214: Chapter 213 The Rainbow Road Before the Crack! The Little Tower Absorbs Gray Fog

Lin Feng leaned against the platform of a broken wall and stuffed the last Green Wood Spirit Fruit into his mouth.

The flesh was crisp and sweet, and after being chewed, a warm essence of the wood attribute slid down his throat.

Deep within his Meridians, those fine cracks were gently wrapped by this soft vitality, and the dull pain lessened by a few more degrees.

The self-healing power of the Source of Life was also continuously operating. Although the recovery speed wasn't fast, it was steady and persistent; every fifteen minutes, the cracks faded a bit more.

He ate the fruit while watching Xiao Guang slaughtering everything in sight not far away.

The Dark Energy Cannon barrel on the mecha's right arm had already finished cooling, and the pale blue propulsion flames were exceptionally conspicuous under the dim sky.

The mecha transformed into a streak of black lightning, darting back and forth through the Void Beast swarm, taking out one with each shot from the right arm's Dark Energy Cannon and one with each strike from the left arm's Alloy Combat Blade.

Those Void Unicorn Hounds and Stone Scorpions were blasted into grayish-white debris as soon as they crawled out from the depths of the ruins, not even getting a chance to close in.

Xiao Jin squatted next to Lin Feng's shoulder, its antennae held high, responsible for sentry duty.

Its Soul-Confusing Incense wasn't very effective against these scattered small Void Creatures, so it simply saved its energy. Occasionally, when it spotted one trying to bypass the mecha for a flank attack, it would point it out to Lin Feng with its antennae.

Lin Feng casually swung his sword, and the golden sword light of the dragon slaying sword split those few fish that escaped the net in half from a great distance.

A thick beam of Annihilation Breath, as wide as a water bucket, suddenly shot out from the depths of the ruins on the left, aiming straight for the mecha's back.

Xiao Guang didn't even turn its head; the folding wings on the mecha's back unfurled, a short-range Spatial Warp was instantly activated, and the mecha vanished from its spot.

The next second, it appeared behind the Void Shadow Leopard that was the source of the breath, and the Alloy Combat Blade on its right arm slashed into the joint of the leopard's waist and abdomen carapace.

The Shadow Leopard let out a miserable scream and tried to turn around, but the mecha's left foot thruster had already spat out flames as it stomped its head into the rubble.

"Seventh one."

Xiao Guang's voice came through the mecha's loudspeaker, its tone gradually shifting from the initial excitement to a certain mechanical flatness.

Killing Void Beasts had gone from being "exhilarating" to "annoying," and then from "annoying" to pure muscle memory.

It even started boredly humming the chorus of some pop song through the loudspeaker while firing the cannon.

Just as the mecha's blade split open the carapace of the eighth Void Stone Scorpion, that familiar grayish-white mist drifted out from the debris on the ground.

Wisp by wisp, as if forcibly extracted from the wreckage by something, it reconverged in the air above the street into a fist-sized mass, churning and squirming, trying to burrow back into the depths of the ruins.

Deep within his Sea of Consciousness, the Small Golden Tower reacted almost at the same instant.

Lin Feng could clearly feel the entire process—first, a circle of extremely faint warm-golden halo spread out from the base of the tower, covering the entire Sea of Consciousness as if confirming the range.

Immediately after, the tower door on the third floor popped open on its own, and a golden beam of light shot out from the open door, precisely ensnaring that mass of gray mist before it had time to flee.

The moment the gray mist was ensnared, it let out a short, weak hiss and struggled desperately, its tentacles thrashing left and right within the golden beam.

But the Small Tower gave it no chance at all; the beam retracted, cleanly and efficiently dragging it into the third floor.

The tower door closed, and the hissing stopped abruptly.

Lin Feng leaned against the broken wall, biting into the fourth spirit fruit he had just taken out, his expression already very calm.

This was already the third mass.

From the moment the Small Tower first actively absorbed the gray mist after the Aggregate died until now, it had already absorbed three masses in a row.

