Chapter 169: Root-Nodule Prison, Faint Resonance

Xiang Lingna felt like a snake slithering through a swamp of deadly poison. The closer she got to the core of the Rot-Claw thicket, the thicker and heavier the air became, and the withered mist shifted from a grey-green to an unsettling dark purple. The moss writhing on the ground was like something alive, and every step had to be taken with extreme care to avoid disturbing it. The dark purple veins pulsing in the surrounding shrubs seemed like countless watchful eyes.

Her identity badge burned hot in her hand, the stardust halo compressed to its absolute limit, barely covering the span of her palm as it strained to mask her faint aura. The wisp of Chaos energy inside her, by contrast, was unusually active—like a shark scenting blood—transmitting an ever-clearer sense of pull, its source directly ahead, beneath a massive root nodule formed by dozens of enormous Rot-Claw shrubs coiled together, pulsing like a heart!

Using the shadows of the twisted shrubs, Xiang Lingna finally slipped into the center of this area. The sight before her made her draw a sharp, cold breath.

A pit more than ten meters across yawned before her. It was not naturally formed—its edges were lined with violently torn tree roots and jagged rock fractures. At the bottom, a dark purple tumor, vast enough to chill the heart, pulsed slowly and powerfully, like the heart of a slumbering beast. Its surface was covered in a thick keratinous layer oozing viscous, ink-green fluid, and countless thick root-threads pulsing with dark purple runes sank deep into the pit walls and the earth beyond, like blood vessels. This was the main body of the Rot-Claw root nodule! Far larger and far more terrifying than the one in the underground shelter! Merely being near it, the pure aura of annihilation it exuded set the Chaos energy inside her roiling, the silver membrane at her severed right arm rippling violently as the nanorobots let out a wail of overloading.

What alarmed Xiang Lingna even more was that, all around the pit walls surrounding the massive root nodule, caves of varying sizes had been hollowed out. Some were piled high with ghastly white animal and elven bones, like a junkyard. The mouths of others, however, were sealed shut by writhing dark purple root-threads, and from within came extremely faint pulses of life aura, thick with agony—cages! Just like the ones outside, but the "nutrients" here seemed more "important," or of greater "experimental value"!

Xiang Lingna's gaze was instantly drawn to a cave directly above the root nodule. That cave sat the highest, closest to the nodule's core. The root-threads sealing its mouth were relatively sparse, and a curled-up figure could just barely be seen within. What drew her was not that figure, but several extremely faint yet stubbornly flickering silver-white light-traces on the cave's inner wall! The texture of that light… was strikingly similar to the flowing Order-light on the walls of the Thorn Corridor! It was the residual power of a Wang Ting core fragment! And the pull from the Chaos energy inside her toward that cave was the strongest of all!

Could there be a larger fragment in there? Or… an elf not yet fully corrupted under the fragment's influence?

Just then, the emerald fragment at the location of Xiang Lingna's heart suddenly sent out an extremely faint resonance, tinged with sorrow and a will to protect! This resonance did not point toward the Wang Ting fragment, but toward the deep core of the massive root nodule's pulse! A vague, faint fluctuation, almost completely smothered by the aura of annihilation, like a slumbering ember, had been keenly caught by the emerald fragment!

It was Big Brother Lin Mo's aura! Though faint to the extreme, filled with chaos and agony, Xiang Lingna would never mistake it! He was still alive! His soul imprint had actually been imprisoned by the Doctor within the core of this terrifying Rot-Claw root nodule?!

This discovery struck her mind like a thunderclap! The immense shock and the wild joy that followed nearly made her betray her presence. She clapped a hand hard over her mouth, her body trembling slightly from excitement and terror. Big Brother Lin Mo was inside! The Doctor had not only drained his power, but had also imprisoned his soul as some kind of "core" right here!

She had to get in! She had to get closer to that cave! That was where the Wang Ting fragment was, and it was very likely the key position for approaching the nodule's core and sensing Big Brother Lin Mo!

However, the area around the massive root nodule was not undefended. Several grotesque-looking guards were crouched at the base of the nodule. They were larger than the Withered-Wood Guards, their bodies covered in dark purple chitinous shells, joints bristling with bone spurs, heads like enlarged insect mouthparts dripping with corrosive saliva. They radiated corruption-energy fluctuations far stronger than the Withered-Wood Guards—clearly elite guards the Doctor had left here.

Going straight over would be suicide. Xiang Lingna forced herself to calm down. She observed the guards' patrol routes and the rhythm of the nodule's pulse, and her gaze fell on the relatively thin dark purple energy root-threads wandering across the pit walls. An extremely reckless idea surfaced—using the "camouflage" property of that wisp of Chaos energy inside her!

In the Thorn Corridor, her energy had once made the corrupted vines misjudge. Here, perhaps it could work too?

She drew a deep breath of the heavy, corruption-laden air, carefully guiding the restless wisp of Chaos energy within her, striving to mimic the nature of the surrounding annihilation-corruption aura. The process was agonizingly difficult, like dancing on a knife's edge—one slip and she would burn herself alive. Dark purple markings flickered faintly across her skin, and the energy fluctuations at her severed right arm grew even more unstable.

She moved like a shadow blending into the environment, pressing close to the cold pit wall, staying out of the guards' line of sight, slowly edging toward that high cave. Every time a guard's gaze swept past, she held her breath, simulating the corruption aura with all her might while suppressing the identity badge's stardust halo to its lowest. Sweat mingled with blood slid from her brow, and every step was heart-stopping.

Just as she was less than five meters from the cave mouth, the faint fluctuation belonging to Lin Mo, deep within the nodule's core, seemed to sense the approach of the emerald fragment and Chaos energy within her, and gave an extremely faint, struggling little jump!

Hmm—!!!

That faint jump was like a pebble dropped into still, dead water! The Chaos energy inside Xiang Lingna instantly resonated violently with it, fluctuating beyond her control! A momentary crack appeared in her simulated camouflage!

"Hiss-roar—!"

The nearest Rot-Claw guard snapped its head up, its insectoid compound eyes instantly locking onto the shadow where Xiang Lingna was hiding! Cold, pure killing intent washed over her like something solid!

Xiang Lingna's heart leapt straight into her throat!