Chapter 185: Thorn-Blooded Path, Shadow of the Furnace

Inside the Star Dust Sanctuary, streams of chaotic light rotated soundlessly, and time slipped by amid tense preparations. Zero's core data streams, like the most precise loom, wove together the faint spatial coordinates lingering in Sister Ai Li's signal, the fragments of the Elven Lament map that survived in the Prism Hub ruins, and Xiang Lingna's memories from the Withered Forest, painstakingly calculating a path toward the Rotclaw Furnace.

"Optimal path… generated…" Zero's projection pointed to a winding red dashed line on the screen, composed of countless tiny data points. Most of the dashed line vanished into the dark-purple shadows representing heavily corrupted zones, only emerging in a few areas as faint "safe" gaps, relying on some enormous, not-yet-fully-corrupted ancient underground root passages or energy-turbulent abandoned mineral veins.

"Path length… estimated… crossing core corruption zone… 120 kilometers… en route… corruption nodes… 17… detection intensity… high… evasion difficulty… extreme…"

"Time required… external time… approximately… 5 standard hours…" Zero's voice was ice-cold, "Premise… no encounter battles… no… direct Doctor intervention…"

Five hours! Xiang Lingna's heart clenched. The sanctuary's remaining safe time (7.2 external hours) would be completely consumed! This meant they had to complete the rescue and find a new hiding place before the Doctor discovered and locked onto them! This was a nearly impossible mission!

But looking at the enormous skull marker wreathed in dark-purple flames on the screen that marked the Rotclaw Furnace's location, there was no retreat in Xiang Lingna's eyes. She flexed her right arm; that dark-purple crystalline "palm" had already taken preliminary shape, five sharp fingertips radiating a cold metallic sheen and an aura of destruction, with internal energy circuits glowing faintly. The recovered chaotic power within her body, restrained by her will, was like lava poised to erupt.

"Preparing… disengagement…" Zero's voice carried a procedural decisiveness. The control console wreckage emitted a low charging hum as the last dregs of stored energy were mobilized and channeled into the system maintaining the sanctuary's space bubble.

Xiang Lingna drew a deep breath, stepped to the center of the space, near Lin Mo's data silhouette. She reached out, wanting to touch that illusory silhouette, but her fingers passed right through. Only a faint warmth came back.

【Big Brother Lin Mo… wait for us to come back…】 Xiang Lingna silently recited in her heart.

"Disengage… program… initiate! 3… 2… 1!"

Wooooom——!!!

The Star Dust Sanctuary's space bubble violently collapsed inward! The swirling chaotic nebula and stardust light instantly contracted! Xiang Lingna and Zero's control console wreckage were hurled outward by a tremendous force!

The scene before her eyes instantly switched! Cold air thick with the stench of corruption flooded her lungs, and beneath her feet lay the frigid metal wreckage of the Prism Hub. They had returned to the real world!

Almost the instant they disengaged!

Wooooom!!!

An invisible, frigid scanning beam swept across the area like a searchlight! The Doctor's tracking beacon had been triggered!

"Target… detected! Energy signature… locked!" Zero's alarm shrieked shrilly!

"Go!" Xiang Lingna barked low, without a shred of hesitation. Following the route map Zero provided, she shot toward the northeast of the ruins like a gale melting into the shadows! Her speed far exceeded that of an ordinary person; the newly born chaotic power had reinforced her body, and her crystalline right arm sliced through the air as she ran, leaving faint dark-purple afterimages. Zero's control console wreckage was wrapped in a thin energy field, hovering half a meter behind her like a loyal wingman.

The forest scenery flew backward at high speed. The further northeast they went, the darker the withering mist became, shifting from gray-green to a suffocating dark purple. Twisted trees stood like dying giants, and the writhing moss on the ground gave off a thick, sweet, fishy stench. The corruption energy permeating the air was like viscous glue, trying to erode Xiang Lingna's body, but was forcibly pushed aside by the faint chaotic halo flowing across her skin and the cold aura radiating from her crystalline right arm.

"Turn left… enter… underground root passage… entrance… 300 meters ahead… rotted tree hollow…" Zero's navigation was precise and swift.

Xiang Lingna darted into a foul-smelling tree hollow half-concealed by enormous corrupted vines. Inside the hollow was pitch black, the ground covered in slippery, mucus-coated giant roots. She relied on the faint purple light from her crystalline right arm to see, weaving swiftly through the tangled maze of roots. A faint, not-yet-fully-corrupted natural will lingered here, forming a natural shield that temporarily blocked the Doctor's scans.

