A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

As the snow and ice behind them condensed into a gray-blue mist, Ye Shuli's mechanical wristwatch indicated that they had entered the barrier of the mysterious tribe.

Outside the protective shield composed of nanorobots, ancient vines entwine a bronze totem pole, and the undried cinnabar on the pole meanders into snake-shaped bloodstains with the rainwater.

"The energy field here is three times more chaotic than that of the ice plains." Jiang Ye's liquid computer churned into a silver-gray sphere in his palm, only to be suddenly sliced ​​in half by a bone knife that flew from the side.

Twelve bare-chested guards emerged from behind the totem pole, the red fleshy growths on their necks flickering with their breathing, clearly in sync with the energy of the barrier.

Ye Shuli pressed down on Jiang Ye's hand as he drew his sword, and pressed the God Fragment close to the ground.

Dark golden light flowed back into the base of the totem pole along with the rainwater, and the originally ferocious serpentine bloodstains suddenly transformed into a black bird with outstretched wings.

As the guards retreated in astonishment, a crisp sound of bone bells striking each other came from deep within the tree canopy.

"The stranger carries a cursed object!" The girl wrapped in animal skin leaped down from the treetop, the seven silver rings on her wrists clanging together with a piercing frequency.

A lean old man emerged from behind her, the tattoos on his face contorting into new patterns as his facial muscles twitched—the tribal prophet's mark forged by the Jealous Ones using spiritual power.

Ye Shuli's pupils contracted slightly, and the cracks on the surface of the God Fragment were exposed under the light of the Xuan Bird.

She subtly placed her left hand behind her back, and the nanobots immediately wove an energy buffer network, disguising the shockwaves from the artifact's core as ordinary spiritual energy fluctuations.

"Three months ago, an avalanche occurred on the ice plains; now, the Blackwater River flows backward." The tattooed old man raised a scepter inlaid with animal teeth, the green light emanating from its head forming crooked hieroglyphs in the air. "Last night, a divine oracle revealed that this calamity was brought by the raiders!"

The surrounding tribespeople let out suppressed gasps, and several women carrying pottery jars hurriedly retreated, splashing the black water containing medicinal herbs into Ye Shuli's feet.

Jiang Ye suddenly bent down and picked up a piece of damp hematite. The liquid metal at his fingertips instantly melted it into a regular dodecahedron.

"The sacred stone you use for divination." He tossed the geometric shape to the nearest guard. "It releases trace amounts of radioactive elements when the magnetic field is abnormal, and that's what causes miscarriages in pregnant women." The metal block that the guard hurriedly caught suddenly unfolded into a holographic projection, clearly showing the energy resonance spectrum between the iron ore vein and the tribal settlement.

The tribal chief appeared at this time.

The taotie pattern on his bronze mask opened and closed with his breath, and when he slammed his dragon bone staff heavily on the ground, all twelve totem poles lit up with blood-red light.

Ye Shuli's protective shield suddenly twisted violently, and the Fibonacci spiral formed by the nanobots emitted a metallic fatigue hiss.

"Destroy the heretics of the Holy Mountain!" The leader's voice carried a strange metallic tremor, and countless scarlet threads emerged from the tip of the dragon bone staff, instantly binding the fragments of the God of War.

Ye Shuli groaned, and the buffer net woven by the nanobots shattered. The chaotic energy overflowing from the crack in the artifact corroded the nearest totem pole, creating honeycomb-like holes.

The crowd erupted in terrified screams, and the tattooed old man seized the opportunity to raise his scepter: "She's going to detonate the ley lines!" As dozens of poisoned bone arrows pierced the air, Jiang Ye's liquid computer suddenly expanded into a silver barrier.

The arrow vaporized the instant it pierced the barrier, condensing in the air into a system of Maxwell's equations that were constantly being calculated.

"This isn't a spiritual energy outburst; it's an imbalance in the liquid core inside your sacred mountain." Ye Shuli wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, and the fragments of the transcendent god leaped into a three-dimensional projection in her palm.

The instant the Black Bird totem overlapped with the earth vein map, everyone present clearly saw the black vortex that was devouring the tribe's energy field.

