Chapter 251: The Core of Resonance
The spore mist inside the cavern churned slowly, like a pool of stagnant black water being stirred. The primary priest crouched at the very top of the fungal mycelium platform. Its scales were a dark, gloomy purple, and its body was covered with fine, fluorescent fungal patterns that brightened and dimmed in rhythm with the flow of its psychic power. Its body was more than twice the size of an ordinary secondary priest. The tentacles on both sides of its head were thick and tough; with every slight tremor, a circle of invisible psychic ripples diffused outward, merging into the resonance network of the entire rift.
The seven secondary priests surrounding the platform opened their vertical pupils simultaneously. They turned their heads in unison, their gazes locking onto the four individuals at the fork all at once. Receiving the command, the patrolling scaled beasts on the perimeter lowered their bodies, pressed their bone spikes against the ground, and slowly converged in a fan shape, sealing off their path of retreat bit by bit. They did not immediately charge; the primary priest intended to use the resonance ripples to slowly grind these four intruders into dust.
An invisible wave of psychic force slammed into the Sea of Consciousness of the four individuals instantly.
The female support soldier let out a muffled groan, her steps stumbling. She had to brace herself against the rock wall to barely stand. Her temples throbbed violently, and the psychic wounds left from before were viciously torn apart. The miner's head buzzed with a deafening roar, and countless broken illusions floated before his eyes—the tentacle worms and worm swarms he had seen in the cellar and the crevice. He desperately shook his head, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his steel hammer. The military police officer leaned his back against the rock wall, his short blade held horizontally across his chest, his jaw clenched tight. The barriers of his Sea of Consciousness were washed away by the ripples layer by layer, cracks continuously spreading.
Lin Yan bore the brunt of the attack. The bottom of his Sea of Consciousness was already covered with hidden injuries left by spore erosion. When this resonant impact struck, it was as if countless fine needles were piercing into his brain simultaneously. Excruciating pain spread through his nerves to his entire body. His vision blackened briefly, and a metallic sweetness surged to his throat. He forcefully swallowed the blood back down, circulated his remaining ancient martial arts mental techniques, gathered his Sea of Consciousness, and desperately guarded his mind to prevent himself from being dragged into the illusions.
"Don't resist the resonance! Make slight evasive movements in rhythm with the ripples! Brute-forcing it will only shatter your Sea of Consciousness faster!" Lin Yan's hoarse voice pierced through the chaotic psychic buzzing to reach his companions' ears. "The target is the primary priest on the platform. The secondary priests are amplifiers. Unless we kill the primary priest, we will never be able to withstand this!"
As his voice fell, he took the lead and stepped out of the fork where they had been hiding.
Two first-tier scaled beasts pounced first, their bone spikes crossing as they thrust straight at his chest and abdomen. Lin Yan's footsteps were unsteady. Dragged down by his injuries, his speed was far below his peak. He could only turn his body to narrowly dodge, his short blade slashing diagonally to slice open the forelimb of one scaled beast. Dark green blood splattered onto his old wound on his forearm. The burning pain of the corrosion, superimposed with the agony in his Sea of Consciousness, brought a dual torment surging over him.
The military police officer rushed out right behind him, swinging his short blade to force back the other two closing scaled beasts, tearing an inward thrusting gap for the miner and the female support soldier. Clutching his rock hammer, the miner stared fixedly at the primary priest at the top of the platform. Disregarding the continuous auditory hallucinations in his ears, he lowered his head and charged forward. The female support soldier steadied her mind, her short dagger specifically targeting the soft armor areas on the sides of the scaled beasts' eyes and their lower jaws. Every strike aimed for maximum efficiency to conserve stamina.
The encirclement continued to shrink. More and more scaled beasts poured out from the rock caves on both sides of the cavern. They were not charging mindlessly; under the coordination of the secondary priests, they rotated their attacks. One wave would pull back as the next stepped up, continuously draining the four fighters' physical and mental stamina. The secondary priests continuously fed psychic power to the primary priest. The resonance ripples grew stronger with each wave, causing the spore threads throughout the entire cavern to tremble in unison, making the very air feel as if it were vibrating.
