Chapter 187: Shadow Strike, Binding of Thorns

The cold metal grating dug into Xiang Lingna's knees. She pressed flat against the inner wall of the duct, her breathing forced low, every heartbeat pounding like a war drum in her chest. In the shadows of the ventilation duct above, Sister Ai Li's figure seemed frozen like a statue, only the multi-function goggles occasionally flickering with barely perceptible streams of data light. Below, inside the isolation chamber, Priestess Liyana's body suspended in the dark-green viscous fluid was like a thorn driven straight into Xiang Lingna's eyes. Those writhing dark-purple root tendrils, the pulsing corrupted crystals, the cold pale humanoid figure at the console… fury churned in Xiang Lingna's chest. The dark-purple crystal on her right arm began to hum uncontrollably, and the embryonic thruster port on the outer side of her forearm leaked wisps of cold energy particles.

Sister Ai Li moved.

No warning, no sound. She was like a thin blade peeled from the shadows, sliding soundlessly out of the ventilation duct opening. Her target was not the four invisible A-rank guards inside the chamber, but an energy node on the chamber's side wall flashing with faint red light—the core generator of the binding force field!

Her movements were faster than the limits of visual capture. The alloy dagger wreathed in faint electric arcs became a deadly streak of light in her hand, stabbing with perfect precision at the weak seam of the node's outer shell. The dagger's tip lit up with a piercing blue-white spark—that was the high-frequency pulse disruption code Zero had remotely injected through Sister Ai Li's goggles!

Crackle—!

A shrill burst of electric current and the sound of metal tearing rang out at the same instant! The binding force field generator's outer shell was pierced in a flash, and its delicate internal components exploded into a blinding shower of sparks under the high-voltage pulse! The transparent energy barrier covering Priestess Liyana's cultivation vat flickered violently several times, like a bulb with a bad contact, then went out with a soft "pop"!

"Enemy attack! Maximum alert!" The pale humanoid at the console emitted a flat, emotionless electronic synthesized voice. Almost the instant the barrier vanished, the air in the four corners of the isolation chamber twisted sharply!

Four figures materialized out of thin air!

They were not traditional corrupted creatures, but more like twisted technological constructs. Their main bodies were humanoid skeletons covered in active-metal armor etched with dark-purple patterns, with sharp energy blades extending from the joints. Their heads were smooth hemispherical sensors, flashing with cold red light, no facial features, only pure kill-commands. Their movements had not the slightest hesitation—like four bolts of purple-black lightning, two lunging at Sister Ai Li who had destroyed the force field generator, two charging straight at the duct opening where Lingna was! Their speed was so fast it raised a sharp whistling sound through the air!

The instant her dagger stabbed in, Sister Ai Li had already used the force to flip backward, her movements as fluid as if rehearsed a thousand times. The first guard's energy blade grazed her back, cutting a deep gouge into the cold metal duct wall. She landed like a cat, toes touching down, advancing instead of retreating, ducking into the second guard's embrace! The dagger wreathed in electric arcs swept upward with a shriek that tore the air, driving viciously into a weak energy conduit interface beneath the guard's chest plate!

Sizzle—boom!

Blue-white electric arcs ran wild inside the guard's body, thick smoke poured from the seams of its armor, and it stiffened for an instant. Sister Ai Li did not linger, twisting her body, spinning into a kick, her long leg like a steel whip, slamming viciously into the head sensor of another guard lunging at her! In a muffled crash, the guard was sent reeling by the tremendous force, and its sensor burst out a shower of sparks!

But the other two guards had already reached the duct opening! Cold red light locked onto Xiang Lingna! Energy blades raised high, they brought them down on her head with an aura of annihilation! So fast that Xiang Lingna barely had time to react!

"Lingna! Right arm! Energy blast!" Zero's electronic voice exploded in Xiang Lingna's mind!

At the critical moment of life and death, Xiang Lingna's pupils contracted sharply! The instinct to survive overwhelmed fear! The dark-purple crystal on her right arm instantly erupted with blinding light! No longer passive defense, but violently pouring out the chaotic power within her—freshly recovered, mingled with fury and the will to protect—through the thruster port of her crystal arm!

Boom!!!

A condensed stream of energy, the color of a chaotic nebula, like an angry dragon bursting from the abyss, slammed viciously into the two descending energy blades! No earth-shattering explosion, only the silent erosion of annihilation against annihilation! The instant the guards' energy blades touched the chaotic torrent, they were like ice meeting lava—the dark-purple annihilation energy structure was forcibly broken down and devoured! The chaotic torrent lost none of its momentum, slamming brutally into the two guards' chest plates!

