Chapter 81: The Glow of the New Sprout, the Thorn's Choice, and the Star Map's Branding

The single verdant sprout at the tip of the World Tree's tender branch, like the first ray of dawn piercing an endless night, erupted with a tremendous vitality that instantly swept across the entire hollow. Fresh, pure, carrying the sweet, crisp scent of forest morning dew, it surged like an invisible tide, brutally scouring the insect corpses, bloodstains, and rotting slime clinging to the bastion. The sizzling hiss of corrosion rapidly weakened wherever it passed, and the suffocating acidic rot in the air was largely dispelled! The vines clinging to the bastion's armor seemed to be injected with a stimulant; their pale-gold leaves instantly unfurled, purification motes of light flickered on like stars, greedily absorbing this pure life energy!

"This... this is..." The forging hammer in Copper Whiskers' hand nearly slipped from his grasp, his mechanical eye flashing wildly with blue light as it captured the visible, emerald-dust-like particles of vitality drifting through the air.

"The tender branch... it's alive?" Wrench poked his head out from behind his cover, his bean-sized eyes wide as saucers, staring at the increasingly brilliant halo of emerald light in the direction of the ley line fissure.

Lin Mo held the unconscious Sister Ai Li, feeling the body in his arms rapidly losing warmth and the bone-chilling cold of the purple energy madly spreading across her left arm. He looked again at the vigorously sprouting new bud, and the stark contrast felt like his heart was being torn apart! Hope was right before his eyes, but Sister Ai Li's life was slipping away at terrifying speed!

"Xiang Lingna!" He was nearly screaming as he charged toward the ley line fissure with Sister Ai Li in his arms.

Xiang Lingna had already thrown herself beside the tender branch. Tear tracks still lingered on her small face, but her eyes were filled with an unprecedented focus and resolve. She didn't even glance at Sister Ai Li in Lin Mo's arms; her entire being was immersed in her resonance with the new sprout. She extended both hands—no longer just green light curling around her fingertips, but her entire palms now covered in a layer of warm, jade-like radiance. Like the most devout of worshippers, she carefully cupped them toward the sprouting bud.

Hum!

The instant Xiang Lingna's jade-like hands touched the new sprout, another change occurred!

The sprout erupted with even more dazzling emerald light. A surge of life-essence force, far purer and more condensed than before, as if it had found an outlet, poured madly into Xiang Lingna through her arms! Her body shuddered violently, the color instantly draining from her small face as if bearing tremendous pressure, but she clenched her teeth, refusing to retreat. Instead, she guided this torrential flood of life, turned, and pressed her palms—still blazing with intense jade-like radiance—firmly onto the wound on Sister Ai Li's left arm where purple energy churned!

Hiss——!!!

Like a red-hot branding iron plunged into ice water! A piercing sound of dissolution erupted alongside a violent clash of energies!

The emerald life-essence and the dark-purple corruption crashed violently together! Sister Ai Li's body convulsed as if struck by lightning, a pained muffled groan escaping her even in unconsciousness! At the wound on her left arm, two streams of energy—purple-black and emerald—wound around each other like two strangling venomous serpents, madly eroding, annihilating, and fighting for every inch of flesh!

"Hold on!" Lin Mo held Sister Ai Li tightly, preventing her from struggling and falling, while simultaneously driving the blue light of the Order's Anchor with all his might, channeling it into Sister Ai Li's body in an attempt to stabilize her chaotic energy field and assist the emerald life-essence in its suppression!

Xiang Lingna's small face grew paler and paler, her body swaying as if about to collapse; the life-essence pouring from the new sprout was far too vast, far exceeding her current limits of endurance! Yet her hands seemed welded to Sister Ai Li's wound, jade-like radiance pouring out recklessly, her gaze so determined it made one's heart tremble. As the life-essence was channeled out, the light of that severed World Tree tender branch also began to dim at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the sprout at its tip even showed faint signs of withering!

This was a tug-of-war racing against death! Using the life-essence of the new sprout as fuel, and Xiang Lingna's body as a bridge, to fight against the vicious corruption of the Rotting Claw that had seeped deep into the bone!

"Copper Whiskers! Energy! Give her energy support!" Lin Mo caught sight of Xiang Lingna's state and roared urgently.

Copper Whiskers reacted instantly, his stocky figure rocketing toward the ley line furnace like a cannonball, his massive mechanical hand slamming viciously onto a specially made energy distribution valve!

Boom!

A stream of pure, searing orange-red ley line energy, like rushing lava, was forcibly drawn out from the furnace's core. Through a temporarily erected energy conduit, it was brutally injected into the ground beneath Xiang Lingna's feet! The earth rumbled, and the orange-red energy surged along the ley line channels into Xiang Lingna's body, temporarily sharing the pressure she bore and steadying her body that had been on the verge of collapse!

