Chapter 601: Missing Gu Sheng
"Giggle, giggle..." A childish voice interrupted the boy's voice.
He turned his head and saw Taotao, who was originally held in Zhuang Mingxu's arms, had crawled to the side of a newly grown tender stem above his head at some point. One hand turned into countless green colors to bind the main trunk, and the other hand turned and grabbed the fork of the tender stem.
The mutant plant under his feet began to shake violently, and the boy was almost thrown off. The other people who were originally fixed on his body also bumped into each other during the shaking, making a thudding sound.
"Ouch, who hit my head?"
"Fuck, how long has it been since you washed your feet?"
"I'm about to vomit, Goudan, keep your plants under control and don't go crazy—"
Seeing this, Wu Yue immediately ordered everyone to rescue the teammates who were tied up. He then stepped forward swiftly and subdued the boy named Goudan.
As Taotao's little hands grabbed the tender stem of the mutant plant, the whole mutant plant shook more and more crazily. Zhuang Mingxu used his hands and feet to wrap himself around the trunk of the mutant plant, barely preventing himself from being thrown out, while the others had already been knocked unconscious by the wall, and no one knew where they were thrown to.
The surrounding walls fell down, and just when Zhuang Mingxu suspected that this thing could overturn the roof of the cave, he suddenly felt light under him, and the whole plant fell limply to the ground. Zhuang Mingxu raised his hand to catch the falling Taotao, rolled twice, and landed safely.
"Mingxu, how are you?" Wu Yue stepped forward to look at the two of them. The first thing that caught his eye was the crystal core in Taotao's hand. The emerald green crystal core, as thick as his wrist, emitted a bright light like a fine emerald. "What is this?"
"Its energy core," Taotao said, sliding down from Zhuang Mingxu's body, and stepped on the mutant plant, whose species could not be identified except a layer of skin, on the ground, and groaned, "I made you want to eat me, I made you want to eat me."
Zhuang Mingxu patted the dirt off his body and looked around. There were people lying on the ground in a circle, each of them was injured. The few people who had been showing off their power just now were now equipped with supernatural jammers and tied up tightly.
"Does it match the number of missing people?" Zhuang Mingxu asked.
"Nine more to go," Guan Wei replied.
"I will..."
“Boom…”
After a loud bang, the ground began to tremble. Zhuang Mingxu suddenly looked in the direction where the sound came from - that was the direction where Lu Weiyi was.
Zhuang Mingxu’s face turned pale instantly. He raised his foot to turn back, but Wu Yue grabbed him and said, “I’ll go with you.”
He looked at Zhao Li, the deputy captain of the fourth team, and said, "You take a team to continue searching for the missing people along this road, and I will send them back for treatment."
"Understood!" Zhao Li responded and quickly pointed to a team that looked energetic, "Guan Wei, your special ability will be more useful if you follow Captain Wu to transport the wounded back."
Guan Wei made an "oh" gesture towards him and stood behind Wu Yue.
"If you find something wrong, protect yourself first and return to the team to ask for help." Wu Yue gave them instructions and watched them leave. He then mobilized all the remaining people with earth-type abilities.
With their combined efforts, they used their special powers to lift up the ground where the injured were lying, forming a natural conveyor belt that rushed towards the temporary base.
Zhuang Mingxu was extremely anxious. He knew Lu Weiyi's situation and it was impossible for anyone to get close to him. However, he forgot that others might not want to get close to him. What if they wanted to kill him directly?
The more he thought about it, the more he blamed himself. He wondered if waking up from a fantasy world had affected his judgment.
When everyone returned to the temporary residence, they found that the comfortable temporary residence they had built had been destroyed and riddled with holes.
There were holes in the cave ceiling in many places above their heads, and trees, weeds mixed with frozen snow blocked the passage. The cold air made the people who had lived underground for a long time shiver uncontrollably.
The only sound around was the whistling of the wind swirling around the cave entrance above. Apart from the faint smell of gunpowder in the air, there was no sign of anyone fighting. It was so quiet that it didn't seem like there was any sign of human presence.
This made the returning people feel even more uneasy - their people had disappeared just as quietly before.
"You stay here and take care of the wounded. I'll go over and take a look," Wu Yue whispered to Guan Wei who was following him.
Guan Wei frowned and looked at the temporary base which was completely covered up and could not be identified. He nodded heavily and said, "I will protect my brothers, and you should be careful too."
Wu Yue nodded and selected two earth-type ability users of a slightly higher level. They took the lead, used their abilities to move away the soil layer blocking the way in front of them, and entered first.
Zhuang Mingxu followed closely behind him, holding Taotao.
The underground passage was not completely destroyed. Several places that collapsed were fragile ventilation holes. After entering, they found that the torches used for lighting in some parts of the cave were still burning, but due to the lack of ventilation and oxygen, the flames became dim and could go out at any time.
He then remembered that the underground was lacking in oxygen. "Mingxu, are you okay?"
Among the four people, only Zhuang Mingxu, an ordinary person, has the worst physical fitness.
"It's okay." Zhuang Mingxu had noticed it before entering the passage. He had adjusted his breathing from the beginning. At this time, he was just suffering from slight hypoxia, which was not serious.
"It seems that we need to restore the ventilation system as soon as possible," Wu Yue said, and used his supernatural power to remove the layer of soil above his head. The cool air rushed in and instantly blew out the dying flames.
