Chapter 149: Broken Walls of the Corridor, the Shepherd Descends

The tremors of the Thorn Corridor were like the end of days! The thick thorny vines forming the passage let out teeth-grinding snapping sounds under the violent spatial shock! Massive sections of the vine walls crumbled and fell away, revealing the wild, chaotic spatial turbulence behind them! Silver-white and emerald halos flickered madly, trying to repair the damage, but under the relentless battering, it was a drop in the bucket! The entire passage was like a root gnawed by a giant beast, ready to snap apart at any moment!

"They're coming! Run!" Lei En decided on the spot, hauling up Xiang Lingna, who had just woken and whose body was still abnormally weak. Wrench immediately propped up Xiang Lingna's other arm. The three of them, unable to spare a thought for the conflicting energies still raging inside Xiang Lingna, fled for their lives toward the corridor's downstream direction—away from the source of the tremors!

Xiang Lingna endured the searing pain in her body and the dizziness from the clashing energies, running while trying to channel the power of the enlarged emerald guardian orb within her to suppress the throbbing of the brand on her right arm. The brand was like a red-hot iron, radiating a burning pain and an icy, deathly stillness—the Rot-Pastors were using it to pinpoint her location!

"Girl! Can you block that damned thing?!" Wrench shouted between ragged breaths, the roar of shattering spatial barriers echoing from behind.

"I… I'll try!" Xiang Lingna gritted her teeth and focused. The power of the emerald orb wrapped around the brand. Hiss—! Like fire meeting water! The brand erupted in fierce resistance, purple light clashing violently with emerald radiance, sending agony shooting through Xiang Lingna's arm! The shielding effect was negligible!

"No good! The brand's power is too strong! It has a deep connection to the corruption of this space!" Xiang Lingna shook her head, her face pale.

BOOM—!!!

A deafening roar came from behind! Accompanying the roar was the piercing shriek of space being forcibly torn apart! The three whipped their heads back in terror, only to see that in the corridor's "upstream" region, several hundred meters away, space had exploded like a shattered mirror! A massive spatial rift, several meters in diameter, its edges dripping with dark-green mucus and dark-purple energy, had been ripped open by force!

Beyond the rift was no longer chaotic turbulence, but the sight of that rotting forest! Even more terrifying, several corrupted wyverns—larger in size, built of thick white bone and glowing dark-green vines, with rotting flesh-wings on their backs—were squeezing their way in! Standing brazenly on the wyverns' backs were several Rot-Pastors wielding twisted staves! At their head was none other than the Rot-Pastor chieftain, whose murky eyes burned with greedy flames!

"The Key! Leave it!" The Rot-Pastor chieftain's rasping voice was like a steel blade scraping bone, piercing through the barrier of space and ringing directly in the minds of Xiang Lingna's group! The dark-green orb atop his staff erupted in blinding light, and a powerful psychic binding field instantly swept over them!

"ROAR!" The first corrupted wyvern to squeeze into the corridor let out a deafening bellow, its rotting flesh-wings flapping violently as a waterfall of dark-green corrosive breath spewed toward the three! Wherever it passed, the thorny vines rapidly withered and carbonized!

"Dodge!" Lei En roared, slamming Xiang Lingna and Wrench to the ground! The searing corrosive breath grazed their scalps and slammed into the vine wall ahead, blasting a huge, charred crater!

"Take down the dragon-riders!" Wrench shrieked, grabbing a thorny shard that had fallen from the wall and hurling it with all his might at the Rot-Pastors on the wyverns' backs! But before the shard could get close, it was deflected by the psychic barrier radiating from the Rot-Pastors' staves.

A fierce glint flashed in Lei En's eyes! Enduring his injuries and the lingering weakness from the toxin, he pushed Xiang Lingna toward Wrench: "Get her out of here! I'll hold them off!" He drew his last bone blade, and a desperate resolve of the elven ranger exploded in his emerald eyes! He knew that facing the wyverns and Rot-Pastors' encirclement, only a fight to the death could buy Xiang Lingna a slim chance of survival!

"Lei En! No!" Xiang Lingna cried out urgently.

"Run! Don't look back!" Lei En didn't turn around. His body became a blur as he threw himself toward the diving corrupted wyvern! The bone blade, wreathed in emerald light, thrust straight at the relatively vulnerable flesh-wing root of the wyvern! He would use his own life to buy Xiang Lingna time!

Wrench gritted his teeth and dragged Xiang Lingna on, sprinting downstream! "Girl! You've got to live to have hope!"

