Chapter 132: At the Edge of the Fog, a Body of Embers

The emerald light dissipated like a receding tide, roughly "spitting" Lingna, Wrench, and the unconscious Lin Mo onto the cold, damp ground. The acrid stench of decay instantly replaced the oppressive air of the underground cage, giving way to a boundless dark forest shrouded in thick, withering fog. The air was viscous like congealed grease; every breath carried the rusty, rotten-plant reek of decay, pressing heavily against the chest.

"Cough… cough, cough…" Wrench was thrown into a daze, his twisted "survival arm" joints emitting a piercing grinding sound, locked completely at an unnatural angle. He struggled to his feet, his bean-sized eyes sweeping the surroundings in terror. The towering ancient trees were reduced to twisted silhouettes, their branches and leaves coated in a thick layer of dark purple moss that writhed slowly like a living thing. The ground was a slick layer of rotting fallen leaves, producing unsettling squelching sounds underfoot. Silence—absolute silence—broken only by occasional inhuman, malicious hisses echoing from afar through the fog, adding to the horror.

"Brother Lin Mo! Uncle Copperbeard! Uncle Suolin…" Lingna ignored her aching body and threw herself beside Lin Mo. He remained unconscious, his face ashen, his breathing so faint it was barely perceptible. The stardust crystal on his chest was dim and lifeless, only a faint residual warmth proving it had not been completely extinguished. What broke her heart even more was Lin Mo's right arm—the Corrupted Claw Mark, like a living thing branded beneath the skin, emanated an ominous dark purple ghostly glow, pulsing faintly. Each pulse caused Lin Mo's body to twitch involuntarily. The brief eruption of chaotic power within him seemed to have exhausted everything, leaving only a severely eroded remnant of a body and this ever-present corrupting brand.

Wrench dragged his wrecked mechanical arm closer, his voice cracking with grief and terror: "Kid… boss, he… and Boss Copperbeard… Suolin… they all…" He couldn't continue, the immense sorrow and the terror of their desperate situation crushing the goblin.

Lingna's small hand tightly clutched that warm jade fragment; it too now glowed dimly, like a candle in the wind. The lingering warmth on the fragment was the sole comfort in this cold despair, and Uncle Suolin's last hope, entrusted to her with his life. She wiped the tears and grime from her face, and within her immense grief, a steely resolve she had never known before gradually settled. "Wrench, we can't stay here!" Her voice was hoarse yet unusually firm. "The Doctor… that monster… could come after us at any moment! The forest is also 'dying.' We have to find a place that can save Brother Lin Mo! Uncle Suolin's last words were 'guard the new sprout'… there must be a place!"

She forced herself to calm down, drawing on the natural affinity knowledge taught by Priestess Liyana, struggling to sense her surroundings. The withering fog severely suppressed her abilities; she could only vaguely sense that the leyline energy beneath her feet was chaotic and polluted, saturated with the stench of corruption. But faintly, there seemed to be one direction where that nauseating decay felt… slightly thinner? Very faint, like a single firefly in the darkness.

"Over there!" Lingna pointed toward a direction deep in the fog, where a few relatively "normal" twisted shrubs could be dimly seen, their leaves not yet fully covered by the dark purple moss. "The leyline… it doesn't seem to 'hurt' as much… maybe there's clean water or… a place that hasn't been completely polluted?"

Wrench looked at the bottomless fog, then at the unconscious Lin Mo and Lingna's pale but determined face, and gritted his teeth: "Damn it! Let's go for it! Better than being dragged back by that purple-skinned monster!" Using his one working hand and his teeth, aided by the locked mechanical arm, he laboriously hauled Lin Mo Heavy's body up, half-carrying, half-dragging him.