Sizzle sizzle sizzle—!

A shrill sound of corrosion rang out! The guards' sturdy active-metal armor was like paper before the chaotic energy, carbonizing and disintegrating at a speed visible to the naked eye! Their internal energy cores were exposed, flickering violently under the chaotic energy's erosion, then exploding with a "bang" into two burning purple fireballs! Shattered metal fragments and scorching energy streams flew in all directions!

Xiang Lingna was knocked back two steps by the tremendous recoil, slamming into the duct wall. A tearing, searing pain shot through her right arm, and the crystal's light rapidly dimmed. This strike had nearly drained all the power she had just recovered. But the effect was staggering! Two A-rank guards, one-shot instant-kill!

Inside the chamber, Sister Ai Li's close combat was also nearing its end. Using her agile footwork and tricky assassination techniques, she kept destroying the joints and energy nodes of the remaining two guards. One guard was pierced through the back-of-neck core by her electric dagger and collapsed trailing black smoke. The other she had lured over beside the cultivation vat.

"Lingna! Get her out!" Sister Ai Li barked coldly, hurling the electric dagger in her hand to drive back the last guard, then herself lunging at the console like a cheetah, her fingers becoming a blur on the virtual keyboard as she tried to shut down the cultivation vat's energy extraction system.

Chance!

Xiang Lingna endured her weakness and the searing pain in her right arm, leaping down from the duct opening! She ignored Zero's warning ("Chamber surveillance activated! Doctor's Will locking on!"), her eyes only on Priestess Liyana!

She rushed to the massive glass cultivation vat. Up close, Priestess Liyana's wretched state was even more heartbreaking. Beneath her ashen skin, dark-purple patterns writhed slowly like living things, while the crystals on her forehead and chest greedily drained her life force, emitting a chilling fluctuation. The crystal on Xiang Lingna's right arm lit up with a faint glow again—this time not an attack, but an attempt to make contact with the vat's outer wall.

Hum!

The instant her crystal palm touched the cold reinforced glass, a sudden change occurred!

Priestess Liyana's tightly shut eyelids trembled sharply! The dark-purple crystal on her forehead, pulsing most violently, suddenly erupted with a fierce light of resistance! A cold, violent, malice-filled will of annihilation stabbed viciously into the depths of Xiang Lingna's consciousness along her crystal arm, like a poisoned needle!

【Get away! The key is mine!】 A cold, greedy thought-fragment belonging to the Doctor shrieked in Xiang Lingna's mind!

The violent headache turned Xiang Lingna's vision black. She groaned, and the crystal light on her right arm flickered wildly, nearly out of control! That crystal was resisting her! Protecting the "parasite" host! At the same time, the dark-green viscous fluid inside the vat began to boil violently, and countless dark-purple root tendrils, like startled venomous snakes, frantically wound toward Lingna's crystal arm, trying to drag her inside!

"Sister Liyana!" Xiang Lingna endured the searing pain and let out a heart-rending cry. Chaotic power instinctively surged through her body, resisting the tendrils' erosion and the Doctor's will assault. Where her right-arm crystal met the dark-purple tendrils, a "sizzle sizzle" of corrosion sounded—dark-purple energy was greedily absorbed by the crystal, but more tendrils wound around her!

Sister Ai Li was running into trouble too. The last guard was unusually tenacious, and the system on the console seemed locked by a higher authority, unable to shut down the extraction! Worse, a shrill alarm blared throughout the entire isolation chamber! The heavy alloy blast doors at the chamber entrance began to slowly descend! Zero's projection flickered urgently on the control panel: "Self-destruct protocol…activated…countdown…180 seconds…must evacuate immediately!"

A desperate situation! The rescue was blocked, the retreat about to be cut off, self-destruction imminent!

Xiang Lingna looked at Priestess Liyana, so close yet so tormented, feeling the chaotic power within her—slightly strengthened by absorbing annihilation energy yet even more violent—and a mad, desperate thought rose in her heart—since she couldn't peel it away, then…take it all together!

"Zero! Maximum power! Blast it open!" Xiang Lingna screamed toward Zero's console, while pouring the last of her chaotic power—mixed with the will to protect and the will to destroy—recklessly into her right-arm crystal. Her target was no longer the tendrils, but…the base connection of the entire cultivation vat!