40: Chapter 12 Whispering Corridor

A cold, deathly silence once again enveloped the massive corridor. Only the heavy breathing of the three and the faint electrical sparks occasionally popping from the two sentinel wrecks on the ground broke the frozen darkness. The air was thick with the pungent scent of ozone, molten metal, and ancient dust.

Lin Feng leaned against a cold metal bookshelf, feeling a sharp pain in his brain as if it had been ground by sandpaper; every heartbeat sent a throb through his temples. Although the nosebleed had stopped, waves of mental exhaustion washed over him.

>> Cognitive Stress Level: High. Neural Fatigue Detected. Recommend Immediate Rest and Passive Recovery.

The warnings from 'Yuan' flickered at the edge of his vision, but he forced himself to ignore them. Now was not the time to rest.

Lei Kun quickly checked the surroundings, confirming there were no signs of the third sentinel returning. He walked over to the two wrecks and cautiously turned them over with his dagger. "No markings, no serial numbers. The structure... doesn't look like any standard equipment from any known Consortium or military," he said deeply, the gravity in his tone deepening further.

Ling Yue was already squatting beside the sentinel captured by the power grid. A fine interface extended from the fingertip of her new mechanical arm as she attempted to connect to the data port on the sentinel's remains. "The core processor initiated a self-destruct sequence before impact; the data was wiped clean... but the underlying architecture is a bit... strange." Her brow furrowed as Data Streams refreshed rapidly in her electronic eyes. "It's like technologies from different eras and standards were forcibly mashed together... a Frankenstein. The energy field maintaining its operation and invisibility is especially difficult to understand."

She looked up into the deeper darkness of the Library. "The things that made these... or the 'entities'... their technical prowess likely far exceeds the descriptions provided by The Engineer."

This sentence made the atmosphere even more oppressive.

"Can you continue?" Lei Kun's gaze turned to Lin Feng, asking rather than commanding.

Lin Feng took a deep breath of the cold, thin air, forcibly suppressing the stinging pain and buzzing in his mind, and nodded. "I can." He knew he was the key to finding their objective and could not fall here. He tried to mobilize the power of 'Yuan', not for scanning, but for subtle self-repair and regulation. >> Initiating Low-Level Neural Soothing. A cool, sedative-like effect slowly spread; while it couldn't cure his exhaustion, it at least suppressed the sharp pain.

"Move out." Lei Kun didn't say much and made a gesture to continue advancing.

The three resumed their tactical formation, pushing deeper into the corridor with even greater vigilance. The dust beneath their feet grew thicker, sometimes requiring careful probing to avoid falling into hidden pits. The bookshelves on both sides became taller and more distorted, and the 'collections' stored upon them grew increasingly bizarre: no longer just metal cubes and crystals, but sealed fragments of nameless biological (or non-biological) specimens, energy cores flickering with unstable ghostly light, and even complex geometric models that constantly self-replicated and then annihilated.

>> Warning: Local Reality Instability Increasing. Temporal-Spatial Anomalies Detected: Minor Time Dilation/Compression Zones Ahead.

>> Caution: Perception May Be Affected.

The warnings from 'Yuan' appeared again. Reality instability? Spatiotemporal anomalies?

Soon, they experienced it firsthand. While passing through a certain area, Lin Feng felt as though he had been walking for a long time, but looking back, he had only moved a few short meters. In another stretch, they crossed a long distance almost in the blink of an eye, causing a strong sense of vertigo. Sometimes, a vague sound of many people whispering would ring in his ears without warning, only to vanish when he listened closely.

"This damn place..." Ling Yue cursed under her breath. Her sensor readings were jumping wildly, clearly suffering from intense interference. "Is the Library just a code name? This place is basically a massive reality leak or... a graveyard?"

Suddenly, Lin Feng raised his hand to stop again, his face turning somewhat pale.

"Ahead... something's wrong." His voice was dry. "It's not an enemy... it's information... there's too much..."

In his perception through 'Yuan', the path ahead was no longer a concrete physical space, but a surging 'ocean' composed of pure information and chaotic energy! Countless fragmented images, distorted text, incomprehensible symbols, and broken logic flows slammed into the edges of his consciousness like a tsunami! Just perceiving it caused his recently calmed brain to sting with pain once more!

>> Alert! High-Volume Unfiltered Data Stream Detected! Risk of Psychic Overload! Recommend Immediate Mental Shielding!

Ling Yue's sensors also emitted a sharp alarm: "Ultra-high intensity information radiation field detected ahead! The physical structure... has vanished? Or rather, it's been warped into a carrier for information by some kind of force field!"

Lei Kun couldn't see those things, but he could feel the extremely unsettling sensation in the air ahead, a bizarre feeling as if his skin were being pricked by countless fine needles. He stopped Lin Feng and Ling Yue, who wanted to continue forward.

"We can't go straight through," he said decisively, his gaze scanning the surroundings before finally landing on a relatively stable, semi-enclosed structure formed by a massive collapsed bookshelf. "We need a plan. Charging in blindly will only get your brain fried." He looked at Lin Feng.