With the support of the ley line energy, the jade-like radiance Xiang Lingna channeled surged strongly once more! The stubborn dark-purple corruption, under the triple suppression of pure life-essence, the light of Order, and ley line energy, finally began to retreat step by step! Melting and shrinking rapidly from the wound's edges like ice and snow!

The hideous spread of purple energy on Sister Ai Li's left arm visibly shrank! The churning corruption was forcibly pushed back deep into the wound, ultimately condensing into a dark-purple flesh tumor the size of a pigeon egg, pulsing faintly like a living thing and deeply embedded at the wound's center! Though the skin around the wound still bore the purple-black erosion patterns, it had at least temporarily escaped the danger of uncontrolled spreading!

"It worked... it's temporarily suppressed..." Wrench stared at the data from his probe's scan, his voice trembling with the relief of a narrow escape.

Xiang Lingna could hold on no longer; her body went limp and she fell backward, caught by Copper Whiskers. The little girl's face was pale as paper, her breathing faint, and she had fallen into a deep coma—but the corner of her mouth bore a faint, relieved smile. The new sprout at the tip of that severed World Tree tender branch had completely withered, its emerald light dim, as if it had exhausted all its strength.

Lin Mo held Sister Ai Li, who was still unconscious but whose breathing had steadied slightly. He looked at Xiang Lingna's exhausted form and the withered tender branch, and felt no joy in his heart—only a heavy burden of responsibility and endless fury. Rotting Claw! Doctor! This debt will be repaid!

Just then—

Hum!

Beneath the sleeve of Lin Mo's right arm, the Dark Purple Mark, suppressed by the Order's Anchor, seemed to be stimulated by the compressed corruption tumor at Sister Ai Li's wound—or perhaps sensing the weakening of the World Tree tender branch's power—and suddenly transmitted an unprecedented, greed- and brutality-filled burning pulse! This time, the pulse was no longer confined to his arm; it surged through his entire body like an electric current, assailing his soul! A cold, chaotic will, filled with the desire to devour, like a ferocious beast breaking free of its cage, slammed viciously into the blue halo of the Order's Anchor!

Boom!

Thunder seemed to explode in his consciousness! Lin Mo let out a muffled groan, his vision went black, and he dropped to one knee clutching Sister Ai Li! The "Ley Line Arbiter" slipped from his grasp, the dark-purple portion of the crossguard emblem flashing wildly, even briefly overpowering the other three colors of light!

"Boss!" "Lord!" Copper Whiskers and Wrench cried out in alarm!

"Ugh..." Lin Mo pressed his right arm desperately, veins bulging on his forehead, cold sweat instantly soaking his back. The blue light of the Order's Anchor fluctuated violently deep within his soul, desperately resisting the frenzied assault from the mark. He could clearly "hear" the mark roaring, tempting:

"Power... liberation... devour... rebirth..."

"Thorns... shackles... break... embrace... annihilation..."

"Get lost!" Lin Mo let out a beast-like roar in his heart. The power of the Thorn's Will, ignited by fury and fused with the resolute conviction of defending his home, slammed viciously into that rotting will! The Heart of the Ley Line seemed to sense his crisis as well; its orange-red light flared brilliantly, pouring ceaselessly into his body through the earth beneath his feet!

After a brief, fierce clash, the rampaging mark was once again forcibly suppressed deep within his arm, lying dormant. But Lin Mo could feel that the blue light of the Order's Anchor had noticeably dimmed, and the suppression had become more arduous. This counterattack was fiercer than any before! The power of the Rotting Claw was growing!

He raised his head gasping, his face pale as a ghost, yet his eyes burned with cold flames. He looked at Wrench, his voice hoarse but brooking no argument: "The Star Map! The coordinates! Pure Stardust! Analyze it now! We're out of time!"

Wrench jolted, scrambling toward his workbench: "I'm on it, I'm on it! I wasn't sitting idle during that bug tide either! The data's almost done running!"

Lin Mo's gaze swept over the unconscious Sister Ai Li and Xiang Lingna, over the withered tender branch, and finally settled on the scorched earth outside the bastion still littered with the remains of the swarm. The Thorn's Heart had just barely won a bitter victory, but a greater storm was brewing in the darkness. The Star Map coordinates were their only hope—and might also be the next grave the Doctor had carefully prepared for them.

Just as Wrench's finger was about to tap the command to complete the analysis, the core screen of his "Abyss Probe" in hand suddenly flickered violently! A broken, blurry nebula pattern outlined by countless points of light forced its way onto the screen. Below the pattern, a set of incomplete coordinate parameters was jumping wildly! And at the core of that nebula pattern, a miniature, crack-riddled phantom image of an Ark's wreckage, simulated by Thornsteel energy, was slowly rotating! Beside the phantom, a line of distorted text pieced together from energy garbled code flashed and vanished:

【... Ark Seven... core... Star Sea... annihilation... key...】