Each mass drifted out from the wreckage of Void Beasts slain by Xiao Guang; some from the corpses of Single-Horned Dogs, some from the remains of Stone Scorpions, and one mass was a mixture from a Shadow Leopard and some unknown flying Void Beast.

Regardless of the source, the Small Tower accepted them all, stuffing every bit into the third floor.

"Why did it absorb another mass?"

Xiao Guang controlled the mecha to walk back, crouching down and flattening its left palm for Lin Feng to move onto.

The Dark Energy Cannon barrel on the mecha's right arm was still emitting faint smoke, and the chassis was covered in grayish-white debris and dark purple spots from evaporated void energy fluid.

"Are you feeding it? Didn't you say it only absorbed one earlier?"

"Where would I get so many? It's absorbing them on its own."

Lin Feng moved onto the mecha's palm and adjusted himself into a comfortable position leaning against the mecha's fingers.

"It seems the third floor is specifically for locking these things up. It swallows them whenever it encounters them, not being a picky eater at all."

Xiao Guang was silent for a moment, then controlled the mecha to retract the right arm's Dark Energy Cannon and pop out the left arm's Alloy Combat Blade to continue clearing the path.

"I remember now. Back in the Secret Realm, that sacred item spirit that tried to drag you into an illusion for Possession was also directly taken out by the Small Tower. The energy residue of that spirit was countless times stronger than this gray mist; if the Small Tower could swallow it in one gulp back then, swallowing these now is just a casual task."

Lin Feng nodded and looked down at the golden light patterns faintly showing through the Meridians on his chest.

The Small Tower was indeed undergoing a subtle, silent transformation.

Previously, it only passively counterattacked when its host encountered a fatal threat, like when it erupted with massive energy during the Possession battle with the item spirit in the Secret Realm.

Later, it began to actively absorb external treasures and Materials to strengthen its own abilities.

Then, it became capable of automatic Alchemy and could sense its host's intentions.

Now, it could even autonomously judge which foreign intruders should be sucked into the third floor for imprisonment and which should be directly refined.

This autonomy was growing stronger, and every move it made was perfectly timed—neither overreacting and wasting energy nor turning a blind eye to real danger.

It was like a friend he had gotten to know, who slowly no longer needed to be asked for every single thing, but simply began to share his burdens naturally.

They continued forward.

On the road ahead, there were still many interceptions by Void Creatures. After every kill, the Small Tower would punctually light up with golden light to suck the residual gray mist from the wreckage into the third floor.

Xiao Guang's reaction went from initial surprise to a conditioned reflex while cutting down enemies—splitting open a Single-Horned Dog's head, blasting its torso with the Dark Energy Cannon, and when the gray mist drifted out, the Small Tower would collect it itself, no need to worry.

Occasionally, some masses of gray mist were larger than before and tried to slip past the mecha's legs into the deeper ruins, but no matter how they maneuvered, the Small Tower would cast a golden light net and collect them all.

In this manner, they traveled for another half-day and finally arrived directly beneath that Seven-Colored Rift.

Seen from a distance, this rift looked like a wound hacked into the horizon by a giant's axe, with seven colors of light churning and flowing, magnificent but remote.

Now, standing on the ruined plaza directly beneath it and looking up, the feeling had completely changed.

It was no longer the magnificence of a distant view, but a close-at-hand, overwhelming, almost divine grandeur.

The bottom of the rift was a long distance from the ground, and seven-colored light poured down from the edges of the opening.

Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple—the seven colors intertwined and slowly swirled, forming a light screen so vast it defied description.

The light screen extended upward almost vertically, becoming brighter the higher it went, so bright that one couldn't even see where the edges of the rift itself were.

Occasionally, an arc of light would splash out from the depths of the opening, tracing a long arc in the air before dissipating into the gray sky.

All void energy around the rift had been completely evacuated, forming an absolute vacuum zone with a considerable radius.

But strangely, even though the void energy had been evacuated, the air was not peaceful.

The seven-colored light itself was radiating some kind of extremely gentle but ubiquitous energy pulse.

