Poisoned Land (2)

The coastal city occupied by the demons was originally a ruin of Luoyue City.

In the center of the shattered garden that had once belonged to a noble family, the beautifully trimmed shrubs and well-watered flower beds no longer existed.

Instead, there are black vines. To be more precise, if you look at it with human eyes, it is an extremely disgusting and ugly plant. It is black, but not pure black. The raised plant skin is as uncomfortable as the skin of a toad.

In the eyes of the demons, these vines dotted with blue and purple spots, and the branches, leaves, and buds that sparkle with light are undoubtedly the most beautiful things in the world.

The vines had spread out, extending to the surroundings, filling up the ruins of the noble mansion. And in the center of the dense vines was a flower bud.

It stretched out its small tender stem and rolled up the crumbs taken from the magic stone lamp. The slits on the stem were full of tiny saw teeth, and it chewed them up with a crunching sound and swallowed them.

The demon who handed over the magic stone smiled gently at this scene.

"Bai Beite, how is 'Mother'? Why is she growing so slowly?"

A sweet voice was heard, and a demon approached. Her body was similar to that of a human girl of twelve or thirteen years old, wrapped in tattered clothes, and her bare feet were also similar to those of humans, but they were some distance from the ground.

A closer look revealed that she had eight spider-like legs on her back, and she apparently relied on these four pairs of legs to walk.

Her shoulder-length black hair was messy and seemed to have never been taken care of. Her face was no different from that of an ordinary girl, except that apart from the two open red eyes that looked like they were dripping with blood, she had six closed eyes on her little face.

"Lilisai, don't be impatient. The initial growth period of Mother's clone will be longer. She needs to slowly accumulate energy."

Bai Beite's eyes were originally narrow, and when he squinted and smiled, they basically became a line. He spoke slowly to Lilise, and his dragon tail with blue and white scales gently swung up, poking out from his hanging white hair, and patted the ground again.

Lilisai pursed her lips, "It's been three years. Hurry up and take control of this continent, so I can lock up the humans and tinker with the machines. There are so many new gadgets here, but the humans won't cooperate, which makes me so angry. The human slaves in my house are more obedient. The humans here always like to resist. I don't understand what's the point. Can't they just accept the transformation of 'mother'?"

As Lilisi was talking, one of her feet moved behind her. She turned her head and said, "Hey! What are you hiding from us? Ruijun! Get out now!"

A man wearing faded gold-rimmed glasses and a neat suit that he had found from somewhere, looking very elegant and gentlemanly, walked out from behind the half-broken pillar.

Yes, there is nothing special about him, he looks just like a human being.

Ruijun smiled, stepped lightly on Lilise's spider silk, and walked towards Baibet and the "mother's" clone, Zhongbao.

The tender stem explored his body and coiled up his arm.

Bai Beite opened his eyes slightly, revealing white pupils as bright as jade.

He said, "You smell too much like a human, but 'Mother' thinks you smell good."

Ruijun didn't care at all that his mother swallowed one of his fingers and then spit it out.

His fingers grew out quickly.

Geng retreated somewhat disappointedly, and before leaving he tapped Ruijun's cheek, as if blaming the child for his naughty prank.

Ruijun smiled faintly and said, "That shows that I was very successful in pretending. I almost fooled even my mother."

Bai Beite emphasized: "It's just 'Zhongbao', 'Mother's' clone. If the real mother is here, you can't fool her at all."

Ruijun: "What else does 'Mother' have to say?"

Bai Beit gently stroked the stem and bud. "She asked us to feed her."

Lilise: "Ah, humans would take their own bodies away and burn them, so there really isn't much left."

Ruijun smiled and said, "That's why I said long ago, control them and let them capture humans alive instead, so that mother's food can be guaranteed."

Lilisi rolled her eyes and said, "Aren't you capturing humans alive just for fun? What, aren't there enough humans on your human slave island for you to play with?"

"My human slave island also plays an important role in providing transformation materials for my mother. All the pure bloods that came after that were basically born from the humans I provided. How could they all be just for fun?" Ruijun stroked his chin and said, "However, how can that small community compare to the naturally developed tribes of real humans. The captive humans on a small island are not as diverse as those on this land. I am also very interested in the rapid development of their civilization. You should know best about their strange machines."

