That stream of blue light containing absolute order vanished into the night.

The entire battlefield fell into a deathly silence.

Marcus maintained his firing stance, his iron tower-like body stabilized by the cost-paying [Unshakable Bedrock], as steady as a sculpture.

But his tightly closed eyes, trembling eyelashes, and the beads of sweat sliding down his temples betrayed the tension and uncertainty within him.

Lin Jie's condition wasn't much better either.

That previous limit-pushing Reverberation Touch had drained all his energy.

Intense dizziness and weakness washed over him.

He could only kneel on one knee in the small safe zone at Marcus's feet, supporting himself with his hands on the ground while gasping for air, struggling not to pass out.

They had played their only trump card.

That single shot had combined the stability of [Unshakable Bedrock], the memory coordinates from Lin Jie's [Reverberation Touch], and the trajectory protection of [Serene Heart].

It carried all their hopes.

However, the bullet had already flown out, but the target was several streets away;

they couldn't see it with their own eyes, nor could they know the outcome.

This feeling was like a desperate gambler throwing the dice, then facing the covered dice cup with nothing to do but wait anxiously.

Success or failure?

The Twisted Man with its back to them gave them the answer.

Approximately ten seconds after that bullet vanished, the UMA's distorted body suddenly began to convulse, as if struck by a high-voltage electric current.

A hysterical distorted force field erupted from within it.

"What's happening to it?" Marcus felt the distorted force in the surroundings suddenly intensify by several levels.

The gray bedrock beneath his feet emitted faint, overwhelmed cracking sounds.

He had to use all his strength to maintain the stability of [Unshakable Bedrock];

even opening his eyes had become a luxury.

"I don't know... the bullet might have hit..." Lin Jie's weak voice came through, "But... but the effect seems different from what we anticipated!"

He struggled to lift his head, staring intently through the now boiling, distorted space at the UMA frantically struggling.

He saw the UMA's body undergoing some bizarre transformation.

Its outline sometimes swelled into an irregular blob of ink, then contracted into a thin, elongated black line on the verge of snapping.

Countless painfully distorted human faces began to emerge on its pitch-black body surface;

these faces were the innocent residents who died in the "Crooked House," as mentioned in Julian's files.

These souls, devoured by it for centuries, began to surge and struggle uncontrollably from within it, trying to break free after the domain's foundation was severely damaged.

This proved Lin Jie's deduction was correct—their attack had indeed struck the distant anchor point and successfully dealt a critical blow to this UMA's foundation!

But it was only a critical blow.

Lin Jie keenly realized that the mantelpiece might just be the relatively minor of the two anchor points.

And the other, the primary anchor point—this ruin's foundation burying the architect's bones and obsession—was still stubbornly providing the fundamental energy support for this distorted domain.

The current situation was like a tug-of-war;

Lin Jie and Marcus had successfully severed one of the opponent's hands.

But the opponent was using its remaining hand to put up a final resistance.

What made Lin Jie's heart tighten even more was that the surrounding distorted force fields were madly converging and surging towards one direction.

That direction was precisely where the Weston home was located!

It intended to complete its final invitation at any cost before its own collapse!

Time was running out.

"Not enough... still one final step missing!"

...

Meanwhile, in that apartment several blocks away, filled with an oppressive and despairing atmosphere.

Arthur, his eyes bloodshot, kept watch by his daughter's bedside.

Lily's condition on the bed had severely deteriorated.

Her breathing was so faint it could stop at any moment.

Her once angelically cute face was now gaunt and emaciated, her pale skin showing a deathly, ashen gray beneath.

But what frightened Weston the most was the bizarre, happy, and expectant smile on his daughter's face.

Her lips still moved unconsciously, as if urging her "invisible friend" to quickly take her to that interesting new home.

"Arthur... I'm so scared..." Mrs. Weston slumped on the floor by the bed, covering her face with her hands, suppressing her sobs.

She was just an ordinary housewife;

the scene before her had long shattered her mental defenses.

