Chapter 47: Dragon Cave Strange Formation

Zhang Jun's boot soles scraped the asphalt with a screeching friction sound; he hunched his back to shield Lin Xue ahead, the blood droplets dripping from his sword tip striking dark marks on the ground. Opposite, five black-clad men stood in a semicircle, the purple insignia on their bulletproof vests glowing eerily under the hotel neon.

"Boss Xiao's personal bodyguard?" he muttered, grinding his molars, "Did you switch careers to terrorism?"

The black-clad men simultaneously tore open their bulletproof vests, revealing grayish‑blue skin beneath the metal shells. Veins bulged purple‑black under the skin, glowing like circuit boards. The one on the far left lunged forward, its speed more than five times greater than before.

As the Heaven‑Man Sword swept across, Zhang Jun silently cursed; when the blade jammed into the opponent's shoulder blade it emitted a metallic screech. The man grinned, revealing a jaw of interlocking steel teeth, and grabbed the sword with his backhand to press forward. Lin Xue's ice spike pierced his knee from behind, ice shards bursting at the joint.

"Seventh rib on the right!" Lin Xue shouted. As another cyborg lunged, her hurled icicle struck precisely into the gap of its right ribs; the blue light of its mechanical heart winked out and the corpse crashed to the ground.

Zhang Jun swung his sword, cleaving the third cyborg's heavenly spirit cover; dark‑red brain matter mixed with oil sprayed across his face. "How does the Lin family's young lady know their weak point?"

"I've seen similar blueprints in my father's lab." Lin Xue wiped the blood from her lips, ice ridges gathering in her palm into a spear, "These are semi‑finished products of spiritual‑sense technology."

The remaining two suddenly retreated, their electronic eyes flashing red. A turbocharger's roar came from the street corner as a modified off‑road vehicle smashed through the green belt and charged. Zhang Jun grabbed Lin Xue and dove toward the fountain; the vehicle's front scraped his hair tips, shattering a Roman column, and a jet of water shot skyward.

In the water mist rose a metallic screech of deformation. Zhang Jun shook off his wet hair and looked up to see the last two cyborgs dismantling the off‑road vehicle into steel plates, as if stacking mille‑feuille.

"This is basically a Terminator, huh?" he kicked the stone off his leg, "Miss Lin, has your family even researched the T800?"

"Shut up!" Lin Xue yanked him toward the subway entrance, sprinting, "Their power source is——"

The explosion drowned out her unfinished words. Zhang Jun felt a sting in the back of his neck, feeling a half‑embedded metal shard in his skin. The cyborg hoisted the modified car engine like a meteor hammer and swung it; he backhanded the Heaven‑Man Sword, whose blade instantly split into twelve phantoms.

The sound of tearing metal mingled with the system alarm. When the phantoms faded, the cyborg lay in pieces. Zhang Jun stared at the newly etched purple lines on the sword hilt, recalling the crystal from the secret room.

"That move just now…" Lin Xue gasped, gripping his wrist, "Is it…"

The subway tunnel suddenly blazed with blinding headlights. The modified subway car burst off the tracks, its nose welded to a three‑meter alloy drill bit. As Zhang Jun hauled Lin Xue into the maintenance shaft, the drill gouged a five‑meter‑deep trench in the platform.

"Isn't Xiao Lin dead?" he spat out the gravel in his mouth.

"Obviously someone wrote the program in advance." Lin Xue pulled out her phone; the screen showed thirty‑seven missed calls, all from encrypted numbers. "Uncle Zhang said the coordinates for Dragon Mountain Cave have been decoded, they're…"

From deep in the tunnel came more mechanical whirring. Zhang Jun plunged the Heaven‑Man Sword into the transformer box; the erupting arc formed a temporary barrier. "First we'll deal with these tin cans, then we'll go grave‑robbing."

"Watch out!" Zhang Jun was about to turn and rescue when a mechanical tentacle coiled around his right leg. Metal barbs sank into his flesh; he backhanded a slash that severed the tentacle, spewing foul‑smelling oil.

