119: Chapter 119 I'm in a good mood today

A crisp sound like bone cracking! Metal limbs kicked up a sky full of black sand, charging straight toward the strange rock!

"Go!"

Shen Xiao gave a low shout, and the Silver Pattern wrapped around both of them. Instead of fleeing backward, they skimmed close to the ground, narrowly brushing past the edges of the detection beams of the other two Mechanical Beetles, and dashed sideways into a more rugged area of scattered rocks on the left!

Their movements were so fast they left afterimages, yet they were precisely controlled to walk that subtle line between "panicked flight" and "premeditated plan".

Behind them, the provoked Metal Beetle emitted a sharp hum, its speed increasing further. The detection beams of the other two also instantly turned, the three ghastly white beams like life-reaping chains, locking firmly onto their backs!

The ground was carved with deep white marks by the sharp limbs, and gravel sprayed everywhere.

"Their detection mode is switching... from area scanning to focused tracking."

Xia Lengbai spoke at a rapid pace while being dragged by Shen Xiao. The pattern on her left arm continued to emit a low heat as the Mechanical Beetles drew closer, and that vague sense became increasingly clear, "The energy circuits... have a hierarchy. The head is the terminal, and the chest... has an energy node similar to a core, but it's protected by layers..."

"I know."

Shen Xiao interrupted her, his voice distorted by the rushing wind, "The point is the route."

The Silver Pattern quietly spread under his feet. It wasn't to increase speed, but to extremely subtly leave behind a few almost imperceptible, faint traces of energy on the ground.

These traces were not spiritual power, but "waste" he had drawn out from the leakage of those broken Meridians in his body, carrying fragmented Dao rhymes. The aura was faint and chaotic, just enough to simulate the "traces" leaked by two people fleeing in a panic.

He was drawing a circle.

An invisible circle that appeared hasty but was actually slowly closing in.

The nearest Mechanical Beetle had chased them within twenty zhang. The detection beam from its head was no longer just a simple beam, but began to emit low-frequency, mentally unsettling vibrations, attempting to interfere with the prey's judgment.

The other two were vaguely flanking from the left and right, the rhythm of their metal limbs striking the ground beginning to synchronize, forming an oppressive drumbeat.

Shen Xiao gave Xia Lengbai a sharp tug, and they came to a sudden stop, turning and flashing behind a huge, tilted black rock slab that looked like it could collapse at any moment.

Almost simultaneously, the three detection beams "slapped" onto the rock slab, leaving scorching white marks.

"Can you 'feel' their turning logic?"

Shen Xiao leaned against the rock and asked quickly, fine beads of sweat seeping from his forehead. It wasn't from the heat, but from the immense consumption caused by the overloaded operation of the Silver Pattern, fighting against his internal injuries and the erosion of external energy.

He could feel that the "stock" of the Silver Pattern had decreased by another chunk.

Xia Lengbai closed her eyes, her brow furrowed, her entire focus immersed in the strange sensation in her left arm.

"Turning... has a delay. They share a vague 'net', but each unit has an independent response priority. When attracted by a strong signal, they will temporarily ignore some coordination..."

Before she could finish, the rock slab shook violently!

The nearest Mechanical Beetle seemed to have lost patience, or rather, its simple logic circuit determined that the "prey" had nowhere to escape, and its sharp front limbs, like giant chisels, struck fiercely at the edge of the rock slab!

Gravel crumbled and sprayed, smoke and dust filling the air.

"Now!"

A fierce look flashed in Shen Xiao's eyes.

Xia Lengbai did not hesitate. The red light of the pattern on her left arm lit up again. This time it wasn't a tentative thread, but a relatively clear fluctuation carrying a distinct aura originating from the same source as the "ruins," which she deliberately directed toward her feet—not for attack, but for... contact.

Hum!

The Mechanical Beetle striking the rock slab suddenly froze, its head detection beam flickering wildly, as if it had received a chaotic, contradictory command: the prey signal was extremely amplified, but the source location had a slight deviation from the visual lock-on point.

Its core logic experienced a momentary stutter.

In that one-hundredth of a split second of stuttering.

Shen Xiao moved.

He did not rush out. Instead, he used all the Silver Pattern power he could muster at that moment to hurl the few inconspicuous dark silver metal fragments he had been clutching in his hand—picked up from the corner of the spherical space in the ruins—in three different directions!

