The stone tablet is shaking.
It wasn't the aftermath of the earthquake, but the stone tablet itself that was trembling. The dark red mycelium that formed the tablet pulsed and contracted frantically, like billions of crammed hearts pumping blood frantically. In the center of the tablet, a countdown composed of dark green data streams beat at a breathtaking pace:
【167:48:22】
【167:48:21】
【167:48:20】
Every tick of the numbers was like an invisible hammer, hammering down on Xu Shuangyao's heart. 167 hours. Less than seven days. The Master of Fungus awakened, and all things came to an end.
"Go!" Pei Du's voice was hoarse and tense, like a fully drawn bowstring. He grabbed Xu Shuangyao's cold wrist with such force that it ached her wristbone. Between his eyebrows, the suspended shadow of the crown of thorns emanated an unstable, scorching dark golden light, casting a semi-bright, half-dark cast on his angular face, like a hybrid of god and demon. His eyes, sharp as a knife, swept across the messy underground laboratory, filled with the smell of blood and burning, and finally fixed on the frantically beating death countdown stone tablet, leaving only pure, icy determination.
The wrecked RV's engine let out a deathly roar, its tires rolling over shattered concrete and sticky blood, rushing out of the broken sewer gate. The blood-red sunrise, like a splash of thick plasma, instantly filled the entire field of vision, painting the barren Gobi desert a glaring scarlet.
There was no sense of relief at surviving the disaster, only a deeper feeling of suffocation.
The air was heavy as lead, thick with ozone and filled with an... eerie silence. Too quiet. No wind whistling through the metal ruins, no rustling of low-level aberrations crawling in the shadows, even the occasional sporadic crackle of distant gunfire had vanished completely. It was as if the entire wasteland had been silenced, leaving only the solitary roar of their wrecked car's engine, piercing the dead silence.
"Something's wrong..." Xu Shuangyao's voice was dry. She lunged at the spiderweb-strewn window, her knuckles white from the strain. Under the blood-red sky, everywhere she looked—the remains of giant fungi, twisted metal skeletons, the outlines of abandoned towns—was shrouded in a viscous, heart-wrenching, dark red shadow. It wasn't a shadow cast by clouds, but more like... a translucent, slowly creeping dark red membrane covering the sky!
"Look at the sky!" Pei Du turned the steering wheel sharply to avoid a huge crack on the ground and growled.
Xu Shuangyao suddenly looked up!
My heart was instantly gripped by an icy hand!
Above the blood-red sky, an unimaginably vast, dark-red "mycelium" was forming, covering the entire field of vision! Countless hair-thin, yet incredibly resilient, scarlet mycelium, like billions of living blood vessels, frantically grew upward from the horizon, spreading and interweaving! They woven themselves together in the stratosphere, forming a vast canopy covering the entire wasteland and even the vaster areas beyond! Through the meshes of this canopy, a viscous, dark-red fluorescent mycelial fluid slowly flowed, like the circulatory system of a living organism! Sunlight shone through this writhing, translucent, blood-red fungal web, staining the earth a sickening, morbid crimson!
Buzz——!!!
A piercing, emotionless electronic synthesized sound, like a tsunami, swept across the wasteland without warning! This sound didn't come from any specific direction, but seemed to emanate simultaneously from the sky, from the earth, from the air, from every strand of mycelium that formed this blood-red fungal web! With absolute authority and an icy will of destruction, it instantly infused the minds of every hearing being!
[Global Emergency Notice! The Supreme Will of the Fungus Dome!]
[Target Identification: Twin False God Carriers! ]
[Codename: Crown of Thorns (Alpha) / Shadow of Creation (Omega)]
Threat Level: Exterminatus
[Executive Order: Edict of Annihilation]
[Executing Unit: Eradicator Legion]
[Scope of execution: global]
[Canopy System — Activated!]
[Countdown: Purification is complete before the fungus master wakes up!]
The notice played repeatedly, and the cold electronic sound was like a death knell, beating over and over again in the dead and silent wasteland.
"Eradication and extermination order...Sky System..." Xu Shuangyao muttered to herself, a chill running down her spine. The Fungus Dome's reaction speed far exceeded her expectations! Not only had they confirmed the existence of the Twin Carriers, they had also directly labeled them "false gods" who must be completely eradicated! This blood-red fungal web covering the sky was their imprisonment, and it was also the signal for the Fungus Dome to launch a comprehensive purge!
Pei Du slammed on the brakes! The tires rubbed against the gravel-covered ground, making a sharp screeching sound and leaving long tracks.
Ahead, on a relatively flat stretch of Gobi Desert beneath a blood-red sky, suddenly appeared a small settlement, barely contained by scrapped vehicles, twisted metal sheets, and thick fungus trunks! A few faint wisps of smoke rose from the shantytown, like a candle in the wind in this dead, dark red world.
"Go around! Quick!" Xu Shuangyao's heart instantly rose to her throat. Approaching any human gathering point at this time would be tantamount to suicide! The Fungus Dome's notice was the deadliest plague. They would avoid it like they'd avoided the Aberrants, or even... worse!
"It's too late..." Pei Du's voice was filled with a suppressed heaviness. He stared fixedly at the direction of the settlement, his knuckles turning white from the strain of gripping the steering wheel. The shadow of the crown of thorns between his brows flickered violently and uncontrollably, its light flickering on and off like a lightbulb about to burst.
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