She didn't understand what strange illness had afflicted her daughter, only knowing she was leaving them in an irreversible way.

Arthur stretched out a tense, trembling hand and held his wife tightly.

Fear and helplessness also gripped his heart.

He was a police officer, a law enforcer who protected citizens and maintained order, but now he couldn't even protect his only daughter.

"Don't be afraid, Martha. Don't be afraid, I'm here."

He thought of that mysterious young Eastern man.

Although he didn't know where Mr. Lin and the others were or what they were doing right now, he understood that Mr. Lin would surely fight for Lily.

And he, Arthur Weston, as Lily's father, must also do something.

He couldn't just stand by and watch!

He took a deep breath, then slowly and solemnly bent down, gently pressing his forehead against his daughter's cold, frost-like forehead.

"Listen, Lily," he whispered in his daughter's ear with a voice filled with utmost gentleness and paternal love, telling a beautiful bedtime story.

"Remember? When you were very little, you were most afraid of thunder. Every time it thundered outside, you would cry in fear."

"Back then, Daddy would hold you like this and tell you not to be afraid, that it wasn't monsters roaring, but angels in the sky beating big drums to celebrate your birthday."

His wife, hearing this, was stunned for a moment before understanding her husband's intention.

She too, holding back her tears, crawled over and reached out her trembling hand to gently hold Lily's pale, bloodless, and cold little hand.

"And your favorite pink dress with the lace trim," Mrs. Weston's voice was equally trembling but also carried the warm strength of motherhood.

"You always said wearing it made you the most beautiful princess in fairy tales. Mommy will make you a new one tomorrow, even prettier than that dress, okay?"

They didn't cry out or pray, but in a simple, clumsy, yet sincere way, they recounted those family memories full of love and warmth, bit by bit, to their daughter about to journey far away.

They hoped to awaken their daughter from her lost slumber with their memories and love.

They were calling out to her, using the great bond of a father and mother connected by blood to their daughter, engaging in a tug-of-war against "oblivion."

"Lily... my Lily..." Arthur's forehead pressed tightly against his daughter's, scalding tears falling from his bloodshot eyes onto his daughter's face.

"Come back... Mommy and Daddy are here... come back quickly... home is here..."

He remembered the day his daughter was born, how she smiled at him;

he remembered her toddling steps when he taught her to walk;

he remembered her joyful cheers when he bought her her first copy of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

At that moment, an unexpected change occurred!

Beneath Lily's thin pajamas, against the skin on her chest, the "Serene Talisman" given by Lin Jie long ago lit up upon sensing this protective intent!

A resonant power fused with familial love and protection erupted.

This power, channeled through three mediums—the father's forehead, the mother's palm, and the warm talisman on her chest—formed three streams of warmth, steadfastly pouring into Lily's lost soul, which was being dragged toward the distorted abyss.

Simultaneously, on the ruined battlefield in the White Church District, that pitch-black UMA began to twist and rotate irregularly.

A scalding force of reality, imbued with the warmth of human life and familial bonds, invaded its cold, twisted spiritual home in reverse through Lily, the contaminated coordinate!

This intent inflicted fatal damage upon it far exceeding that of the Purification Bullets and alchemical flames!

Lin Jie on the battlefield saw all of this.

Although he didn't understand exactly what had happened, the human faces surging on the surface of the frantically struggling Twisted Man's projection suddenly became clear.

Its body began to disintegrate irreversibly, like an ice sculpture exposed to sunlight!

Finally, with a sound of shattering glass, the "Distorted Laws" supporting this area collapsed.

The boiling spatial folds around Marcus and the gray bedrock created by [Unshakable Bedrock] beneath his feet were instantly smoothed away.

The air became fresh again, the ground became flat again, and sound regained its normal sense of distance.

Everything returned to normal.

And that pitch-black figure that had caused them so much trouble vanished without a trace.

Only a small pile of burnt black ashes remained where it had last stood.

Crisis resolved.