One secondary priest diverted a stream of psychic power to lock onto the miner individually, weaving an illusion in his Sea of Consciousness: the shelter pod breached, the scout and the remaining squad members all slaughtered in a gruesome death. The miner's footsteps suddenly halted, his pupils shrinking abruptly as his movements froze in place.
"Don't get trapped!" Lin Yan caught sight of this from the corner of his eye and let out a loud shout. Simultaneously, he diverted a sliver of his Sea of Consciousness power to crash into the miner's chaotic psychic node.
The miner trembled all over, the illusion shattering. Breaking out in a cold sweat, he dared not let his mind wander again and swung his rock hammer fiercely at the skull of the scaled beast pouncing toward him.
The cost was that the burden on Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness grew heavier. A hidden injury tore open, bringing a wave of dizziness. Seizing the opening, a scaled beast struck him with its tail whip, hitting him hard on the waist. The old wound instantly tore open again. Warm blood soaked through his bandages and flowed down his thigh. He stumbled and fell to one knee, his short blade bracing against the rock to keep him from completely collapsing.
"Lin Yan!" The female support soldier panicked and wanted to break free to support him, but she was死死 entangled by two scaled beasts and could not get away.
On the platform, the primary priest slowly raised its head. Its tentacles stretched out widely, preparing to brew a concentrated psychic impact. This strike was not a continuous wash, but a single-point explosion. Once it hit, it would be enough to instantly tear apart a person's Sea of Consciousness barrier. Its vertical pupils locked firmly onto Lin Yan, who was kneeling on the ground. It had identified this human as the core of the squad; as long as he was eliminated first, the remaining three would be no threat.
A condensed, bone-chilling coldness suddenly took shape deep within Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness.
"Watch out! It's going for a single-shot impact!" Lin Yan roared a warning to his companions while simultaneously using his remaining strength to shrink his Sea of Consciousness inward, gathering all his psychic power into a single point to prepare to take the blow head-on.
Just as the psychic impact was about to be released, the military police officer seized a gap in the entanglement and threw an explosive charge he had prepared at his waist. The charge drew an arc through the air and landed on the flank of the secondary priests' formation.
Boom!
Firelight and rubble exploded outward. Two secondary priests closest to the blast failed to dodge in time and were blown to pieces, their psychic links severed instantly. The resonance network instantly lost two nodes, and the ripples experienced a brief moment of chaos. The lethal impact the primary priest had been brewing was forced to deflect, grazing the edge of Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness and smashing heavily into the rock wall beside him, causing the surface of the rock to crack with dense, spiderweb-like patterns.
The opportunity was fleeting.
"Now!" Lin Yan took advantage of the window of resonance chaos. Ignoring the gushing blood from his waist, he fiercely pushed himself up with his short blade and sprinted at full speed toward the platform.
The remaining secondary priests panicked as they hastily tried to reconnect their links, mobilizing the scaled beasts to desperately block him. Three scaled beasts stood in front of the platform's steps and pounced at Lin Yan simultaneously. Instead of retreating, Lin Yan pressed forward. Unleashing his ancient martial arts footwork at its absolute limit, his short blade danced. He stabbed through the throat of the first scaled beast, then used the momentum to turn sideways, his blade deflecting the bone spikes of the second. He took the claw of the third scaled beast squarely on his shoulder. Amidst the excruciating pain, his blade followed the momentum and pierced into its neck.
The three scaled beasts fell one after another. New wounds were added to his body. Bathed in blood, he finally stepped onto the bottom tier of the fungal mycelium platform.
Seeing this, the primary priest stopped maintaining the resonance and leaped down from the platform. Its thick forelimbs, bearing sharp claws, struck straight down at the top of Lin Yan's head. Its physical strength far surpassed that of ordinary secondary priests; this single strike was enough to shatter a skull.
Lin Yan raised his blade to block. With a loud clang, the massive force traveled through the hilt to his arm. His short blade nearly slipped from his grasp. His knees buckled, and he knelt heavily onto the fungal platform, the soft mycelium soaked through with his blood.
"I'll hold it off! You go clear the remaining priests!" Lin Yan roared through gritted teeth, desperately entangling the primary priest. His short blade continuously clashed with the enemy's sharp claws. Every exchange pulled at his wounds all over his body, and the blood in his vision grew thicker and thicker.