The old priestess, holding the child, suddenly staggered forward: "This...this is the 'Eye of the Mysterious Netherworld' recorded in the ancestral precepts!" Her withered fingers pierced through the projection, her turbid pupils reflecting a wildly spinning energy model. "Back then, the High Priest sacrificed three hundred boys and girls to..."

"What's needed is an energy countermeasure, not human lives." Ye Shuli suddenly ripped off the nano necklace around her neck, and the silver chain turned into countless points of light the moment it fell into the crack in the ground.

The Xuan Bird projection suddenly materialized, carrying a spirit energy diverter modified from the Klein bottle topology, and precisely pierced the center of the earth vein vortex.

The moment the tremors of the great earthquake suddenly stopped, the girl who had thrown the bone knife earlier suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's clothes: "You can turn the sacred stone into a star map, can you...?" The animal bone pendant on her earlobe glowed with a suspicious pink fluorescence, but the metal scales that suddenly stood up on Jiang Ye's collar cut off the string.

Ye Shuli's mechanical wristwatch emitted a sharp alarm at this moment. The real-time monitoring images transmitted back by the nanobots showed that the temporarily suppressed chaotic energy was re-aggregating underground.

She turned to look at the silent leader and saw that blue-black blood was seeping from the edge of his mask—this ruler had long been corrupted by the backlash of the earth's veins.

“Repairing the artifact requires a core of Xuan Iron Wood.” She pressed the still-humming fragment of the God of War onto the bronze mask. “And it can purify the corrosive energy in your blood.” The moment the fragment touched the mask, the leader suddenly let out a beast-like roar, and in the golden light bursting from the cracks in the mask, the human gene chain being reconstituted could be vaguely seen.

When the last wisp of black energy was forced out of the mask, the previously aggressive tattooed old man had already disappeared.

The old priest trembled as he brought out the rhinoceros horn box containing the tribe's sacred artifacts. As the lid was opened, Ye Shuli's nanodetectors suddenly malfunctioned—the surface of the black iron wood core lying inside the box naturally grew energy patterns that were exactly the same as those on the fragments of the super god.

Jiang Ye's liquid crystal computer suddenly emitted a beeping warning. Before Ye Shuli could turn around, she felt a familiar warmth coming from behind her.

The lingering chill of the icy plains on his clothes mingled with the dampness of the tribe, creating a peculiar vortex. Meanwhile, on the holographic projection screen, the chaotic fractal data that should have been destroyed was automatically reassembling.

Ye Shuli's mechanical wristwatch emitted three short beeps, and the real-time data transmitted back by the nanorobot was projected onto her retina as a pale blue screen.

The energy patterns on the surface of the Xuan Tie Mu core are resonating with the Super God fragments at a frequency of seven times per second. This quantum entanglement phenomenon reminds her of the particle streams emitted by the collider in the laboratory.

“This wood is singing.” Jiang Ye’s liquid crystal computer retracted into its wristband form, the Maxwell’s equations remaining on the metal surface still continuing to calculate, “Frequency 439 Hz, which is exactly the A sharp in middle C major…” He was suddenly knocked back half a step by a tribal woman who rushed forward, her animal skin skirt sweeping across the still-wet bloodstains on the ground.

"Outsiders have no idea about the power of sacred objects!" The newly replaced bone pendant on the girl's earlobe glowed with an eerie green phosphorescence, and the black liquid in the ceramic bowl she held aloft boiled violently. "Do you dare to use your spiritual blood to verify your sincerity?"

Ye Shuli caught a glimpse of the faint radioactive material markings on the rim of the bowl, and the nano-protective layer solidified into a transparent film at her fingertips.

The moment her blood droplet fell into the black water, the blood cells encased in the membrane suddenly split into a double helix structure, piecing together a complete tribal totem on the surface of the liquid—the very ancient incantation she had deciphered from satellite cloud images the previous night.

The gasps of surprise erupting from the crowd were interrupted by the trembling sound of the old priestess's cane: "A divine manifestation of the blood!" Her age-spotted hand grasped Ye Shuli's forearm, "The first time in three hundred years..."

"It's just an acid-base reaction." Ye Shuli withdrew her arm, and the nanobot instantly decomposed the traces of witchcraft. "You buried pyrite crystals at the bottom of your bowl, which produce ferrous sulfide when they come into contact with blood..." The explanation was suddenly cut off by a sharp bone whistle, and the twelve totem poles burst out with blood light at the same time, intertwining on the ground to form a six-pointed star cage.

