At the same time, on the other side, six long needles hovered around Lin Jie.

Lin Jie tried to raise his arm to break through, but he felt like an insect sealed in half-dried cement.

Taking a deep breath, the Silencer in his right hand was vibrating frantically, trying to sever the invisible spiritual links in the surrounding air.

"Fsss—"

A distorted ripple appeared in the air before Lin Jie, forcibly tearing a corner of the needle force field.

Though the gap was only the size of a basketball, it was enough for Lin Jie.

He pushed off with his feet.

"Bang!"

Lin Jie's figure became a blur, attempting to charge through that gap.

But at the critical moment just as he was about to cross the boundary, a silver point of light suddenly appeared on his inevitable path.

A seventh needle. Vera merely flicked her finger lightly.

That long needle precisely filled the gap cut open by the Silencer.

Lin Jie felt his body slam into an elastic rubber wall.

His forward momentum solidified, then reversed to act upon his bones.

Excruciating pain erupted from all over his body.

Lin Jie grunted, forcefully bounced back to the center of the cage by that reaction force, landing heavily on the ground.

"Useless."

Vera's voice remained languid, carrying an elegance that bred despair.

"Your blade is sharp. Your shoes are interesting. And that vambrace on your hand, and that trench coat that can deflect attacks."

As she spoke, she manipulated the silver spider, continuously drawing new long needles from the metal box.

"You have so many Grotesque Armaments on you, it's like a general store. But as I see it, there's no connection between them."

"You're like a greedy child, stuffing all the pretty stones you find into your pocket, but you don't know how to build a house with them."

These words struck Lin Jie's heart like a sledgehammer.

He raised his head, looking at the woman standing high above.

Vera only had two armaments on her: the Eternal Anchor Needle and the Weaver's Assistant.

But she used these two things to their absolute limit.

Needles for control, the spider for auxiliary operation and defense.

The two complemented each other, constructing an impregnable combat system.

Looking at other top hunters...

The Sculptor Galliard had only a camera, yet could toy with time.

Skullcrusher Hawk had only an axe, yet could cleave through any obstacle.

Even William only focused on his gun and those eyes.

Only Lin Jie.

At this moment, he suddenly realized that the "versatility" he had always prided himself on was actually a kind of "mediocrity" in the face of true top-tier powerhouses.

He overly relied on these functionally diverse tools to handle different situations, neglecting to integrate them into a core system.

When facing an opponent like Vera, who had reached the pinnacle in a single ability, his scattered methods were like loose sand, collapsing at the slightest touch.

"Quality over quantity in equipment."

Lin Jie silently recited this phrase in his heart, a self-mocking bitter smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

But now was not the time for reflection, because Vera's killing intent had shifted.

That woman seemed to have temporarily lost interest in the trapped "mouse" that was Lin Jie. She turned around, her cold eyes locking onto Evelyn in the corner once more.

"I said I don't like being spied on."

Vera raised her right hand.

This time, what she held between her fingertips was not one needle, but three—a triangular formation of absolute lethality.

"Disappear."

The three long needles left her hand.

They drew three straight silver lines through the air, carrying a will to kill, sealing all possible evasion space for Evelyn.

Evelyn stood in place, her face as pale as paper.

In her glasses, those three needles were like three missiles approaching at high speed, a death countdown frantically flashing on her retina.

She wanted to run.

But her legs felt as heavy as if filled with lead.

Marcus was currently half-kneeling. The earlier hard clash with Unshakable Bedrock, while blocking Vera's first strike, had also cost him dearly.

Cracks had appeared in the bones of his right leg, his internal organs had suffered severe concussions, and blood was flowing from his nostrils and the corner of his mouth.

He saw the three long needles flying towards Evelyn, roared, and tried to stand up again.

But his body betrayed him.

The intense pain made his movements half a beat slow. He could only watch helplessly as those silver lights closed in on the fragile girl.

"Evelyn!"

Julian shouted from the other side, raising Discipline to shoot, but Vera's spider spat out a silver thread, disrupting his aim.

No one could save her, except herself.

In the second before death descended, Evelyn's mind suddenly flashed with the notes her father had left behind, and the words Phineas had said to her in the New York safehouse.

"Science isn't magic. Science is using rules."

"Electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe. It's everywhere."

Evelyn suddenly raised her left hand.

The hand wearing the Tesla Coil Glove.

This glove was originally designed to paralyze machinery or for close-quarters defense; its attack range was very short.

But at this moment, Evelyn performed an utterly insane act.

She twisted the power knob on the glove all the way to the bottom, past the red warning line.

Then, she aimed her palm at the ground beneath her feet—a piece of black basalt.

"Overload!"

Evelyn screamed.

"Zzzz—BOOM!"

Blinding blue-white arcs erupted from her palm, instantly piercing the air and injecting into the rock beneath.

This was a strong magnetic field generator.

The massive current instantly created an extremely unstable, high-intensity pulsed magnetic field.

This magnetic field spread out in a fan shape from Evelyn towards the front.

Those three high-speed flying long needles were metal.

Though they were imbued with the Continuation ability, they still hadn't escaped the category of matter.

As long as it's metal, it's affected by magnetic fields. This is the iron law of physics.

When the long needles entered the magnetic field range, their trajectories underwent extremely minute deflections.

Lorentz force clashed with grotesque rules at this moment.

"Hummm!"

A sharp metallic tremor sounded in the air.

The first needle grazed past Evelyn's left ear, severing a lock of her hair, embedding itself into the wall behind.

The second needle skimmed over her shoulder, tearing her trench coat and leaving a bloody scratch.

The third needle...

It suffered the greatest interference from the magnetic field, performing a tiny flip in the air, finally grazing the outside of Evelyn's thigh and plunging deep into the floor.

"Thud. Thud. Thud."

Three soft sounds.

Evelyn was still standing there.

She gasped for breath, black smoke rising from the glove on her left hand, the skin of her palm already burned by the high temperature.

But she was alive.

Using the most brutal scientific means, she had pried open a sliver of hope in a situation of certain death.

Vera's brow furrowed.

Looking at the teetering girl, a flash of surprise appeared in her eyes.

"Electromagnetic field?"

Vera murmured softly.

"Using magnetic force to deflect my Anchor Needles... very creative. But with this kind of overload operation, how many more times can you use that hand?"

She raised her hand again.

This time, the silver spider crawled onto her shoulder, its eight compound eyes locking onto Evelyn.

It opened its mandibles, preparing to spit the silver threads that could lock onto shadows.

Once entangled by the threads, even the strongest magnetic field couldn't save that girl.

The scales of battle tilted once more.

Lin Jie trapped, Marcus severely injured, Silas unconscious, William disarmed, Julian suppressed.

And Evelyn had played her last card. An aura of despair permeated the underground temple.

But right then.

A strange sound suddenly emerged from every corner of the hall.

It was... a kind of fine, dense, scalp-tingling gnawing sound.

"Shasha sha..."

"Crackle crackle..."

The sound was initially very faint, like mice gnawing on wood.

But after just a few seconds, this sound became a roaring tide.

The entire underground temple shook.

The bluestone slabs on the ground began to crack, countless fine fissures appearing on the surfaces of the massive granite pillars.

A large amount of dust rained down from the dome ceiling above.

"What's happening?"

Julian looked around in terror.

"An earthquake?"

"No."

Though trapped in the cage, Lin Jie could still sense the violent changes in the surrounding environment.

"Look at the corners!"

William suddenly shouted.

In the rock crevices around the temple, countless gray-white "liquids" were surging out.

That wasn't water.

It was thousands upon thousands of micro-insects, each only the size of a grain of rice.

They had gray-white carapaces and a pair of massive mandibles disproportionately large for their size.

Like a bursting dam, they gushed out from every crevice, rapidly covering the ground, walls, pillars, and... all the living people present.

Dust-devouring Mites.

This was a type of colonial UMA that lived deep within ancient ruins, feeding on spiritual residue and dust.

They normally remained dormant, only awakening when the surrounding environment experienced violent upheaval or when the structure was damaged.

And the battle just now, which could be called demolition-level, had thoroughly awakened these hungry demons that had slept for years.

"Don't let them get close!"

Vera's expression finally changed; she seemed to know the danger of these things.

She had no time to attack Evelyn, wildly swinging the long needles in her hands, trying to construct an absolute defensive circle around herself.

