The scenery before her eyes instantly shifted from the empty room covered in yellow sand back to the circular hall filled with glowing patterns.
Columbina's heart sank, as if she had fallen into an ice cave.
Did the teleportation fail? But those two Moon Spirits were indeed sent over, and she had clearly "arrived" in front of Coppelia, her fingertips nearly touching her. The teleportation itself should have succeeded.
Her thoughts spun rapidly, arriving at a possibility: the moment she left this place, she was forcibly sent back to her original location by some power.
The formation! She abruptly looked down. The silver-white and golden-yellow patterns were still steadily emitting light, and the connection controlling her power remained. Not only that, she felt that a portion of the Spatial Authority within her core was being stolen by these patterns.
She understood. The people here had stolen her Authority and then used this power that belonged to her to construct a cage to prevent her escape. Perhaps from the moment she stepped into this hall, this silent theft had already been underway. That was why she had felt that foggy sensation when she inspected the surrounding space earlier.
She immediately attempted to mobilize her Authority, trying to teleport half of the hall's floor away directly to destroy the formation's structure.
Power surged, but it was like a clay ox entering the sea—vanishing without a trace. This space rejected her. Within the range of this formation, she was completely unable to use teleportation.
She did not give up. Since she could successfully teleport the Moon Spirits, it implied that this "teleportation prohibition" anomaly might only be effective within a certain range around herself.
The formation here could not be destroyed, but she could destroy things elsewhere.
Thinking of this, she sank her consciousness back into the Ley Lines, utilizing this perspective unrestricted by physical barriers to probe into the distance once again.
Her target was the core left behind by that dead Moon God.
In the empty room piled with yellow sand in the corners.
Coppelia climbed up from the cold sandy ground, staring blankly at the center of the room. Two Moon Spirits floated in the air, emitting a faint glow, while another lay listlessly on the ground.
She walked over, extended her hand, and gently pinched the body of one of the floating Moon Spirits with her fingertips. A soft tactile sensation was returned. Everything that had just happened was not an illusion.
Columbina had found a way to break free, and had even managed to teleport the Moon Spirits over. But she herself hadn't been able to return.
The methods of the Khaenri'ahns were more troublesome and thorny than she had estimated. Relying solely on herself, plus these four Moon Spirits in varying states in the room, she absolutely could not contend with a secret base that had been prepared for a long time.
Coppelia made a decision on the spot: she could not stay here. She must leave immediately to find reinforcements.
The most powerful reason right now was "The Descent of the Abyss." The Scarlet King certainly couldn't be approached; he might be messing with Abyssal power too. Greater Lord Rukkhadevata... perhaps there was a chance. If that didn't work, she would immediately set off to return to Liyue, meet Rex Lapis, and explain the stakes.
If even that path was impassable... then she would dive deep underground and loudly recite "Before Sun and Moon"!
Just as she was thinking this, a white light flashed through the air beside her without warning.
A sphere emitting a soft radiance appeared out of thin air and fell downwards.
Did Columbina teleport something else over? Coppelia immediately reached out and caught the sphere before it hit the ground.
The sphere felt warm in her hand, the whole thing wrapped in a bright pale blue light, with hazy textures resembling nebulas swirling on its surface.
The moment she touched it, a flood of Lunar Force surged into her palm and instantly flowed through every part of her body! Her pupils, which had turned bright red due to a severe lack of energy, reverted to a vivid green in the blink of an eye.
Not only inside her body, but the air in the entire room also seemed to be soaked by this power, brimming with Lunar Force. The two Moon Spirits floating in the air immediately became excited, their bodies starting to jump up and down briskly.
Even the Moon Spirit that had been lying on the ground, seemingly having lost the will to live, suddenly sprang up from the sand with a whoosh, hugging the ball of light tightly with its soft braids and beginning to fiercely suck in the Lunar Force.
What is this? Coppelia quickly searched her memory and soon found a matching name.
"Perpetual Moon Essence!" she whispered.
In the hall, Columbina had successfully teleported the Perpetual Moon Essence into Coppelia's hands. That core contained abundant Lunar Force, enough to support Coppelia's actions.
In addition to that, she also tried to mobilize the Authority she could still touch, using teleportation to directly "slice" away parts of several formation nodes located outside the abnormal spatial range.
But the Ley Lines in the core area of the formation had been thoroughly polluted by the power of the Abyss; she had no way of immediately knowing if this destruction was enough to halt the entire experiment.
She tried to teleport herself again, or to teleport some scattered stones in the hall, but the results were still failures. The portion of Authority stolen by the formation did not return.
She lifted her eyes and looked at Lessing at the edge of the hall. A man in black was leaning close to his ear, hurriedly reporting something in a low voice.
After listening, Lessing's gaze immediately turned to Columbina in the center of the hall. The gentle elegance on his face was gone, replaced by an expression so gloomy it looked like water could drip from it.
Looking at his reaction, perhaps the sabotage just now had taken effect? Columbina's tightly strung heartstrings loosened a tiny bit.
Lessing took a few people with him and left the hall in a hurry. Just as his front foot stepped out, the white-haired, red-eyed man who had helped her lift the restriction earlier walked in quickly from another entrance. His goal was clear: he headed straight for the center of the formation where she was.
Columbina's muscles tensed instantly. This person was definitely here on orders to once again drive that red-black flame restriction into her core, plunging her back into a state where she was powerless to resist!
Unable to use teleportation at the moment, she abruptly raised her free right hand. Several water-blue missiles formed of Lunar Force took shape and shot toward the approaching white-haired man with a whistling sound.
A cluster of leaping red-black flames erupted with a whoosh in front of the white-haired man, acting like a shield. The energy missiles crashed into the flames, making a sizzling sound before vanishing instantly.
She couldn't win a head-on clash. Columbina steeled her heart. Instead of retracting her raised right hand, she slammed it violently against her own chest. She concentrated all her will, controlling the Lunar Force she could still mobilize within her body. Instead of outputting it outwards, she reversed it, driving it wildly toward her own already fractured power core!
Overwhelmed, several new cracks instantly spread across the core. The internal structure began to tremble unstably; it could completely disintegrate at any moment, triggering a violent explosion.
Severe pain, like ten thousand red-hot steel needles exploding from her core, instantly pierced through her limbs and bones. She felt her vision go black, her breath was choked off, and every heartbeat brought a shock that felt as if her chest were splitting apart.
At the same time, several twisted cracks resembling tree roots, flickering with blue light, spread out from under the robes at her chest, climbing up her neck and jaw. The same glowing patterns emerged under the exposed skin of her arms and legs. A wave of extremely unstable energy diffused outward with her as the center.
Columbina endured the agonizing pain and shouted sternly, "Come any closer, and I will destroy my core!"
To prevent these people from sealing her complete Authority again, the only way she could think of was to threaten them with the complete destruction of her own core.
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