219: Chapter 219 The Last 'Candle Dragon'

The world spun around.

The sensation of passing through the "gate" was a hundred times more intense than the previous teleportation arrays.

It was an extreme pain, as if the soul were being forcibly stripped from the flesh and tossed into a high-speed, spinning washing machine filled with chaotic space-time turbulence, repeatedly being torn and squeezed.

When that sensation vanished and his feet touched solid ground again, Lin Tianyi's first reaction was to kneel on the ground and retch violently.

"Cough... cough cough..."

Fatty and Song Yiqing were in even worse shape; both collapsed directly onto the ground, gasping for air, their faces as white as paper. Although Wang Xianzhi forced herself to remain standing, the hand holding her sword was trembling slightly.

Only Zhang Qilin was in a slightly better state. He held the warm 'Resting Soil' in his hand, and its majestic life energy was continuously repairing the damage he sustained while crossing the space-time turbulence. However, his expression at this moment was exceptionally grave.

He raised his head and looked around.

Then, everyone was completely shocked by the sight before them.

This was... a world of death.

The sky was dark purple, with two eerie "suns" that looked like giant purple pupils hanging high above, emitting a cold, sinister light that offered not a hint of warmth.

The earth was dark red. On the cracked ground, which looked as if it had been soaked in blood for billions of years, not a single blade of grass grew. At the end of their line of sight was a continuous stretch of ruins and debris, massive beyond imagination.

Those were ruins of buildings with an eerie style that defied description.

Some looked like sky-piercing towers snapped in half, some like metal domes flattened by immense force, and others were hideous, twisted structures resembling the skeletons of giant beasts.

The air was thick with the smell of sulfur, metallic rust, and a kind of... bone-deep decay and deathly silence.

There was no aura of life here. No wind, no sound, no living creatures.

Time seemed to have frozen here.

"What... what kind of hellhole is this?" Fatty struggled to sit up, his voice hoarse. "What happened to the 'Inner World'? What about the divine power? Immortality? This is damn well more desolate than the Gobi Desert!"

"We... were deceived."

Song Yiqing leaned against a fallen stone pillar and stood up with difficulty, his eyes filled with horror and despair.

"Kirin... this gate isn't the 'Gate of Life'; it's a one-way 'gate of death.' We... can't go back."

They couldn't go back.

These words were like four great mountains, pressing heavily on everyone's hearts.

Lin Tianyi whipped his head around, looking back at where they had appeared.

However, it was empty behind them.

There was no gate, no vortex, only the same desolate, dark-red Gobi as everywhere else.

They were completely trapped in this world of death.

"Hahaha... can't go back?"

Not far away, a gloating voice rang out.

The few surviving traitors and the dozen or so 'Pathfinders' warriors also began to recover from the dizziness of the space-time travel.

When they saw their surroundings and realized the "gate" had disappeared, the greed and excitement on their faces instantly turned into extreme rage and terror.

"Zhang Qilin!" the temporary commander of the traitors glared at him with bloodshot eyes. "What have you done?! You've brought us all into a place of death!"

"Invader!" the leader of the 'Pathfinders' roared as well. "You used trickery to lure us away from the embrace of the Mother of Earth! I will use your blood to wash away this disgrace!"

The two groups once again focused their hostility on Zhang Qilin and his companions.

In this desperate world, snatching the only piece of 'Resting Soil' that contained life energy became their last and only hope.

However, just as this internal conflict was about to erupt again...

A cold, emotionless voice, sounding as if it were synthesized from the friction of countless metals, suddenly echoed through the heavens and earth from deep within the ruins.

It was not any known language.

But the meaning it contained was clearly transmitted into everyone's minds through a kind of mental resonance.

[Detecting... life signals...]

[Unregistered... organisms...]

[Executing... 'Purification'... protocol...]

The moment the voice ceased...

Crack— Crack-crack—

The entire ruin area seemed to come alive!

The collapsed towers, twisted metal structures, and debris buried deep underground... their surfaces split open one after another, and countless mechanical eyes flashing with red light lit up from the darkness!

Several massive, spider-like metal creations crawled out of the ruins, their multiple mechanical legs making a piercing sound as they scraped against the ground.

Humanoid mechanical soldiers with skeletons made entirely of metal, holding spears flickering with electric arcs, rose from beneath the ground to form neat phalanxes.

Even more impressively, in the sky, cruise aircraft resembling metallic pterosaurs spread their massive metal wings, blotting out the two purple suns!

In an instant, they were surrounded by a massive, cold, and destructive... Mechanical Legion!

These were the true... "aborigines" of this world!

And in the eyes of these steel monsters, these creatures of flesh and blood were merely... viruses that needed to be "purified"!

[Inside the livestream, the dark screen suddenly lit up]

After a few seconds of static, a flickering image with heavy interference stubbornly reconnected.

The perspective of the footage seemed to come from a spare micro-device on Lin Tianyi with a stronger signal transmission power.

When all the viewers saw that dark-red wasteland and the overwhelming Mechanical Legion, the entire livestream fell into an absolute silence for a full ten seconds.

Then, there was a blowout of completely frenzied comments!

[My god!!! What is this?! Transformers vs. Aliens?!]

[The signal is back! But... I'd rather it hadn't! What the hell is this place?!]

