Chapter 88: The Seed of Annihilation, the Thorn's Wail, and the Doctor's Chess Game

The violent turbulence of the stardust vortex gradually subsided, leaving behind shattered energy remnants and a dead, silent vacuum. Lin Mo's charred body tumbled through the cold void, his consciousness sinking into a bottomless abyss. Only the faint glow of the stardust crystal on his chest flickered stubbornly like a candle in the wind, resisting the dark purple mark pulsing ceaselessly on his right arm—the Claw Brand, the "Seed of Annihilation" the Doctor had spoken of.

Wrench's heart-wrenching cry was swallowed whole by the blast's aftershock. Piloting the badly damaged Probe Pod like a drunken flying insect, he struggled to dodge drifting metal debris as he lunged toward Lin Mo. His mechanical arm trembled as it reached out, carefully gathering the unconscious, blackened body into the cabin. The Probe Pod's life-scanning module shrieked a sharp alarm: 【Vital Signs: Critical! Energy Erosion: High-concentration corruption contamination (Primordial Erosion)! Mark Status: Activation Threshold! Carrier Near-Death!】

"Boss! Hold on! I'm takin' you home right now!" Wrench's green bean-sized eyes brimmed with tears as his fingers hammered frantically at the cracked control console, trying to stabilize the Probe Pod's flight attitude and set the return coordinates for the Wasteland Territory. Every engine roar came with the groan of tearing structure.

In the distant observation station, cold blue light illuminated the Doctor's expressionless face. On the ring-shaped screen, the light point representing Ark Seven's wreckage vanished completely, and the energy readings of the Rotclaw root network plummeted like a cliff. Yet Lin Mo's life curve, after plunging past the critical red line, miraculously maintained an extremely faint stability under the support of the stardust glow. The most glaring data stream was that crimson warning: 【Seed of Annihilation Activation Status: Energy Fill Complete (100%)... Target Carrier Near-Death... Activation Condition Threshold...】

The Doctor's fingertip hovered over that pale-blue 【Force Detonate "Seed of Annihilation"】 button, like a vulture waiting for its prey to swallow its last breath. His cold electronic synthesized voice rang out in the silence: "Pure stardust... can actually delay the final consumption of the 'Primordial Erosion'... An interesting variable. But a death rattle cannot change the endpoint of annihilation." His fingertip slowly pressed down, mere millimeters from that devastating button!

The Wasteland, the Bastion of Stone.

Copperbeard's single eye was bloodshot, fixed dead on the detector screen. The purple light points representing the depths of the Withered Forest were converging and swelling at an unprecedented speed, like a boiling sea of venom. The oppressive aura radiating from those few crimson light points at the center made one's heart skip a beat even through the screen.

"Damn it! The big one's comin'! Burn the furnace through for me! Shields to max!" Copperbeard's roar tore through the Bastion's oppressive air. The dwarf's massive mechanical prosthetic hand slammed brutally onto the energy diverter valve in the furnace zone, heedless of the overload alarm's shriek.

Boom—!

The Geothermal Furnace let out a death-rattle roar as orange-red earthfire sprayed wildly. The Thornsteel armor plating instantly shifted from a dim blue-green to a blinding incandescent white, radiating terrifying heat. The vines clinging to it vaporized to ash in an instant! The Bastion of Stone, this scarred steel fortress, became a burning mountain of furnace under Copperbeard's howl, baring its remaining, final fangs!

At the edge of the horizon, a viscous, ink-like purple-black tide devoured the dim sky. Decaying giant treants marched with earth-shaking steps, siege beasts formed of bone and slime let out roars that shattered eardrums, and a sky-darkening swarm of rotting wyverns lunged first! And at the very front of the flood, three 【Corrupted Scorpion Batteries】 like moving mountains lit up with devastating purple light from the massive crystal clusters on their backs!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Three condensed purple-black energy beams, like hell's judgment spears, instantly crossed space and slammed brutally into the incandescent Bastion shield!

The orange-red light barrier buckled and rippled violently, shattering with a heartbreaking sound of breaking glass in mere seconds! The residual energy impact slammed brutally into the Thornsteel armor, melting out three massive blackened craters, with scorching molten metal dripping like blood!

"Hive! Fire!" Copperbeard's eyes nearly split with fury.

