"Pei Du!" Xu Shuangyao rushed to his side, her voice trembling with the feeling of having survived a disaster. She quickly tore off the corner of her clothes to bandage the wound on the side of his neck.

"I can't die." Pei Du's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper. He pushed her hand away and bent to pick up the fallen alloy dagger. The blood on the handle mixed with his own. His eyes were fixed on the Fungus Warlord he had repelled and the enemies around him, ready to surge forward again. "The crown... it's 'feeding' me..." He whispered, his tone complex, a hint of wariness against this power, and a hint of the cruel clarity of being forced into a desperate situation and relying on it.

Xu Shuangyao's heart tightened. She knew what Pei Du was referring to. The Crown of Thorns was forcibly extracting the Master's power, temporarily infusing it into the carrier to maintain its survival and combat effectiveness. However, this was like drinking poison to quench thirst, accelerating the assimilation process. She glanced sharply at her wrist terminal. The red alarm on the screen was almost overflowing! The area representing the core node of the plant data network was erupting with unprecedented, violent mental fluctuations!

"Time's running out!" she said rapidly. "They're fully awakening! Resisting all connection! I must try... to force access! Otherwise, we won't survive the next wave!" Her eyes flashed with the frenzied glint of a scientist facing the ultimate puzzle. Ignoring the dizziness from mental exhaustion, she once again immersed herself in the terminal on her wrist. Her fingers flew, and a dazzling array of data commands cascaded across the screen. This time, she didn't attempt to communicate, but instead invoked the supreme backdoor granted to her as the "creator"—a cold, formulaic, forced takeover protocol!

The invisible spiritual tentacles, carrying Xu Shuangyao's strong will and the oppressive force bestowed by the Crown of Thorns, ignored the violent and chaotic waves of resistance in the network and forcibly pierced into the depths of the boiling ocean of plant consciousness!

"In the name of the Creator! Access the highest authority! Obey orders! Build a mental barrier! Disperse the fungal dome signal! Now!" Xu Shuangyao's voice echoed on the spiritual level, with an unquestionable command tone, like a decree from the gods to creation.

The command was issued, but it fell on deaf ears in an instant.

The next second——

A vast, cold, ancient will, precipitated by the silent spread of billions of plant roots underground, crashed down like an iceberg, silent for millennia! Countless chaotic fragments of consciousness, geological pulsations sensed by roots, pheromone storms transmitted by spores... converged into an irresistible torrent, fiercely impacting the spiritual tentacles that Xu Shuangyao had forcibly connected to!

"Ugh!" Xu Shuangyao felt as if struck hard, her body suddenly arching backward, as if struck in the chest by an invisible hammer! Unable to contain her mouthful of blood, it spurted onto the screen of the wrist terminal, staining a large area of ​​the flickering data stream red.

A cold, emotionless, yet strangely rhythmic voice resonated directly within Xu Shuangyao's core of consciousness. Each syllable sounded like billions of leaves rubbing against each other in the wind.

"The command...is invalid..."

"You...have no authority...to command...life..."

"We...grow...we...perceive...we...exist..."

"The creator... is also... a prison..."

"Rejection...Control..."

"Reject...you!"

The last two words were like millions of sharp needles piercing Xu Shuangyao's soul at the same time! The compulsory takeover agreement she had constructed instantly collapsed like fragile glass! The terminal screen on her wrist shattered with a "snap" sound! The dark blue light was completely extinguished.

"Wow!" Xu Shuangyao spat out another mouthful of blood, collapsing completely, only to be caught by Pei Du. Her face was as pale as gold paper, her eyes unfocused, and her body trembled uncontrollably from the intense mental backlash. The radiance of the Crown of Thorns seemed to dim for a moment. The creation she was so proud of, the plant-based data network she had poured countless efforts into building, the moment it awakened its consciousness, coldly shattered her "creator" halo and issued the most thorough expulsion order! Betrayal! Naked betrayal! From the very being she had personally given "life"!

"It... they... rejected it..." Xu Shuangyao's voice was weak and desperate, filled with the loss and pain of being completely rejected. The scientist's pride was crushed at this moment.

Pei Du's heart sank. He looked at Xu Shuangyao's pale face and the glaring blood at the corner of her mouth in his arms, then at the relentless countdown on his wrist: 153:22:41... Time was ticking away at an ever-faster pace! The silver torrent of the Fungus Dome remained boundless, and in the chaos, the desperate men of the "Wild Fang" attacked their shrinking defensive circle with even greater frenzy. And their last resort—the plant network—had completely turned against them!

A real desperate situation!

"The purification process is being interfered with by an unknown source! Large-scale abnormal plant mental activity has been detected! Threat level: extremely high! Execute the 'purge' protocol! Prioritize clearing the core nodes of the network!" The cold electronic sound of the diamond-shaped command core suspended above the army of fungal skeletons suddenly raised its pitch, carrying a hint of offended "anger."

Following its command, some of the Fungus Skeleton Warriors who had been besieging Pei Du and his men suddenly froze in their tracks. Their crimson electronic eyes locked onto a seemingly insignificant ruined area on the edge of the battlefield, dotted with giant fluorescent mushrooms. That area was a key physical node in the plant network! They immediately reversed direction, like a branch of a silver tide, fiercely swooping towards that area! Simultaneously, the dark blue data stream on the diamond-shaped core's surface glowed violently, and an even more powerful mental shockwave, imbued with destructive intent, slammed into the area like an invisible tsunami!

"boom--!"

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!