Chapter 93: Moonfall and Thorns: The Furnace's Embers and the Doctor's Gambit

The destructive purple light gathered on the back of the last remaining corrupted giant scorpion turret, like a single eye opening in the abyss, locking dead-on the tiny figure and the withered sapling beside the ley-line fissure. The air around the muzzle was twisted and ionized by the terrifying energy, crackling and popping. If this strike landed, Xiang Lingna, the sapling, and the land that carried their last hope would all be reduced to nothing!

In the Bastion Furnace Zone, the incandescent white light had reached its peak, blinding like a small sun. The thorn-steel armor plates melted like candles, great chunks dripping down; orange-red molten metal flowed wantonly across the bastion's surface, igniting everything it touched. The shrill shriek of warping metal and the whine of overloaded energy tolled like the death knell of the Reaper. Copperbeard stood beside the furnace mouth, his beard and hair already singed away by the heat; his exposed skin was covered in blistered burns, and his crimson mechanical eye flickered with warning red from overload. He heard the desperate screams of the monitoring warriors, felt the bastion beneath his feet coming apart.

"Heh..." A low, ambiguous laugh rasped from Copperbeard's throat, hoarse as metal scraping metal. His massive mechanical hand still pressed down hard on the furnace core's last energy conduit, letting the raging ley-line flames sear the metal.

Ten seconds.

Perhaps less.

The dwarf's gaze swept across the bastion: burning armor, molten metal; refugee warriors who had fought to the last breath, their faces desperate and fierce; the parapet, where a figure with silver hair streaming raised her right arm high, condensing the last Thorn Moon Spear, her whole body trembling violently as purple qi churned in the wound on her left arm; the vine cradle on the west side, where a stubborn blue-white starlight still glowed on the chest of a charred body; and finally, it settled on the tiny unconscious figure beside the ley-line fissure and the withered sapling beside her.

"A dwarf... never... breaks... his oath..." Copperbeard roared with the last of his strength, his voice drowned by the furnace's bellow. He had made his choice! His mechanical hand no longer suppressed the raging ley-line energy; instead, it violently redirected the overloaded energy stream—along with the devastating energy about to erupt from the collapsing furnace core—straight into the bastion's thorn-steel wheel system!

Rumble—!!!

The entire bastion let out a death rattle! The great iron-thorn wheels—those massive wheels built mainly from Xiang Lingna's purified thornwood, wound with cast thorn-steel spikes—blazed with blinding white light as unimaginable energy poured into them! The wheels themselves could not bear it; the thornwood at the edges began to carbonize and crumble, the steel spikes melting and warping! But this destructive energy needed an outlet!

"Spin! Fly out—for me—!" Copperbeard's eyes nearly split from their sockets!

Screech—BANG!!!

Amid the ear-splitting sound of tearing, two massive iron-thorn wheels, trailing molten steel and burning thorns, were hurled from the bastion by the overloaded energy like two runaway wheels of flame! They spun, dragging long fiery tails; instead of flying toward the nearest monster horde, they carved two resolute arcs and, with the fury of mutual destruction, slammed headlong into the corrupted giant scorpion turret that was charging its attack!

This was Copperbeard's final roar! The last counterstrike of the embers after the furnace had burned the city!

At the same time, atop the bastion's parapet.

Sister Ai Li's right arm trembled. The vast energy needed to condense the third "Moonlight Purge" sent the suppressed dark-purple tumor deep in her left arm's wound into frenzied pulsation; violet-black侵蚀 veins crawled up her arm, bringing soul-tearing agony and chaotic whispers. Her vision blurred, the moonlight power raging inside her, nearly tearing her apart.

Below, the two burning wheels of death were crashing into the scorpion turret.

Beside the ley-line fissure, Xiang Lingna's fate hung unknown.

In Sister Ai Li's ice-blue pupils, the destructive purple light about to erupt from the scorpion turret's back was reflected. There wasn't enough time! The wheels' speed could not outpace the firing of that毁灭 beam!

No hesitation.

No words.

The last trace of "human" emotion faded from Sister Ai Li's eyes, leaving only the moonlight ice that had sealed the world for ten thousand years and the unyielding thorns wrapped around it! She abandoned the suppression of the corruption in her left arm, pouring all her power—along with the last burning essence of her own life—entirely into the not-yet-fully-formed Thorn Moon Spear!

"By the moon as guide... by blood as oath..." Her voice was so cold it held not a ripple, like ice from the dawn of ages, "Thorns... pierce through!"

Hiss—!!!

A spear of light—far more condensed and brilliant than before, its entire body wrapped in thorn-shaped silver runes—flew from her hand in an instant! The spear tore the air, leaving behind frozen ice-crystal trails and faint spatial cracks! Its speed surpassed the burning wheels, arriving first despite leaving later!

The target was not the scorpion turret's crystal-cluster core, but—that massive muzzle spewing destructive purple light!

In the one-thousandth of a second before the devastating violet-black beam could erupt—

The Thorn Moon Spear—arrived!

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

Only a crystalline, exquisite sound, like shattering glass.

The Thorn Moon Spear pierced with perfect precision into the very center of the erupting energy torrent! The极致 purifying moonlight and the violent decay energy clashed in the most direct, most brutal annihilation within the muzzle!

Hum—!!!

The scorpion turret's massive body froze rigid! The crystal cluster on its back flickered wildly, its light in utter chaos! At the muzzle, the violet-black beam writhed and swelled like a venomous dragon with its throat seized!

The next instant—

BOOM!!!!!!!