The miner and the female support soldier immediately divided their tasks. Bypassing the two locked in combat, they split up to hunt down the remaining four living secondary priests. Without the primary priest fully maintaining the resonance, the remaining secondary priests fought individually. Their threat dropped sharply, but they still knew how to cover for each other, continuously releasing fragmented psychic interference to stall for time.
The military police officer guarded the entrance to the platform, fending off the endless waves of outer scaled beasts rushing up. His back had already been raked with several wounds, and his breathing was so heavy he could barely keep up.
The primary priest's attacks grew increasingly frenzied, alternating between sharp claws and thick tail whips. It knew clearly that once all the secondary priests were killed, the entire resonance network would be completely scrapped, and the psychic barrier intercepting the human assault formation on the front lines would collapse directly. It had to kill Lin Yan as quickly as possible to stabilize the situation.
With a horizontal tail swipe, Lin Yan had nowhere to dodge. He took the blow squarely to the chest and was sent flying backward, crashing into a fungal mycelium pillar on the platform. A massive mouthful of blood sprayed onto the milky-white mycelium. He slid to the ground, struggling to get up. His limbs felt as heavy as lead, and the hidden injuries in his Sea of Consciousness had torn open on a massive scale. His vision overlapped in layers, and his consciousness teetered on the edge of sinking into darkness several times.
The primary priest walked over slowly, looking down at him from above. Its vertical pupils carried a chilling murderous intent as its tentacles slowly raised, preparing to pierce Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness.
Just then, a mournful shriek came from the left.
The miner brought his hammer down, crushing the skull of the last secondary priest.
All the secondary priests were completely wiped out.
Throughout the entire cavern, the all-encompassing, continuous psychic resonance was like a snapped harp string, dissipating instantly.
In the direction of the distant main passage, the continuous psychic giant waves that had been pressing down so hard that the assault troops couldn't lift their heads collapsed in an instant. The burden on the frontline suppression vehicles suddenly eased. The soldiers' chaotic Sea of Consciousness slowly calmed, and the artillery fire from the assault armor once again poured down densely, forcing the beast tide to retreat step by step.
Sensing the rupture of the resonance network, the primary priest's mind fell into chaos, and it turned its head to look at the position where its companions had fallen. It was this one second of distraction.
Lin Yan seized this sole gap. Suppressing all the excruciating pain in his body, he channeled every last ounce of his remaining psychic and physical strength into his short blade. Sliding forward close to the ground, blade pointing upward, he pierced precisely into the weakest gap between the scales on the primary priest's chest and abdomen.
The primary priest's entire body convulsed violently, emitting a soundless psychic wail that made the entire cavern buzz. Its thick tentacles lashed out wildly, smashing heavily into Lin Yan's back. Lin Yan let out a muffled groan, but he gripped the hilt tightly and continued to twist the blade inward.
Thick, dark green blood gushed out along the blade.
A few seconds later, the primary priest's massive body lost all its strength and collapsed heavily onto the fungal mycelium platform. Its tentacles drooped limply, no longer emitting a single trace of psychic fluctuation.
The core of the resonance was destroyed.
The remaining scaled beasts in the cavern, deprived of all psychic coordination, fell into chaos and charged around aimlessly. Panting heavily, the military police officer, the miner, and the female support soldier leaned against the rock wall for a brief respite, their gazes falling upon Lin Yan, who was slumped beside the platform.
Lin Yan released the hilt of his blade and leaned backward, resting half against the fungal pillar. His chest heaved violently, and blood flowed endlessly from the various wounds on his body. He had not fainted; he simply lacked the strength to even lift his hand. The hidden injuries in his Sea of Consciousness had reached a critical point, and he would be unable to mobilize any psychic power in the short term.
"We did it..." The miner's voice trembled as he looked toward the main passage. "The pressure on the front lines should be greatly relieved."
The female support soldier glanced around the chaotic cavern. "We can't stay here long. The signal of the primary priest's death will soon reach the supreme ruler deep underground. It will definitely dispatch high-tier combat power to clear the area. We must evacuate as quickly as possible and return to the shelter pod."
