Chapter 233: The Rusted Knight and the Road to the Sanctuary

A faint metallic scraping sound drifted through the corridor outside the door, now near, now pausing, like a patient hunter carefully searching for the scent of prey in the dark. Every time the sound drew closer, Xiang Lingna's heart nearly leapt from her chest, and an icy fear clenched her throat.

She pressed herself tight against the cold, rough wall, barely daring to breathe, her left hand clamped firmly over her mouth, terrified of making even the slightest sound. Her intact left ear strained to catch any movement beyond the door, trying to make out what it was.

It wasn't the orderly, mechanical footsteps of a scavenger unit. This sound was heavier, more dragging, even carrying a kind of… rusted, grinding quality, occasionally laced with an extremely faint "click-clack" like a gear stuttering.

What was it? An ancient defense robot, activated by their intrusion and the earlier explosion? Or something… she had never imagined, something that lived in these underground ruins?

The sound paused at the doorway.

Xiang Lingna could even feel some invisible "gaze" sweeping past the open hatch, sweeping past the wreckage inside the room, and finally… seeming to settle on the corner where she was hiding!

Time seemed to freeze.

Every second stretched on like a century.

The expected energy shot or violent door breach never came. Whatever was outside seemed to simply "stand" there, making no further move.

Just as Xiang Lingna was about to be driven mad by the pressure of that deathly silence, the scraping sound rose again — only this time, it was slowly moving away!

It… left?

Xiang Lingna didn't dare relax even a fraction, still holding perfectly still, ears pricked, listening. That rusted, dragging footsteps were indeed gradually receding, vanishing into the darkness of the corridor.

Until she could no longer hear any strange sounds at all, she waited yet another long stretch of time before daring to slowly, ever so slightly, release the hand over her mouth and gulp down great breaths of air; from holding her breath so long, her vision kept flickering black.

Lucky… escaped by the skin of her teeth?

But what on earth was that? Why hadn't it attacked her? Had it not spotted her? Or… some other reason?

Once her fright settled a little, a fierce will to live seized the upper hand again. Whatever that thing was, she couldn't stay here any longer. She had to leave as soon as possible.

The "Sanctuary" and "Hall of Echoes" mentioned in that ancient terminal became her only goal and hope at this moment. Since they had names, perhaps she could find clues nearby?

She began to drag herself forward again with difficulty, this time with a clear objective — search this small maintenance room for any possible map or information.

Her left hand groped across the cold, dust-covered floor, touching mostly cold tool parts and broken casings. Just as she was about to give up, her fingertips suddenly brushed against a hard, rectangular, thin metal sheet whose edges seemed slightly curled.

She carefully picked it up and wiped away the thick dust. By the extremely faint, sourceless ambient light filtering in from the doorway (perhaps some kind of glowing moss?), she could just barely make out that it was an old-fashioned data storage tablet; the interface style was very ancient, but it seemed to be relatively well preserved.

A data tablet! Maybe there's a map inside!

Her heart raced again. But how to read it? That ancient terminal was already completely wrecked.

She looked around, her gaze finally settling on that extinguished terminal. Maybe… only the screen was broken? The internal reader might still work?

With the attitude of a last resort, she dragged herself to the terminal and, with her left hand, groped along its side with great difficulty. Sure enough, she found a hidden slot for connecting external storage devices. Groping, trying, she finally aligned the data tablet's interface with the slot and pushed it in hard.

Click.

A soft sound. Immediately after, the interior of the already-dead terminal screen actually flickered a few times, extremely faintly! A line of extremely dim, nearly illegible elven script flashed across the screen:

【External storage detected… insufficient power… attempting read…】

There's a chance!

Xiang Lingna held her breath and waited. From inside the terminal came a faint reading sound, as if it might give out at any moment. The glow on the screen flickered on and off, like a candle in the wind.

A few seconds later, just as she thought it was about to fail again, the screen suddenly flared for an instant! A partial, simply-drawn structural diagram was projected out — blurry and flickering, but still barely discernible!

It was a local map of this bottom-level area!

The map covered a very small range, but it clearly showed her current location — a place marked "Seventh Maintenance Corridor." And at one edge of the map, a distinct symbol was marked, with ancient elven script beside it: 【Hall of Echoes Entrance】.

A winding route stretched from where she was to that entrance!

Found it! She really found it!

A surge of wild joy welled up in her heart, momentarily even overwhelming the sharp pain in her body. She stared fixedly at that map, desperately memorizing that route — she needed to pass through this maintenance corridor, enter an area marked "Old Energy Pipeline," then go down, pass through a place called "Root Hall," to reach the entrance to the Hall of Echoes.

The map only showed this much; there was no marker for the "Sanctuary," so it seemed she would need to reach the Hall of Echoes before finding the next clue.

Just then, the terminal screen flickered one last time and went completely dark, never to light up again. The data tablet also stopped responding. The last of the power was spent.

Darkness descended once more.

But the seed of hope had already been planted. The route was already deeply etched into Xiang Lingna's mind.

She had to set out immediately!

After resting a moment and gathering a little meager strength, she began to drag herself along the route in her memory, toward the "Old Energy Pipeline."

This "Seventh Maintenance Corridor" was longer than she'd imagined, and far more severely damaged; in many places she had to painfully crawl over collapsed obstacles. That eerie metallic scraping sound did not reappear, but Xiang Lingna did not dare let her guard down in the slightest.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally reached the entrance to the "Old Energy Pipeline" marked on the map. It was the wreckage of a huge, circular pipe opening; the pipe walls were immensely thick, but some tremendous force had torn open a savage gash in it, the edges twisted and curled outward, revealing an even deeper darkness within. The inner walls of the pipe were coated in thick, unknown chemical deposits that gave off a pungent smell.

