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Chapter 234 The Price of Life
The golden shield flickered under the bombardment of the Weaver Vanguard, and Su Wanqing's body swayed, a trace of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth.

Taking advantage of this brief respite, the five finally reached their respective designated checkpoints.

The overpass was a complete mess. Fragments of the explosion lay frozen in mid-air, resembling bizarre sculptures.

Dust not far away was defying the laws of physics and swirling back towards a broken pipe opening.

The buildings in the distance flickered between reality and nothingness, like a holographic projection with a poor signal.

Su Wanqing stood at the very top center of the pentagram, and in her mind, the complete startup program was projected onto the system interface, which was invisible to others.

She gasped for breath and quickly relayed the information: "The Pentagon Barrier is activated in three phases."

First, their respective core components must resonate completely with us.

Second, the energies of the five points must be synchronized. Finally, we act as anchor points, guiding this energy to form a permanent barrier structure.

She paused, her voice revealing no hesitation: "I must warn everyone that this process will drain a large amount of our life energy and may bring about irreversible changes."

“We are ready.” Lin Che’s voice came from the other end, simple and powerful.

Lu Zhao, Xiao Ling, and even "Ye" all confirmed their agreement with silence or slight nods.

No one has any way out.

"Phase one, resonance, begin!" Su Wanqing gave the order.

The five people acted simultaneously, pressing their own core fragments against their chests.

The golden fragments melted into Su Wanqing's skin like mercury the moment they touched it.

The next moment, a faint golden light began to flow from the blood vessels beneath her skin. The light spread upwards along the blood vessels, and her long, black hair was gradually dyed pure gold from the roots.

Lin Che pressed the blue fragment to his chest, and the Orion Sequence within him immediately reacted, emitting a buzzing sound.

Blue lines spread rapidly from his right arm, covering most of his body.

His right pupil disappeared completely, turning into a pure blue crystal that shimmered with an inhuman luster.

The emerald fragment in Lu Zhao's hand seemed to be alive. Upon contact with his skin, it turned into a liquid substance that quickly spread throughout his body. It then solidified into a layer of green armor that clung tightly to his skin and had a lifelike quality, completely enveloping him.

Xiaoling gently placed the purple fragment on her forehead.

The fragment did not trigger any dramatic sound or light effects; instead, it slowly sank into her brow, eventually leaving a closed, amethyst-like third eye mark there.

The most unexpected thing was "Night". When that flickering, dark red fragment touched his body, he felt as if he had been set on fire.

The blue Orion sequence that originally belonged to Morris beneath his skin had now been forcibly twisted into a violent red.

That mask-like, indifferent face, made of energy, gradually melted away in the red "burning," revealing for the first time a trace of pain, a trace of struggle, a trace of relief—all sorts of emotions closer to human emotions.

"Second stage, link!" Su Wanqing's voice was distorted with pain.

Five beams of light of different colors shot out from the chests of the five people, converging and linking precisely in mid-air, instantly forming a perfect five-pointed star pattern above the overpass.

A massive drain on resources began.

Su Wanqing was the first to give in and collapsed to her knees, but her arms still held the ground firmly, maintaining the stability of the central hub.

Golden energy was being frantically drained from her body.

Lin Che's body trembled violently; he could feel two forces tearing at his body.

The core energy and his own Orion sequence were mutually exclusive and conflicting, and the excruciating pain almost made him scream, his teeth biting his lips until they bled.

The green armor on Lu Zhao's body was now corroding him, the edges of the armor merging with his flesh in a grotesque mess, making it impossible to distinguish which was the external object and which was his own. Xiao Ling's body trembled incessantly, and from the tightly closed purple third eye on her forehead, droplets of purple energy, like tears, flowed out.

On the contrary, "Night" became the one with the most stable condition among the five.

But his expression kept changing, becoming less and less like the cold "Night," and more like the real Dr. Morris.

The core energy seems to be reshaping his fragmented personality.

At that moment, the Weaver Vanguard's attack intensified.

It seemed to sense the threat, and thick waves of silver energy continuously bombarded the newly formed pentagonal array.

Each impact caused the five-colored light in the air to shake violently, and also caused the five people on the ground to shudder.

When all of this reached a critical point, the giant clock phenomenon over the entire city finally went completely out of control.

The second hand began to spin wildly. Below, large swathes of the city disappeared as it spun, only to reappear in ruins the next second.

The collapse of time has already arrived.

"It's the final moment..." Su Wanqing struggled to her feet, her body swaying. The Guardian's warning in her mind turned into the most glaring blood red: "Warning: Phase 3, Anchor Point Guidance. Expected to consume 99% of life force, resulting in a permanent change in the host's form."

She nodded in confirmation without the slightest hesitation.

"bring it on!"

In an instant, an even more dazzling golden light burst forth from every pore of her body.

She stretched out her hands toward the center where the five-colored energies converged in mid-air, and five beams of energy, like guided streams, flowed into her palms.

An indescribable pain instantly pierced through her. She opened her mouth and let out a scream, but the sound was swallowed up by the distorted spacetime around her and could not be heard at all.

At this crucial moment, the Weaver Vanguard broke through the interference of the energy array. Its massive silver body transformed into a streak of light, rushing straight to the center of the array, its halo flashing with an unprecedentedly dazzling light.

"Wanqing!" Lin Che's eyes were bloodshot as he forcibly broke free from his current position and rushed towards Su Wanqing without regard for anything else.

Almost simultaneously, "Night" also moved. It abandoned its position and moved with the same swift speed, its target also being the center of the array.

The three of them unexpectedly formed a triangular structure that shouldn't exist, at the center where the core energy converged.

On Su Wanqing's system interface, alarms were sounding incessantly: "Warning! Program mutation! Energy flow is being reorganized! Warning! Warning!"

It was in this critical moment of chaos that the halo around the Weaver Pioneer's head spun violently, and dozens of energy tentacles extended from his silver body.

Most of the tentacles attacked the center of the array, but the thickest one changed direction and pointed directly at the location of Little Bell.

A cold, mechanical voice announced: "Special sample confirmed, highest priority, must be preserved."

Faced with the rapidly approaching silver tentacle, Xiaoling remained surprisingly calm, though her purple third eye on her forehead emitted a faint glow.

Upon seeing this, Lu Zhao reacted immediately. He roared, ignoring the system's warning that leaving the node would cause the array to collapse, and rushed to Xiao Ling, transforming his green armor into a thick shield.

The silver energy tentacles slammed heavily into the green armor. The two canceled each other out, unleashing a violent energy surge.

Lu Zhao grunted, and numerous cracks appeared on his armor at a visible speed.

Just as the armor was about to completely collapse, a beam of light suddenly shot out from the purple third eye on Xiaoling's forehead, incredibly freezing the silver tentacle in mid-air.

She whispered to Lu Zhao, who was standing in front of her, "Don't worry, they won't hurt me... They just recognized what I am..."

Lu Zhao was filled with confusion, but there was no time to ask further questions.

Because of the energy burst in the center, which had already swept in, an intense light that was impossible to look at instantly engulfed everything on the overpass.