Lin Yan nodded slightly, his gaze turning toward the exit of the cavern leading to the main rift. He could vaguely perceive an extremely heavy, terrifying psychic aura rapidly approaching from the deepest part of the rift.
The supreme ruler had already sensed the collapse of the core.
End of Chapter.
The seven secondary priests surrounding the platform opened their vertical pupils simultaneously. They turned their heads in unison, their gazes locking onto the four individuals at the fork all at once. Receiving the command, the patrolling scaled beasts on the perimeter lowered their bodies, pressed their bone spikes against the ground, and slowly converged in a fan shape, sealing off their path of retreat bit by bit. They did not immediately charge; the primary priest intended to use the resonance ripples to slowly grind these four intruders into dust.
An invisible wave of psychic force slammed into the Sea of Consciousness of the four individuals instantly.
The female support soldier let out a muffled groan, her steps stumbling. She had to brace herself against the rock wall to barely stand. Her temples throbbed violently, and the psychic wounds left from before were viciously torn apart. The miner's head buzzed with a deafening roar, and countless broken illusions floated before his eyes—the tentacle worms and worm swarms he had seen in the cellar and the crevice. He desperately shook his head, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his steel hammer. The military police officer leaned his back against the rock wall, his short blade held horizontally across his chest, his jaw clenched tight. The barriers of his Sea of Consciousness were washed away by the ripples layer by layer, cracks continuously spreading.
Lin Yan bore the brunt of the attack. The bottom of his Sea of Consciousness was already covered with hidden injuries left by spore erosion. When this resonant impact struck, it was as if countless fine needles were piercing into his brain simultaneously. Excruciating pain spread through his nerves to his entire body. His vision blackened briefly, and a metallic sweetness surged to his throat. He forcefully swallowed the blood back down, circulated his remaining ancient martial arts mental techniques, gathered his Sea of Consciousness, and desperately guarded his mind to prevent himself from being dragged into the illusions.
"Don't resist the resonance! Make slight evasive movements in rhythm with the ripples! Brute-forcing it will only shatter your Sea of Consciousness faster!" Lin Yan's hoarse voice pierced through the chaotic psychic buzzing to reach his companions' ears. "The target is the primary priest on the platform. The secondary priests are amplifiers. Unless we kill the primary priest, we will never be able to withstand this!"
As his voice fell, he took the lead and stepped out of the fork where they had been hiding.
Two first-tier scaled beasts pounced first, their bone spikes crossing as they thrust straight at his chest and abdomen. Lin Yan's footsteps were unsteady. Dragged down by his injuries, his speed was far below his peak. He could only turn his body to narrowly dodge, his short blade slashing diagonally to slice open the forelimb of one scaled beast. Dark green blood splattered onto his old wound on his forearm. The burning pain of the corrosion, superimposed with the agony in his Sea of Consciousness, brought a dual torment surging over him.
The military police officer rushed out right behind him, swinging his short blade to force back the other two closing scaled beasts, tearing an inward thrusting gap for the miner and the female support soldier. Clutching his rock hammer, the miner stared fixedly at the primary priest at the top of the platform. Disregarding the continuous auditory hallucinations in his ears, he lowered his head and charged forward. The female support soldier steadied her mind, her short dagger specifically targeting the soft armor areas on the sides of the scaled beasts' eyes and their lower jaws. Every strike aimed for maximum efficiency to conserve stamina.
The encirclement continued to shrink. More and more scaled beasts poured out from the rock caves on both sides of the cavern. They were not charging mindlessly; under the coordination of the secondary priests, they rotated their attacks. One wave would pull back as the next stepped up, continuously draining the four fighters' physical and mental stamina. The secondary priests continuously fed psychic power to the primary priest. The resonance ripples grew stronger with each wave, causing the spore threads throughout the entire cavern to tremble in unison, making the very air feel as if it were vibrating.
One secondary priest diverted a stream of psychic power to lock onto the miner individually, weaving an illusion in his Sea of Consciousness: the shelter pod breached, the scout and the remaining squad members all slaughtered in a gruesome death. The miner's footsteps suddenly halted, his pupils shrinking abruptly as his movements froze in place.