Jiang Ye's liquid metal solidified into ice blades on the soles of his boots, creating blue sparks as he glided across the stone slabs.

He reached out and put his arm around Ye Shuli's waist, and the temperature control system of the protective suit kept their body temperature at 36.5 degrees Celsius.

"Be careful at the three o'clock position." The white mist from his breath condensed into frost near Ye Shuli's ear. "That old man is manipulating the Earth's magnetic field."

The tribal chief's bronze mask was covered with spiderweb-like cracks, and his right hand, hidden behind his back, was striking a dragon bone staff at a specific frequency.

Ye Shuli's God Fragment suddenly trembled violently, and the patterns on the surface of the Xuan Iron Wood Core began to grow in reverse—someone was remotely rewriting the energy code.

"Don't move." Jiang Ye suddenly grabbed the tribal woman who was trying to step forward, the liquid metal climbing up her wrists to form shackles. "The interval between each time your father strikes the scepter is exactly the half-life of the Earth's core shockwave." He tore off the beast tooth necklace around the girl's neck, revealing a miniature transmitter that was sending encrypted signals.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ye Shuli brought the Xuan Tie Mu core close to the Super God fragment, and the Klein bottle model constructed by the nanobots instantly absorbed the abnormal fluctuations.

The moment the six-pointed star on the ground dimmed, the women holding the pottery jars suddenly knelt down in unison. The black water in the jars automatically gathered into a stream, winding its way into the shape of the Big Dipper at Ye Shuli's feet.

"The earth veins have recognized their master!" The old priestess cried out, her wrinkled forehead slamming heavily against the bluestone slab.

The tribal chief finally loosened his grip on the scepter, and what seeped from the gaps in the mask was no longer black blood, but a transparent liquid that shimmered with golden light.

Jiang Ye suddenly groaned, and the liquid crystal computer sparked as it flew through his palm.

Ye Shuli turned her head and saw three bone arrows stuck in his back, and the nano-repair system was frantically repairing the wounds.

“Energy overload…” He pulled out several mechanical gears as he drew the arrow shaft. “That old bastard planted a logic bomb in the relic…”

The moment the repair progress bar was stuck at 99%, the rhinoceros horn box in the center of the altar suddenly closed automatically.

Inside the box, the core of the black ironwood emitted a bright light similar to a supernova explosion, while the alarm of the nano-detector and the tribal war drums sounded simultaneously.

Ye Shuli's protective goggles, which were automatically dimmed to level 10, were still scorched by the strong light, causing fine cracks.

When his vision returned, the twelve bare-chested guards had been replaced by stone statues with blue faces and fangs.

The bone knives they held transformed into some kind of black crystal, the dark red patterns flowing across the blades perfectly matching the cracks in the God-level fragments.

Ye Shuli's mechanical watch went completely black at this moment, and the last data stream that flashed by showed that the energy field of the entire tribe was collapsing into a singularity.

“Three thousand years.” The stone statue guards suddenly spoke in unison, their voices like sandpaper rubbing against bronze. “We have finally waited for the one who can awaken the star map.” The red tumors on their chests burst open at the same time, and the splattered fluorescent liquid condensed in the air to form a star chain model, which overlapped perfectly with the iron ore vein map that Jiang Ye had previously shown.

Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's bleeding wrist and pressed the liquid metal in his palm against her own chest.

The pulse waves generated by quantum entanglement swept across the altar, and the patterns on the surface of the black ironwood core were suddenly projected into the starry sky, enveloping the entire tribe in a rotating projection of the Milky Way.

The old priest's rhinoceros horn box clicked open, revealing a broken piece of jade lying quietly inside—a perfect match for the third artifact fragment they were searching for.

"Watch out!" Jiang Ye's warning arrived at the same time as the sound of something cutting through the air.

As Ye Shuli dodged the poisoned bone arrow, she saw a humanoid creature covered in glowing vines slowly rise from the shadows of the altar.

With each step it takes, a golden lotus flower made of data streams blooms on the ground, and nanodetectors show that its body temperature remains constant at absolute zero.