Chapter 145: Purification Node, Brand Resonance

The dark-green spore mist, like rolling poisonous miasma, carried a piercing fishy-sweet stench and an overwhelming aura of psychic interference, instantly flooding the entire node space! The moment Xiang Lingna breathed in even a wisp of it, her head spun, the scenery before her eyes began to warp and double, and countless malicious whispers and howls rang in her ears! At the same time, several animated vines covered in dark-purple blotches, like venomous pythons bursting from their den, tore through the air with shrieking whistles and lunged viciously at her vitals from different directions!

A desperate situation! Descending in an instant!

Xiang Lingna's heart nearly leapt from her chest! Her survival instinct overwhelmed everything! She bit hard through her tongue tip, and the searing pain wrenched a sliver of clarity from the psychic interference by force! Without a care for herself, she frantically channeled every last trace of natural affinity within her body into the jade shard in her hand!

"Ah—!" Xiang Lingna let out a bloodthirsty scream!

Hum—!!!

The jade shard, as if sensing its master's will to die fighting, instantly erupted with an unprecedented, majestic emerald radiance like the dawn rising over the jade forest! This light was no longer gentle, but brimming with a sharp will to purify, spreading outward from Xiang Lingna like a tangible barrier of light!

Sizzle sizzle sizzle—!!!

The emerald wall of light collided viciously with the dark-green spore mist! Like a hot knife through butter! The thick poisonous miasma was instantly evaporated and dispersed by the purifying wall! Emitting a piercing shriek and great clouds of foul-smelling smoke! The animated vines charging at the forefront had their corrosive mouthparts slam into the light wall, as though they had crashed into a red-hot branding iron! The tips of the vines covered in dark-purple blotches were instantly scorched black and carbonized, letting out a wretched, pained shriek that seemed to come from the plants themselves, and recoiled as if electrocuted!

One strike! Relying on the shard and her will to die fighting, Xiang Lingna had temporarily repelled the first wave of attack!

But her strength was also draining at terrifying speed! Her face turned paper-white in an instant, her body swaying on the verge of collapse! Though the shard's radiance was fierce, its range was limited, able to shield only a few meters around her. The dark-purple mire at the node's center was still churning, more spore mist brewing, and the surrounding animated vines were gathering for another strike! The malice-laden will transmitted from afar by the Rot Lord chieftain clung like a bone-deep parasite, battering her spirit without cease!

"Useless… resist… futile…"

"Merge with corruption… embrace… eternity…"

The Rot Lord chieftain's hoarse voice echoed through Xiang Lingna's mind like a curse.

"Shut up!" Xiang Lingna shrieked sharply, forcibly driving the noise from her mind! Flames of fury burned in her eyes! Uncle Copperbeard, Uncle Suolin, Brother Lin Mo… they were all fighting to protect, so how could she fall here? How could she yield to corruption?

Her gaze locked dead onto the churning dark-purple mire at the node's center! That was the cancerous source of the Corrosion Corridor! Only by destroying it could she sever the Rot Lord's remote control, and truly help this dying forest vein!

"Shard… help me!" Xiang Lingna poured her entire spirit, will, and longing for her companions into the jade shard without reservation! The shard's radiance surged once more! No longer defending passively, she condensed the light into an emerald light spear honed to its absolute limit! At the spear's tip flowed pure life essence and purifying runes!

"Break for me—!!!"

Xiang Lingna used every ounce of strength in her body to hurl the emerald light spear, like a javelin, viciously at the churning core of the dark-purple mire at the node's center!

Wherever the light spear passed, the spreading poisonous miasma melted away like snow! The animated vines blocking its path shrieked in terror and scrambled aside!

Puchi—!!!

The emerald light spear pierced with pinpoint precision into the deepest part of the dark-purple mire! Like a red-hot iron skewer plunged into ice water!

Sizzle—!!!!

An indescribably violent reaction erupted! The dark-purple corruption energy and the emerald life-purifying force clashed and annihilated each other in a frenzy! The entire node space trembled violently! The mire roiled as if boiling, letting out a pained shriek! The few twisted plants rooted within it instantly withered and carbonized! On the corroded bramble vines around them, the dark-purple blotches faded as if burned away, revealing the vines' true bodies flowing with faint silver light! The corruption aura across the entire node was forcibly suppressed and purified across a vast swath!

It worked! Joy surged in Xiang Lingna's heart!

However, just as the light spear's energy was about to be exhausted and the corruption core within the mire was on the verge of being temporarily suppressed—

The cold claw-mark brand on Xiang Lingna's right arm, as if thoroughly activated by this violent clash of energies, no longer merely passively exuded its aura, but suddenly erupted with a blinding dark-purple radiance! A stream of pure, domineering corruption energy originating from the Doctor's essence of annihilation burst forth like a breached dam along the brand, viciously flooding into Xiang Lingna's arm, and attempting to reverse-inject itself through her body into the mire core that was about to be purified!

"Gyaaaah—!" Xiang Lingna let out a wretched scream! This invading, domineering annihilation energy instantly clashed violently with her own power and with the jade shard's power! Her right arm felt as though pierced by countless red-hot steel needles, the dark-purple root-like patterns beneath her skin instantly twisting like red-hot branding irons! A cold, deathly, destruction-crazed will surged into her mind along with the energy, savagely assailing her consciousness!

The Doctor! It was the Doctor's power! He was intervening remotely through the brand! He meant to stop the purification, and even to strengthen this corruption node in reverse, transforming Xiang Lingna completely into part of the node!

"No! Don't even think it!" Xiang Lingna's eyes nearly split with fury, and an unyielding roar erupted from the depths of her soul! She clung desperately to her last sliver of clarity, mobilizing the jade shard's full power, even willing to burn her own spiritual essence, to wage the most fierce resistance against the annihilation energy rampaging within her arm!

Emerald and dark-purple radiance flickered and intertwined wildly across her body! Her flesh had become the battlefield where two supreme powers clashed fiercely! Her skin cracked inch by inch, blood slowly seeping from her seven orifices! Her consciousness seesawed at the edge of destruction and protection, like a candle in the wind, liable to be snuffed out at any moment!

And at this extreme moment when her consciousness teetered on the brink of collapse, through the connection between the brand on her arm and the Doctor's power, a fragment of shattered, icy will, like a sharp ice spike, stabbed viciously into Xiang Lingna's mind:

【... vessel… struggle… futile…】

【... Rot-Claw Furnace… activated…】

【... await… vessel… mature… harvest… essence… fuse… annihilate…】

The Doctor's objective! He meant to "cultivate" Brother Lin Mo to maturity within the Rot-Claw Furnace, then harvest the chaotic essence within him that had fused stardust and corruption, to complete his ultimate annihilation ritual!

This cruel truth, like a final catalyst, thoroughly ignited the fire of protection in the depths of Xiang Lingna's soul!

"Brother Lin Mo—!!!"