"..."Wu Yue.
"Don't worry about that, let's go check out the situation first." Zhuang Mingxu turned on the overhead light to illuminate a small area in front of him.
The four of them walked side by side towards the depths of the base. Along the way, three earth-type ability users briefly repaired the collapsed ground and re-ventilated it to allow oxygen to be injected again.
Ten minutes later, the first person appeared in sight.
This man was obviously a member of Yuebanwan. He was carrying weapons and equipment unique to the Yuebanwan base army, which he was holding in his hands, as if he was ready to fight at any time, but he was unconscious on the ground.
"Alive, but a little short of oxygen." Wu Yue stepped forward and turned the man over, revealing his purple cheeks. After checking his entire body, Wu Yue frowned and said, "No external injuries."
"Could it be another inexplicably unconscious person?" asked a psychic accompanying them.
Wu Yue was unsure, so he gestured to carry the person on his back, and the four of them walked deeper into the cave again.
When they set out again, they met more and more people, and gradually some familiar faces appeared, until they reached the deepest part of the base.
In the middle of the cave, which is more than ten meters wide, there is a bed made of simple soil. The person sleeping on it does not look like a living person except for his slight breathing.
Surrounding him were various glowing plants, with dark green plants like wood ears clustered together, and some that looked like small mushrooms glowing brightly. Their fragile stems and leaves only covered a layer of the ground, illuminating the entire cave.
Rather than a place of residence, it looks more like an altar, and the person in the middle is the sacrifice. Fortunately, the rustling of swaying small plants somewhat reduces the eeriness.
The two people who had never been here looked around curiously.
Unexpectedly, this place was exactly the same as when Zhuang Mingxu left, and there was not even a sign of anyone approaching.
Zhuang Mingxu didn't bother to wear the mental shielding helmet and was about to get closer, but Wu Yue grabbed him and said, "Don't go over there. We can't lose any more manpower."
All of their people fell unconscious in the cave for unknown reasons; some were even sleeping in their own dormitories, so peacefully that they didn't even struggle.
Unable to figure out the reason, Wu Yue didn't want to be distracted by taking care of anyone at this moment.
"Taotao, go and see how your father is doing. Is he injured?" Zhuang Mingxu put down the child he had been holding and motioned for him to go forward.
"Okay." Taotao walked forward obediently, carefully avoiding the small plants growing on the ground. After all, each of them was specially found by him and it took him a lot of effort. If he stepped on one less plant, it would be one less, so he couldn't waste them under his feet.
As he approached, countless moving branches emerged from the spacious cave walls and approached the middleman from all directions. The two earth-type mutants immediately became alert and saw that the plant extended to the middle and climbed up the abrupt platform, then wrapped the entire platform, forming a plant cocoon.
"It should be fine." Wu Yue breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Taotao patting the "cocoon" and returning.
Zhuang Mingxu nodded, still staring at Taotao, and only felt relieved when he got a positive answer from him.
The returning mutant long-pointed leaf rose protected Lu Weiyi again, and Zhuang Mingxu immediately started to investigate the current situation of the temporary base with Wu Yue.
After a check, they found that none of the remaining personnel were missing, and they had all fallen into an inexplicable coma.
This scene was too familiar, and Zhuang Mingxu couldn't help but suspect that it was Lu Weiyi's mental power at work, so he quickly asked a psychic to conduct a test.
"There are remnants of psychic attacks, but I didn't find any signs of hallucinations in their brains." The person who had the highest psychic ability among those who stayed behind was a woman named Tang Huan. She had a shaved head and solid muscles. At first glance, she looked no different from the other men, but when she spoke, her voice sounded like the soft southern dialect.
"What do you mean?" Zhuang Mingxu frowned.
"I think they were indeed attacked by mental forces, but they were not necessarily pulled into an illusion."
This almost means that Lu Weiyi is the culprit behind all this.
There are many ways to attack with mental power, and being pulled into an illusion is only the mildest one. Thinking of Lu Weiyi's brutal methods, Zhuang Mingxu couldn't help but pinch his brows and asked hurriedly, "Sense whether their crystal cores are still there? Are there any broken pieces?"
Tang Huan raised his eyebrows and immediately asked someone to re-examine the unconscious psychic, "No problem."
"That's good." If Lu Weiyi broke the crystal cores of his teammates, it would be a joke. "Don't you have a way to wake them up?"
Tang Huan shook his head, looked around, and shouted to the military doctor Sun Cheng who was treating the injured, "I suspect that their brains may have been stimulated by strong mental force, causing them to fall into a coma, similar to when we usually use external force to knock people out. Do you have any way to check if this is the case?"
As Zhuang Mingxu was judging this possibility, he saw Sun Cheng also thinking seriously for a moment and shook his head solemnly, "The brain is a very delicate organ. As long as it is subjected to a little external force, infinite situations may occur. Everything needs to be judged after they wake up. No instrument can detect the damage caused at the mental level."
He paused and added, "Oh, unless their brains were simply smashed, in which case there's nothing to investigate."
Just when the treatment here was at a stalemate, light footsteps hurriedly came from the inner cave, accompanied by Taotao's breathless baby voice, "Dad, Dad, it's bad, the big bad guy is missing."
"Who?" Zhuang Mingxu didn't understand.
Then Taotao explained anxiously, "It's the sleeping bad guy who was sent here with my father."
"You mean Gu Sheng——is missing!"
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