Lilise had no way of refutation and her four legs began to shake uncontrollably.

Bai Beit said, "But in the final analysis, we still have to completely control this land before we come here, so that the mother's seeds can grow safely. There are also powerful guys among humans. We have to kill those small pests before they grow up. Do you have any good ideas?"

Ruijun pondered for a moment and said, "Sometimes I will listen to their spirits. Because they are far away from the mother body, pure blood is more difficult to control, and mixed blood is even more difficult. Those with lower intelligence are basically controlled by instinct. Their brains are full of desire for food. Most of them probably won't listen if the immature 'seed buds' control them and order them to capture living people." He paused for a while, squatted down, picked up a vine, looked at it carefully, and asked, "Has the spray bud grown well?"

Bai Bei Te's eyes narrowed into slits as she smiled: "You can see that too. Yes, most of the spray buds are now able to grow and are already in the mature stage."

"Then there's nothing to worry about. We'll speed up from now on." Ruijun rolled his eyes. "It's just a pity. Can I keep some of the humans I captured, 'Mother'?"

The seed bud shook its stem rhythmically, as if to allow him to do so.

Bai Beit looked around and asked, "Haoli is not here?"

Ruijun spread his hands and said, "He is keen on capturing humans for experiments. Among us, he is the most diligent in going to the front line."

Bai Beit suddenly remembered something: "Ah, if you meet him, ask him to bring me some living plants. Try to bring back as many different species as possible. There are many plants on this continent that I have never seen before. I like them very much."

Lilisay: "By the way, is that weird guy from Florence also with Holly?"

Ruijun said thoughtfully: "He likes to avoid my gaze deliberately, so I still don't know what he is thinking. It's a bit suspicious..."

"Have the demons become more restrained recently?"

"I was leading a team once and saw the demons retreating instead of charging forward."

"You've seen the human army's resistance, so you're starting to get scared, right?"

"…No, on the contrary, they are about to start the next stage."

Inger pressed his temple and said despite the headache: "The retreat of the demons you saw proves that there is something behind that attracts them more. Most of the ones we are fighting now are defective monsters with low intelligence and demons who have lost some of their sanity. Their instincts drive them to kill. Staying away from the mother body, they have lost a certain degree of control and become more wanton. In the previous battles, they crushed us with numbers and had no organization, but even so, we were only able to slow down the speed of the front line's advance."

Alex continued, "If the clones planted by the mother on this continent grow up and start to control this large number of demons, the human race will suffer even more casualties than it does now."

Inger sighed. Only he knew that Alex was still underestimating the truth. The correct version should be that he was completely unable to fight back.

Otherwise, how could 60% of the human population be wiped out in just a few years?

Leon Mond asked: "You said there was something attracting them from behind. What was it?"

Aura: "Is it related to the black and purple miasma that has been reported frequently a few days ago?"

Inger opened his hands and used magic mist to construct a three-dimensional diagram while explaining: "Demon plants do not use the sun and oxygen as their energy source, but a special kind of miasma. This miasma is highly poisonous to the primitive creatures of our Western Continent, but it is something that pure demons rely on for survival. Miasma is produced by the mist buds differentiated from the roots of the demon mother tree. It is the mother that breeds the demons and the basis for all the survival of the demons."

Cheryl asked, "So they can't survive in the sun?"

Inger shook his head and said, "It's not that they can't survive in oxygen and sunlight, but they will gradually become weaker over time."

Alex added: "So the first thing the demons did when they came to this land was to transform the environment here and turn it into a place suitable for the demons to survive."

Wu Rui suddenly realized: "The seeds that you mentioned before, carried by a certain demon king, could it be..."

The magic beam in Inger's hand formed a clear pattern, which was the "seed bud" of the Demon Mother Tree. He said in a deep voice: "Yes, this is the seed differentiated from the Demon Mother Tree. It is equivalent to the incarnation of the Demon Mother. She will take root in this continent and transform this continent into her territory step by step."

Alex frowned as he looked at the clear, detailed image.

[Could it be that the goddess also told him this…]

[But even so...]

