Chapter 815: Exit!

Three giant pythons simultaneously sprang down from a pipe spanning overhead, their bodies intertwining in the air, blocking every possible evasion space on the right.

The Foot‑long dagger slashed horizontally, its blade tracing a pink arc of light that spread, killing three with a single strike.

The three snakes were cut simultaneously; the green data fragments at the severed ends exploded like phosphorescent powder blown by wind, fluttering down.

Immediately following the follow‑through of the first slash.

Ying, at the moment of sheathing the blade, rotated the Foot‑long dagger 180 degrees, using the recoil to slash upward at an angle, the tip precisely piercing the lower jaw of a giant python that had ambushed from the upper left.

The blade pierced the snake's upper jaw, exiting through the crown, trailing a massive plume of viscous green data stream.

The snake's body convulsed violently a few times, slipped off the blade, and shattered into powder in midair.

Third, fourth, and fifth strikes, Ying's cutting rhythm quickened, each slash precisely severing a giant python.

The pink Light Arc traced by the blade in the air almost merged into a sheet, weaving a shifting pink light net among the dark‑green swarm of snakes.

The Magic Staff constantly altered its trajectory at high speed, Heimu's control over the flight path displayed to the fullest within this intricate pipe maze.

She slipped sideways through the narrow gap between two intersecting pipes, made a sharp turn around a corridor wreck spanning overhead, dove sharply to evade three giant pythons lunging from the front, then immediately surged upward through the gap above them.

Each directional change was so precise it seemed the angle and timing had been pre‑calculated; in fact, Heimu was indeed computing.

Her global scan was continuously updating the positions, speeds, and predicted trajectories of all surrounding threats; her mind processed data from dozens of movement paths simultaneously, then plotted a flight route for the Magic Staff that stayed one step ahead of the snake swarm.

But the number of snakes kept increasing.

They proliferated at an utterly irrational speed.

Thirty‑four, sixty‑eight, one‑thousand‑two; Heimu was already too lazy to refresh the signal count, each refresh doubling the number.

The entire space was filled with green snake shadows, surging outward like a pierced wasp nest, ejecting at various angles and drawing dense green trails in the air.

Ying still swung the blade.

But Heimu could feel her knees clenching tighter than before; the pressure on the staff was rising at a visibly perceptible rate, causing a slight tremor in the staff itself.

Heimu snapped a sharp turn left, the Magic Staff skimming the edge of a thick pipe, carving a semicircular arc.

Ying, behind her, followed the momentum with a downward diagonal slash; within the fan‑shaped sweep, three giant pythons were simultaneously cut at the waist.

Data fragments exploded, flashing under the interwoven dim‑purple and eerie‑green light. More snakes had already pursued.

"They're getting more and more."

"Got it!"

The Magic Staff made another sharp turn.

This time upward; Heimu pulled the staff into a right‑angled upward thrust, nearly lying flat on the staff, her ash‑gray hair streaming down.

Ying, following the flow, slashed the Foot‑long dagger backward at an angle, the blade sliding along the staff's tail, the tip precisely severing a giant python attempting to bite the tail from below.

After the snake's head was cut off, it spun several times in the air, opening and closing its mouth repeatedly, then dissolved into green data.

Heimu glanced quickly at the System Panel while soaring upward at high speed.

The view on Xi Lian's side remained static; the position coordinates showed no change.

She was still some distance from that signal point; at the current speed, continuing upward would eventually reach it.

But the current problem was that she wasn't sure how long these snakes would keep chasing.

Do they have a fixed attack range?

Is Mei Bi Wu Si controlling them remotely, or has some automatic defense mechanism been triggered?

These entities are generated from Data Space, meaning they can proliferate infinitely; as long as the underlying data isn't destroyed, killing any number is useless.

"Ying," Heimu said.

"Hmm," Ying replied, slashing a snake that lunged from the side, the Foot‑long dagger leaving a long pink light tail in the air.

"Do you think these snakes have any pattern?"

Ying was silent for the duration of a slash.

"Their attack angles are shifting. At first they came from random directions all around. Now over seventy percent pursue from below. Attacks from above and the sides are decreasing."

She paused, then flicked the Foot‑long dagger back,

Heimu was silent for a moment.

She lowered her head to glance downward.

The layered pipes and corridors had already accumulated below into an extremely distant, deep mass of darkness; the green snake swarms flickered densely within that shadow, so numerous that individual outlines were indistinguishable, only a vast expanse of green light sea rising at a breakneck speed.

She had an ominous premonition, but there was no time to ponder.

"Black Curtain Lady."

Ying suddenly spoke, her voice a half step louder than before.

Heimu followed her gaze to the upper right.

Several hundred meters away, a massive pipe bore a crouching snake.

That snake was at least five times larger than the other pythons, its body so thick that when coiled on the pipe it wrapped around more than half its circumference.

Its head differed; atop it sprouted a pair of horns formed from condensed dark‑green data streams, the horn shafts curving backward, their surfaces densely etched with continuously scrolling code.

The two green glints in its eye sockets shone brighter than any snake.

It crouched there, head lowered, its overly bright eyes staring straight at Heimu.

Heimu and the snake locked eyes for a moment.

The snake opened its mouth.

Its mouth contained no code, only pure darkness, from which a voice emerged.

The voice was hoarse and deep, bearing a hissing undertone that made the back of one's head tingle, like a vocal cord half‑corroded and barely cobbled together.

"Go any higher… and you won't… be able to return…"

Heimu's pupils contracted slightly.

The Magic Staff surged forward, darting sharply toward the right‑hand diagonal.

She rushed straight into a cluster of densely packed fine tube bundles, the spacing between bundles so narrow that only barely two people could pass side by side.

Ying instantly understood her intent; as the Magic Staff's shaft passed through the bundle of tubes, she continuously swung the Foot‑long dagger, opening a bow to the left and right, cutting down all the snakes that tried to squeeze into the gaps.

They sped through the bundle of tubes, the metallic surface of the conduits flashing rapidly under the Magic Staff's dark‑purple glow.

Heimu made a sharp turn at the far end of the bundle, bypassed the wreckage of an abandoned corridor, and found the upward route again.

The long‑horned giant python behind did not catch up.

It crouched at its original spot, slowly closed its mouth, and the green glint in its eye sockets still shone.

The snake swarm still pursued.

The Magic Staff's ascent speed had already been pushed to its limit.

The dark‑purple light at the staff's tail left a luminous trail that almost set the air ablaze, and the sound of breaking through echoed repeatedly between the tubes.

Heimu suddenly saw the light.

Far above, at the very top of this cylindrical space, there was a pinpoint of light.

It was pure white.

The pinpoint was expanding at an extreme speed.

Exit!

Ying swept down the last group of pursuing giant pythons with the Foot‑long dagger behind her.

The severed snake bodies rolled beneath her, turning into green data fragments, which then broke down into points of light and vanished in the darkness.

No new snakes emerged from the tube gaps; they halted at a certain distance, their dense green eyes shining in the dark, arranged so neatly as if something had pressed the pause button on them all at once.