Chapter 449, Section 448: Nobody understands Puji better than me.
On the mycelial carpet of the rock wall, a newborn chick broke free from the mycelium's restraints.
The moment it finished shaping, its short, fungal legs gave a gentle push, and its body succumbed to gravity, falling downwards.
The howling valley wind made its mushroom caps flutter violently, making a gurgling sound.
It was not alone; countless poops of various shapes were falling together in the night sky.
Below, demonic arrows and magic intertwined to form a web of death, surging upwards.
The scaled creature beside him was instantly carbonized by the leaping arc of electricity. The plump mutant was pierced by several arrows and fell askew like a tattered sack. Even the individual that had entered stealth mode was accidentally ignited by a fireball that missed its target and turned into charred remains.
This newborn Puji was not spared either.
An arrow pierced its fragile body, ending its short life. From birth to death, the average lifespan of Taniguchi Puji was only six seconds.
However, its mission has already been accomplished.
The mangled remains crashed heavily to the ground, scattering mycelium everywhere. Simultaneously, a large cloud of purple, hallucinogenic spores erupted!
...
"Intercept them! Don't let a single one down! They'll explode!"
"Watch out for the hole at your feet!"
"Mage! Where's the purification spell?! Quickly dispel this poisonous fog!"
"They're everywhere, how do we clean them up?"
"A strong wind! No, these corpses are constantly releasing poisonous mist, it just won't stop!"
Since stepping into this valley overrun by mushrooms, the demon warriors felt as if they had fallen into a nightmare abyss.
The attacks rained down from the sky like a storm, and new attackers kept pouring out of the holes in the ground... endless!
These pukei not only self-destruct upon contact, but even if they are killed beforehand, their remains will become a new source of poisonous fog.
Only by completely incinerating them with flames can the spread of spores be stopped.
However, the fire mages in the army were also powerless against this overwhelming tide of puji.
It can't be burned out, it simply can't be burned out!
Those with high resistance, such as trolls, were fine and were not affected.
Secondly, there are the troops under Sigismund's command, who are more or less equipped with antidotes, allowing them to withstand the poison for a longer period of time.
The most miserable were the goblins under Verallis's command.
The precious medicines were naturally out of their reach, and their short stature placed them right in the area with the highest concentration of toxic fumes.
So far, the vast majority of those who have fallen are these small, green-skinned men.
After they fall into a coma, they are often trampled into a mangled mess of flesh by the chaotic footsteps of their allies before they die from the poison.
Sigismund stared at the scene before him, his eyelids twitching. They hadn't even engaged with humans yet, and this was already happening?
He looked up at the half-finished fungal growths still hanging on the rock face, and felt a sense of absurdity—they all grew in a single day?!
With such an insane production rate, those damned intelligence agencies only categorized them as "ordinary threats"?!
This is clearly a strategic-level force!
Sigismund had no idea what kind of blunder had occurred in the intelligence department, but the current difficult situation forced him to act immediately: "Veralis! Release the Dark Beasts!"
At the command, a large number of Dark Beasts bound by low-level contracts surged out of the formation like a tide.
These eyeless reptiles cling tightly to the rock face with their sharp limbs, climbing upwards at astonishing speeds.
At the same time, elite vampire warriors transformed into bats and soared into the sky.
This tactical combination was originally intended for conquering those tricky walkways on the rock face, but now it had to be used in advance to remove the puji (a type of fungus) attached to the fungal carpet on the rock face.
However, the effect was not ideal. The vampires fared well, as the blood control technique killed the unformed Puji one by one. Occasionally, they would be countered by the Puji, but the casualties were not significant.
The Dark Beasts suffered a devastating annihilation.
As melee units, no matter how fast they are, they must get close to the creep-covered and splattered rock walls to attack.
Then, amidst a series of explosions, a large number of Dark Beasts turned into pieces of flesh mixed with fungal remains and fell from the rock wall.
