Chapter 78: Insect Clouds Blot Out the Sun: The Moon-Eclipse Net and the Sprig's Stirring

The purple-black tide of insects surged like a roiling sea of death, blotting out the already thin sky-light of the wasteland and casting a suffocating shadow. The air instantly turned thick, filled with a sharp, acrid stench, and every breath felt like inhaling fine shards of glass. The scalp-crawling, impossibly dense buzz of beating wings—billions of fingernails scraping against metal—slammed wildly against eardrums and nerves.

"Hive! Open fire!" Lin Mo's roar exploded from the top of the bastion!

Ssssssss——!!!

Several Thorn-Steel Hive turrets on the bastion erupted simultaneously, unleashing orange-red energy pulse-nets! Dense beams tore into the insect tide, instantly clearing vast swathes of the sky; countless flying bugs tumbled down trailing wisps of blue smoke, like dumplings dropped into boiling water! But the swarm's numbers were simply too horrifying—the cleared zones were filled back up in the blink of an eye by even more flying bugs! The pulse-nets needed to recharge, and a fatal gap appeared in the firepower!

"Iron Thorn! Spin it up for me!" Copperbeard's bellow rang out from inside the bastion, accompanied by the terrifying shriek of a massive wheel-disk accelerating to its limit, driven by the forge's waste heat!

Wooooooong—BOOM!!!

The high-speed spinning wheel-disk, bristling with quenched spikes, slammed into the diving vanguard of the insect tide like the blade of a meat grinder! The wet crunch-crunch-crunch of shattering bodies merged into a continuous roar! Countless flying bugs were shredded and smashed flat by the sharp spikes; purple-black insect-gore splattered across the bastion's outer armor like a rainstorm, producing a dense sizzle-hiss of corrosion!

The Thorn-Steel armor plates shimmered with faint blue-green light, stubbornly resisting the corrosion. But the gaps between plates, the turret bases, the observation slits—every weak point was quickly coated and penetrated by the sticky insect-gore! Worse still, the bugs that hadn't been shredded clung to the armor plates like bone-attached leeches, madly gnawing with sharp mouthparts and corrosive saliva!

"Armor corrosion rate climbing! Zone B7 energy circuit critical!" Wrench, huddled in the relatively safe interior of the bastion, sounded the alarm through a crude monitor, his voice cracking with a sob.

Lin Mo stood at the bastion's highest point, weathering the acid-rotting gale and rain of insect corpses head-on, his gaze sharp as an eagle's. He kept summoning thorn-root tendrils that burst from the earth along the bastion's outer face, sweeping across the clinging, gnawing swarms like giant brooms—but the roots themselves were rapidly corroding. The Anchor of Order within him ran at full power, resisting the all-pervading spiritual erosion of decay, while the burning pulse in his right arm, under the oppressive weight of the insect tide, burned like a red-hot brand, sending waves of dizziness through him.

"This won't hold! We have to take out those command nodes!" Lin Mo's gaze pierced through the insect tide, locking dead-on onto several bloated, half-hidden figures deep within the swarm—huge purple crystal clusters jutting from their backs—the Corrupted Broodmothers! They were the ones endlessly hatching and directing the swarm!

Sister Ai Li appeared at Lin Mo's side. Her face was still pale; the bandage on her left arm had been soaked through with purple-black insect blood, and the purple qi at the wound's edge churned even more violently. But her icy eyes burned with a flame of absolute resolve, ignoring the pain in her body.

"Buy me… time." Sister Ai Li's voice was hoarse yet unusually steady. She no longer tried to channel Moonlight power for pinpoint kills; instead, she drew a deep breath and slowly raised both hands above her head! The silver scar on her chest erupted with an unprecedented, almost blinding silver radiance! The light was so intense it temporarily dispersed the insect cloud for several meters around her!

Innumerable slender, condensed silver filaments burst forth from her raised hands like a fountain, no longer confined to her front but madly spreading and weaving across the sky in all directions! The number of filaments far surpassed anything before, their speed swift as lightning! In an instant, a colossal silver light-net—its coverage dwarfing the bastion itself—suddenly unfurled dozens of meters above Sister Ai Li's head! The net was no longer flat; it formed a massive hemispherical dome, shrouding the entire bastion zone!

Thorn-Moonlight Net · Celestial Bastion!

Wooooooong——!!!