The spider also spat out large amounts of silver threads, attempting to weave a net to block the insect swarm.

But there were too many insects; they were everywhere.

In mere seconds, the silver thread net was devoured.

Those insects crawled onto Vera's expensive velvet gown, onto Marcus's combat boots, onto Evelyn's backpack.

And of course, they also crawled into the cage holding Lin Jie.

"Damn it!"

Lin Jie swung the Silencer, blade light flashing like lightning, shattering several insects.

But more insects pounced.

They weren't lethal.

Their mandibles were sharp, but biting a person only left small red dots, not even breaking the skin.

But the terrifying thing was the liquid they secreted.

When the first Dust-devouring Mite bit the back of Lin Jie's hand, he felt a faint sense of numbness.

Lin Jie's blade-swinging movement suddenly slowed for an instant.

The fluid, flowing slashes exhibited an extremely uncoordinated stutter.

Then came the second, the third.

As the number of bites increased, that numbing sensation rapidly spread throughout his body.

Lin Jie felt his body become incredibly heavy.

Not just the muscles, even the transmission of nerve signals slowed.

He wanted to lift his leg. After his brain issued the command, a full second passed before his thigh muscles began to contract.

This sense of delay caused severe dizziness and nausea.

"My... hand..."

Not far away, Julian let out a slurred groan.

His speech became extremely slow, like a gramophone running out of power.

He tried to raise his pistol, but that simple action was slowed down tenfold on him.

Not just actions, but thinking was also slowing.

Lin Jie discovered with horror that the sound of the rapidly spinning gears of the Mental Staircase became as sluggish as if rusted.

"Click... thud... click... thud..."

Thinking of a simple tactic, which originally took only a second, now required several seconds to construct the logic.

This was an all-around "deceleration."

Dust-devouring Mites, by secreting a special neurotoxin, suppressed their prey's movements, thoughts, and even spiritual flow to an extremely low level, then leisurely, calmly consumed their prey.

The entire battlefield was forced into slow motion at this moment.

Vera was no exception.

This "Seamstress," renowned for her elegance and precision, was now in a sorry state.

Because she couldn't even perform the initial motion of throwing a long needle.

That spider also moved as if out of oil, crawling stiffly on the ground, emitting a grating friction sound.

"Get... away..."

Vera squeezed these two words through clenched teeth.

She tried to pinch the insect crawling onto her neck with her fingers, but her fingers trembled, taking a full three seconds just to touch her own skin.

And by then, the insect had already crawled behind her ear and bitten down hard.

Lin Jie leaned against a stone pillar, gasping for breath.

His breathing rate had also slowed, his heartbeat becoming heavy and slow, each beat feeling like it drained all his strength.

But he didn't give up thinking.

Even though thinking felt as difficult as swimming in glue, he still forced his brain to operate.

This was an indiscriminate attack.

The insects had no allegiance; they attacked Lin Jie, and they also attacked Vera.

The current situation had shifted from a "one-sided" affair to a bizarre kind of "equality."

Everyone had become crippled.

Whoever could be faster than the other by even a microsecond in this slow-motion world.

Would win.

Lin Jie laboriously turned his eyeballs, looking at his left hand.

That's where he wore the Cursebreaker Vambrace.

Though the Mental Staircase was suppressed, the vambrace's own functions remained.

This modular armament forged by Arthur possessed an interference function targeting mechanical and spiritual constructs—"Curse Storm."

Dust-devouring Mites were living creatures.

But did the mechanism by which they secreted toxins, and their mode of group coordination, also follow some kind of "signal transmission" similar to machinery?

Or...

Lin Jie's gaze fell on the mechanical spider struggling to crawl on Vera's body.

That was Vera's auxiliary core.

Also her only current means of defense.

At a time when everyone could barely move, if he could paralyze that spider...

Lin Jie began trying to raise his left hand.

This action was extremely arduous.

Every muscle protested, every nerve screamed.

But gritting his teeth, he used the faint vibrations generated by the Gravity Dancer boots rubbing against the ground to stimulate his nearly numb nerves.

One inch.

Two inches.

His arm slowly rose.

Across from him, Vera seemed to sense Lin Jie's intention.

A flash of panic appeared in her beautiful eyes.

