Chapter 123: The Infinite Corridor

A thunderous roar shook the earth. Nash, transformed into the Golden-Haired Hou, leaped from the edge of the crater. His massive form cast a vast shadow that engulfed Adonsa, his razor-sharp foreclaws reaching out like a cage to ensnare him.

Adonsa did not even look up—though he lacked a head—as his right hand swelled violently, clenching into a fist to collide with the indestructible claws of the Golden-Haired Hou.

The infallible, razor-sharp claws met Adonsa’s eerie, grey-red musculature, only to spark against it.

Adonsa, previously indifferent, felt his interest pique upon contact with the beast. "Interesting. What kind of creature is this? To grow naturally into such a form."

Instantly, he transformed his fist into an open palm, gripping the terrifying claws of the Golden-Haired Hou. With a violent shake, high-frequency, high-amplitude vibrations surged through the beast's entire body.

Nash felt his body go numb and realized the danger, but he lunged forward instead of retreating. He had witnessed Adonsa’s speed and strength; now, he had no choice but to rely on the Golden-Haired Hou’s formidable constitution to endure.

Adonsa, however, felt a strange reluctance to treat the beast too roughly. Such a primeval monster possessed power and tissue density far beyond the limits of carbon-based life. While it still paled in comparison to Adonsa—who relied on his core body supported by materials and kinetic technologies generations ahead of the norm—the fact that the Golden-Haired Hou had achieved this naturally was astounding. Such cellular structure was surely full of surprises. Adonsa wanted to study this beast.

The Golden-Haired Hou slammed into Adonsa, finally knocking him away from Ran Bingqing. Adonsa held off the beast’s body with one hand, but the ground beneath him cracked and sank, leaving him unable to find his footing. Adonsa’s strength was overwhelming, but compared to the mountain-like Golden-Haired Hou, his size and mass were too small, putting him at a severe disadvantage in a head-on collision.

Theoretically, a charging Golden-Haired Hou would leave Adonsa with no leverage. In practice, however, Adonsa did not cling to any single form, choosing only the most efficient shape for combat. Ignoring the backlash of his "Indolence" ability, Adonsa, currently suppressed by the giant claws, forcibly transformed into a four-meter-tall ape. His hulking frame now reached the beast's chin, and his ten-ton weight provided the foundation needed to shake the mountain-like creature.

Adonsa drove his feet into the ground and delivered a powerful uppercut, sending Nash reeling. His chin went numb, and he lost all sensation. The Golden-Haired Hou roared, golden flames erupting along his fur. A wave of heat washed over them as he spat fire, pressing down on Adonsa with both claws.

Adonsa ignored the ten-thousand-degree heat as if it were merely a breeze. He braced his hands, using the force of the claws to counter with a flying kick, sending the peerless beast crashing to the ground. The Golden-Haired Hou groaned in pain, half his skull caving in, red blood splattering as saliva dripped uncontrollably—a shocking sight. Yet, immense vitality and fanatical hatred drove Nash to twitch his claws, ready to fight again.

Adonsa transformed his hands into the shape of a serpent’s maw and lunged, tearing two massive chunks of muscle from the Hou’s body. He injected a lethal dose of biological alkaloids, enough to kill ten thousand elephants. However, the effect was minimal; it seemed such toxins were useless against this mythological monster. Adonsa swallowed the bloody flesh whole, praising, "You will surely be my finest specimen yet."

"Go to hell!"

With his jaw shattered, the Golden-Haired Hou was nearly driven mad by pain, but Adonsa would give him no more chances. Moving with rapid, precise shifts in a confined space, Adonsa leveraged the earlier vibrations to systematically dislocate every joint in the beast’s body. Without skeletal support, the muscles went limp, turning the monster into a heap of flesh barely capable of breathing.

Just as Adonsa was about to crush the final spinal joint, Kant struck.

The "Blind Seer," who had traded his self-awareness for immense power, masked himself within the dust and air currents. His precisely calculated movements drew no alarm from Adonsa; there was no flaw in his light, scent, or sound waves. Adonsa’s physical durability had been logged in Kant’s tactical simulation system, and this ambush, long in the making, was destined not to fail.

Combining the high-frequency oscillation of his blade with the high-frequency vibration of his own hand, Kant achieved a dual-resonance that pushed the oscillation to an unprecedented level. The intense heat generated by this vibration turned the blade glowing red like lava as it struck Adonsa’s left shoulder.

*BOOM!*

The high-frequency blade, pushed beyond its limits under immense pressure, disintegrated. The shattered shards, vibrating at high speeds, turned into fine sand—a devastating spray that tore through the surroundings. This self-destructive strike successfully severed Adonsa’s right arm.

Yet, it was meaningless. Before the arm could even fall, countless granules of flesh sprouted from the cross-section, grabbing the severed limb and fusing the two surfaces with an efficiency that defied chemical reaction speeds. Three seconds later, not a single trace of the cut remained.