In the distance, to the human defenders who witnessed this scene, the creeping fungus emitting a faint glow seemed to ignite a flame of hope!
In response to the vampires ravaging the sky, the human archers and mages on the rear walkway began targeted sniping.
These plank roads are strategically located, making it difficult for the demonic ground forces below to provide effective support.
unless……
...
A diamond-level human mage hovered in mid-air, a shockwave tearing through the blood shield surrounding a vampire. The next second, two arrows pierced through the gap, piercing the vampire's body and causing it to fall helplessly.
The mage was slightly out of breath, and a smile had just appeared on his face when he heard a hurried warning from his comrade behind him.
He turned around abruptly, only managing to catch a glimpse of a ghostly figure flashing past before his vision spun around.
With a single slash, she beheaded the mage, and Veralis landed on the rock wall with undiminished speed, grazing the incoming arrows as she crashed into a plank road.
After a brief clash of metal and screams, the four human warriors in the walkway had all been cut into pieces.
Just as she was gathering her strength to pounce on another section of the walkway, several massive rock cannons hurtling towards her forced her to change course and fall back to where she started.
"How can I let you destroy it?" Lorenzo, holding a longsword and a staff, slowly walked out from the opposite plank road, his hair and beard standing on end. "This time, the terrain is in my favor."
"Hey--"
Without a word, Vera Lisa exerted force with her feet and shot out like lightning, instantly entangled in combat with the other two.
Despite being suspended in mid-air with no foothold and constantly being harassed by stray arrows from soldiers on both sides, Veralis still held the upper hand. However, Lorenzo held on more tenaciously this time than before, preventing him from being defeated quickly.
Below, Sigismund gazed at Alama, who was also commanding the central army, without personally intervening. He calmly observed the entire battle, and after a moment, he ordered the retreat to begin.
"That damn fat bat!" In the heat of the battle, Veralis glared fiercely at the slightly disheveled Lorenzo, cursing as she was forced to retreat.
As the demons retreated like a tide, deafening cheers erupted from the human camp!
Among the countless excited gazes of survivors, the most intense stares were not directed at Lorenzo, who was fighting against a powerful enemy, nor at Duke Alama, who was stationed in the center, but rather all focused on the pink-haired girl, Inanna, who had always stayed at the rear of the line.
Those gazes held a mixture of disbelief and astonishment, gratitude for being saved from a desperate situation, and... a burning intensity as if they were looking at the embodiment of hope.
...
"Fat bat! Why are you retreating?!" Veralis, who had been chasing after them, immediately swung her knife.
Sigismund's blood-red shield easily blocked her furious slash, his tone remaining calm: "You should also be concerned about the army's actual situation. Although the casualties are not heavy at the moment, the consumption is far beyond expectations. Even if we force a breakthrough through those mushroom defenses, we will pay an even greater price in the subsequent battle with the main force of Alama."
"So you're just going to give up now?" Veraris narrowed her eyes and sneered. "After wasting so many days, how do you plan to explain this to the Prince?"
"The war must continue, of course. I already have a way to deal with those pukki."
"Okay! I'll wait!"
"Your colleagues are all rotten people!" After she stormed off, Sigismund heard her roommate's voice in her mind: "Sigismund, you've come to the right person... No one knows Puji better than me! We've cut off the fungal carpet outside the valley, and without the magic supply, Puji is like a rootless duckweed, nothing to worry about!"
"I hope your intelligence is reliable." Sigismund's trust was clearly still somewhat reserved.
"Don't worry, I'm only helping you out for my own sake! Besides, the weakness of the Puji Masters has already been discovered by humans, so it's easy to verify. You're just suffering because you were exposed to it late!" My roommate's tone was extremely sincere.
Sigismund nodded, thinking it over, and agreed.
He took out the jar he carried with him, took a small sip of blood, and it was rare to receive help from his roommate other than delicious blood. Even the gloom of today's unsuccessful attack was somewhat dispelled.
(End of this chapter)
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