Chapter 59: Elegy of Thorns, the Brand of the Corrupt Claw, and the Stalled Killing Array

The scorching net of death suddenly tightened!

High-energy laser beams, like red-hot irons, tore glaring wounds into the thorn barrier; emerald life energy steamed away with a sizzling hiss. The blue-white energy beams cunningly bypassed the frontal defense, shooting from the flank's blind spot toward Lingna and Banzi, who were shielded behind!

"Get down!" Sister Ai Li shouted harshly, her body transforming into a silver shadow to block in front of Lingna. The Thorn Moonlight Shield instantly coalesced; the cold silver radiance collided violently with the incoming energy beam!

Boom! Energy exploded! Sister Ai Li let out a muffled groan; the shield shattered mostly, its silver radiance dimmed, and her body was knocked back several steps by the impact force, a trace of fresh blood oozing from the corner of her mouth. The collision between Moonlight Power and this Old World energy weapon actually made her qi and blood churn!

"Taste Uncle Banzi's 'Garbage Spray'!" Banzi cried out strangely, raising the crude shotgun in his hand—its barrel welded from several steel pipes of different calibers. He suddenly pulled the trigger!

Bang! A dull report sounded; what sprayed from the muzzle was not pellets, but a large clump of viscous, pungent-smelling black oil sludge mixture (waste motor oil mixed with corrosive chemical residue)! This clump of filth precisely smeared onto the single-eye sensor of a spherical guard that had just poked its head out!

Zzzzt—! A piercing sound of electrical short-circuiting rang out! The red light of that guard's single eye flickered wildly, and the trajectory of the energy beam shots instantly skewed into chaos, crashing into the alloy wall nearby and exploding into a patch of scorch marks.

"Well done!" Copperbeard roared, seizing the moment of the guard's confusion; his mechanical prosthetic arm charged to its limit, and the heavy forging hammer, carrying a shriek that tore the air, flew from his grip! The hammerhead struck the center of the oil-smeared guard with precision!

Clang—!!! The deafening roar of metal striking metal shook the ears! That guard, as if struck by a siege hammer, saw its sturdy alloy shell visibly dent inward; a burst of electric sparks erupted inside, and it tumbled backward into the wall, its single eye extinguishing completely!

However, more guards slid out from the shadows! The laser cylinder in the center of the platform increased its power even more, red beams weaving into an even denser fire net! The thorn barrier trembled violently under the bombardment; the rate of root breakage far exceeded regeneration! Lin Mo's face turned pale; the energy maintaining the barrier was being drained rapidly, and the orange-red core of the 【Seed of Life】 flickered uncertainly due to excessive output. Even more terrifying, the faint dark purple pattern at the edge of the core, stimulated by the fierce battle and the guards' energy fields, was writhing and spreading at an unprecedented speed, like a living thing attempting to corrupt the orange-red light source! A cold, greedy, all-devouring evil thought constantly assaulted Lin Mo's will!

"We can't hold out like this!" Copperbeard sliced through an energy beam with his mechanical arm, the armor on his arm burning red-hot. "We must destroy those laser columns!"

"The energy core... is behind the columns... inside the gate!" Banzi, while rolling away in a wretched manner, pointed at the detector and screamed, "Interference... too strong... can't find the weak point!"

Sister Ai Li coalesced the Moonlight Shield again to block another laser beam; the purple qi at her chest silver scar oozed out again due to power exhaustion. "I'll provide cover! Try to get close!" Her eyes held a determined silver gleam as she prepared to force a breakthrough through the fire net.

"No! Too dangerous!" Lin Mo shouted urgently. In that split second of distraction, the thorn barrier was pierced by a thick laser beam! The scorching beam, its momentum unspent, shot straight toward his face!

The shadow of death instantly enveloped him! Lin Mo's pupils suddenly contracted; his body instinctively leaned backward, but the beam was too fast!

Just at this critical moment—

That faint dark purple pattern within him, which had been spreading madly, as if sensing the host's fatal crisis, suddenly erupted with cold, ghostly light! A withering power purely originating from the source of the Corrupt Claw, not belonging to Lin Mo's will, mixed with a sliver of life force forcibly drawn from the 【Seed of Life】, surged like an out-of-control wild horse along his arm and roared into the "Earth Vein Arbiter"!