"Don't get trapped!" Lin Yan caught sight of this from the corner of his eye and let out a loud shout. Simultaneously, he diverted a sliver of his Sea of Consciousness power to crash into the miner's chaotic psychic node.
The miner trembled all over, the illusion shattering. Breaking out in a cold sweat, he dared not let his mind wander again and swung his rock hammer fiercely at the skull of the scaled beast pouncing toward him.
The cost was that the burden on Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness grew heavier. A hidden injury tore open, bringing a wave of dizziness. Seizing the opening, a scaled beast struck him with its tail whip, hitting him hard on the waist. The old wound instantly tore open again. Warm blood soaked through his bandages and flowed down his thigh. He stumbled and fell to one knee, his short blade bracing against the rock to keep him from completely collapsing.
"Lin Yan!" The female support soldier panicked and wanted to break free to support him, but she was死死 entangled by two scaled beasts and could not get away.
On the platform, the primary priest slowly raised its head. Its tentacles stretched out widely, preparing to brew a concentrated psychic impact. This strike was not a continuous wash, but a single-point explosion. Once it hit, it would be enough to instantly tear apart a person's Sea of Consciousness barrier. Its vertical pupils locked firmly onto Lin Yan, who was kneeling on the ground. It had identified this human as the core of the squad; as long as he was eliminated first, the remaining three would be no threat.
A condensed, bone-chilling coldness suddenly took shape deep within Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness.
"Watch out! It's going for a single-shot impact!" Lin Yan roared a warning to his companions while simultaneously using his remaining strength to shrink his Sea of Consciousness inward, gathering all his psychic power into a single point to prepare to take the blow head-on.
Just as the psychic impact was about to be released, the military police officer seized a gap in the entanglement and threw an explosive charge he had prepared at his waist. The charge drew an arc through the air and landed on the flank of the secondary priests' formation.
Boom!
Firelight and rubble exploded outward. Two secondary priests closest to the blast failed to dodge in time and were blown to pieces, their psychic links severed instantly. The resonance network instantly lost two nodes, and the ripples experienced a brief moment of chaos. The lethal impact the primary priest had been brewing was forced to deflect, grazing the edge of Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness and smashing heavily into the rock wall beside him, causing the surface of the rock to crack with dense, spiderweb-like patterns.
The opportunity was fleeting.
"Now!" Lin Yan took advantage of the window of resonance chaos. Ignoring the gushing blood from his waist, he fiercely pushed himself up with his short blade and sprinted at full speed toward the platform.
The remaining secondary priests panicked as they hastily tried to reconnect their links, mobilizing the scaled beasts to desperately block him. Three scaled beasts stood in front of the platform's steps and pounced at Lin Yan simultaneously. Instead of retreating, Lin Yan pressed forward. Unleashing his ancient martial arts footwork at its absolute limit, his short blade danced. He stabbed through the throat of the first scaled beast, then used the momentum to turn sideways, his blade deflecting the bone spikes of the second. He took the claw of the third scaled beast squarely on his shoulder. Amidst the excruciating pain, his blade followed the momentum and pierced into its neck.
The three scaled beasts fell one after another. New wounds were added to his body. Bathed in blood, he finally stepped onto the bottom tier of the fungal mycelium platform.
Seeing this, the primary priest stopped maintaining the resonance and leaped down from the platform. Its thick forelimbs, bearing sharp claws, struck straight down at the top of Lin Yan's head. Its physical strength far surpassed that of ordinary secondary priests; this single strike was enough to shatter a skull.
Lin Yan raised his blade to block. With a loud clang, the massive force traveled through the hilt to his arm. His short blade nearly slipped from his grasp. His knees buckled, and he knelt heavily onto the fungal platform, the soft mycelium soaked through with his blood.
"I'll hold it off! You go clear the remaining priests!" Lin Yan roared through gritted teeth, desperately entangling the primary priest. His short blade continuously clashed with the enemy's sharp claws. Every exchange pulled at his wounds all over his body, and the blood in his vision grew thicker and thicker.
The miner and the female support soldier immediately divided their tasks. Bypassing the two locked in combat, they split up to hunt down the remaining four living secondary priests. Without the primary priest fully maintaining the resonance, the remaining secondary priests fought individually. Their threat dropped sharply, but they still knew how to cover for each other, continuously releasing fragmented psychic interference to stall for time.