The instant the light-net took shape, a powerful purifying force-field cascaded down like an invisible waterfall! Every flying bug that crashed into the net's range, like a moth diving into flame, was instantly scorched and carbonized by the extreme purifying power contained in the filaments! Even the miasma of decay permeating the insect cloud's core was greatly weakened!

The pressure on the bastion plummeted! The bugs clinging to the armor plates were shaken loose and charred, falling like raindrops! The burden on the thorn-roots and the Iron Thorn eased dramatically!

"Ai Li!" Lin Mo stared at Sister Ai Li's body—suddenly paper-white, swaying on the verge of collapse—and at the purple qi at her left-arm wound roiling like boiling water, and his heart jolted hard! This strike was undeniably powerful, but the burden and the stimulus on her were far too great!

"Broodmother… now!" Sister Ai Li forced the words out through clenched teeth, her body trembling; maintaining the colossal light-net was already her limit.

Lin Mo's eyes hardened; he instantly understood her intent! He slammed the Vein Arbiter into the bastion beneath his feet! His will reached out to the Heart of the Veins and to the newly awakened Thorn-Will!

RRRRUMBLE!

Several tendrils—far thicker than before, sheathed in heavy rock and thorn-wood spikes—burst from the scorched earth before the bastion like the tentacles of an ancient beast, carrying the force of ten thousand jun, and stabbed viciously deep into the insect cloud! Their target: those Corrupted Broodmothers, now exposed beneath the purifying force-field!

The Broodmothers seemed to sense the threat; the purple crystal clusters on their backs flashed wildly, spewing thick purple-black energy beams at the incoming tendrils, while simultaneously directing the surrounding swarm to surge madly at the tendrils in an attempt to block them!

Under the assault of the swarm and the energy beams, the thorn-tendrils' rock armor rapidly melted away and their wood-spikes snapped! But Lin Mo drove them forward at full power, heedless of the drain! Under the cover of the purifying force-field, the tendrils forced their way through the swarm's obstruction and stabbed viciously into the Broodmothers' bloated bodies!

Psssh! Psssh!

The wood-spikes on the tendrils sank deep in! The power of the Thorn-Will flooded in madly! The Broodmothers let out shrill shrieks, their bodies convulsing violently; the crystal clusters on their backs flickered between light and dark, and the energy beams they spewed became chaotic!

"Hive! Concentrate fire!" Lin Mo roared!

Every charged Thorn-Steel Hive turret on the bastion instantly swiveled; the orange-red pulse-nets no longer blanketed the swarm but converged into concentrated beams on the Broodmothers pinned by the tendrils!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Dense energy pulses slammed brutally into the Broodmothers' fragile crystal clusters and bloated bodies! Purple-black pus and shattered carapace sprayed in all directions! The Broodmothers' shrieks cut off short, and their massive bodies blew apart in the explosions!

With the destruction of the core Broodmothers, the colossal insect tide lost its command and instantly fell into chaos! Attacks became utterly uncoordinated, and the bugs even began tearing into each other!

"Iron Thorn! Sweep the field!" Copperbeard seized the moment, driving the massive wheel-disk into a frenzy of grinding slaughter against the chaotic swarm before the bastion!

The pressure plummeted! Sister Ai Li's taut nerves gave way, and the colossal Thorn-Moonlight Net instantly dissolved into a skyful of silver radiance. Her body went limp and she pitched forward, caught by Lin Mo in a single grab. At the wound on her left arm, the purple qi—like a venomous snake breaking free of its bonds—suddenly surged outward, instantly corroding nearly half her arm! Her vitality rapidly withered.

"Xiang Lingna!" Lin Mo cradled the unconscious Sister Ai Li and called out sharply.

At this moment, where victory and crisis intertwined—

Wooooooong!

A fresh, overwhelming wave of life-force erupted without warning from the direction of the vein-rift! In an instant, it swept away the lingering stench of decay across the battlefield!

Everyone instinctively looked over.

They saw that sprig of the World Tree that had been lying quietly beside the jade fragments—now radiating an unprecedented emerald brilliance! The silver Moonlight seal wrapped around it, under Xiang Lingna's continuous nurturing and the stimulation of the same-source Moonlight power Sister Ai Li had just unleashed, had actually healed over for the most part! At the tip of the sprig, the leaf that had been wilted and curled was now fully unfurled, its veins flowing with crystalline luster—and… beneath the leaf, a single, extremely tiny yet infinitely vibrant emerald-green bud was stubbornly poking its head out!

The sprig… had sprouted a new bud!