Chapter 189: Leap of the Furnace, Gate of the Ruins

The searing acid mist stung her skin, below a colossal hand formed of active matter reached with annihilating intent, above the climbing sounds of their pursuers hammered like a death knell! The self-destruct countdown ticked mercilessly within Zero's alarm: 60 seconds!

"Sister Ai Li! Hold on!" Xiang Lingna let out a roar almost like a wild beast! She no longer suppressed the violent chaotic power within her that had grown savage after devouring the guardian's energy! The dark-purple crystal on her right arm blazed to its limit in an instant, the embryonic thruster on the outside of her forearm flared wide, and raging chaotic energy blasted backward like a runaway engine!

BOOM!!!

The tremendous thrust sent Xiang Lingna plunging downward like a cannonball! Her target was not the giant hand, but a colossal cooling pipe beside it that ran straight to the bottom of the pool! This was a gamble with their lives! Zero's data stream flickered wildly: "Trajectory calculating… risk 97.3%… forced correction in progress!"

Xiang Lingna had no time at all for Zero's warning; chaotic energy drove her so that she grazed the edge of one reaching giant hand by a hair's breadth! Searing active matter splashed onto her crystal arm with a sizzling, corrosive hiss, but most of the energy was greedily absorbed by the crystal. Her body slammed hard into that massive cooling pipe!

THUD!

Sharp pain radiated from the impact point; Xiang Lingna felt as if her very organs had been knocked out of place. But she clung desperately to the cold outer wall of the pipe! The chaotic thrust spent itself, and she hung on the pipe, gasping for breath, the crystal on her right arm flickering with a dangerous red glow from overload.

Sister Ai Li had reacted the instant Xiang Lingna erupted. She did not choose to follow Xiang Lingna's mad route; instead, relying on extraordinary agility, in the split second Xiang Lingna drew the giant hands' attention, she used the ladder rungs and protruding pipes to change direction and leap like a phantom, weaving through the gaps between several giant hands in a heart-stopping passage, and with Priestess Liyana on her back, landed on a narrow, rust-eaten maintenance platform below!

"Lingna! Over here!" Sister Ai Li's voice pierced the furnace's roar.

Xiang Lingna endured the dizziness and sharp pain, slid down along the cooling pipe, and stumbled onto the platform where Sister Ai Li was. Below the platform churned the pool of active matter, its searing updraft hot enough to make skin sting. Above, the silhouettes of their pursuers had already appeared at the shaft opening, their cold weapons locked onto them.

"Passage… below the platform… behind the corroded grate…" Zero said hurriedly, "Must… break the grate!"

Near the pool's surface below the platform, there was indeed a metal grate sealed shut by thick rust and corrosive deposits, with what seemed to be a deep, dark opening behind it. But breaking through it would take time and strength!

Sister Ai Li quickly and carefully set Priestess Liyana down in a relatively safe corner of the platform, then turned to deal with the grate. But Xiang Lingna was faster! A near-obsessive gleam flashed in her eyes, and the crystal on her right arm lit up once more! After devouring part of the active matter's energy, the crystal seemed to have grown far more resistant to high heat and corrosion.

"I'll do it!" Xiang Lingna growled low, rushed to the platform's edge, ignored the seething, blistering bubbles below, and drove her crystallized right arm hard into the rusted-sealed joint of the grate!

HISS—!!!

Chaotic energy, mingled with the high-heat properties transformed by the crystal, burst forth from her palm! No longer pure annihilation, but carrying a molten-metal searing heat! The thick rust and deposits rapidly softened and vaporized under the high-temperature energy stream! The metal grate's joints let out a piercing groan, reddening and softening at a speed visible to the naked eye!

"Self-destruct countdown… 30 seconds!" Zero's alarm tolled like a death knell!

"Hurry!" Sister Ai Li rushed over too, drove her shock dagger hard into the softened joint Xiang Lingna had melted, using high-frequency oscillation to accelerate the destruction!

CRACK! BOOM!

