Chapter 215: The Battle for the Wellhead and a Choice Born of Despair

The discovery of the entrance to a branch of the leyline energy well was like suddenly seeing a door leading to treasure while lost in a dark labyrinth! Yet that door had opened right at the center of the most dangerous, most chaotic battlefield!

Every gaze instantly focused on the rock wall behind the crystal tree—a wall cracked by the continuous tremors and explosions, now faintly radiating a warm, milky-white glow! That pure, vast energy wave, carrying the heavy pulse of the earth itself, came through clearly even with the rock wall in the way, lifting the spirits of every energy-sensitive person present! Especially Lin Mo—the star-dust power within him even resonated with a fierce, eager thrum of its own accord!

That was a source of power enough to change everything! The key to rebooting the Ark, healing wounds, even standing against the Doctor and the Devouring Realm!

But at this moment, this area was the most dangerous spot in the entire cavern!

The swelling black corruption seemed to sense that pure, colossal leyline energy as well, growing wilder and greedier! It no longer cared about Grona's hacking, but surged toward the cracked rock wall like a tide, countless tendrils boring madly into the fissures, trying to pollute and devour the source of that energy! To it, this was undoubtedly the ultimate delicacy!

And Priestess Liyana, dominated by the Annihilation consciousness, was drawn to that leyline energy too! Her cold, indifferent purple eyes turned in that direction, and the dark-purple lightning gathering in her raised palm shifted its target—seeming to want to blast the rock wall open by force, or rather, the annihilation spores inside her were desperate to get close to that energy!

"Not a chance!" Grona roared, her battle-axe whirling in an airtight wall, holding the line stubbornly between the black corruption and the rock wall, the grenade launcher on her power armor firing madly, blasting apart every tendril that tried to slip through. But facing this endless, ever-multiplying black substance alone, she too was beginning to struggle, and corrosion marks had already appeared on her power armor.

"Lin Mo! Stop Priestess Liyana! Don't let her bombard the rock wall! Otherwise, with the energy leak plus annihilation contamination, we're all done for!" Grona bellowed through the chaos.

Lin Mo and Sister Ai Li threw everything they had into trying to suppress Priestess Liyana. But Priestess Liyana, upon feeling the pull of the leyline energy, erupted with a power far beyond before! Lin Mo's Star-Dust Binding Halo was shattered inch by inch by the dark-purple energy bursting from her body, and Sister Ai Li was sent flying by an invisible force, slamming into a distant rock wall, coughing up a mouthful of fresh blood—the black patterns beneath her ribs instantly spreading over a large area, her aura plummeting sharply!

"Sister Ai Li!" Xiang Lingna cried out, wanting to rush over, but the terrifying pressure radiating from Priestess Liyana kept her from getting close.

The dark-purple lightning in Priestess Liyana's hand grew brighter and brighter, the aura of destruction suffocating, about to fire at the rock wall any second!

At this most critical of moments—

"Zero! Execute final protocol 'Thorn Cradle'!" A flash of resolute agony crossed Lin Mo's eyes as he roared hoarsely. This was the last-resort plan he and Zero had worked out in a desperate situation before—the price was enormous!

"Command confirmed. Initiating 'Thorn Cradle' protocol. Using the World Tree seed as core, drawing all remaining energy from Unit B-7 to construct an absolute life barrier. Cost: seed energy fully depleted and withered, Gardener core permanently dormant, ecology unit completely shut down." Zero's electronic voice restated the consequences coldly and swiftly, and at the same time, the emerald-green seed that had been resting beside Priestess Liyana suddenly erupted with an unprecedented, dazzling green light!

Hum——!!!

Countless thick, tough emerald-green thorn phantasms, woven from pure life energy, burst forth from the seed like living things, instantly intertwining into a massive thorn cage that completely enveloped Priestess Liyana! Upon the cage, intricate ancient elven runes flowed ceaselessly, radiating an indomitable aura of order!

The dark-purple lightning in Priestess Liyana's hand slammed brutally into the thorn cage!

Boom!!!

A deafening roar rang out! Dark-purple lightning and emerald thorns clashed and annihilated each other wildly, erupting in a blinding, eye-searing light! The entire cage shuddered violently, countless thorns snapping and regrowing, green light-fragments and purple electric serpents spraying in all directions!