Lin Feng leaned against the cold metal wall, panting heavily as he struggled to break free from the torrent of information. "'Yuan'... is trying to parse it... but it's too chaotic... I need... a 'filter' or an 'anchor'..." he said haltingly.

"Filter? Anchor?" Ling Yue thought quickly, her gaze sweeping over her new mechanical arm and the equipment they had brought. "Maybe... we could try to establish a reverse information sieve? No, not enough energy... or... resonance? Using some kind of stable frequency from the Library itself?"

She suddenly looked at Lin Feng. "Rookie! Can you... instead of parsing that information, try to perceive the area 'itself'? For this area to form such a bizarre information ocean, there must be a 'source' or a 'core law'! Find it, like how you passed through the energy membrane before, and let us 'synchronize' across instead of resisting it!"

It was an incredibly bold hypothesis. Synchronizing oneself to this area of chaotic space-time and informational anomalies?

Lin Feng closed his eyes, resisting the pervasive information noise with all his might. He retracted the depth of 'Yuan's' perception, no longer trying to understand the fragmented Data Streams, but instead feeling for the underlying 'fluctuations' and 'rhythms' of the area, as if lightly touching a flowing stream.

>> Directive Shift: From Data Parsing to Ambient Resonance Analysis.

>> Scanning Fundamental Vibrational Frequency of Local Space-Time...

This process was even more difficult than fighting an enemy, like searching for a specific, constantly moving needle amidst raging winds and waves. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, and his body trembled slightly.

Lei Kun and Ling Yue stood guard tensely by his side, alert for danger that could appear from any direction.

Time passed minute by minute. Just as Lin Feng felt he could no longer hold on—

>> Pattern Recognized. Fluctuating Resonance Core Located. Attempting Synchronization...

He snapped his eyes open, a tired but bright light flashing within them. "Found it! Follow me! Every step must perfectly match my rhythm! Don't be fast, and don't be slow!"

He took a deep breath and was the first to step into that bizarre area where space itself seemed slightly distorted.

With one step, it was as if he had stepped into a kaleidoscope. The surrounding scenes changed wildly—fragmented historical images, incomprehensible mathematical formulas, and distorted biological forms surged past his vision and mind like a tide. But miraculously, the direct sense of informational impact was lessened, as if they had become 'shadows' with the same frequency as the environment, passing through without being completely drowned by its content.

Lei Kun and Ling Yue followed closely behind, strictly following Lin Feng's pace and rhythm. Ling Yue's new mechanical arm recorded this strange frequency, while Lei Kun used his incredible body control to mimic Lin Feng's movements without the slightest error.

This stretch of the path was traversed extremely slowly and with great difficulty, like dancing on the edge of a blade. Lin Feng's mental strength was being consumed at an alarming rate, supported entirely by his willpower.

An unknown amount of time passed; it felt like an instant, yet also like an eternity.

Suddenly, the frantic torrent of information and the sense of spatial distortion receded like a tide.

The three stumbled forward, finding themselves standing in a relatively calm area. Looking back, the ocean of information behind them was like a massive, constantly churning and rotating halo, completely cutting off the path they had come from.

They were now standing at the top of a wide Spiral Staircase leading deeper into the core of the earth. The stairs were made of some dark, non-metallic, non-stony material, with a surface as smooth as a mirror yet devoid of any reflection, as if it could absorb all light. Below the staircase was a bottomless, heart-stopping darkness, with only the stairs themselves emitting an extremely faint cold light that seemed to come from ancient times.

At the entrance to this Spiral Staircase stood a heavily damaged stone tablet.

The material of the tablet was the same as the stairs, covered in unrecognizable characters and symbols that did not belong to any known civilization. These symbols themselves seemed to be slowly flowing and changing; looking at them for too long made one dizzy.

But at the very center of the tablet, one symbol remained relatively stable.

It was an extremely simple geometric pattern consisting of two nested, constantly rotating rings.

The moment they saw this pattern!

Lin Feng, Ling Yue, and even Lei Kun—all three felt their hearts skip a beat almost simultaneously!

Lin Feng's 'Yuan' ability activated automatically, his vision flooded with blue Data Streams! >> Pattern Recognized! Correlation to "initial protocol" Fragments: 99.97%!

The Data Stream in Ling Yue's mechanical eye surged wildly! "This... this energy signature... it shares the same source as the underlying logic of the core algorithms The Engineer gave me?!"

Even Lei Kun subconsciously gripped his weapon, his brow furrowing. "...It feels... familiar... like I've seen it somewhere..."

Lin Feng's sensation was the strongest! He didn't just 'see' the symbol; he 'felt' a faint yet incredibly deep and ancient 'calling' coming steadily from the deepest part of the Spiral Staircase! It was creating a powerful resonance with the 'Yuan' inside him!

"It's here..." Lin Feng's voice carried a hint of unbelievable trembling as he pointed down the Spiral Staircase leading into the endless darkness. "The fragments of the 'initial protocol'... are down there."

The goal was finally in sight, but this staircase, emitting an ominous cold light and leading to an unknown abyss, was like the open maw of a giant beast, waiting to swallow any intruder.

The brief calm ended; a deeper, more unknown adventure was about to begin.

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