Chapter 180: Roots Severed, Stars Scattered; Moon Shadow Withered

Dark purple flames burned and spread wildly along the edges of the rift, ruthlessly devouring and carbonizing the pure silver-white and emerald-green roots. Cold, viscous darkness poured in like a filthy flood through the breach; wherever it passed, the flowing river of energy rapidly dimmed and congealed, like a frozen galaxy. The radiance of the entire Sacred Tree core space plummeted, the temperature plunged, and vitality drained away at terrifying speed.

The Doctor's massive energy projection hovered at the center of the rift, like the sole sovereign descended upon this realm. His cold vertical pupils held not the slightest emotion, only naked possessiveness for the chaotic nebula cocoon of light below. Slowly he raised a colossal hand formed of pure annihilation energy and made a grasping motion toward the cocoon!

Hum——!!!

An irresistible, terrifying suction descended in an instant! Space itself seemed to twist; invisible chains of force wound toward Xiang Lingna's cocoon of light, seeking to seize her along with her newly born chaotic power!

"Don't even think it!" Priestess Liyana's eyes nearly split with fury! With a sharp cry, she drove her connection with the Sacred Tree's will to its absolute limit! The Moon Shadow Sacred Tree's great trunk erupted with a final, death-rallying blaze of resplendent light! The descending curtain of silver radiance no longer guarded the whole grove; instead it gathered entirely, condensing into an immense pillar of light—liquid moonlight itself—that surged skyward from the moon-white energy source at the Sacred Tree's core and slammed brutally into the Doctor's descending hand of energy!

Sizzle——!!!

The moonlight pillar and the annihilation hand collided savagely! There was no earth-shattering explosion, only the most fundamental annihilation and dissolution of energy! Blinding light flooded the dim core space in an instant! The terrifying shockwave hurled Priestess Liyana violently away, slamming her into a distant barrier of solidified root-energy; she vomited blood in great gouts!

The moonlight pillar resisted stubbornly! It carried the Sacred Tree's final primordial will and the faith of every spirit in the grove! The Doctor's hand was held suspended in midair, unable to descend.

"A death throe!" The Doctor's cold will carried a trace of impatience. His towering projection trembled slightly as more dark-purple energy surged in from beyond the rift, flooding into the giant hand! Its power swelled explosively; the moonlight pillar began to crumble step by step, swaying on the brink of collapse!

The moon-white energy source at the Sacred Tree's core dimmed at a speed visible to the naked eye! The root-rivers sustaining the space disintegrated and scattered in vast swathes!

Inside the cocoon, Xiang Lingna—who had just completed her initial fusion and whose consciousness still drifted in the wondrous sensation of wielding power—was jolted awake by that terrifying suction and the destructive shock from outside! That cold, greedy will clung like a bone-burrowing maggot, making even her soul tremble!

【No! I won't go back!】 Xiang Lingna's consciousness let out an instinctive scream filled with terror. The newborn power she had just gained was still beyond her full control; beneath this world-ending pressure she felt utterly insignificant!

"Xiang Lingna! Stay calm! Use your power! Attack him! Attack that rift!" Lin Mo's faint yet desperately anxious will exploded in her mind! His stardust phantom was nearly transparent within the cocoon—clearly the fusion just now had drained him utterly.

Attack? Attack that god-and-demon-like projection? Xiang Lingna's heart brimmed with terror and helplessness. But watching the moonlight pillar crumble step by step beneath the Doctor's hand, watching Sister Liyana's blood-spitting form sent flying, watching this beautiful space wither at frightening speed… a flame mingled of fury, unwillingness, and the will to protect erupted in her heart!

"Ah——!!!" Xiang Lingna unleashed a soundless roar within her consciousness! No longer hesitating, she poured every scrap of the control she had just grasped into the newborn chaotic power within her!

No longer defense, no longer harmonizing—but a torrent! Destruction!

The chaotic nebula swirling on the cocoon's surface abruptly contracted inward, then—like a supernova erupting—fired a condensed beam of energy, tinted in the colors of the chaotic nebula, toward the rift where the Doctor's projection stood!

The beam was not thick, yet it carried every quality of the newborn power within Xiang Lingna—the piercing tenacity of Thorn Order, the purifying guidance of Stardust Light, the pure order of the Sacred Tree's might, and the annihilation rot transformed by chaotic nature into something cold and controllable!

