Chapter 63: The Slumbering Ark, Copperbeard's Furnace, and Wrench's Blueprints

The terrifying pressure brought by the Rotclaw projection faded, yet the hollow was thick with the heavy air of a narrow escape. The winding, ghostly-blue crack on the Emerald Bulwark, like a vicious scar, silently told of the ferocity just past. The lingering withering aura in the air left the plants Xiang Lingna had cultivated listless and drooping, and the pulsing orange-red glow in the ley-line fissures had dimmed noticeably.

Lin Mo leaned on the "Ley Line Arbiter," kneeling on one knee, gasping violently. Forcibly driving the Anchor of Order to reinforce the bulwark, coupled with the mad backlash of the Corruption Mark, had nearly wrung out the last shred of his strength. Deep in his soul, the blue light of the Anchor of Order, though dim, still firmly suppressed that dormant dark-purple mass—yet the weakness prickling at his back would not leave. He could clearly sense that the Sanctuary core deep underground, which maintained the Order link, had fallen into a deep "slumber," leaving only the most basic of perception.

"Boss! How are you?" Wrench was the first to rush over, wanting to help but not daring to touch him.

"Won't die." Lin Mo waved a hand, his voice hoarse. He looked at the crack on the bulwark, his brow tightly furrowed. Although Order energy had forcibly mended the physical structure, the life force and ley-line connection in that cracked area had clearly been tainted by corruption power, becoming abnormally fragile and rejecting, like necrotic tissue.

"Bulwark structural strength is down to less than seventy percent," Copperbeard's mechanical eye scanned the crack, data streams scrolling across the lens, "that 'scar' was patched by force—the energy channels inside have been eroded by decay power, making it the weakest spot. One more attack like that just now, and it'll definitely collapse right here!"

Sister Ai Li walked up to the crack, a wisp of faint moonlight gathering at her fingertip as she carefully probed. Hiss! The moment the silver radiance touched the edge of the ghostly-blue repair, it was repelled by a lingering, cold, rejecting force—and even a thread of nearly imperceptible purple qi came counterattacking along the moonlight! She grunted, a sting in her fingertip, and hastily withdrew her power. "No good," her face was ugly, "purification power can't penetrate either—the lingering will of decay inside is resisting, even… polluting my power."

Xiang Lingna tried using the green vitality of the Emerald Heart to nourish the soil at the edge of the crack. Pale-gold Stardew Moss seedlings struggled to push out of the scorched earth, but the edges of their leaves quickly took on a sickly grey pallor, growing extremely slowly. "The land… is sick…" she said sadly.

"The Sanctuary's energy has gone to sleep too. We're on our own." Lin Mo stood up, his gaze sweeping over the worried crowd before finally settling on the ley-line furnace in the furnace district, still belching flames and thick smoke, and the mountain of dark-red fire-veined steel ingots piled beside it. His tone was clipped and decisive: "Reinforce it! With the power we can control! Master Copperbeard, I need stronger walls! Walls that can resist the power of decay!"

The dwarf craftsman snorted heavily, his beard still flecked with black ash: "Don't need you to tell me! Watch this!" He strode toward the furnace, his mechanical prosthetic hand seized a freshly cooled fire-veined steel ingot, weighed it, then looked at the ghostly-blue crack on the bulwark, a sharp glint exploding in his eyes. "Fire-veined steel is hard enough, but it's still a bit short against that kind of decay evil! Needs a bit of 'extra'!"

He jabbed a finger at Xiang Lingna: "Girl! Get me some of the most 'alive' dirt from that Emerald nursery of yours! And Stardew Moss juice, the more the better!" Then he looked at Wrench: "Bring over one of those blue slabs (energy storage units) we brought out of that iron coffin (Sanctuary)! The smallest one!"

Though Wrench didn't understand, he moved fast. Xiang Lingna also hurried back to the nursery, carefully gathering the rich soil soaked with the aura of the Emerald Heart and squeezing out emerald-green juice.

Copperbeard threw the fire-veined steel ingot back into the furnace, and the orange-red earth-fire swallowed it once more. He personally pulled the bellows (a modified mechanical booster), and the furnace temperature soared to a terrifying level, the ingot quickly melting into rolling magma. At that moment, he bellowed: "Now!"

Xiang Lingna poured the soil reeking of rich life force and the emerald juice she held into a specially made high-temperature crucible. Wrench, using insulated tongs, carefully lowered a palm-sized, edge-cut deep-blue crystal slab into the molten steel!

Hiss——!!!