Adonsa lunged and grabbed Kant, his massive hand squeezing the powerful cyborg with increasing pressure. Kant’s bones, muscles, and most of his brain had been replaced by artificial constructs, but Adonsa did not merely crush him; he drove countless fine, needle-like tentacles from his palm into Kant’s body.

Kant’s eyes widened. His nanite-reinforced muscles were no match for these needles, which pierced through them easily, probing every secret within. Self-programming nanofilaments, cold-fusion batteries, neuron transistors, tactical simulation systems... one by one, these advanced technologies were stripped bare before Adonsa, filling the gaps in his skewed technological tree and offering a glimpse into the secrets of another advanced civilization.

Adonsa’s technological imbalance lay in his microscopic manufacturing, which could withstand the harshest cosmic environments, while his power and energy technologies remained primitive. If steam and nuclear power were the trunk of a technological tree, then kinetic transmission and software programming were the branches and leaves. A thick trunk is the foundation of progress, but lush foliage is the prerequisite for growth. Using advanced tech without the supporting infrastructure was like using a nuclear power plant to boil water—ridiculously inefficient.

People of the past once dismissed mathematics as mere "clever tricks," only to realize its importance in exploring time, space, and microscopic particles once the age of technological explosion arrived. These seemingly useless technical insights were the breakthroughs needed for civilization's ascent. Adonsa was bridging these gaps.

Suddenly, Nash deactivated his transformation, revealing his human form—mortally wounded, as injuries sustained in beast form persisted. Then, the unexpected occurred. A man-sized black hole opened behind Adonsa, and a hand reached out, grabbing the wounded Nash. Provence had boldly opened a spatial gate right in front of Adonsa, decisively rescuing him.

Kant’s body shuddered as the overload self-destruct sequence of his cold-fusion battery initiated, intending to sacrifice himself to buy time for his teammates’ retreat. But in that split second, the fine tentacles in Adonsa’s palm silently sliced Kant into several intact pieces, swallowing them into an internal seal. The violent, infinite energy of the fusion battery was instantly frozen within the static space of "Indolence," unable to detonate without Adonsa’s interference.

Adonsa abandoned all resistance, allowing the power of Indolence to undo his transformations. Reverting to his petite form, he accelerated, using his reduced size to bolt into the closing spatial gate. Like a projectile launch, he shot through a near-vacuum tunnel, but upon crossing the black gate, he found not the familiar grey-white wasteland or a panicked Provence, but a void of darkness.

Outside, Provence collapsed in agony, gasping for air, his face deathly pale. Beside him was a patch of space that, at first glance, seemed normal, but upon closer inspection, revealed light twisted into a sphere. Ava moved to support the exhausted Provence, who managed a strained smile. "Finally... he is contained."

Adonsa looked at the black void, feeling as though he were falling infinitely. The spatial gate behind him had slammed shut the moment he crossed. He had been outplayed. Nash and Kant’s suicidal attacks were merely to force Provence to open the gate, luring Adonsa into a trap prepared long in advance. Even Ran Bingqing had fought desperately to entangle Adonsa, giving Provence the time to set the stage. To reach this moment, the Prism had sacrificed half their team.

Provence’s judgment had been precise and ruthless, changing his combat objective without hesitation from killing Adonsa to trapping him, even at the cost of his comrades.

Adonsa raised his hand, and a brilliant, searing white light bloomed, illuminating every inch of the space. What appeared were countless reflections of Adonsa. They stood at equal intervals, holding the same white light, performing the same actions, with not a single difference between them.

Adonsa instantly understood. This was a Klein bottle.

Provence sneered, "Bending, combining, and fusing spatial gates... to form a closed, infinite loop. Adonsa, you are like an ant trapped on a Möbius strip, forever falling through a Klein bottle with no exit!"

To forge a two-dimensional spatial gate into a curved sphere, Provence had paid a heavy price. He was truly exhausted, with no combat strength left. He had not originally possessed the ability to seal space, but he had consumed a precious Philosopher’s Stone—the crystallization of the fifth element, Spirit, in alchemy—a legendary treasure now used merely as a temporary spiritual supplement. With the help of the stone, he had briefly elevated his spiritual realm to create this infinite loop. In a sense, Provence had defied the law of conservation of mass and energy.

Yet, he had succeeded in trapping the nearly invincible Adonsa within this looping sphere. This was Provence’s ultimate technique—the Infinite Corridor.

Ava said mournfully, "Kazan, Kant... they are all dead. And Ran Bingqing... we don't even know."

Provence touched her cheek and whispered, "That is the cruelty of the Box Garden. At least we are alive, and we can start over. Once we regroup the second-tier teams, the Prism will be reborn in no time."