[The place of exile from the last epoch... so the things exiled... were these?! This is a graveyard for a mechanical civilization?!]

[It's over, it's completely over! It was human infighting before, but now it's upgraded to fighting an alien mechanical civilization! How can they even fight this?!]

[Professor Li from the Kyushu Ancient History Research Institute]: The myths... they were real! 'Guixu'... the place where all things end... It is recorded in ancient texts that celestial demons once invaded and were defeated by the joint efforts of the ancient ancestors, who then banished them along with their 'Dharma tools' to Guixu, never to return... We... we are witnessing the continuation of an ancient mythical war!

...

Upon the Guixu Wasteland.

Facing this overwhelming army of steel, whether it was the arrogant traitors or the fearless 'Pathfinders,' faces were filled with unprecedented fear.

Their energy weapons and their totem powers seemed so small and laughable before such a massive and despair-inducing Mechanical Legion.

This wasn't a battle; this was... a massacre.

"Fire!"

The traitor commander let out a desperate roar.

Particle beams, energy arrows, giant axes... everyone exerted their full strength to launch attacks at the nearest mechanical monsters!

However, their attacks hit the metal shells of those mechanical creations only to produce a series of weak sparks, failing to leave even a single scratch!

In contrast, the counterattack of the Mechanical Legion was devastating.

Swoosh— swoosh— swoosh!

Hundreds and thousands of scorching red laser beams poured down from all directions like a torrential rain!

Ah—!

Screams rang out one after another.

A 'Pathfinder' warrior was instantly pierced by several laser beams; before he could even wail, he was turned into a piece of charcoal.

A member of the traitors tried to block with an energy shield, but the shield lasted for less than a second before being completely shredded by the dense firepower, and he himself was blasted into a mist of blood.

In just one exchange, more than half of the two groups chasing them were dead or wounded!

"Split up and run!"

Zhang Qilin made a split-second decision and growled at the four people beside him.

In the face of such blanket firepower, staying together made them sitting ducks!

"Run deep into the ruins! Find cover!"

Lin Tianyi's military instincts allowed him to make the correct judgment instantly. In the open ground, they had zero chance of survival!

The five of them no longer hesitated, exerting all their strength to dash toward that massive, maze-like area of ruins!

Laser beams constantly grazed past them, scorching deep, bottomless holes into the ground.

A giant rock they had just run past was hit by a thick beam of light and instantly turned to dust!

Death was close at hand!

Just as they were about to rush into a cover made of massive metal debris, a huge, rhinoceros-like four-legged mechanical beast blocked their path.

Its massive single eye flashed with red light, locking onto them.

A dark cannon muzzle slowly opened on its forehead, and terrifying energy began to gather within it!

"It's over!" Fatty watched the gathering energy, the color draining from his face.

At this critical moment, Zhang Qilin suddenly took a step forward, shielding everyone.

He held the 'Resting Soil' in his hand high!

Then, he unreservedly poured the sliver of Divine Dragon Bloodline power he had just recovered into it!

Buzz—!!!

The 'Resting Soil' erupted with an unprecedented, soft, and holy white light!

That light formed a massive, semi-transparent energy shield, tightly enveloping the five of them!

Under the stimulation of Zhang Qilin's bloodline, this artifact of creation displayed its "defensive" form for the first time!

Boom!!!!

The destructive beam of energy slammed violently against the white shield!

The entire earth trembled violently!

The energy shield, like glass struck by a giant hammer, was instantly covered in spiderweb-like cracks!

Zhang Qilin bore the brunt of the impact, and a mouthful of blood sprayed out!

His body, which had not yet recovered from its heavy injuries, simply could not sustain such a massive energy drain for long!

"Go, now!"

He roared with his last ounce of strength.

Lin Tianyi and the others did not dare to hesitate for a second. They pulled him along and, in the final second before the shield shattered, ducked behind a massive, curved metal plate!

With a loud crash, the shield shattered.

And they finally escaped the direct line of fire of the Mechanical Legion for the time being.

The five of them leaned against the cold metal wall, panting heavily, their faces written with the shock of a narrow escape.

"Kirin!" Fatty anxiously supported the swaying Zhang Qilin.

The light of the 'Resting Soil' in Zhang Qilin's hand had become extremely dim, and he himself was pale as gold, his aura withered to the extreme.

Forcing the activation of the 'Resting Soil' had completely exhausted him.

The crisis was not over.

Outside, the mechanical footsteps of the Mechanical Legion's "purification" were drawing closer step by step.

They had only temporarily moved from a large dead-end into a small cage.

And in this world of death, how were they to find... that sliver of hope for survival?

Suddenly, Song Yiqing seemed to discover something. He reached out a trembling hand and pointed to the inner wall of the giant metal plate they were leaning against.

On it, there were actually... words carved!

They weren't products of a mechanical civilization, but Chinese characters hurriedly carved with some sharp tool!

The handwriting was scrawled and full of despair, yet it carried a trace of unwilling hope.

[We... failed.]

['Guixu' is a trap; this is the 'Purifiers' cage.]

[But... hope is not severed.]

[In the center of these ruins, beneath the core hub of the 'Purifiers,' their... 'The Creator' is suppressed.]

[Find Him, awaken Him.]

[He... is the only variable.]

[— 'Tomb Guardian', the last 'Torch Dragon', final words.]

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