An internal explosion more terrifying than any before tore through! The scorpion turret was ripped apart from within! The violet-black decay energy, freed from its bonds, mingled with the purifying power of the moonlight and became a毁灭 storm sweeping hundreds of meters! Nearby withered monsters were shredded like paper! Even the two burning wheels that crashed in afterward were caught up, reduced to a skyful of splattering molten fragments!

The bastion, at last, under this terrifying near-at-hand shock, met its final collapse!

Rumble—!!!

The furnace core, long past its limit, exploded completely! An incandescent fireball rose into the sky! The burning thorn-steel armor plates shattered like fragile eggshells! Massive structural members twisted, snapped, and flew off in the blast! The entire Stone Bastion—this steel fortress that had borne so much blood and fire, hope and despair—collapsed in a pillar of flame and smoke!

Countless shards of stone, burning metal, and broken thornwood rained down like a storm!

"No—!" Wrench threw himself desperately toward Lin Mo in the vine cradle, trying to use his own thin body to shield against the falling boulders.

Beside the ley-line fissure, the unconscious Xiang Lingna was tossed up by the violent tremor, then fell heavily; the withered sapling was buried beneath the falling scorched earth.

Above the parapet, after firing that final spear, Sister Ai Li's body, as if all support had left it, slumped backward. The dark-purple tumor on her left arm, no longer suppressed, saw its violet-black veins crawl like living things across half her cheek in an instant; in her ice-blue pupils, the silver flame died out completely, veiled in a dead, ashen gray. She fell from the high ruins of the bastion, silver hair drifting in the firelight and smoke, like a moon-bird with broken wings.

The storm of destruction swept the battlefield, and for a time veiled this region.

In a distant observation post.

On the Doctor's cold lenses was reflected the pillar of fire from the Thornheart Bastion's collapse, and the data sent back by the probes: the stubborn, unextinguished blue-white starlight on Lin Mo's chest; Sister Ai Li's ashen falling figure; Xiang Lingna's faint life signal buried under debris; and the last wisp of极其 faint World Tree origin aura drifting from the withered sapling.

【Warning: Thornheart Bastion (primary observation point) signal lost... destruction confirmed.】

【Corrupted Claw secondary root network (Stardust Sea direction) signal strength: continuously decaying... pollution source severely damaged.】

【Target individual (Lin Mo) vital signs: faint but stable... Order Anchor energy reaction rising... Corrupted Claw Mark (Seed of Annihilation) energy fluctuation: suppressed and covered by unknown Order energy (Stardust)... activation countdown: paused (???)】

【Key individual (Sister Ai Li): vital signs critical... high-concentration corruption pollution invading core... Moonlight energy reaction: gone.】

【Key individual (Xiang Lingna): vital signs extremely faint... World Tree sapling (vessel) activity: zero... faint World Tree origin dispersion detected...】

【Ark-7 core database fragment signal detected... faint... location: near target individual (Lin Mo)...】

The Doctor's fingertip left that deep-blue 【Forced Detonation】 button. He stared in silence as the status representing the Seed of Annihilation (the mark on Lin Mo's right arm) on the screen changed from 【Activation Critical】 to 【Suppressed (Stardust)】 and 【Countdown Paused (Unknown)】.

"Stardust... pure Stardust..." For the first time, the Doctor's cold electronic synthesized voice carried a faint, barely perceptible waver, like confusion, or perhaps... a certain interest beyond calculation. "It can actually suppress the 'Primordial Erosion'... what an interesting variable."

He called up another screen, displaying the analysis data stream of that last wisp of World Tree origin aura drifting from the withered sapling.

【Energy spectrum comparison: match with 'Key' Project (Ark-7 top-secret archive) 'World Tree Origin Sample-Alpha': 99.98%...】

【Conclusion: Confirmed 'Key' vessel (World Tree sapling) completely destroyed... origin dispersed... unrecoverable...】

"Vessel destroyed... origin dispersed..." The Doctor's gaze behind the lenses flickered slightly, as if rapidly calculating gains and losses. "'Key' Project... Phase One failed. But the implant host of the 'Seed of Annihilation' (Lin Mo) survived, and obtained the key variable (Stardust) for suppressing the corruption... Phase Two experimental site requires re-evaluation."

He turned his gaze back to the main screen. Above the ruins shrouded in smoke and firelight, the three faint dots representing Lin Mo, Sister Ai Li, and Xiang Lingna flickered stubbornly like the last sparks in a gale, in the embers of destruction.

"Survival... struggle... evolution..." The Doctor's cold lips seemed to curl upward by an imperceptible degree, forming an inhuman, almost mocking arc. "In deeper despair... bloom. Let me see what fruit the 'seed' covered by Stardust can bear... Final Annihilation Protocol... execution suspended."

Under the observation post's cold lights, the Doctor's figure stood like an ageless, unchanging statue. He closed the live feed of the Thornheart ruins and called up another set of coordinates—a dead, ancient forest shrouded in withering mist. New data streams began to refresh; a new observation point was locking on.

Above the ruins, smoke and dust had yet to settle. From the scorched earth, Wrench struggled to crawl out of the rubble, spat the grit from his mouth, and looked in terror toward the vine basket—several burning boulders were crashing down! And Lin Mo within the vine basket remained unconscious.

In the sky, a few rotting wyverns that had luckily dodged the explosion circled above the smoke and dust. Their crimson compound eyes locked onto the moving figures in the ruins, and they let out greedy hisses.

The spark of hope wavered among the embers, and a new crisis had quietly descended.