Chapter 136: Vessel Resonance, The Thorn Gate Returns

Lin Mo's body arched in violent convulsions, as though an invisible giant hand were gripping his throat. Beneath his skin, dark-purple root-like patterns spread wildly, instantly crawling up his neck and creeping toward his cheeks! The Corrupted Claw Mark blazed with violet light, twisting into a distorted vortex that greedily drew in the annihilation energy permeating the air from the Rift Furnace! A chaotic, violent, destruction-hungry aura spread outward from him like a tangible shockwave!

"Gaaaaah—!" His tightly shut eyes snapped open! His pupils were no longer human in color, but a chaos of dark purple, with a single, extremely faint speck of stardust-white pulsing at the center, as if it might go out at any moment! A non-human roar tore from his throat, brimming with agony and a primal urge to destroy.

"Kill him! Now!" Ella shrieked sharply, the crystal atop her short staff flaring with dangerous light as she aimed it at Lin Mo's heart! The other elves did not hesitate either—bone arrows nocked, short blades drawn! A flicker of reluctance crossed Lei En's eyes, but seeing the barrier on the verge of collapse and the terrifying aura radiating from Lin Mo, he gritted his teeth and raised his short bow as well. The Doctor had activated the Furnace's resonance, letting the corruption inside Lin Mo spiral completely out of control—Lin Mo was no longer a companion in need of rescue, but a bomb about to blow the camp to pieces!

"No—!" Xiang Lingna let out a heart-wrenching wail and threw herself onto Lin Mo without a care, her small body shielding him from those lethal weapons! She pressed the jade shard in her hand desperately against Lin Mo's chest, and the shard erupted in an unprecedented emerald radiance, trying to suppress the wildly spreading violet light!

Hiss—!

Like cold water splashed into boiling oil! The pure life-light of the jade shard collided violently with the raging annihilation-corruption energy inside Lin Mo! Emerald and dark-purple radiance flickered wildly across Lin Mo's skin, weaving together and annihilating each other! The fierce energy clash made Lin Mo's body shudder as if electrocuted, and he coughed up fresh blood flecked with dark-purple specks of light!

But Xiang Lingna's strength was far too weak! Though the jade shard was miraculous, water without a source—how could it douse a fire that burned the heavens? The emerald radiance dimmed rapidly under the onslaught of annihilation energy! The dark-purple patterns instantly broke through the light's obstruction and crawled onto the back of Xiang Lingna's hand pressing the shard! A cold, deathly, malice-laden corrosive sensation swept in at once, and Xiang Lingna's little hand quickly turned ashen and numb!

"Kid! Let go!" Wrench's eyes nearly split with rage as he lunged to pull Xiang Lingna away.

The last trace of hesitation vanished from Ella's eyes: "There's no time! Strike together!" The elves' attacks were about to be unleashed!

At that hair-raising, critical instant—

Hum!!!

The stardust crystal on Lin Mo's chest—faint to the extreme—in the very moment the jade shard's light was shattered and it itself was utterly drowned by the annihilation-corruption energy, and spurred on by Xiang Lingna's desperate, life-as-fuel will to protect, erupted with its final, most incredible power!

That was not resistance! Not protection!

It was a kind of… resonance! A brief, uncanny… merging!

The stardust crystal's light transformed in an instant! No longer a pure milky white, it became a chaos of hazy gray! This grayish radiance, as if alive, actively and swiftly "merged" into the raging annihilation-corruption energy within Lin Mo! No clash, no annihilation—as if a single drop of water had melted into the sea!

The merging of this chaotic gray light, like a drop of cold water falling into a boiling vat of oil, instantly triggered a chain reaction!

The dark-purple patterns wildly spreading across Lin Mo's body suddenly stalled! That violent annihilation aura seemed to have been pressed onto pause! In his dark-purple chaotic pupils, that faint speck of stardust-white flared abruptly, like a match struck in the darkness!

"Home… land…" A dry, broken, yet impossibly tenacious voice forced itself out from Lin Mo's lips!

Immediately after, the anomaly struck without warning!

From Lin Mo's body as its center, an invisible, chaotic ripple—mixing order, corruption, life, annihilation, and other diametrically opposed forces—suddenly surged outward! Wherever this ripple swept, the light on the elves' weapons instantly died, their gathered energy forcibly dispersed! The crystal on Ella's short staff cracked apart with a snap! Lei En's bone arrow snapped clean in two!

Even more shocking, when this ripple swept over the few star-grain trees supporting the barrier at the camp's edge—

Hum! Hum! Hum!

Those few star-grain trees, which had been on their last breath and covered in dark-purple corrosive blotches, were as if injected with violent vitality—the elven runes lingering on their trunks blazed dazzlingly bright! They trembled violently, and the remaining silver-white leaves on their crowns grew wildly, then fell, transforming into streams of pure purification light! These streams of light attacked no one, but surged madly toward the ground before Lin Mo!