Like a spear of chaos cleaving the dark, it pierced straight through the Doctor's energy hand as it grappled with the moonlight pillar!

Hiss——!

No violent explosion—the Doctor's energy hand was like a block of ice dropped into strong acid; where the beam pierced, a vast void appeared in an instant, the annihilation energy at its edges boiling violently, evaporating, dissipating! The hand's power became unbalanced in a heartbeat!

"What?!" The Doctor's projection voiced clear astonishment for the first time! He sensed a strange force that not only shattered his energy structure but even seemed to be eroding and assimilating his will-projection! This power… bore the annihilation nature he knew so well, yet had been imbued with an utterly different order and… the will of chaos?

Seizing the chance, the moonlight pillar on the brink of collapse erupted with one final surge of strength and lunged savagely forward!

Boom!!!

The Doctor's energy hand was pierced through by the combined force of the moonlight pillar and the chaotic beam, and utterly shattered!

"Insects! You seek death!" The Doctor's projection heaved violently as the hand collapsed; cold fury surged like a tsunami! No longer attempting to seize, his vertical pupils suddenly fired two beams of annihilation condensed to the extreme, dark purple—like a reaper's scythe—one streaking toward Xiang Lingna's cocoon, the other toward the moon-white energy core below, now dimmed to the extreme! He would destroy utterly!

After unleashing the pillar, Xiang Lingna was as if drained of all strength; the cocoon dimmed in an instant, the swirling nebula nearly stalled, her consciousness slipping back into a haze—she could not dodge at all!

Priestess Liyana struggled to rise, but lacked the strength to stop it!

At the instant that killing blow descended—

"Lord Lin Mo! Receive!"

An aged, hoarse, yet resolute voice rang through the space! It was High Priestess Tyrande! Somehow, through some secret art, she had transmitted her withered body into the Sacred Tree core space! She stood beside the moon-white energy core on the verge of extinguishing, her emaciated hands pressed hard against its surface, her face bearing the tragic grandeur of one offering herself as sacrifice!

At her cry, the moon-white energy core suddenly erupted with one last, yet extraordinarily pure, radiance! This radiance did not shoot toward the annihilation beams, but transformed into a gentle silver ribbon that instantly coiled around Xiang Lingna's dimmed cocoon!

At the same time, Tyrande burned her own life and soul! Her body crumbled like a wind-eroded sand sculpture, becoming the purest soul-energy and natural essence, pouring like fuel into the moon-white core on the verge of going out!

"By my soul! Burn the Tree's heart! Open… the star road!"

Boom——!!!

Fed by Tyrande's soul-sacrifice, the moon-white core—like a sun in its death rally—erupted with unprecedented, eye-searing brilliance! This radiance did not attack; instead it condensed into an extreme silver pillar composed of countless tiny root-like runes, ignoring the distance of space, and slammed brutally into the void near Xiang Lingna's cocoon!

Crack!

Space shattered like a mirror! A spatial rift was forced open—its edges flowing with silver root-runes, its interior a bizarre scene filled with chaotic energy storms! At the passage's far end, the dim outline of a ruined landscape shrouded in stardust radiance could be seen—precisely the world-fragment where the Prism Hub lay!

With her life and the Sacred Tree's last foundation, Tyrande had torn open a spatial passage to the Prism Hub!

The silver ribbon, wrapping Xiang Lingna's cocoon like a weary bird returning to its nest, plunged instantly into the newly opened passage!

"No——!!!" The Doctor's projection let out a furious roar! The two annihilation beams slammed brutally into the spot where Xiang Lingna's cocoon had vanished and into the moon-white energy core!

Boom! Boom!

Two destructive orbs of light erupted within the Sacred Tree core space! The moon-white energy core shattered utterly! The entire space lost its final light source and plunged into absolute darkness in an instant! Countless root-rivers disintegrated and scattered! The spatial barriers groaned under unbearable strain and began collapsing in great swathes!

Priestess Liyana was hurled violently by the blast's aftershock; in her final glimpse she saw only the Doctor's enraged projection slowly dissipating within the collapsing space, and… the passage to the Prism Hub twisting, shrinking, on the verge of closing under the tearing of spatial turbulence!

"Xiang Lingna… Lin Mo…" Before Priestess Liyana's consciousness sank into darkness, there remained only boundless grief and a sliver of faint hope.