Yue Shuiyuan's hand holding the flamethrower was shaking: "Are they learning about mechanical structures?"
"More than that." The tip of Mou Xuan's dagger lifted up half of the railroad track, and the mycelium weaved fingerprint-like patterns on the rust.
When he opened his collar to dissipate heat, Shen Yao noticed a spiral scar of mycelium burns below his collarbone - left by rescuing the patrol three days ago.
Chen Yao's ice boots crushed the spore ice crystals, and the tactical flashlight swept across the back of Mou Xuan's neck: "Your body temperature is above the standard again." The condensing agent she threw over was bitten away by Mou Xuan's teeth, and the light blue mist wrapped around his hot temples.
The shadows of the two overlapped in the cold light of the mycelium to form an X-shaped alert posture, which was the tactical position they had practiced when clearing out the mutant rats last month.
Inspector Hu suddenly pointed at the instrument and screamed: "Sound wave resonance! These hyphae are imitating the natural frequency of the subway tunnel!"
As if to confirm his words, the entire tunnel suddenly sounded like a train entering a station.
The hyphae frenzy turned into a steel-blue torrent, but was frozen by a double force at the moment when it was about to engulf everyone - Chen Yao's ice blade inserted into the railroad track to release a ring of frost, and the silver light in Mou Xuan's eyes surged to form a spherical time barrier.
The collision of ice crystals and space-time ripples creates a prism effect, refracting the mycelium torrent into a colorful spectrum.
"Burn it for me!" Mou Xuan's roar shook off the ice spikes, and Yue Shuiyuan's flames gushed out.
However, the mycelium that should have been carbonized suddenly aggregated into a mirror, refracting the flames toward the water reservoir.
Chen Yao turned around and threw out six ice cones to nail the fire pipe, and the exploding water mist finally extinguished the rebounding flames.
"It's not studying." Mou Xuan suddenly dragged Chen Yao towards the inspection well, and the sharp blade of mycelium rubbed against his back and tore a crack.
Fresh blood oozed from the old scars beneath the bulletproof windbreaker, and fell onto the mycelium, where red filaments resembling synapses grew out.
"These bastards are doing biological grafting!"
Chen Yao's icy gloves pressed on his wound, and the cold air and blood mixed into pink ice crystals.
When she looked up, the tactical lens reflected the strange changes in the tunnel wall - the burnt hyphae were reorganizing along the cracks in the concrete, gradually forming a three-dimensional structure similar to an underground pipeline network.
Inspector Hu suddenly raised the broken detector and said, "Conductivity! They treated the rails as circuit boards!"
As if a switch was pressed, all the hyphae arced simultaneously.
Mou Xuan's time barrier twisted into a Möbius strip in the strong electromagnetic field, and Chen Yao's ice blade began to vibrate uncontrollably at a high frequency.
When an inspector's protective clothing was about to be pierced by the electric arc, Mou Xuan suddenly stabbed the dagger into his own wound that had not yet healed.
"Next!" The blood bead he threw out condensed into a silver clock in the air, and Chen Yao's ice blade just pierced the minute hand scale.
The collision between the ripples of space and time and the cold current produced a strange neutralizing effect, and the uncontrolled electric arc was immediately directed into the underground drainage system.
When everyone rolled and crawled back to the ground, the mycelium network in the heavy rain had covered most of the base.
Mou Xuan tore apart the mycelium debris that was sticking to the wound, and suddenly found that there was half a piece of metal debris stuck to the tip of Chen Yao's ice blade - it was the guard of the tactical dagger he gave her last month.
"Not an escort." Chen Yao wiped the spore powder off the lenses and pointed the ice blade at the still-growing mycelium network.
Those fluorescent threads were weaving a three-dimensional model similar to the human neural network in the rainstorm, with metal parts that had not been fully digested hanging at each node.
Mou Xuan suddenly grabbed the back collar of Yue Shuiyuan's protective suit and asked, "Where are all the generators that were scrapped last quarter?"
"In... in the old material warehouse, but..."
"Bring 20 kilograms of TNT over there." Mou Xuan tore off the blood-stained hem of his shirt to bandage the wound. The mycelium in the blood clot was trying to form microscopic gears.
"These bastards are building bio-circuits. Blow up their capacitors for me."
Chen Yao's ice blade suddenly crossed Yue Shuiyuan's neck: "Wait, the color of the mycelium oozing from your wound has changed."
Mou Xuan looked down and saw the golden threads swimming in the blood-colored ice crystals, and suddenly remembered the vaccine needle that had scratched him three days ago.
When he tried to touch the tactical tablet, he discovered that the mycelium had already woven a fingerprint lock pattern on it - exactly the shape of the bloody fingerprint he had left by the reservoir seven hours ago.
The rainstorm suddenly changed direction, and a curtain of rain wrapped in fluorescent light formed a huge vortex on the west wall.
All the hyphae turned to that direction at the same time, and even the new golden threads growing on Mou Xuan's wounds curled in the same direction.
Chen Yao's ice blade suddenly issued a buzzing alarm, and the spectral analysis chart that popped up on the tactical lens was flashing wildly.
"Multiple sources of pollution." She inserted the ice blade into the ground to stabilize her body. The cold current froze the mycelium that tried to wrap around her ankle along the cracks in the ground. "These bastards are playing with fractal structures. Each contaminated area is a tentacle of a larger mother."
Mou Xuan suddenly threw the blood-stained bandage into the center of the vortex, and silver time sand gushed out from the wound.
The moment the blood drop touched the rain curtain, the mycelium network suddenly took shape within a radius of five kilometers - countless fluorescent veins shuttled between the ground and the buildings, and finally formed a honeycomb structure similar to a supercomputer radiator in six different directions.
Inspector Hu suddenly fell to his knees, the dashboard exploding into pieces in his hands. "Vital signs simulation! They're... they're imitating a human heartbeat!"
Chen Yao's ice blade reflected Mou Xuan's constricted pupils, and they both thought of the missing frozen heart three days ago - a secondary contaminant that was supposed to be used in the superpower transplant surgery.
When Mou Xuan's Sand of Time touched a certain honeycomb node, all the hyphae suddenly stopped wriggling and the entire base fell into dead silence for three seconds.
Then they heard an electronic sound similar to a pacemaker.
"It's not a circuit." Mou Xuan's dagger suddenly fell to the ground, and the golden threads flowing out of the wound were resonating with the mycelium network. "These bastards... are building a biological engine."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
