Chapter 142: Swarm Blots Out the Sun, Spatial Rift

A scalp-splitting drone, like a bursting flood, instantly drowned the riverbank! Beneath the dim sky, a churning "dark cloud" composed of countless fist-sized corrupted flying insects swept in at terrifying speed! Their shells were a filthy dark green, their compound eyes flickered with greedy crimson, their mouthparts were like sharp drill bits, and their wings beat at high speed, emitting a piercing noise. Wherever they passed, even those phosphorescent skull-flowers quickly closed, as if they too feared this devastating swarm of predators!

"Into the rock crevice! Now!" Lei En's hoarse shout was extremely faint amid the drone. Forcing his aching body upright, he shoved the still-dazed Wrench toward the underwater entrance with one hand, grabbed Lingna's arm with the other, and tried to drag her in.

Yet the cold, deathly dark-purple claw-mark brand that had just surfaced on Lingna's right arm was like a glaring beacon! The swarm, as if drawn by a magnet, instantly split off an even denser "flood," ignoring Lei En and Wrench, and lunged straight at Lingna! Their target was clear—that "Annihilation Origin" aura emanating from her, the one they craved madly!

"Ah!" Lingna screamed as several flying insects at the very front slammed hard into her back! Their sharp mouthparts tore through her clothes, instantly leaving several searing wounds, and the dark-green corrosive energy seeped in at once! The sharp pain and numbness made her movements falter!

"Girl!" Wrench had just slipped into the water; seeing this, his eyes nearly split with rage as he tried to crawl back out.

Lei En's eyes flashed with resolve; he knew there was no time! He violently yanked Lingna behind him, and at the same time, with the last of his strength, kicked Wrench hard in the shoulder, booting him fully into the underwater crevice! "Stay hidden!" he roared at Wrench, then turned to face the surging swarm head-on! His bone blade became a curtain of emerald death-light, shredding the insects lunging at Lingna! Stinking insect corpses and slime splattered everywhere!

But the swarm's numbers were simply too great! They feared no death, throwing themselves forward wave after wave! Lei En was instantly buried by the swarm! His leather armor was torn to shreds, his exposed skin instantly covered in wounds, and the dark-green corrosive energy rapidly ate into his body! Like a reef in a storm, he held his ground in front of Lingna, his bone-blade swings growing slower and slower, his gaze beginning to scatter as the toxin took hold!

"Lei En!" Lingna cried out, and without a care pressed the jade shard against Lei En's back! Emerald life-light flared instantly, struggling to drive out the corrosive energy invading his wounds, slowing the spread of the toxin. But the shard's glow, hidden beneath the swarm, was so faint—like a candle guttering in the wind!

At the very moment when the two were about to be completely devoured by the swarm—

Woooong!!!

The cold claw-mark brand on Lingna's right arm, as if doubly stimulated by the swarm's frenzied attack and the jade shard's power, suddenly erupted with an even more glaring dark-purple light! A pressure originating from the Doctor's Annihilation Origin—lofty, domineering—spread outward uncontrollably!

This pressure was like an invisible shockwave!

The frenziedly lunging corrupted swarm, as if encountering the bane of their natural enemy, froze mid-strike! In their crimson compound eyes surged an instinctive, life-level terror! The dense drone instantly became chaotic hissing! The insects closest even stiffened and plummeted straight down! The entire swarm's assault showed a moment of chaos and stasis!

Now!

Lei En's consciousness was blurred, but his combat instinct remained! Seizing this once-in-a-thousand-years opening, with the last thread of his strength, he suddenly hugged Lingna and hurled himself toward the northeast direction where he had earlier sensed spatial fluctuations—that region of jagged rocks and denser vines—crashing into it hard! The two tumbled like rolling gourds into a pile of rubble covered in thick rotting moss!

After a brief stasis, the swarm was once again seized by fury at the "prey's" escape and instinctive greed for the "Annihilation Origin," letting out an even more violent drone. Like a dark-green wave of death, they surged toward the rubble!

Yet, at the very instant the swarm was about to swallow the rubble—

Crack—zzt!

A piercing sound, like cloth being forcibly torn, rang out without warning from the center of the rubble! Accompanying the sound, the space there, like a pond surface with a stone thrown in, twisted and rippled violently! A narrow spatial rift, its edges flickering with unstable gray-white light, quietly opened beneath the cover of rocks and vines! Within the rift raged even more violent, chaotic, kaleidoscopic energy currents!

This was precisely the extremely faint, unstable spatial node Lei En had sensed earlier! Under the dual effect of the eruption of the Annihilation brand within Lingna and the energy shockwave of the swarm's attack, it had been accidentally, extremely unstably torn open!

"Jump!" Lei En rasped, using the last of his strength to shove Lingna toward that rift flickering with dangerous light! He himself, however, slowed by a step due to his grave wounds and the toxin, was savagely bitten by several diving flying insects!

"No! Together!" Lingna shrieked, turning to grip Lei En's arm in a death-lock!

At that moment, a powerful suction force suddenly surged from within the rift! Like a giant beast's breath, it instantly sucked the two of them—along with several insects biting Lei En—violently into that light-and-shadow-twisting passage!

After devouring the two, the rift flickered violently a few times, as if exhausting all its energy, then swiftly sealed shut and vanished. All that remained was the corrupted swarm, which had lunged at empty air, circling and droning furiously above the rubble.

And in the rotting mushroom camp several kilometers from the riverbank, the giant eyeball crystal on the altar clearly reflected the final moment of the spatial rift's appearance! Before the crystal, the Rot-Pastor leader's murky eyes erupted with wild joy and greedy light!

"A spatial rift! Leading to… an unknown place!"

"Track it! Lock onto the brand!"

"The key… must be obtained!"

He violently drove his twisted staff into the altar! The surrounding Rot-Pastors let out fanatical hisses, and the entire camp instantly boiled over! A hunt spanning across space had already begun!