Lin Xue was driven by the black shadows into a dead‑end against the rock wall; her ice blade clashed with claws, throwing off bright sparks. Ripples spread across the formation barrier behind her; she suddenly stepped back and leaned, letting the shadows lunge past and slam into the barrier. Azure electric light exploded, coating the ground in mechanical debris.

"You can still do this?" Zhang Jun shook off the half‑mechanical arm hanging from his left arm.

"Law of conservation of energy." Lin Xue kicked aside the smoking wreckage, ice crystals creeping up the rock wall from her fingertips, "This formation absorbs attack energy, so——"

"Using their own method against them." Zhang Jun's eyes lit up; he snatched a half‑piece of alloy armor and hurled it at the formation. The instant the barrier rippled, he leapt, the Heaven‑Man Sword wrapped with armor fragments piercing the light curtain. Metal and energy violently frothed, blinding electric arcs erupting, and the formation finally revealed a half‑meter‑wide gap.

The black figures suddenly stiffened, their electronic eyes flashing red wildly. A mechanical voice echoed through the valley: "Self‑destruct program activated." As Zhang Jun yanked Lin Xue into the gap, an orange‑red fireball exploded behind them, the blast wave slamming the pair into the cavern's stone wall.

"Cough… could we next time use a gentler way to break the formation?" Lin Xue patted the embers from her hair, ice crystals condensing in her palm into an illuminating orb. The blue light revealed the eerie runes on the cavern wall, resonating faintly with the Ice Soul Power.

Zhang Jun suddenly pressed her shoulder: "Wait!" He lifted pooled water with the sword tip; the droplets touching the rune instantly froze into ice spikes that rebounded, grazing his ear before embedding in the rock wall.

"Wang Laotou's 'method of liberation'—could it be a chain‑killing formation?" He wiped a cold sweat, the sword tip lightly touching the nearest rune. Gold‑blue light flowed along the lines, the entire cavern wall gradually lighting up to reveal the hidden star map.

Lin Xue suddenly grunted and dropped to her knees, her ice‑crystal armor shattering across her chest. Only then did Zhang Jun notice a metal shard embedded halfway in her back, purple energy seeping along the wound. "When…"

"The blast just now…" she forced a wry smile, "It feels like I hit the jackpot."

The cavern ceiling suddenly split, countless violet specks the size of fireflies pouring down. Zhang Jun flung his coat over them; the fabric instantly corroded into a thousand holes. He planted the Heaven‑Man Sword in the ground to prop up a barrier, the hilt growing too hot to grip.

"Listen," he tore off his shirt to bind Lin Xue's bleeding arm, "Later I'll pour Yin‑Yang Power into your meridians, temporarily sealing it with Ice Soul Power…"

"Are you crazy? Clashing the two forces will…"

"That's why I need you as a buffer valve." Zhang Jun forced a grim smile, "Wang Laotou said I've got a hard life." His sword blade suddenly shuddered violently; at the center of the star map rose the familiar outline of a jade pendant—the very one he'd worn since childhood.

When Lin Xue's palm pressed against Zhang Jun's spine, a chill ran through him; the numbing tingling as frost crept up his vertebrae almost made him jump. Yin‑Yang Power surged through his meridians like a wild beast trapped in a cage.

"Hold on." Lin Xue conjured two more ice spikes from her fingertips, "Any extra movement and you'll freeze your brains."

Zhang Jun gritted his teeth, stabilizing his stance. Ripples of formation energy cast fine specks of light on his retina; he suddenly noticed the ninth pattern's vibration frequency resonating with Ice Soul Power. Water droplets seeping from the cavern mouth hung suspended in midair, refracting into seven‑colored rainbow light.

"Three cun to the southeast, the Qian position offset two fen." He violently yanked off his belt buckle and flung it somewhere; the metallic clang sprayed with ice shards. Lin Xue caught on, snapping her fingers to lay ice crystals precisely over the emerging formation eye.