Vmm—!!!

The dark-gold war blade emitted a painful wail! Upon the sword body, the orange-red earth fire, the emerald life, and the dark-gold thorns were instantly covered by a bizarre dark purple! A twisted torrent of purple-black energy, seemingly formed by countless rotting roots entangled together, broke free from Lin Mo's control and, like a poison dragon released from its gate, roared to meet that fatal laser beam!

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

Hiss—!

Like a red-hot iron plunged into accumulated snow! The high-energy laser beam, containing terrifying kinetic energy and heat, upon contacting that purple-black torrent, was silently... corroded and dissolved! The beam, as if its soul had been drained, rapidly dimmed and disintegrated, finally vanishing into a scattering of red light points!

The purple-black torrent, its momentum unspent, crashed violently into the metal cylinder that had fired this laser!

Zzzzt—!

A grating sound of corrosion, painful to the teeth, arose! The incredibly sturdy silver-gray alloy pillar, as if splashed with strong acid, instantly billowed with thick smoke! The surface's faint blue energy patterns flickered wildly, then extinguished and disintegrated in large patches! The entire pillar trembled violently, emitting a humming sound on the verge of collapse! The attacks of the other guards also hesitated for a moment!

Everyone was stunned!

"Old... Boss?" Banzi's voice changed pitch as he looked at that purple-black energy, terrified.

Sister Ai Li's pupils contracted; she could clearly feel the familiar rot and greed within that power—identical to the Corrupt Claw!

Copperbeard looked at the pitted and scarred pillar, then at the war blade in Lin Mo's hand wreathed in ominous purple qi, his face extremely Heavy and Solemn.

Lin Mo stood frozen, looking at his own hand in disbelief. That strike just now had completely exceeded his control! It was the Claw Brand! It had "saved" him in the moment of crisis, but it also completely exposed the terrifying fact that it was deeply rooted in the core of his power!

"Brother Lin Mo... your power..." Lingna looked at the purple qi winding around the sword body in terror; the green light of the Heart of Jade instinctively retreated.

"No... this is not my power!" Lin Mo shook his head violently, pain and struggle flashing in his eyes. He forcibly urged the 【Seed of Life】, attempting to suppress that restless purple gleam.

Just then, another strange change occurred!

At the end of the platform, the grand alloy gate, tightly closed and bearing the huge symbol of three arcs, suddenly erupted with an unprecedented intense blue light! The symbol in the center of the gate shone like a supernova! A vast, cold, galaxy-like powerful pulse of pure energy swept silently across the entire underground space!

Vmm—!

Where the pulse passed, everything stopped!

The wildly sweeping laser beams froze in mid-air, like red crystal sculptures.

The blue-white energy beams fixed on their firing trajectories.

The sliding spherical guards froze in place, their single-eye red lights extinguished.

The central laser columns, both corroded and intact, saw their surface energy patterns instantly dim, and their humming sounds ceased abruptly.

Even the air seemed frozen!

The entire underground space fell into a deathly silence, an absolute stillness domain shrouded in blue light...

Only the gate in the center of the platform, like an activated heart, slowly lit up with more complex light paths, emitting a deeper, ghostly blue glow from the crack. The cold electronic synthesized voice sounded again, but with a trace of... strange fluctuation:

【Detected... Unknown High-Level Permission...】

【Identification... Chaos... Conflict...】

【Clearance Protocol... Forced Interruption...】

【Highest Command... Priority... Open...】

From inside the gate came the deep, rumbling sound of massive gears slowly meshing and heavy bolts releasing...

On the main screen of the Doctor's base, the monitoring signal instantly turned into snow static at the moment the energy pulse erupted. Scarlet warning messages frantically filled the screen:

【Detected "Sanctuary" Core Energy Pulse (Annihilation Class)!】

【Monitoring Unit Damaged! Signal Interrupted!】

【Warning: "Catalyst" fully activated! "Roots of Erosion" deeply embedded with the target Lord Core!】

【"Seed of Annihilation" Contingency Readiness: 99%... 100%!】

【Final Command Confirmed... Waiting for Execution Window...】

The Doctor's fingertip hovered just a hair's breadth above that scarlet button.