Sizzle—!

The ground before Lin Mo, under the combined effect of the star-grain trees' purification light and the chaotic ripple emanating from his body, was torn apart like cloth! A rotating—its edges interwoven with silver-white stardust, emerald life-light, and uncanny dark-purple annihilation energy—Thorn Gate, appeared once more!

This gate was even more unstable than the one Wang Ting's core had opened before, its light flickering chaotically, spatial ripples twisting violently, as if it might collapse at any moment! The other end of the gate was no longer a clear forest scene, but a chaotic, blurred play of light and shadow, brimming with unknown danger!

The instant the gate appeared, Lin Mo's body seemed to have been drained of its very last wisp of strength; the stardust-white in his eyes dimmed once more, and dark-purple chaos reclaimed dominance, but the violent aura about him eerily subsided, and he merely sank into a deeper coma. And on his right arm's Corrupted Claw Mark, though the violet light remained strong, it now carried a faint, indescribable grayish impurity belonging to the stardust.

"A gate… another gate?" Wrench gaped, dumbfounded.

"What kind of energy is this?!" Ella stared in horror at the chaotic Thorn Gate, feeling the terrifying, contradictory aura contained within it.

Xiang Lingna paid no heed to the ashen numbness on the back of her hand. She looked at the unstable gate, then at the unconscious Lin Mo and the uncanny mark on his arm, and a thought flashed like lightning through her mind: Leave! They had to leave immediately! The Doctor's true body could be drawn here by the anomaly at any moment! This gate—whether it led to hell or to life—was their only chance of escape!

"Quick! Take Brother Lin Mo inside!" Xiang Lingna screamed, struggling to drag Lin Mo.

Lei En reacted fastest, instantly grasping Xiang Lingna's meaning. The Doctor's shadow was close at hand, the camp barrier was broken, and staying meant certain death! He hoisted the unconscious Lin Mo onto his shoulder in one motion: "Wrench! Take Xiang Lingna! Move!" He charged ahead toward the chaotic Thorn Gate!

Wrench caught on too, dragging the numb Xiang Lingna right behind him.

"Wait! Where are you going?!" Ella cried out, uncertain and alarmed.

"Get out of here! Draw the Doctor's attention away!" Lei En bellowed without looking back, "Camp… take care!" Hoisting Lin Mo, he stepped into that light-and-shadow-twisted gate, his figure instantly swallowed by the chaotic radiance!

Wrench, dragging Xiang Lingna, gritted his teeth and plunged in after him!

The instant Xiang Lingna's figure vanished within the gate—

A cold, vast, sky-rising-fury-laden terrifying will, like an invisible meteor, crashed down upon the Glow Camp! The Doctor's true body's consciousness crossed space and locked onto this place! The chaotic Thorn Gate, shrinking rapidly, was clearly perceived by him!

"Vessel… chaos… escape…" The cold consciousness carried a hint of surprise and a deeper probing.

The Thorn Gate, under the crushing pressure of the Doctor's descending consciousness, rippled violently, shrank rapidly, and finally collapsed into a single speck of light before vanishing completely. It left behind only chaotic energy aftershocks and a group of elves, souls shaken, bewildered and at a loss.

Ella stared at the empty ground, then looked toward the Wang Ting direction where the annihilation pillar of light had grown even brighter, and murmured, "They… where did they go? That gate… that chaotic power…" Her gaze fell on the spot where Lin Mo had just lain, where a few remaining patches of dark-purple moss, their edges tinged with an uncanny grayish halo, were writhing faintly as if alive, as though leaving behind some ominous mark.

Deep within the Rift, upon the Corruption Furnace altar. The Doctor's true body slowly withdrew the guiding filament connecting Lin Mo. He "looked" toward the direction Lin Mo had vanished (the other end of the Thorn Gate), his vortex-like face rotating slowly, and his cold consciousness whispered amid the Furnace's boiling:

【An interesting… variable…】

【The chaotic vessel… will in the end… return to the Furnace…】

【Tracking… mark… deeply implanted…】

At the Corruption Furnace's center, amid the surging dark-purple viscous bubbles, a wisp of extremely faint chaotic gray light, carrying Lin Mo's soul aura (a mix of stardust, corruption, and jade shard), like a drop of ink dropped into water, slowly sank down, vanishing into the endless depths of the annihilation source. An invisible mark had already, through that chaotic Thorn Gate, been firmly branded upon Lin Mo's soul. The Doctor's hunt had not ended—it had entered a new phase. What awaited Lin Mo and the others would be drifting through unknown planes, and an annihilation hunt that followed like a shadow.