At the same time, the oldest, massive war banyan tree in the center of the square, its trunk covered in scorch marks and bullet holes, suddenly trembled! Its drooping aerial roots danced wildly like a green waterfall upon receiving command! Countless tiny leaves, gleaming with a purifying golden light, fell from the aerial roots, like a golden rain of light, precisely covering the diffuse black spore mist!
Chichichi--!
The moment the golden leaves touched the black spores, a purifying light flashed! The foul-smelling black mist, like sewage being thrown into a purification pool, melted and purified at a speed visible to the naked eye! The sickening, corrosive smell in the air quickly dissipated.
"Guard!" Xu Shuangyao's voice once again rang out in the consciousness of all the survivors, clear and calm.
Buzz——!
At the edge of the city, the "walls" composed of giant vines and animated plant roots suddenly lit up! Sharp wooden thorns rapidly sprouted from the vines and roots, originally serving only as a barrier. Flowing golden veins shone brightly, forming an energy barrier blanketed in thorns and purifying light! Several figures, clearly possessed by the mycelium's depth, attempted to attack the barrier from other directions. They crashed into it fiercely and were instantly pierced by the dense swarm of activated wooden thorns. Purifying light surged in, incinerating the parasites and their mycelial cores into charcoal!
The chaos was forcibly contained. The survivors were still in shock, tears and fear still lingering on their faces, but hope had rekindled in their eyes. They subconsciously looked towards the top of the giant tower, at the figure shrouded in a soft halo of light.
Pei Du silently appeared beside Xu Shuangyao, his body, covered in dark gold patterns, like a cold reef. His molten golden eyes didn't focus on the chaos below, but instead pierced the dome covering the City of Thorns, gazing at the edge of the wasteland beyond, blanketed by new growth. His perception, like invisible radar, instantly picked up several more hidden, more energetically reactive clusters of hyphae. Like malignant tumors lurking beneath newly formed flesh, they frantically absorbed the emanating life energy of the City of Thorns, accelerating their proliferation and brewing a larger-scale counterattack.
"There's more than one place." Pei Du's voice was low and cold, like a knife scraping across metal. "They are evolving. They are using our life energy."
Xu Shuangyao sensed it, too, her expression grim. "Are they adapting... even... imitating?" She keenly sensed that the mycelial energy fluctuations at those hidden gathering points actually carried a faint... faint frequency of the lifeblood of the City of Thorns. Though distorted and filthy, the imitation's intent was undeniably clear! This wasn't simply residual contamination! It was more like an organized counterattack, a vicious lifeform's frenzied attack on its new home!
"Clean up." There was a flash of molten gold in Pei Du's eyes. Without any hesitation, the two cold words were like a verdict.
He raised his right hand covered with dark gold patterns, spread out his five fingers, and grasped it in mid-air at a collapsed pit on the edge of the city below, where he perceived the mycelium energy to be most active!
There were no earth-shattering explosions.
A single beam of pure, pitch-black light, like a wound tearing through space, silently burst forth from his palm! The beam's speed surpassed the ability of vision to detect, instantly crossing space and precisely plunging into the collapsed pit!
boom--!!!
A dull, thunderous roar echoed from deep underground! The entire ground of the City of Thorns trembled slightly! There was no flame, no smoke, only a visible black energy ripple that suddenly spread out! Wherever it passed, the ground, the rocks, the remaining metal debris... all matter was instantly decomposed and annihilated, turning into the most basic particles of dust! The energy of the vast mycelium aggregate entrenched in the depths of the pit reacted like a punctured bubble, disappearing in an instant! Only a bottomless, mirror-smooth circular pit remained, emitting an aura of destruction! Not even a trace of mycelium remained!
Absolute annihilation! The power of the End Star Core!
The shockwaves of this thunderbolt even surpassed the purification miracle Xu Shuangyao had previously demonstrated. The survivors in the square gazed at the terrifying, suddenly appearing crater, sensing the soul-freezing aura of destruction lingering within. They fell silent, their eyes filled with boundless awe and fear for the dark golden figure atop the tower.
Pei Du destroyed a mycelium nest with one strike, and there was no wavering in his eyes, as if he had just brushed away a speck of dust. His perception locked onto the next target.
"Wait!" Xu Shuangyao's voice rang out in his mind, with a hint of urgency, "There's something... there!"
Her perception was deeper and more nuanced than Pei Du's. At another hyphae gathering point targeted by Pei Du, near the entrance to a semi-collapsed underground laboratory, she "saw" not only the madly multiplying hyphae but also "heard" them! An extremely faint, intermittent fragment of consciousness, filled with pain and confusion!
“…guarding the monument…is not…wrong…”
"...purification...must be...purification..."
“…It hurts…it hurts so much…fusion…out of control…”
"...Frost...medicine...key..."
The fragments of consciousness were in chaos, filled with desperate screams and crazy ravings, but at the bottom of that madness, Xu Shuangyao caught a trace of an extremely familiar, yet cold and twisted soul fluctuation! This fluctuation... was eerily similar to the remnants of the will of the Covenant Stele!
Pei Du also instantly caught the fragment of information transmitted by Xu Shuangyao. For the first time, a sharp suspicion flashed in his golden eyes! His perception suddenly focused on the past!
Right now!
Boom——!!!
The mycelium cluster near the underground laboratory entrance, as if stimulated by Pei Du's powerful perception, suddenly erupted with a sinister energy far greater than before! The ground heaved and exploded as if boiling! Countless terrifying mycelial tentacles, as thick as giant pythons and covered in sticky black spores and writhing tumors, broke out of the ground and waved wildly! In the center of the tentacles, a massive "tumor" tens of meters high, forcibly pieced together from countless mycelium, rotten flesh, twisted metal, and the remains of shattered instruments, slowly rose!
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com