Inger noticed Alex's gaze and ignored it.

In fact, he found out more details when he exchanged bodies with Fei Leng.

Therefore, even if Alex asked him now, he would not be able to tell the truth, especially since their relationship was already strained.

He still didn't trust Fei Leng. He said he wanted to protect them more for the sake of protecting humans. Who knows if someone in the human army would kill the demon that Fei Leng cared about, annoy him, and finally turn around to harm humans. In view of Fei Leng's terrible ability, he couldn't take such a risk, so he kept him away from the human army as much as possible.

But apart from that, he was also very grateful to Fei Leng for helping him a lot, as far as it seemed at the moment.

Inger had personally walked across that land with his cold body, and no human knew the ecology of the demons better than him.

All plants in the demon territory are demons that have a parasitic relationship with the mother tree. The area where the demons live is always covered by thick clouds. They do not rely on the sun, and the objects that emit light are the bioluminescence of the demons and plants.

However, because he had seen the scenery of the demon tribe from both a human and a demon perspective, he understood that the visual systems of humans and demons were completely different.

What is hell in the eyes of humans is heaven in the eyes of demons.

Walking on the Demon Continent with the body of a demon, breathing is very smooth, and the scenery is also beautiful. The mother tree is really like a "mother" to them.

But Inger is a human, and the soul of Gu Shu in this body also identifies himself as a human, so it is impossible for him to treat humans and demons equally.

To them, the demons are just invaders.

All he could do was to try his best to understand the demons and destroy the demon mother tree by any means necessary. That was all.

Alex said: "We have been searching for a long time... but still haven't found the demon seed. The seed must have been hidden by the demon king. We tend to use our brains to deal with those demon kings. They are observing us. They are not in a hurry at all, which is very disadvantageous to us."

Count Cente asked solemnly, "What is the second stage?"

Inger said: "The first stage is that the demon seed has taken root and grown, and the second stage is that the spray bud has matured."

Although these demon kings all use their brains, it doesn't mean they are weak. They are just not as keen on fighting as the demon kings in Li Wei'er.

Not to mention finding the Demon King, even dealing with the demons under them and saving as many lives as possible is already a struggle for humans. Although Alex and Inger had emphasized finding this thing from the beginning, they still missed the best time to destroy the demons.

"The mist bud can grow and mature on any vine of the demon species, and then continuously spray out miasma. Except for the demons, anyone who touches the miasma will be poisoned. What is more terrifying than the demon corpse poison is that this thing can penetrate everywhere... and we..." Inger frowned deeply.

Ola finished what Inger was unable to say: "...and we have not yet found an effective way to purify the demon toxins."

Lord Stella asked, "Where is your flame, and your dragon flame?"

Inger was silent for a while. "I can use wind to condense the poisonous miasma, and then use fire to eliminate the poisonous mist, but the range cannot be very large..."

Everyone knows what he means.

Inger's spellcasting range can be said to be the widest of all existing wizards, but compared to the miasma that stretches along the entire coastline of Qiu Nidong, it is just a drop in the bucket.

But they don't have any other options at the moment.

A suffocating feeling gripped everyone's throat.

This is a war that becomes more hopeless as it progresses.

It didn't seem like they were fighting an invading race, but rather facing an evil god.

Alex clapped his hands heavily. "It's no use being angry. Let's think about what we can do!"

He looked at everyone and said, "If there is no hope, then we have to create hope ourselves. No matter how many demons there are, they are not endless. We are fighting on our home turf. With our perseverance, the continent has never been completely destroyed. As long as there is one last human left, I believe he will fight to the last moment. The only real failure will be when we give up on ourselves."

"Faced with a desperate situation, I believe no one here would choose to retreat, right?"

If he had heard him say this before, Inger would have encouraged himself physically and mentally, but after the last quarrel, he completely understood that this kid had kicked him out of the category of "people here" without permission.

Everyone can fight for humanity, except you, Inger Nyka.

It was Alex himself who told him this ridiculous thing right in front of him.

Now, with every word of Alex's fighting spirit, he could associate it with the double standards in Alex's heart.

But he still couldn't figure it out.

Therefore, it is difficult to be nice to Alex.