She desperately wanted to control that spider back into her hand, but the slowness of her thoughts prevented her from issuing accurate spiritual commands.

The spider was still spinning in place.

Finally.

Lin Jie's finger touched the brass button on the vambrace.

It was an extremely simple pressing action.

But at this moment, it consumed all of Lin Jie's willpower.

"Click."

The button was pressed.

A curse wave specifically targeting precise structures emitted from Lin Jie as the center.

"Zzzz—"

The first to bear the brunt was Vera's mechanical spider.

It was already struggling to operate due to the insects' gnawing. Now, struck by this chaotic curse field, its internal, precise gear mechanism instantly jammed.

"Crack."

A crisp sound, the ruby on the spider's back shattered.

It emitted a puff of black smoke and stopped moving.

Vera let out a pained grunt.

This alchemical armament was connected to her spirit. The destruction of the spider dealt a heavy blow to her already sluggish brain.

Her body swayed, finally unable to support herself, kneeling on one knee on the ground.

The long needles slipped from her fingertips, clattering as they fell to the floor.

And with the spider's failure, the insect swarm that had been held back quickly overwhelmed her.

"Ah..."

Vera let out a faint scream as she was swallowed by the sea of insects.

Though she wouldn't die, under such dense toxin injection, she would completely lose the ability to move, becoming a living statue.

Lin Jie had won.

Though he had utilized a third-party disaster, though he himself could barely move.

He had successfully made the most dangerous enemy fall first.

The insect swarm was still raging. Lin Jie felt his consciousness growing increasingly blurred.

The deceleration toxin was eroding his cerebral cortex, inducing a powerful drowsiness.

Can't sleep. If he fell asleep, it would truly be over.

He had to find a way to break the situation. These insects... what were they afraid of?

Lin Jie's gaze searched within his blurring vision.

He saw the damaged alchemy pouch at Julian's waist, from which a bottle of golden liquid was leaking.

That was... the stimulant concocted at Roscoff Harbor.

Targeting the sense of smell.

If...

Using the last of his strength, Lin Jie made an extremely minute mouth movement towards Evelyn, who was closest to Julian.

[Bottle...]

Though Evelyn couldn't move, her Echo Goggles were still functioning.

Through the goggles, she saw Lin Jie's mouth movement and also saw the leaking bottle.

That bottle was right by Julian's feet.

And Evelyn's hand, currently hanging by her side, was only a few dozen centimeters from the ground.

She only needed to use that still-warm, recently overloaded Tesla Coil Glove to touch the liquid leaking from that bottle.

High temperature.

Volatilization.

Evelyn understood.

She desperately tried to control the one little finger she could still move.

It was an extremely arduous process.

Like using consciousness to push a mountain.

Finally.

Her fingertip touched that puddle of golden liquid.

Though the glove had overloaded and failed, the residual heat on it was still astonishing.

"Fsss—!"

The liquid violently vaporized the instant it contacted the high temperature.

An intensely concentrated, pungent and sour yellow smoke exploded within the sealed underground temple.

It was a devastating blow to the olfactory systems of spiritual creatures.

The insect swarm, which had been surging like a tide, suddenly froze upon the appearance of this odor.

Their antennae began to tremble frantically—a sign of their pheromone reception system collapsing.

Immediately after, the insect swarm fell into chaos.

They began attacking each other, frantically fleeing in directions away from the source of the odor.

As if encountering a natural predator. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

The insects covering Lin Jie and the others fell off one after another, scrambling to burrow back into the rock crevices.

In less than a minute.

The insect sea that had just blanketed the place vanished without a trace.

Only the mess on the ground remained, and several living people who, though still breathing, could barely move a finger.

The crisis was resolved, but the effects of the deceleration toxin would still take time to metabolize.

Lin Jie lay on the ground, looking up at the black dome above. He felt his heartbeat gradually returning to normal.

The speed of his thoughts was also slowly accelerating.

He turned his head, looking at Vera, who had collapsed in the insect pile not far away.

That woman was unconscious now, truly unconscious this time.

Lin Jie had no intention of killing her, and couldn't even if he wanted to in his current state.

He just lay there quietly, waiting for his strength to recover.

And deep within the temple, on the stone wall behind the iron throne, a light seemed to be growing brighter and brighter.