110: Chapter 110 Echoes Begin to Queue

They are coming.

The last two words were swallowed by the shadows surging from the depths of the corridor.

That was no metaphor; the gray-black mist seemed to have been imbued with mass and life, mixing with countless, even denser, and more twisted "Echoes" faces, forming a slow-advancing yet unstoppable wall of waves.

The wailing sounds coalesced into a low-frequency roar, directly shaking the Soul; even the "oil paint" ground beneath their feet began to pulsate rhythmically, like a massive, filthy heart beginning to revive.

Shen Xiao's back was pressed against the cold, squirming wall. Although his Silver Pattern was dim, the instinct based on "recording" and "analysis" was still running frantically.

He stared fixedly ahead at the area barely illuminated by the faint light of the Tomb Guardian Seal; the movement trajectory of those rushing "Echoes" faces had changed.

It was no longer the chaotic pouncing from before.

They... were queuing.

More accurately, they were being pulled by invisible threads.

Part of them rushed toward Xia Lengbai's shield, their trajectories slightly circuitous;

The other part leaned more obscurely toward his own position, as if the restless residue and dim Silver Pattern within his body had become a lighthouse in the darkness.

And their common source, that surging wall of shadows, was accelerating its gathering due to this stable "attraction source," its momentum gradually becoming a torrent.

Charge head-on? In an instant, they would be torn to shreds by this "ordered" tide of Echoes.

"We cannot charge head-on; they are converging."

Shen Xiao turned his head, his voice kept extremely low, his speaking speed as fast as a blade scraping across ice.

The faint warmth brought by leaning against Xia Lengbai had now become a cold reference point for calculating coordinates.

The last glimmer of the Silver Pattern spread along the soles of his feet—not to detect, but to "listen," to listen to the most subtle flows of that filthy energy swamp beneath his feet.

Found it.

Those darkest, almost stagnant "oil paint" areas corresponded to the "clogged points" of the space, where the flow was slow; while the relatively brighter, faster-flowing "flow paths" were the main arteries where energy surged.

The "Echoes" were rushing in along these "fast flow paths."

A plan took shape amidst the oppression of severe pain and suffocation, carrying the ruthlessness of someone licking blood off a blade.

He raised his almost paralyzed arm and pointed to the front left.

There, an area of "oil paint" as dark red as stagnant blood, clearly flowing faster than the surroundings, was squirming like a living blood vessel.

"Xia Lengbai, use your Ice Soul Frequency Clearing." His speed was fast but not chaotic. "Not for defense, but for 'diversion.' Divert the 'Echoes' rushing at you toward that 'fast flow area' as much as possible."

He didn't say the second half.

The Silver Pattern would create a "blockage" at the edge of the "fast flow area."

What it simulated was the sharpest fluctuation when "Protocol Fragments" were touched by a contamination source.

Xia Lengbai did not look back, nor did she even blink.

But the light of the Tomb Guardian Seal around her, which had originally tightened into a shield, suddenly changed.

The radiance was no longer restrained for defense; instead, it transformed into several extremely gentle yet clearly guided ripples, like the most agile tentacles, actively "stroking" the first few faces that rushed over.

The movement was almost elegant, even carrying a hint of eerie intimacy.

But the effect was cruel.

The faces "stroked" by the ripples had their attack trajectories imperceptibly deflected, and their roaring mental frequencies also seemed to be briefly "soothed" or "misled," all of them unanimously shifting their direction toward the dark red fast flow area that Shen Xiao had pointed out.

Now!

A fierce look flashed in Shen Xiao's eyes as he almost squeezed out the last bit of Silver Pattern energy from the depths of his Dantian that he could precisely control.

That glimmer no longer spread but suddenly condensed, transforming into an invisible yet sharp "needle," piercing fiercely into the core node where the dark red "oil paint" connected to the corridor wall—the "acupoint" of energy flow.

Simulation, activate.

Not the complete protocol fluctuation; that would instantly drain him.

Instead, it extracted the most core "feature," infinitely magnifying its sharp aura of being "violated" or "disturbed," like throwing a red-hot branding iron into stagnant water.

Hum...!

That dark red area suddenly shrank inward, as if time had frozen for a frame.

Immediately after, it was boiling!

"Echoes" several times more numerous than before, deeper and darker red in color, and more twisted and hideous in form, surged crazily out of that "oil paint" like an enraged swarm of bees, or like a bursting sea of blood!

They emitted mental fluctuations far more violent and primitive than the previous faces; this was the indiscriminate rage of the lowest-level contamination source after being stimulated by a "foreign object."

These dark red "Echoes" didn't care about direction at all; they pounced on every active energy source. The first to suffer were the "Echoes" faces of various colors that had been "diverted" over by Xia Lengbai.

Two torrents of different colors and properties, yet equally filled with malice and hunger, slammed into each other in the narrow corridor!

No sound could describe this collision.

It was not a physical roar, but a nuclear explosion on the mental level.

Countless chaotic roars, painful wails, and venomous curses overlapped, annihilated, and were reborn in an extremely short time, forming a twisted "noise" storm enough to cause any living being's consciousness to collapse.

Energy turbulence splattered uncontrollably, gray-black and dark red "oil paint" devoured and dissolved each other, bursting into clusters of filthy light and flames.

The corridor was instantly blocked.

The path to the depths was completely sealed off by the two torrents of "Echoes" crazily devouring each other and the explosive energy turbulence.

"Hah..." Shen Xiao felt a sweetness in his throat and suddenly bent over, spitting a mouthful of black blood containing fragments of internal organs onto the soft "ground," which was immediately absorbed, leaving only a small, rapidly fading stain.

The backlash of the Silver Pattern had arrived.

The "needle" that simulated the protocol fluctuation shattered the moment it pierced out—not because energy was exhausted, but because its structure was forcibly torn apart by the feedback from that crazy contamination source.

His Dantian felt like it was being repeatedly pierced by countless red-hot fine needles; his vision went completely black, and all that remained in his ears was the buzzing of his own rushing blood and the screeching of the energy turbulence.

Xia Lengbai also groaned, a thin line of pale golden blood spilling from the corner of her mouth.

The consumption of maintaining the "diversion" and resisting the frontal impact was immense; the unstable mass of contamination energy within her was stimulated by the extreme Chaos outside, causing it to churn violently once again.

The Light Cocoon was rocked by the energy turbulence behind her, but the light of its icy blue patterns remained exceptionally stable.

Just at the moment when Shen Xiao was about to lose consciousness and his body was collapsing along the wall.

A faint, yet exceptionally clear, and even slightly urgent thought, like an ice pick piercing through the Chaos, stabbed directly into the depths of his mind.

It didn't come from the outside, but from the Light Cocoon.

"Left... fissure... fast..."

The thought was sharp and urgent.