—the purplish-black worms trailed far behind in the dark like the most patient of hunters, their dense clusters of crimson mouthparts glinting with greedy pinpricks of light in the gloom, waiting for the moment the glow went out.

Lin Mo lay in the sludge, wrapped in the emerald halo and the faint starlight, being dragged forward by Copper Whiskers with a strip of cloth torn off on the spot. His charred body had stopped twitching, but the dark-purple Corrupted Claw Mark on his right arm still pulsed ominously, each pulse making the emerald halo covering it ripple faintly. The withered branch's light burned like a candle in the wind—steady, yet faint—and no one knew how much longer it could hold.

Sister Ai Li was still unconscious, her small body held against Lin Mo's chest by Copper Whiskers with what little strength he had left. The Emerald Heart shard on her chest had lost all its luster, but the tender branch in her arms had become their sole source of hope.

The wrench lay limp, his twisted arm swinging weakly with each pull.

This was a desperate party made up of the gravely wounded, the unconscious, and a life-lamp that could go out at any moment, crawling along the very edge of hell.

The pipe seemed endless, winding and twisting, sometimes sloping upward, sometimes plunging steeply down. The air grew damper and colder, thick with the heavy smell of rust and an indescribable, ancient stench of decay. The moss coating the pipe walls had changed too—no longer the slick dark green, but a withered grey moss mottled with eerie dark-purple spots, giving off a faint radioactive tang.

He had no idea how long he'd been crawling. Just as Copper Whiskers' strength gave out completely and his consciousness was about to sink back into darkness—

Hum!

In the deep darkness ahead, a single, extremely faint yet unusually steady point of pale-gold light—like a star at the edge of the void—suddenly swam into Copper Whiskers' blurry, one-eyed vision!

Light!

Not the milky white of stardust, not the emerald of the tender branch, nor the purplish-black of corruption!

But a pale-gold light… gentle, ancient, carrying some indescribable rhythm of life!

That light was like a shot of stimulant, instantly reigniting a spark in the flame of consciousness about to go out in Copper Whiskers! He squeezed out the last strength in his body, Dragging Heavily his burden, and on hands and knees crawled desperately toward that point of light!

The distance shrank.

That light wasn't a single point, but a small patch! It came from a relatively open space formed by a collapse at the end of the pipe ahead. The source of the light seemed to be a huge circular emblem carved into a relatively intact metal wall at the far end of the space—an emblem made of countless intricate vines and arcane runes!

The emblem's centerpiece was a great tree with flourishing branches and leaves, thorns winding around its trunk, its canopy radiating a soft pale-gold glow. The whole emblem was fluid and ancient in its lines, carrying an elegance and mystery that didn't belong to the wastes. Though the metal wall itself was rust-spotted, the emblem seemed protected by some force, still crisp and clear, radiating a faint yet steady light that bathed this small space in a soft pale-gold halo.

Wherever the light reached, the grey, purple-spotted withered moss on the ground vanished without a trace, the air grew much fresher, and that thick stench of decay was driven away almost entirely.

"This is…" Copper Whiskers dragged his companions into this space bathed in pale-gold light, collapsing exhausted onto the relatively clean metal floor, gasping for breath. His one eye stared fixedly at the emblem on the wall. He felt the image of that great tree wound with thorns was somehow familiar, as if he'd seen it somewhere… on a broken mural from the old world? Or in some ancient dwarven legend?

He had no time to think it through. What surprised him even more was that when the emerald halo from the withered branch in Sister Ai Li's arms touched this pale-gold light, the emerald glow—like a wanderer coming home—instantly grew bright and steady! It even faintly resonated with the thorn-wrapped great-tree emblem on the wall, giving off a joyful pulse of life!

And the swarm of worms that had been tailing them, upon touching the edge of this pale-gold light, let out terrified, shrill shrieks as if they'd met their absolute nemesis, and retreated like a tide back into the pipe's dark depths, never daring to approach again!

Safe! For now.

Copper Whiskers' taut nerves finally loosened a fraction, and crushing exhaustion and pain swept over him like a tsunami. He leaned against the cold metal wall, watching the emblem's warm light bathe his unconscious companions: the tender branch in Sister Ai Li's arms steadily radiated vitality; the Corrupted Claw Mark on Lin Mo's right arm, under the dual suppression of the emerald halo and the pale-gold halo, pulsed only very faintly; the stardust crystal on his chest had also calmed. Though the wrench was still unconscious, his twisted arm didn't look quite so grotesque under the light.

Hope, like the faint glow from that thorn-wrapped great tree on the wall, quietly lit up in this desperate deep underground.

Copper Whiskers' consciousness began to blur; he was far too tired, and his wounds too severe. The instant before he fell into a deep sleep, his blurry one eye seemed to see Sister Ai Li, still unconscious, stretch out a small hand and lightly touch the base of the thorn-wrapped great-tree emblem on the wall. The emblem's light seemed to flicker faintly, and an extremely faint ripple of intent—carrying a sense of searching and warmth—brushed across this little sanctuary like a breeze.

At the same time.

Far from the wasteland's surface, inside a cold observation station hidden by folded space somewhere deep in the Withered Forest.

The Doctor stood before a massive circular screen. The signal representing the Thornheart ruins had long since vanished. But now, on another split screen, a set of extremely faint, intermittent signals was refreshing.

Signal source location: deep underground beneath the wasteland (coordinates: ████).

Signal characteristics:

【Energy Lineage 1: faint… steady… ordered creation (stardust)… persistent…】

【Energy Lineage 2: extremely faint… active… high-purity life origin (World Tree)… carrier status: withered… but origin not extinguished… continuously dissipating…】

【Energy Lineage 3: powerful… suppressed… high-concentration corruption contamination (Primordial Erosion)… carrier status: near death… source of suppression: stardust + unknown life energy (same origin as Lineage 2)…】

【Unknown ordered force field detected… characteristics: ancient… natural… thorns… match with 'Elven Sanctuary' guardian runes in 'Key' Project (Ark-7 Archive): 87.3%…】

【Additional signal: individual (Sister Ai Li)… status: highly active corruption contamination source… location: ruin surface… movement trajectory: erratic… moving toward the depths of the Withered Forest…】

The Doctor's cold lenses reflected the complex, interwoven streams of data on the screen—especially the unknown ordered force field representing the "Elven Sanctuary guardian runes," and the conclusion that "the World Tree origin has not been extinguished."

The fingertips he had been hovering over the console slowly lifted away from the buttons marked with destruction commands.

"Elven ruins… the embers of the World Tree's origin… stardust suppression…" A cold, synthesized electronic voice rang out in the silent observation station, carrying a faintly pleased, inhuman quality of calculation. "Variables… interesting variables… Phase Two observation priority… elevated."

His gaze shifted from the underground signal source to the main screen—which displayed Sister Ai Li's figure, covered in ashen horn-like growths and radiating a thick purplish-black aura, stumbling through the Withered Forest's fog like a walking corpse. Deep in the direction she was heading, an area shrouded in an even thicker, eerily purple withering mist faintly outlined the silhouette of a massive, ruined tree-shaped structure.

"Go… corrupted 'Moonblade'…" The Doctor's gaze behind his lenses was deep as an abyss. "For me… tear open the curtain of that 'Withered Wang Ting'…"

The observation station's lights went out, leaving only the screen's faint glow, illuminating the Doctor's figure like an ancient glacier. A new script, amid the wasteland's embers and the forest's fog, quietly turned to a bloodstained page. And deep underground, the faint glow from the thorn-wrapped great-tree emblem, like a sleeping eye, quietly watched over the tiny, stubborn spark of fire it sheltered.