This pulse was not void energy, nor was it spiritual power, but something Lin Feng had never felt before.

It throbbed rhythmically like a heartbeat, and each throb would make the rubble beneath his feet vibrate slightly, as if the entire world were rising and falling with its breath.

Xiao Guang retracted the mecha and landed back on Lin Feng's left shoulder, looking up at the rift.

Its palm-sized mouth hung slightly open, the tablet in its hand forgotten and unswiped. It stood dazed for a long time before finally speaking with difficulty.

"Even that Primordial Daoist who sealed the Taotie in the ancient era didn't have such an exaggerated display. The Primordial Sealing Array was a pure energy array base with runic chains, and the colors weren't even complete. That person's Seal and this light are simply not on the same level—if the Primordial Daoist's sealing array was a firefly, this rift is a rainbow."

Xiao Jin also jumped down from his right shoulder, lying flat on a warped concrete slab at the edge of the plaza, looking up at the massive light screen.

The slowly swirling halos of seven colors were reflected in its two compound eyes. The purple light patterns on its antennae were no longer flashing, but were glowing extremely quietly and imperceptibly, as if listening to some kind of summons.

It had never seen this kind of light from its birth until now, but its Bloodline told it that this light had something to do with it.

Lin Feng stood directly beneath the light screen and looked up for a long time.

The seven-colored light was reflected on his face, dyeing even his black pupils into shifting rainbow colors.

Within the Small Tower in his Sea of Consciousness, it seemed to have also sensed the unusual nature of this rift. The tower body rotated slightly, and the dark-golden light of the third floor flickered gently, as if responding to something.

There seemed to be some kind of faint but definite energy resonance between the gray mist it had swallowed earlier and the seven-colored light emitted by this rift, like two pieces of the same magnet that had been separated for a long time and had finally sensed each other's familiar presence.

He retracted his gaze and noticed that the bottom of the rift was not where the light was most dense.

At the junction of the light screen and the ground, the distribution of the seven colors was uneven—purple and blue were more prevalent on the left, red and orange were more prevalent on the right, while green and yellow overlapped in the middle to form a blurry narrow band.

And directly beneath this narrow band, there was an inconspicuous gap at the edge of the opening. The air around the gap was slightly distorted, and from time to time, one or two Void Creatures would fly in and out of the gap.

Those Void Beasts flying out from the rift were similar in size to their counterparts outside, mostly common types like Single-Horned Dogs and Stone Scorpions, but when their carapaces were illuminated by the seven-colored light upon entering the vacuum zone, a very faint iris could be seen slowly fading away.

This indicated they had absorbed some kind of energy inside the rift, and after bringing it out, it was being repelled by the seven-colored energy field.

They didn't dare stay in the vacuum zone and hurried away as soon as they flew out, as if they were in a rush to transport something.

"Lin Feng, you're not really planning to go in, are you?"

Xiao Guang lowered its voice. Its tablet finally lit up, showing an energy fluctuation map around the rift; the complex curves of intertwined colors were more chaotic than all the data from before.

"Ancient scrolls record that the Primordial Daoist who sealed the Taotie in the ancient era only borrowed a portion of the Seven-Colored God's energy, and that rift is countless times stronger than the Primordial Daoist's sealing array."

"We're already here."

Lin Feng threw the last spirit fruit pit into the ruins and clapped his hands as he stood up.

"Let's go in and take a look. If you're afraid, wait outside for backup."

"Who said I'm afraid!"

Xiao Guang put away the tablet, pulled a mecha capsule from its Storage Ring, and pressed it onto the ground.

The over-three-meter-tall black mecha landed steadily on the rubble-strewn ground, and it whooshed into the cockpit.

"Let's get this straight: if the system crashes inside, I'm not looking after you."

Xiao Jin buried its head into the pocket of Xiao Guang's combat suit, leaving only a pair of constantly twitching antennae tips showing.

It recognized this move—it was just like that back in the Secret Realm. Saying 'we're already here'... next time he says those four words, it must definitely plug its ears beforehand.