Xiang Lingna watched Lei En's figure charge toward death without a backward glance, tears blurring her vision. Copperbeard, Uncle Suolin, and now Lei En… she couldn't lose anyone else! Intense grief and fury resonated violently with the power of the guardian orb within her!

Hum!

The emerald shard in her arms lit up again! This time, a thread of silver-white orderly radiance (from the thorny vines' support) joined the glow! Xiang Lingna no longer merely suppressed the brand; she channeled this fused power to slam viciously into the walls of the Thorn Corridor!

"Help us! Open a path!" Xiang Lingna cried out in her heart to this suffering forest vein!

Perhaps sensing Xiang Lingna's fierce will to live and the power within the guardian orb that shared its origin, or perhaps utterly enraged by the Rot-Pastors' forced invasion, the Thorn Corridor shuddered violently—and the walls of the passage ahead blazed with a blinding interweaving of silver-white and emerald light!

Crack—Rrrrip!

A new, narrower but relatively stable spatial rift was forcibly torn open not far ahead of the three! On the other side of the rift was no longer chaotic turbulence, but a… relatively normal forest scene? Though the sky was dim and the trees somewhat yellowed, at least there was none of that omnipresent dark-green stench of rot!

An exit! An exit leading to an unknown but possibly safe place!

"There's a door! Go!" Wrench shouted joyfully, dragging Xiang Lingna toward the rift!

"Stop them!" The Rot-Pastor chieftain let out an angry shriek! Several dark-green energy arrows and the wyverns' corrosive breath came again!

Lei En was in dire straits under the wyverns' attacks, his body drenched in blood. Seeing the exit appear, a flash of relief crossed his eyes, which then hardened into an even firmer resolve to die! Gritting his teeth, he took a claw strike from a wyvern head-on and let his bone blade fly from his hand, carrying his last strength to shoot at a wyvern's eye, trying to disrupt their attack!

Fwip fwip fwip! Most of the energy arrows and breath were blocked by Lei En's disruption and the energy barrier the Thorn Corridor spontaneously raised, but a small portion still slammed viciously into Xiang Lingna and Wrench from behind!

"Ah!" Wrench was sent flying by the shockwave of the explosion and tumbled into the rift! Xiang Lingna was also pushed forward by the blast, half her body tumbling into the rift!

Just as she was about to be completely swallowed by the rift—

A cold hand covered in dark-green scales, like a ghost, reached out from behind and seized Xiang Lingna's right ankle, the one branded with the claw mark!

It was the Rot-Pastor chieftain! He had actually ridden a wyvern through Lei En's blockade and personally chased to the edge of the rift! His murky eyes were filled with mad greed!

"The Key… is mine!"

The cold, deathly aura of annihilation surged from the Rot-Pastor's hand into Xiang Lingna's body! The emerald orb shuddered violently! The rift's suction and the Rot-Pastor's pulling force created a terrifying tug-of-war! Xiang Lingna felt her very soul was about to be torn apart!

"Let go!" Xiang Lingna let out a piercing scream, her other foot kicking viciously at the Rot-Pastor's arm! At the same time, the guardian orb within her erupted with its last strength, slamming hard at the claw-mark brand!

HUMM!!!

Under the dual assault from within and without, the brand suddenly erupted in blinding purple light! A counter-force of icy cold, originating from the Doctor's essence, exploded instantly!

"Gaaah!" The Rot-Pastor chieftain was struck as if by lightning! The dark-green scales covering the arm gripping Xiang Lingna's ankle were instantly corroded and carbonized by the icy purple light! That terrifying annihilation force not only wounded his body but struck directly at his soul, which was deeply bound to the corrupted land! He let out a pained shriek and instinctively released his grip!

Seizing the chance, Xiang Lingna's body was completely swallowed by the rift's suction and vanished into the passage!

The rift sealed rapidly after Xiang Lingna disappeared.

The Rot-Pastor chieftain clutched his corroded, carbonized arm, staring at the empty spot where the rift had been. His murky eyes were filled with pain, fury, and a deeper… fear of that annihilation force. He had failed. The Key had escaped, and it had cost him dearly.

And behind him, Lei En's figure had already been completely swallowed by several corrupted wyverns and Rot-Pastors… The elven ranger's rearguard action had bought Xiang Lingna and Wrench their final chance to live, but it had also burned him out completely.

The Thorn Corridor let out a final wail under the Rot-Pastors' rampage. Vast stretches of space began to collapse, and this last spatial vein of the forest seemed to have reached its end as well.