Wizard: Starting from Escape from the Thorn Garden

The underground river flowed swiftly and was icy cold, carrying the two of them at breakneck speed through the dark underground cavern.

The Bloodthirsty Vine pattern on Chen Lin's right arm, due to overuse and the corrosive effects of Kane's Necromancer Frost, was burning with pain and an even stronger thirst for blood. The dark golden light flickered under his skin, almost impossible to suppress.

Ella's left arm had its sutures completely torn open by the violent movement and the impact of the water flow. Silvery-gray iron-corroding fungal hyphae were exposed to the cold water, wriggling and eroding the surrounding metal parts, and even began to try to spread to her shoulder, bringing excruciating pain and a cold numbness.

The light from the mechanical prosthetic eye had also dimmed considerably.

"Control... your vines!" Ella's voice was hoarse with the sound of metal scraping as she struggled to maintain her balance in the rapids, her mechanical arm gripping a protruding rock tightly.

Chen Lin gritted his teeth, grabbed two vials of high-concentration moonspot purifying solution with his left hand, and stabbed them hard into his right arm!

The pure silver light poured in like a clear spring, clashing fiercely with the raging darkness of the Bloodthirsty Vine, bringing even more intense pain, but also temporarily suppressing the vine's rampage.

He also tossed a bottle of secondary life essence concentrate to Ella.

Ella drank it without hesitation. The infusion of life energy invigorated her, and the rate at which the mycelium was eroding her left arm seemed to slow down slightly.

Her prosthetic eye scanned the surroundings: "The water flow is accelerating, there's a huge drop ahead! Prepare for the impact!"

No sooner had they finished speaking than the two were swept away by the surging water and plunged down a steep underground waterfall!

Boom!

The icy, bone-chilling waves crashed against his body, the immense impact causing Chen Lin's vision to go black.

When he struggled to the surface and wiped the water off his face, the sight before him shocked him.

It is no longer a narrow and oppressive cave.

They were swept into a wide underground river, the water of which was a strange, faintly fluorescent grayish-blue.

The riverbanks are no longer rugged rocks, but covered with thick, silvery-white moss that exudes a gentle, life-giving aura.

Although the air was still cold and damp, it lacked the suffocating, decaying necromantic smell of the Bone Swamp and the mine tunnels, and instead had a crisp, refreshing scent and moisture.

The ceiling was no longer a closed layer of rock, but a huge, interlocking natural stone dome, with sparse, pale sunlight filtering through the gaps.

Some shimmering vines hung down from the stone dome and swayed on the river surface.

"Forgotten Stream..." Ella's mechanical eye scanned the river. "One of the main underground river systems on the outskirts of the Pale Woods... We... are out."

We're out! We're out of the Thorn Garden!

Just then, Chen Lin suddenly felt a sharp burning pain in his chest!

Although the ivy badge he had discarded in the rift was destroyed, Vivian's spiritual imprint on the outer edge of his Seed of Origin remained! At this moment, this imprint, like a red-hot branding iron, flickered wildly, attempting to re-establish a connection and pinpoint his location!

Clearly, after failing to find her target in the Rift Valley, Vivian is now launching a relentless pursuit at all costs!

"Ugh!" Chen Lin curled up in pain, his Seed of Origin frantically trying to resist the erosion of the mark, but the power of the mark came from Vivian, and the level difference was too great!

"The mark!" Ella understood immediately.

Despite the excruciating pain, Chen Lin forcefully submerged his entire body into the waters of the Forgotten Stream!

The cold, living water, brimming with strange life energy, instantly enveloped my entire body.

[Upon contact with the living waters of the Forgotten Stream, a high concentration of inert life particles and a faint trace of time-residual properties were detected...]

[Start analyzing the imprint structure...]

[The imprint energy neutralizes the stream particles...]

[Tracking imprint dissolution rate: 1%... 15%... 50%... 99%!]

The prompt from the Seed of Origin was like heavenly music!

A peculiar energy within the stream is rapidly dissolving Vivian's spiritual imprint!

The burning sensation in my chest subsided and disappeared quickly, like the receding tide.

When Chen Lin resurfaced, he felt his soul lighten.

The shackles that had been clinging to my bones have finally been broken!

He looked at Ella, and their eyes reflected each other's disheveled yet resilient faces.

However, Ella's expression suddenly changed!

She suddenly looked down at her left shoulder—a thin, almost transparent ice crystal spike had somehow gotten deeply embedded in the gap of her mechanical joint!

A trace of Kane's eerie green frost magic still lingered at the tip of the spike!

"Kane's Tracking Icethorn!" Chen Lin's pupils contracted.

He was clearly hit before jumping into the underground river!

Ella tried to pull out the ice thorns with her mechanical fingers, but the ice thorns melted instantly, and a chilling necromantic energy and positioning fluctuations had already invaded through the mechanical structure!

"We must eliminate it immediately!" Chen Lin swam to Ella's side.

Without hesitation, Ella used her sharp wrist blade to slice open the contaminated metal shell on her shoulder, revealing the intricate components and wriggling mycelium corroded by gray-green energy inside.

"Moonlight Moss! Quick!" Ella's voice trembled slightly, as the iron-corroding fungus seemed to have developed some kind of "interest" in this foreign necromantic energy.

Chen Lin immediately took out the highest concentration of moonspot moss purification solution and carefully dripped it onto the eroded area.

Sizzle sizzle!

The purifying silver light clashed fiercely with the necromantic frost energy, producing wisps of blue smoke!

Ella's body trembled violently, and the light from her mechanical prosthetic eye flickered erratically.

But the pure purifying power ultimately prevailed, and the gray-green energy was quickly dissipated and neutralized.

As the last wisp of cold air dissipated, the faint positioning fluctuations also disappeared completely.

Chen Lin tore off the relatively clean inner lining of the cloak and hastily bandaged Ella's wound.

Exhausted, the two climbed up the riverbank covered with silvery-white moss and collapsed onto the soft, vibrant moss.

Through the gaps in the stone dome overhead, a cold light shone through the leaden sky.

Rain began to fall, carrying the chill unique to the pale woodland, a mixture of humus and the scent of unknown plants.

Chen Lin looked at the gradually fading dark gold patterns on his right arm, then looked at Ella, who was unconscious and whose left arm was still wriggling with mycelium.

He tore off the tattered, blood-stained pieces of his Thorn Garden apprentice robe and buried them deep beneath the thick layer of moss on the riverbank.

Where he buried the cloth, several tender shoots of newly grown ferns were stubbornly piercing the pale woodland soil, stretching out their verdant leaves.

The Seed of Origin projects a new veil of light into consciousness:

[New Talent: Necromancer Resistance (Basic)]

Raindrops fell on Ella's cold, metallic arm armor, splashing tiny, pale blue sparks, like the faint yet real pale dawn breaking in the darkness.

Meanwhile, at the top of the distant Thorn Garden, Vivian stood amidst the devastation of the Howling Rift explosion.

Beneath her feet lay the twisted remains of Chen Lin's specially made metal box, and half a badge fragment, charred and deformed in the flames of energy, yet still bearing the recognizable ivy pattern.

Her exquisite face was expressionless, only her emerald eyes held a chilling storm deep within, enough to freeze the soul. She stretched out her slender fingers and gently stroked a newly sprouted vine shoot of the Demon Vine Chaos outside the window, its tendrils bearing an eerie dark golden hue.

"Run away, my lovely little fruit..." Her voice was as soft as a lover's whisper, yet it froze the surrounding air. "Grow well in the shadows of the pale forest... Your origin, your evolution... will ultimately belong to Chaos, to... me."