In the light of the fire, there were densely packed human figures!
They were no longer scattered, desperate survivors, but organized, fully-fledged teams! They wore a variety of crude armor made from worn-out combat uniforms, animal skins, and even reinforced mycelium fabric. Their faces were painted with a mixture of mineral and plant juices, but the fatigue in their eyes couldn't be concealed, and instead, a burning flame of desperate determination burned within them!
The crowd was roughly divided into several square formations. At the front were warriors armed with a variety of modified firearms, energy weapons, and even cold weapons. They used the massive fossilized roots of the World Tree as cover, constructing crude yet functional fortifications. In the middle were people pushing rusty, smoke-belching, crude vehicles powered by steam or biological sclerotia. These vehicles were loaded with ammunition, food, medical supplies, and even a few rugged-looking energy cannons constructed from giant metal tubes and mycelial energy cores! In the rear were even more elderly, weak, women, and children. They were not a burden, but rather busily busy: using simple tools to reinforce the camp, treating the wounded, brewing decoctions that exuded the scent of exotic herbs, and caring for those compatriots who had been slightly infected by the mycelium but had not yet fully transformed.
In the center of the camp, a massive banner made of rough canvas fluttered in the night wind! Painted on the banner with dark red pigment (what appeared to be dried fungal blood mixed with minerals) was a burning, twisted mycelium totem. In the center of the totem, a sharp blade with thorns pierced through the mycelium!
Mycelium Purge Alliance!
Under the flag, a figure stood on a simple platform naturally formed by the fossilized roots of a giant world tree.
It’s Xu Shuangyao.
She wore a dark gray hooded cloak, noticeably too large, stained with stains and dark red blood. Beneath it lay an equally frayed battle uniform. The shadow of the hood obscured most of her face, revealing only a taut, bloodless jaw and tightly pursed, chapped lips. One hand rested on a twisted metal staff, its tip studded with dull fungus sclerotia—a makeshift support. The other hand pressed firmly against the left side of her neck. Thick, herbal-scented bandages covered the area, but dark red blood still seeped from the edges, marking the site of the laceration.
She stood upright, like an unyielding spear thrust into the ruins, but her slightly trembling shoulders and overly pale face betrayed the weakness of her still-unhealed injuries and the forced effort she put on them. Every breath she took seemed to involve immense pain, and the knuckles of her fingers pressing against the side of her neck turned white from the exertion.
Yet, as her gaze, through the shadow of her hood, scanned the vast array of rebels below, their bonfires and bustling figures, it was remarkably calm and resolute, like a bottomless pool of cold, containing the power to freeze all fear. The firelight danced in her hooded eyes, reflecting no emotion, only a heaviness that pierced death and bore all weight.
"Brothers and sisters of the Burning Fungus Alliance!" Xu Shuangyao's voice emanated through a crude megaphone. It was low, even a little hoarse and weak, yet it pierced through the din of the camp with a strange, penetrating power, like lava beneath the ice. "Look behind us!" She suddenly raised her long metal staff, pointing at the crumbling, silent remains of the World Tree server, like a dying giant. The massive metal skeleton cast a sinister shadow against the canopy of the blood-red fungus web.
"That's the tombstone of the last era! Buried here is the civilization destroyed by the 'Logic Plague'—the 'Fungus Master' that seeks to devour us today!" Her voice suddenly rose, carrying a sorrowful accusation. "And now! That rotten monster! It sits atop this tombstone! It gnaws at the bones of our ancestors! It distorts the very data of life! It wants to turn us! The entire planet! into sustenance for its rotten throne!"
The camp fell into a dead silence. Only the crackling of the campfire and the distant roar of the Fungus Master could be heard. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the gaunt, severely wounded figure on the platform, standing tall and straight like a pine tree. His eyes were filled with anger, sorrow, and... a ignited fire.
"It calls us false gods! It calls us the source of disaster!" Xu Shuangyao's voice dripped with icy sarcasm, his gaze sweeping downward. "Look at this wasteland! Look at those compatriots transformed into fungus sculptures! Look at those twisted aberrations! Who is the true disaster?! Who is the true false god?! It's the Fungus Master hiding deep within the rotting fungus blanket, manipulating everything with lies and fear, treating all life as mere ants and nourishment! It's the rotten crown of betrayal and bones atop its head!"
Her words were like a stone thrown into water, stirring up a long-suppressed tidal wave! The crowd erupted in suppressed roars and sobs!
"It thinks it can control everything! It thinks its eradicator, its harvester, is invincible!" Xu Shuangyao's voice suddenly became as sharp as a knife, like a blade drawn from its sheath, pointing directly in the direction of the fungus master's entrenched position! "It's wrong!"
She flung back her hood!
Her pale face was completely exposed in the flickering firelight! Scars still lingered on her forehead and cheeks. Most striking was the side of her neck—under the thick bandages, the outline of the wound was still visible, the skin around the edge red and swollen from inflammation. But her eyes, those burning icy flames, now shone with a startling brilliance! There was no fear, no retreat, only a cold determination that saw through everything and disregarded life and death!
"It forgot! We are human! We once rebuilt our homes from the ruins of a nuclear explosion! We once searched for an antidote amidst the ravages of viruses! We once sought order amidst the torrent of data!" Xu Shuangyao's voice was like a war drum, beating on everyone's heart. "We may be small, we may be fragile! But we possess something it can never understand, and it cannot take away!"
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