The flight began. Every step was extraordinarily difficult. The thick fog severely obscured vision; the ground was a humus layer of uneven depth, slick and sticky. Withering vines, like dying venomous snakes, snagged their feet from time to time. Wrench's mechanical arm groaned under the strain of dragging Lin Mo, its internal gears and conduits seeming on the verge of snapping. Worse still were the dangers lurking in the fog. Several times, twisted, fanged corrupted beasts lunged from the fallen leaves to attack, barely driven off by Lingna with a sharp dead branch she had picked up and Wrench with the sharp conduit on his mechanical arm. Each battle drained what little strength they had left.

The jade fragment in Lingna's hand became a faint beacon in the darkness. It seemed to sense that thin reek of decay, emitting an extremely faint pulse whenever she approached certain relatively "safe" paths. Relying on this faint guidance and the vague sense of repulsion toward the source of corruption emanating from the Corrupted Claw Mark within Lin Mo, she pressed forward through the desperate maze. Lin Mo's body grew colder and colder, his breathing intermittent, while the Corrupted Claw Mark on his right arm pulsed with increasing clarity, as if draining his remaining vitality. Lingna could only keep pressing the fragment to his chest, trying to use its faint life energy to slow the erosion.

She didn't know how long they had walked—perhaps a few hours, perhaps just an endlessly long ordeal. Wrench's stamina was nearly spent; the joints of his mechanical arm began seeping dark oil, emitting a sharp burnt smell. Just as Lingna was also about to give out, the fog ahead seemed… to thin a little?

Through the gradually dispersing mist, a relatively open area appeared before them. It was a clearing surrounding a small, murky pool. The pool gave off a faint fishy smell, but at least it was no longer purely corrupt water. Most striking of all, at the edge of the pool, several relatively tall Starvein Trees grew tenaciously! Their trunks were likewise covered in dark purple erosion blotches, the edges of their silver-white leaves yellowed and curled, but their crowns still held a few leaves that emitted a faint purifying halo! These halos, like thin veils, struggled to drive back the thick fog and stench of decay in a small area around them.

"It's... it's Starvein Trees! Living ones!" Lingna's voice brimmed with the thrill of a narrow escape, tears welling up again. Though still surrounded by corruption, this was the only place they had encountered since leaving the underground that held faint orderly energy and relative safety!

Wrench, relieved, nearly collapsed as he set Lin Mo down, sprawling on the relatively dry ground, gasping for breath. He stared at his smoking mechanical arm with an expression of utter despair: "It's… it's over… my precious arm… completely wrecked…"

Lingna knelt by the pool, carefully cupping a little of the murky water, and gently touched it with the jade fragment. The fragment emitted a faint emerald light, and the murk in the water seemed to be dispelled just a little. "The water… it's usable… be careful." She fed the water drop by drop to the unconscious Lin Mo, then handed the rest to Wrench.

After settling Lin Mo, Lingna walked to the few surviving Starvein Trees, gently running her hands over the cold erosion blotches on their trunks, feeling their tenacious, candle-in-the-wind pulse of life. "Thank you… for still holding on…" she whispered softly, pressing the jade fragment against the trunk. The fragment's light seemed to produce a faint resonance with the Starvein Trees' lingering purifying halo, and the air around them seemed to freshen just a little. She sat down wearily against the trunk, her gaze turning toward Wang Ting—in that direction, a massive dark purple pillar of light connecting heaven and earth still stood, like a beacon proclaiming destruction, silently telling of Copperbeard and Suolin's sacrifice, and the unknown abyss into which Lin Mo had fallen.

"Brother Lin Mo… you have to hold on…" Lingna tightened her grip on the fragment as exhaustion and grief washed over her like a tide, her consciousness gradually blurring. Wrench had long since fallen into a deep sleep, emitting intermittent snores. This pool, guarded by the faint Starvein Trees, became the only small island in an ocean of despair. And at the center of that island, the Corrupted Claw Mark within Lin Mo—under the faint suppression of the stardust crystal and surrounded by the life energy of the jade fragment—its pulse frequency quietly underwent a barely perceptible change, as if gathering strength for the next erosion, or perhaps… waiting for something.