At last, in the split second before the pursuers' weapons were about to fire and the self-destruct countdown entered its final ten seconds, the heavy grate was destroyed by their combined effort and plunged thunderously into the churning pool of active matter below, swallowed in an instant! Revealing behind it a deep, downward-sloping pipe barely wide enough for one person!

"Jump!" Sister Ai Li hoisted Priestess Liyana onto her shoulder without hesitation and dove into the pipe first!

Xiang Lingna followed right behind! The instant she leapt in, energy beams and corrosive rounds from the pursuers above came pouring down like a rainstorm onto the platform they had just stood on, turning it into a sea of fire! Even more terrifying, the entire lower level of the furnace erupted with a world-shaking roar! The self-destruct sequence had activated! A wave of annihilating energy surged down from above, carrying a light that devoured everything!

Xiang Lingna only felt a searing, violent shockwave slam hard into her back, hurling her like a broken rag doll deep into the sloping pipe! The agony and searing heat made her lose consciousness in an instant!

She did not know how long passed before a bone-chilling cold jolted Xiang Lingna awake. She found herself lying on a cold, damp ground. Around her was no longer the furnace's metal structure, but rough, ancient stone walls covered in moss. The air was thick with the smell of earth and… an extremely ancient, decayed scent of nature. There was no light source overhead, only Zero's console hovering, emitting a faint ghostly-blue glow that illuminated Priestess Liyana, still unconscious beside her, and Sister Ai Li, half-kneeling on the ground and cautiously checking something.

"Where… are we?" Xiang Lingna struggled to sit up; the wound on her rear shoulder and every bone in her body were screaming with pain. The crystal on her right arm seemed to have "grown" again, extending almost to her elbow, its color deeper, the energy circuits within flowing slowly like living things.

"Furnace… lower level still…" Zero's projection was somewhat blurred, as if the signal were being interfered with, "Scan shows… ancient… artificial architectural structure… energy signature… highly similar to elves… but… extremely decayed…"

Sister Ai Li stood, pointing at the dim passage ahead: "Withered Wang Ting… ruins." Her voice carried a faint, barely perceptible heaviness, "The Doctor… built his lair… on top of… its corpse."

Xiang Lingna looked in the direction Sister Ai Li pointed. With the faint-light vision enhancement Zero provided, she saw deep within the passage the faint outlines of massive, broken Shi Zhu, the ruined elven-style reliefs covered in thick moss and dark-purple fungal blotches. A deep sorrow and oppressive feeling rushed toward her. Was this the starting point of the elven civilization's complete fall?

"Sister Liyana…" Xiang Lingna looked at Priestess Liyana, still unconscious. In the faint light, she was horrified to discover that the dark-purple crystals on Priestess Liyana's forehead and chest seemed to be pulsing faster, the annihilation aura they gave off stronger, locked in an even fiercer struggle against the weakening natural power within her. The dark-purple lines beneath her ashen skin spread like a spiderweb.

"Her condition… is worsening." Sister Ai Li's voice was cold, but her clenched fists betrayed her worry, "Those crystals… are devouring her… We must… as soon as possible… find a way… or… find the Doctor's main body!"

Zero's console turned toward the depths of the passage: "Detected… faint… but pure… natural energy fluctuation… source… direction of ruins' core… exists… resonance… with Liyana…"

Pure natural energy? Here in the depths of the Wang Ting ruins corrupted by the Doctor? Could this be possible? Or was it another trap of the Doctor's?

Just then, a low, heavy sound of footsteps, like a boulder grinding against the ground, slowly came from the depths of the ruins' passage! Every step that landed made the ground tremble slightly! A corrupted aura, far more terrifying, more primal, and more oppressive than the furnace guardians, spread out like a tide!

Xiang Lingna, Sister Ai Li, and Zero all tensed at once. Having just escaped the furnace's sea of fire, they had now stepped into the graveyard of the ruins. And a new hunter had already caught their scent. The crystal on Xiang Lingna's right arm, the instant it sensed that vast corrupted aura, began to hum uncontrollably once more—this time, no longer out of fear, but a kind of… almost ravenous shudder?