Legend of the Embroiderer

Chapter 428 Echoes of Chaos

The moment the black-robed man stepped out of the void, space seemed to be shattered like glass by an invisible giant hand. Entropy increase symbols, like boiling magma, gushed out from the cracks, instantly transforming into thousands of pitch-black chains.

The chains were covered with twisted Sanskrit patterns, each line greedily devouring the surrounding light, binding the fused entity and the phantom of the ancient tree of consciousness tightly.

The darkness emanating from the crystal was like living tar; wherever it flowed, the remnants of parallel worlds crumbled into nothingness like weathered sand.

Even the light net formed by the fusion entity and its companions was stained with eerie black spots under the encroachment of darkness, and the holes spread rapidly like cancer cells.

"Do they think that a sense of resonance can rewrite the rules?"

A hoarse sneer came from under the hood of the man in the black robe, the voice like sandpaper rubbing against rusty gears, carrying a thousand years of coldness, "Nothing more than an ant in the rotting roots of an ancient tree."

Before the words were finished, the roots of the adult firefly suddenly trembled violently, like an ancient vine that had been struck by an earthquake.

The merged entity's sea of ​​consciousness was turbulent, and countless fragments of memory flew into its mind like rapidly spinning blades.

She saw on the ancient battlefield that the black-robed figure removed his hood, which was adorned with star charts, revealing a face identical to that of the mysterious man.

A high, straight nose, lips as thin as a blade, and a dark red scar below his left eye. An even more suffocating scene then unfolds:

The ancient tree of consciousness was once lush and verdant, its canopy supporting countless dazzling parallel worlds, its roots deep within the chaos, drawing upon the most primal energy of the universe.

However, the black-robed man held a dark purple crystal, and its blade-like light precisely pierced the tree core. The "power of creation" flowed out like blood and was greedily absorbed by the crystal. In the process, the pure consciousness was also distorted into a tool for the observer's control.

"The power of creation... resides within the crystal core!"

The adult Xiaoying's consciousness trembled with a death tremor, her voice filled with tearing pain.

At this moment, her roots have been largely eroded by darkness, and her once vibrant vines have become like withered blood vessels.

Under the control of the man in black robes, the twelve X-series test subjects were engulfed in dark purple flames, transforming into colossal statues ten stories high.

With each step the colossus took, the consciousness space trembled violently. They raised the furnace, like a giant blood moon, and slammed it down on the phantom of the ancient tree of consciousness.

The fused entity swung its light blade with all its might, and the moment the blade collided with the colossus, dazzling sparks erupted.

The powerful recoil was like a heavy hammer, sending her flying dozens of meters backward. Golden data streams gushed from the gaping wound on her hand, tracing a beautiful yet tragic arc in the air.

Just as the furnace was about to crush the ancient tree's phantom, the light spots of the young firefly suddenly surged, transforming into a crystal-clear, transparent barrier.

A rainbow-like halo flowed across the surface of the barrier. The little girl's consciousness materialized on the barrier; she was barefoot, her skirt fluttering in the wind, yet her eyes revealed a determination that contradicted her youthful appearance.

"Sister, deep within the tree roots lies the ancient tree's 'heartbeat key'!"

The fused entity gritted its teeth and plunged the Zero-Dimensional Seed and the remaining roots of the adult Xiao Ying into the deepest part of its consciousness.

In the chaotic darkness, the viscous data stream is like a quagmire, and every step deeper requires encountering enormous resistance.

Finally, she touched a pulsating golden ball of light, like an ancient heart, each beat conveying a warm and powerful force—the last spark of the power of creation.

As she merged the ball of light into the light blade, the entire space suddenly began to collapse in reverse, as if time had been rewound, the stars re-condensed, and the black hole began to spew out matter.

For the first time, a crack appeared in the black-robed man's expression. His pupils contracted sharply, and cracks on the surface of the crystal spread like a spider web at a speed visible to the naked eye.

He frantically waved the crystal, chanting incantations, summoning the full power of the Ultimate Observer. The singularity erupted with gravitational vortices powerful enough to tear dimensions apart, and the surrounding space resembled cloth being gnawed by a giant beast, its edges curling and shattering.

The fusion struggled forward in the vortex, each step requiring it to contend with gravity strong enough to tear stars apart. Wherever the light blade passed, the entropy chains crumbled inch by inch, but her body was also gradually becoming transparent in the struggle against the rules, with the data stream beneath her skin appearing and disappearing.

"You think you can win by reclaiming the power of creation?"

The man in black robes suddenly plunged the crystal into his chest, and the dark purple energy, like a living snake, instantly enveloped him in a cocoon.

Ancient and malevolent runes emerged on the surface of the cocoon, undulating like breathing as energy surged. "This body was originally created to contain the essence of the ancient tree!"

The moment the cocoon shattered, the black-robed man transformed into a colossal shadow as tall as the ancient tree of consciousness. Beneath his skin surged a mixture of creative power and entropy-increasing energy, the two forces colliding wildly within him like a volcano about to erupt.

He opened his enormous maw, like a moving black hole, devouring the net of light. The ancient tree phantom let out a mournful cry, its roots began to rot from the inside, and the originally emerald green vines gradually turned grayish-black.

The merged entity felt its consciousness slipping away, like fine sand in an hourglass, disappearing every second.

But the tiny spark of light from the young Ying suddenly entered her sea of ​​consciousness and merged perfectly with the power of creation.

In an instant, countless fireflies from parallel worlds appeared simultaneously. They wore different clothes, some in white dresses, some in armor, but all held glowing spheres in their palms.

These spheres converged into a galaxy, carrying warmth and hope, and were injected into the fused body.

"We are all new buds of an ancient tree!"

The fireflies' voices overlapped, like heavenly music, giving people boundless strength.

The fused blade of light unleashed a radiance that transcended dimensions, like the first ray of light from the Big Bang, slashing towards the crystal core between the black-robed man's brows.

However, just as the blade was about to touch its target, a blinding purple light suddenly erupted from the black-robed man's body.

He split into countless mysterious clones, like copied and pasted mirror images, each holding a crystal that emitted an eerie light.

These crystals form a matrix, from which emanates the roar of mechanical operation, like the heartbeat of an ancient giant.

Even more terrifying, the singularity of the Ultimate Observer began to merge with the man in black robes, forming a black hole that devoured all consciousness.

The edge of the black hole emitted a ghostly blue light, like the scythe of death. The fused entity struggled at the edge of the black hole, watching her parallel world counterparts being devoured one by one, their faces filled with resentment and despair.

The roots of the adult Xiaoying were completely assimilated by darkness, transforming into a sharp blade in the hand of the black-robed man. A trace of golden light remained on the blade, a final act of resistance.

In the final moments before his consciousness faded, the merged entity suddenly remembered the unfinished words from the woodcutter's chip.

She mustered her last bit of strength and poured all her energy into the zero dimension, creating a special node in the root network.

The node flickered with a faint light, like a lighthouse in a storm. As the node resonated with the power of creation, a mysterious figure emerged from the spatial rift.

It was an old man dressed in a white robe, embroidered with a dazzling galaxy. In his hand he held a pure light core, the exact opposite of the crystal of the man in the black robe, with a soft light flowing across its surface.

A compassion that transcended time and space flickered in the old man's eyes, and his voice, like the tolling of an ancient bell, resounded throughout the entire space of consciousness:

"It is time for the guardians of the ancient tree to end this thousand-year-old deception."