The fragments broke through the air silently, their trajectories tricky. They were not aimed directly at the Mechanical Beetles, but at the ground beside them, rock crevices, and... the nodes of the invisible energy network between them!

Puff! Puff! Puff!

The fragments landed without exploding or making a loud noise, but the moment they embedded into the ground, those chaotic Dao rhyme traces Shen Xiao had left behind on the ground seemed to be instantly "ignited"!

A chaotic, fragmented, and irregular surge of energy, all originating from the same source (all from Shen Xiao's broken Meridians), exploded violently!

It was not an attack, but contamination.

It was as if three colorful, wildly flickering "signal bombs" had been suddenly thrown into the calm detection network maintained by the three Mechanical Beetles!

Hum!!!

The three Mechanical Beetles simultaneously emitted shrill shrieks!

Their detection beams were completely messed up, flickering wildly in different directions, locking on, and then losing the target.

The coordination rhythm between them was completely disrupted, and two of them even nearly tripped over their own limbs!

Their core logic was frantically processing these suddenly emerging, highly similar yet chaotic and contradictory signal sources, and for a moment, they couldn't even attend to the "real prey" right in front of them.

Shen Xiao pulled Xia Lengbai up. This time, it was a real, full-effort escape. The direction was not away in a straight line, but toward the area on the left where the scattered rocks were densest and the terrain most complex.

The Silver Pattern was constrained to the extreme around his body, only able to maintain the most basic concealment.

Behind them, the shrieks of the Mechanical Beetles and the chaotic sound of limbs striking the ground continued for several breaths. Then, that rhythmic humming sound rang out again, but the tempo was more than twice as fast as before, carrying a kind of... cold "anger" after being toyed with.

They had re-locked onto the target and were chasing at an even faster speed, but the distance between them had widened compared to before, seemingly guarding against being collectively interfered with again.

Shen Xiao didn't look back and said in a low voice to the panting Xia Lengbai beside him:

"The more urgently it chases, the more the 'net' is stretched, and the clearer the nodes become."

Xia Lengbai understood instantly. She forced herself to ignore the burning and stinging sensation from the pattern on her left arm caused by the approaching Mechanical Beetles, and immersed the vast majority of her focus into that vague sensation.

She "saw" it.

In the moment the three Mechanical Beetles were chasing frantically and the network was tightened by speed and anger, the originally vague energy circuit landscape, like stones under water appearing due to turbulent currents, suddenly became a fraction clearer.

Especially... the Mechanical Beetle chasing at the very front, which was the most aggressive and therefore had the most active connection with the "net." The position and structure of that core node deep within its chest, protected by layers of runes, were glimpsed in her perception.

"The one chasing the craziest."

Xia Lengbai spoke at a rapid pace, her breathing unstable,

"The lower left of the core protection... has an old repair mark, and the energy flow is half a beat slower than elsewhere."

Shen Xiao's lips curled into a cold arc. Without stopping his feet, he reached back and took out the last three Medicinal Pills for restoring spiritual power from his bosom. He swallowed one himself and shoved the remaining two to Xia Lengbai.

"Eat them. Then."

He looked toward a vaguely visible, narrow depression deep in the scattered rocks ahead that looked like a dried-up riverbed, "Wait for my signal."

A faint silver light flashed in his eyes. The remaining Silver Pattern power in his body that he could freely mobilize began to run in reverse in an extremely secretive manner, quietly gathering at his right fingertips.

It was not an aggressive sharpness, but a kind of... high-frequency, subtle vibration with a strange penetrating power.

Xia Lengbai swallowed the Medicinal Pills without asking more questions, simply adjusting her physical state to the best it could be. The red light of the pattern on her left arm was tightly suppressed beneath her skin, leaving only the internal scorching sensation.

Behind them, the metallic humming was like a persistent, bone-deep affliction, getting closer and closer, that cold "anger" almost turning into a tangible cold current.

Shen Xiao stared at the narrow depression entrance that was getting closer ahead, glanced at Xia Lengbai's left arm that was slightly trembling from her all-out sensing, and finally, his gaze fell on the three Mechanical Beetles that were chasing relentlessly, but whose formation was slightly scattered due to impatience.

He took a deep breath of air laden with the heavy scent of rust and decay, and said a low sentence, his voice almost drowned out by the wind.

"It's time to go fishing."