Down from here.

Xiang Lingna drew in a deep breath of the cold, pungent air, and without hesitation, began to drag herself down along the slanted, rough inner wall of the pipe. The process was even harder and more dangerous; several times she nearly slid straight down.

At last, her foot suddenly found solid ground — she had reached the bottom of the pipe. The space here was much more open, the air more humid, and she could faintly hear the sound of dripping water in the distance.

Based on her memory, this should be the "Root Hall." She groped forward, and her fingers soon touched something enormous, gnarled, and as hard as fossil — remnants of those huge botanical-garden plant roots, which had even pierced through the metal structure and pipes, twisting and tangling here into a forest-like, eerie sight.

In the center of the hall, there seemed to be a dried-up pool. And across the pool, she could faintly make out the outline of a huge, simply-shaped archway that seemed to be made of some kind of white stone! On either side of the arch were carved long-faded elven reliefs; the door was tightly shut, and seemed to bear complex patterns.

The entrance to the Hall of Echoes!

Hope was right before her eyes!

Xiang Lingna's spirits lifted, and she quickened her pace toward that archway.

However, just as she was about to cross the dried-up pool and approach that white archway, her left hand suddenly touched something sticky, slippery, and still faintly squirming at the pool's edge!

That texture… it was like… some kind of enormous slug? Or…

She yanked her hand back, a chill crawling up her spine!

At the same moment, a familiar, rusted metallic scraping sound, accompanied by that faint gear-stutter, suddenly rang out from behind a cluster of huge, fossil-like roots to her rear-left!

Creak — click-clack —

That thing! It had been here all along?! Or rather, it had been waiting here?!

Xiang Lingna whipped her head around, her heart instantly sinking to the pit of her stomach.

She saw a tall, blurred silhouette slowly emerging from the shadow of the roots.

By the extremely faint, sourceless phosphorescent glow in the environment, she finally managed to make out what it was —

It seemed to be a… humanoid construct? But its condition was extremely poor! Its entire body was covered in thick, mottled, heavily rusted ancient armor, plain in style, definitely not the Doctor's creation. The armor was dented and broken in many places, revealing the complex gears and pipe structures beneath that had long since stopped running, and were even partially corroded by some dark-red moss-like substance. Its head was a fully enclosed helmet with an observation slit, and at this moment the inside of that slit was pitch black, with no light at all.

One of its arms was a normal metal arm covered in armor plates, but the other arm… had been replaced from the elbow down with a huge, ferocious, slowly opening and closing, heavily rusted metal claw! That scraping sound was exactly the claw dragging along the ground!

It moved extremely clumsily and sluggishly, as if it might fall apart at any moment, yet it carried an undeniable, stubborn sense of pressure, step by step, blocking itself between Xiang Lingna and that white archway.

What was it? An ancient guardian? Why hadn't it attacked her before, yet now blocked her path?

Xiang Lingna froze in place, not daring to move, her mind racing.

The construct's pitch-black observation slit "stared" at her, making no movement, emitting no sound, simply standing silently in the way.

Just when Xiang Lingna thought it would silently leave again like last time, its intact arm slowly, with a rusty grinding sound, rose up and pointed at… behind Xiang Lingna? At the direction she had come from?

It… didn't want her to approach the archway? It was stopping her?

Why?

Xiang Lingna looked in the direction it was pointing, but beyond the darkness she had come from, she could see nothing.

Seeing she had no reaction, the construct seemed somewhat "anxious," its arm waving up and down once more, again pointing toward the way she had come, while the rusted claw opened and closed slightly, emitting a teeth-grinding grinding sound.

Was it signaling her to leave? To retreat?

Xiang Lingna looked at the white archway within arm's reach, then at the bizarre and dangerous ancient construct before her, her heart falling into extreme inner struggle.

Retreat? Retreat back into that dark passage full of danger and the unknown? She might never find this place again, or simply not have the strength to come back.

Advance? Although this construct looked dilapidated, that huge claw could probably easily tear her current heavily wounded body to shreds.

What to do?

Just as she hesitated, the construct seemed to lose patience, or rather, some kind of operating logic within it made a judgment.

It suddenly took a step forward, the heavy footfall making the ground tremble slightly! That huge rusted claw suddenly rose, carrying a whistling wind, and instead of smashing at Xiang Lingna, it slammed viciously into the ground right in front of her!

Boom!

Gravel flew! A shallow crater was smashed into the ground!

Warning! This is the final warning!

Retreat, or die?

Xiang Lingna looked at the rusted claw exuding an aura of death right before her eyes, then at the shallow crater the claw had just smashed…

Suddenly, her gaze froze.

Beneath the loosened soil and gravel from the claw strike, it seemed… half a broken, equally ancient metal plate was exposed? Something seemed to be engraved on it?

The construct's attention also seemed to be drawn to that exposed metal plate for a moment, its movements showing an extremely brief hesitation.

Now!

Xiang Lingna didn't know where the courage and strength came from—perhaps survival instinct, perhaps realizing that metal plate might be the key—she suddenly lunged forward, not at the construct, but at that shallow crater, her left hand desperately reaching for that half metal plate!

The construct seemed enraged by her action, letting out a muffled roar like an old bellows, the huge claw rising once more, this time, without hesitation, smashing viciously down toward Xiang Lingna's back!

The shadow of death instantly descended!