The military police officer guarded the entrance to the platform, fending off the endless waves of outer scaled beasts rushing up. His back had already been raked with several wounds, and his breathing was so heavy he could barely keep up.
The primary priest's attacks grew increasingly frenzied, alternating between sharp claws and thick tail whips. It knew clearly that once all the secondary priests were killed, the entire resonance network would be completely scrapped, and the psychic barrier intercepting the human assault formation on the front lines would collapse directly. It had to kill Lin Yan as quickly as possible to stabilize the situation.
With a horizontal tail swipe, Lin Yan had nowhere to dodge. He took the blow squarely to the chest and was sent flying backward, crashing into a fungal mycelium pillar on the platform. A massive mouthful of blood sprayed onto the milky-white mycelium. He slid to the ground, struggling to get up. His limbs felt as heavy as lead, and the hidden injuries in his Sea of Consciousness had torn open on a massive scale. His vision overlapped in layers, and his consciousness teetered on the edge of sinking into darkness several times.
The primary priest walked over slowly, looking down at him from above. Its vertical pupils carried a chilling murderous intent as its tentacles slowly raised, preparing to pierce Lin Yan's Sea of Consciousness.
Just then, a mournful shriek came from the left.
The miner brought his hammer down, crushing the skull of the last secondary priest.
All the secondary priests were completely wiped out.
Throughout the entire cavern, the all-encompassing, continuous psychic resonance was like a snapped harp string, dissipating instantly.
In the direction of the distant main passage, the continuous psychic giant waves that had been pressing down so hard that the assault troops couldn't lift their heads collapsed in an instant. The burden on the frontline suppression vehicles suddenly eased. The soldiers' chaotic Sea of Consciousness slowly calmed, and the artillery fire from the assault armor once again poured down densely, forcing the beast tide to retreat step by step.
Sensing the rupture of the resonance network, the primary priest's mind fell into chaos, and it turned its head to look at the position where its companions had fallen. It was this one second of distraction.
Lin Yan seized this sole gap. Suppressing all the excruciating pain in his body, he channeled every last ounce of his remaining psychic and physical strength into his short blade. Sliding forward close to the ground, blade pointing upward, he pierced precisely into the weakest gap between the scales on the primary priest's chest and abdomen.
The primary priest's entire body convulsed violently, emitting a soundless psychic wail that made the entire cavern buzz. Its thick tentacles lashed out wildly, smashing heavily into Lin Yan's back. Lin Yan let out a muffled groan, but he gripped the hilt tightly and continued to twist the blade inward.
Thick, dark green blood gushed out along the blade.
A few seconds later, the primary priest's massive body lost all its strength and collapsed heavily onto the fungal mycelium platform. Its tentacles drooped limply, no longer emitting a single trace of psychic fluctuation.
The core of the resonance was destroyed.
The remaining scaled beasts in the cavern, deprived of all psychic coordination, fell into chaos and charged around aimlessly. Panting heavily, the military police officer, the miner, and the female support soldier leaned against the rock wall for a brief respite, their gazes falling upon Lin Yan, who was slumped beside the platform.
Lin Yan released the hilt of his blade and leaned backward, resting half against the fungal pillar. His chest heaved violently, and blood flowed endlessly from the various wounds on his body. He had not fainted; he simply lacked the strength to even lift his hand. The hidden injuries in his Sea of Consciousness had reached a critical point, and he would be unable to mobilize any psychic power in the short term.
"We did it..." The miner's voice trembled as he looked toward the main passage. "The pressure on the front lines should be greatly relieved."
The female support soldier glanced around the chaotic cavern. "We can't stay here long. The signal of the primary priest's death will soon reach the supreme ruler deep underground. It will definitely dispatch high-tier combat power to clear the area. We must evacuate as quickly as possible and return to the shelter pod."
Lin Yan nodded slightly, his gaze turning toward the exit of the cavern leading to the main rift. He could vaguely perceive an extremely heavy, terrifying psychic aura rapidly approaching from the deepest part of the rift.
The supreme ruler had already sensed the collapse of the core.
End of Chapter.