Sparse pulse fire shot toward sky and ground with little effect. The Iron Thorn Wheel shredded a few monsters before being drowned by the tide. The Scorpion Batteries charged again, their devastating beams aimed straight at the Bastion's most vulnerable heart!

Despair, like a cold tide, drowned the heart of every warrior on the Bastion.

At this critical moment—

Hum!

A faint yet resilient emerald light, like a bonfire lit in the darkness, spread out from beside the geothermal fissure! The unconscious Xiang Lingna had somehow sat up, eyes tightly shut, her small body enveloped in a dense emerald halo! Her hands unconsciously plunged into the scorched earth, and atop the withered World Tree sapling suspended before her, that nearly extinguished new bud frantically drew the life force surging from within her, erupting with unprecedented emerald radiance!

"Thorn... heart... protect..." Xiang Lingna's unconscious murmur was like an Ancient Incantation.

The pale-gold vines clinging to the Bastion instantly grew wildly, weaving into a massive vine protective net over the damaged areas, flowing with emerald light! At the Bastion's base, countless roots covered in rock and thornwood spikes burst from the earth, layering upon layer to form a thorn-root barrier!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The devastating beams slammed brutally home!

Sizzle—!

Vines withered and burned, thorn roots melted through and snapped! But their sacrifice greatly weakened the beams' power! When the purple light finally struck the Bastion's armor, it only left deeper scorch marks at the crater's edge! The Bastion held!

Xiang Lingna's body shuddered violently, blood spilling from her lips, the emerald halo and the sapling's new bud instantly withered. But Copperbeard seized this precious breathing space: "Shields! Rise again!" A thin yet stubborn orange-red light barrier rose once more!

However, the withering frenzy had only just begun its assault! Denser monsters slammed against the burning mountain of furnace like a tsunami! Copperbeard's single eye reflected the flood of destruction, the Bastion melting and warping in the high heat, emitting a death rattle. The barrier Xiang Lingna had built crumbled rapidly under the tidal assault. Hope, like a flame leaping in the furnace, flickered and threatened to die in the gale.

In the observation station, the Doctor's fingertip steadily pressed that pale-blue button.

【Final Annihilation Protocol... Initiating...】

The cold electronic synthesized voice tolled like a funeral bell. On the screen, the status of the "Seed of Annihilation" on Lin Mo's right arm instantly shifted from 【Suppressed (Stardust)】, 【Countdown Paused (Unknown)】 to a glaring 【Activation Command Confirmed! Release Countdown: 10... 9... 8...】

The invisible command became a wave of destruction crossing space, ignoring the chaos and distance of the Stardust Sea, precisely shooting toward the pulsing dark purple mark on Lin Mo's right arm inside the Probe Pod!

Wrench stared in terror at the scan screen: 【Warning! Unknown high-dimensional energy injected into target mark! Seed of Annihilation activity index spiking! Threshold breached! Release irreversible!】

On Lin Mo's charred right arm, the dark purple mark erupted with unprecedented evil light! That light, as if alive, instantly devoured the faint milky white from the stardust crystal, spreading wildly upward along the blackened arm! Countless fine, spike-like energy patterns seemingly composed of pure darkness burst from the mark, piercing through the charred skin, greedily draining the last remaining life force and the power of the Order Anchor within Lin Mo! A terrifying energy of destruction, enough to annihilate the soul's origin, was madly gathering, compressing, and about to erupt at the mark's core!

"No——!!!" Wrench screamed in despair, trying futilely to use the Probe Pod's energy to interfere, like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

On the Wasteland Bastion, Sister Ai Li, who was fighting burning wreckage and buying time for her companions, froze suddenly! The tumor pulsing violently on her left arm, as if summoned by some supreme call, had purple-black patterns instantly crawl across her ashen half-cheek. In her remaining ice-blue right eye, the last trace of clarity belonging to Sister Ai Li was utterly devoured by violent destructive desire!

"Anni... hi... late..." Hoarse, broken syllables squeezed from her lips, carrying inhuman indifference. She slowly raised her right hand covered in ashen horn, and five condensed-to-the-extreme purple-black destructive claw-gleams no longer pointed at the Bastion or monsters, but locked onto that completely withered, lusterless World Tree sapling beside the geothermal fissure, drained of all power by Xiang Lingna!

The Doctor's chess game had played its most lethal piece. The annihilation countdown sounded simultaneously across the star sea and the wasteland. The Thorn Heart faced its final ten seconds.