A violent reaction occurred! The molten steel instantly boiled! The blue crystal slab did not melt; instead, it erupted with intense ghostly-blue light in the high heat, countless fine energy patterns surfacing and swimming within the steel! The emerald soil and juice transformed into green motes of light, drawn in as if magnetized to merge into those ghostly-blue patterns! The breath of life and the cold Order energy wondrously fused within the blazing steel!

Copperbeard's mechanical prosthetic hand was steady as a rock, wielding the forging hammer with a certain ancient, mysterious rhythm, and began to strike! Clang! Clang! Clang! With every hammer fall, the sparks were no longer pure crimson, but mingled with fine blue-green motes! Amid the ringing of metal, it was as if the pulse of life and the rhythm of Order were resonating together!

Brand-new steel ingots were born beneath Copperbeard's hammer. They were still dark-red at the base, flowing with orange-red magma veins, but on closer look, inside the ingot it was as if countless extremely fine, capillary-like blue-green networks were faintly glowing! Heavy to Handle as ever, yet now with a peculiar warm smoothness and an inner, restrained energy ripple.

【Item: Thornsteel (First Generation)】

【Material: Fire-veined steel base, fused with trace Order energy crystal (Sanctuary), Emerald life essence (Stardew Moss/soil)】

【Properties: High physical strength, excellent energy conductivity (especially Order/Life affinity), possesses a degree of resistance to withering/decay-type energy erosion (passive weakening/delay)】

"Done!" Copperbeard wiped the sweat from his brow, looking at the strangely lustrous steel ingot before him, his eyes full of pride, "Call it 'Thornsteel'! Use this stuff to patch that 'scar,' and hang an extra layer of armor over the whole outer bulwark! Let's see how that ghost claw bites through!"

The repair work began at once. Under Copperbeard's command, Lin Mo manipulated the thorn roots to carefully peel away the old steel bricks from the most severely damaged crack area. The newly forged Thornsteel ingots were heated and shaped, and one by one the thick steel bricks, carrying a faint blue-green glow, were lifted by the roots and fitted seamlessly into the bulwark's wound. When the last Thornsteel brick was set in, and the whole thing was welded shut with a special metal melt mixed with Emerald juice, the entire cracked area was transformed!

The ghostly-blue Order repair traces were buried beneath the heavy Thornsteel, leaving only the cold hardness of steel and a restrained inner glow. When the bulwark's energy shield flowed over this area, there was no longer any murky sluggishness—instead it became smoother and more stable! Even more wondrous, when Xiang Lingna tried planting Stardew Moss in the soil around the repaired area, though the speed was still slow, the signs of grey decay had clearly lessened!

The Heart of Thorns now possessed its first shield against decay!

Wrench, meanwhile, clutching the remaining blue crystal slabs and the massive data copied from the Sanctuary console (stored in several sturdy physical storage blocks left over from the old world), plunged headfirst into the "laboratory" next to the furnace, converted from the wreckage of the assault platform. His bean-sized eyes flickered with a manic light as he faced a crude energy analyzer (its core component from the "Pathfinder") and a pile of circuit boards, muttering nonstop:

"Order energy spectrum… stable… can be channeled…"

"Weapon system interface… compatibility test…"

"Bulwark shield optimization algorithm… hehehe…"

"And this… 'Hive' close-in defense system? Nice stuff! Rip the cannon off the 'Pathfinder,' modify it, and we can use it!"

One after another, crude yet wildly ambitious blueprints were born beneath his pen—a bulwark turret cast from Thornsteel, capable of firing small Order energy pulses; a rotating close-in defense winch bristling with spikes, driven by the furnace's waste heat (named "Iron Thorns"); and even a prototype "Bedrock Force Field" generator that would convert ley-line energy into high-frequency oscillation waves to cover the bulwark's perimeter!

The Heart of Thorns was transforming the legacy of the old world into fangs and claws to guard the new home.

The main screen at the Doctor's base clearly displayed the image of the bulwark repaired with Thornsteel, along with the weapon blueprints Wrench was sketching in his crude laboratory.

【Detected target territory applying Order energy crystal (Sanctuary-derived material)…】

【Detected weapon system R&D direction (based on Sanctuary database)…】

【Threat model update: Heart of Thorns defense system upgrading… estimated threat level rising 37%…】

【Executing countermeasure: activate dormant unit 'Probe-07,' release 'False Blueprint' (built-in logic trap and energy overload backdoor) into target information network.】

【Objective: lure its R&D path into a dead end, and trigger self-destruction at a critical node.】

A micro-machine disguised as a common wasteland radiation beetle crawled quietly out of the ventilation ducts at the Doctor's base, buzzed its wings, and flew soundlessly toward the Heart of Thorns.