In the end, the dark-purple lightning was spent, and though the thorn cage had grown far dimmer, it stubbornly held without shattering, sealing Priestess Liyana's terrifying strike and the woman herself within it for now! Priestess Liyana let out an enraged, inhuman shriek from inside, slamming against the cage again and again, but unable to break through for the moment.

But the price was terrible. The World Tree seed visibly grayed, shriveled, lost all its luster, and finally went crack—shattering into a few pieces of ordinary dead wood. On the platform, the Gardener's light went out completely, never to be awakened again. The remaining illumination across the entire ecology hall dimmed along with it, the air circulation system stopped working, as if the very last breath of vitality had been wrung dry.

"The seed… the Gardener…" Xiang Lingna stared at the shattered seed, tears sliding silently down her face.

Priestess Liyana's crisis was temporarily resolved, but the crisis at the leyline energy wellhead remained! Grona could not hold the line alone—part of the black corruption had already seeped into the cracks in the rock wall, making contact with the milky-white leyline energy leaking from behind! Hissing corrosion sounds rang out, and the milky-white energy was visibly stained with threads of black!

"Bastards!" Grona's eyes nearly split with fury, but she could not stop every seepage.

Just then, another change came!

The crystal clusters, which had been cowering in the corners in fear and unease, seemed to be stimulated by the leaking leyline energy and the World Tree seed's final burst of life radiance—their halos all changed in unison to a pure milky-white, emitting an unprecedented, harmonized, high-pitched hum!

Immediately after, they no longer feared, no longer shrank back, but like soldiers receiving the highest command, charged madly toward the contaminated cracks in the rock wall! With their crystal bodies, they threw themselves without hesitation into those fissures the black substance had seeped into!

Hiss hiss hiss——!

The moment the crystal clusters' bodies touched the contaminated black substance and the leyline energy, they immediately emitted the sound of being corroded—their halos dimmed rapidly, cracks appeared on their bodies, and they even began to shatter! But they came wave after wave, without a shred of fear! One shattered, and another instantly took its place! It was as if they were using their own bodies to build one last line of defense, protecting that pure source of energy!

This tragic scene shook everyone to the core!

"These little guys…" Even Grona was moved.

Zero's console captured the final information stream they emitted: "Detected crystal cluster collective consciousness final command: protect… source… purify…"

They were using their own lives to filter and purify the contaminated energy!

With the mass self-sacrifice of the crystal clusters, the milky-white energy leaking from the cracks, which had been stained with black threads, actually began to slowly grow pure again! The black substance was temporarily blocked and absorbed by their crystal bodies!

A chance! A brief chance had appeared!

"Grona! Open the entrance! Now!" Lin Mo forced himself to stand, a final flame burning in his eyes. They had to use the time the crystal clusters had bought with their lives to enter the energy well—perhaps there was still a chance to turn things around!

"Leave it to me!" Grona roared, channeling raging blood-colored battle aura through her entire body into her massive battle-axe, the blade flaring with a blinding red light. She spun like a whirlwind and brought the axe down brutally on that cracked rock wall!

Rumble!!!

The rock wall was split open by that violent force, a massive breach carved into it! Even denser, purer milky-white energy radiance, like milk, surged out from behind the breach, illuminating the entire cavern as bright as day!

Behind the breach was a broad passage extending downward, constructed entirely of some kind of pure energy crystal! From deep within the passage came a low, thunderous boom, like the beating of the earth's heart! The vast, boundless energy waves made it almost impossible to breathe!

The entrance to the leyline energy well had been opened!

Yet, the instant the breach was opened, that mass of black corruption seemed to receive an ultimate lure, letting out a shrill, greed-filled shriek, abandoning all other targets, and like a black flood bursting a dam, surged madly toward the breach! Grona fought desperately to block it, but it was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot—in an instant she was swallowed by the black tide!

"Grona!" Lin Mo's eyes nearly split with fury.

At the same time, the thorn cage holding Priestess Liyana had also reached its limit, and with a crisp crack it shattered completely! Free, Priestess Liyana's eyes blazed with purple light, and she too became a streak of purple light, charging toward the energy well entrance!

And overhead, the Doctor's main fleet seemed to have steadied itself under the harassment of Grona's fleet—orbital bombardment firepower began gathering once more, its target aimed straight at the newly opened entrance! Several heavy-weapon drones dove down like vultures!

The entrance was right before their eyes, hope was right before their eyes, but the most terrifying crisis came surging in from every direction at once!