However, the calm was only temporary. As they passed through a relatively gentle stretch of passage, rustling, hair-raising sounds came from ahead! Several corrupted burrow-beasts, shaped like a hybrid of giant centipedes and dead wood, were crouched in the passage ahead, gnawing on an ancient root that emitted a faint silver glow! Their crimson compound eyes instantly locked onto the intruder!

"Combat… unavoidable… finish it fast!" Zero's electronic voice was frigid.

A cold glint flashed in Xiang Lingna's eyes! She didn't pause for an instant; her speed instead surged! The five fingers of her crystalline right-hand palm pressed together, and dark-purple chaotic energy instantly condensed to a high degree in her palm, forming a constantly rotating energy short blade whose edges flowed with emerald-green traces of Order!

Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!

Her figure darted through the narrow passage like a phantom! The energy short blade, carrying a frigid aura of destruction, precisely sliced through the seams in the burrow-beasts' shells! The struck burrow-beasts let out shrill shrieks; their wounds didn't bleed but rapidly carbonized and crumbled! Xiang Lingna's movements were fast, precise, and ruthless, carrying the efficient killing instinct unique to a wasteland survivor, along with the crushing advantage brought by her newborn power! In mere seconds, the several burrow-beasts were dismembered into a pile of smoldering wreckage!

Xiang Lingna stopped, panting, as the energy short blade on her right arm slowly dissipated. Using this power in active combat for the first time flowed more smoothly than she had imagined, but the expenditure was also considerable. Watching the dark-purple corruption energy lingering on the wreckage being slowly absorbed by her crystalline severed limb, a strange feeling rose in her heart.

"Energy expenditure… 12%… corruption residue… absorption efficiency… 15%… right-arm structure… reinforced…" Zero analyzed rapidly, "Warning… ahead… corruption node… high-energy reaction… suspected… guard camp…"

No time to rest. Xiang Lingna wiped the mucus splattered on her face and plunged once more into the dark passage. Sister Ai Li's signal, Priestess Liyana's safety, the Doctor's pursuit… like three nooses, choking her so she could barely breathe, yet also driving her forward at a speed beyond her limits.

She had no idea how many dark passages she crossed, how many patrolling corrupted beasts she evaded, or how many brief, fierce encounter battles she fought, but the crystalline structure on Xiang Lingna's right arm had already spread to her forearm, its structure more complex and precise. When they emerged from a concealed exit hidden in a cliff fissure, the sight before her made Xiang Lingna instantly hold her breath.

A massive valley, completely shrouded in dark-purple energy, appeared before her eyes. At the center of the valley, instead of the imagined giant furnace, stood a colossal, suffocating inverted-pyramid structure built from countless ghastly-white giant bones and black crystal coursing with dark-purple runes! At the structure's apex, an enormous energy vortex wreathed in dark-purple flames rotated slowly, radiating an all-devouring aura of annihilation!

Countless thick energy conduits pulsing with dark-purple light extended from deep within the structure like blood vessels, plunging deep into the surrounding mountains and withered earth, greedily siphoning nourishment. Surrounding the structure were dense nests of corrupted creatures and defensive fortifications; packs of corrupted wyverns circled in the air, and on the ground patrolled heavy-armored Rotclaw warriors even more ferocious than the Withered Guardians!

This was it—the Doctor's lair, the Rotclaw Furnace! The purgatory where Priestess Liyana was imprisoned and Sister Ai Li was infiltrating!

And Xiang Lingna and Zero, like two insignificant moths, had just arrived at the edge of this world-ending furnace.

"Rotclaw Furnace… core zone… defensive strength… beyond estimate…" Zero's voice carried an unprecedented Heavy and Solemn tone, "Sister Ai Li signal… last disappearance point… furnace… lower level… imprisonment zone…"

"Doctor's main body… energy reaction… locked at… pyramid… apex…"

Xiang Lingna stared at the inverted pyramid radiating an aura of death, feeling the terrifying pressure rolling from within like something tangible, as the crystalline structure on her right arm let out an involuntary low hum. Fear, like a frigid tide, instantly drowned her.

But the next instant, the image of Sister Ai Li possibly fighting alone inside, the imagination of Sister Liyana possibly being tortured, and the faint starlight of Big Brother Lin Mo waiting in the virtual world instantly ignited a flame in the depths of her soul!

"Zero… Sister…" Xiang Lingna's voice, beneath the immense fear, became instead extraordinarily calm, "Find… a way in!"