Not a single infected individual joined the fray.
They remained on the bronze pillar.
Once the hive was disturbed, the infected mutants clinging to the pillar did not jump down; instead, they shrank tighter against it. Their knuckles embedded deep into the grooves of the inscriptions as they pressed their bodies into the gaps between their kin, remaining perfectly still.
The other infected individuals scattered on the ground around the pillar—those who hadn't climbed it—also stood at the rear, their posture suggesting they were maintaining some kind of order.
Lu Yuan saw one of the mutants raise an arm covered in a wooden bark-like crust and swat an ordinary ghoul beside it. After being struck, the ordinary ghoul immediately lunged toward the front line without a moment's hesitation.
A chill ran down Lu Yuan’s spine.
“They’re herding the ordinary ghouls as cannon fodder.”
He saw a second and then a third mutant perform the same action, driving ghouls forward. Occasionally, a mutant would use an arm tangled with roots to grab a ghoul attempting to flee and forcibly shove it back toward the battle line.
“They have command capabilities now.”
The Forest Seed’s parasitism changed more than just flesh and bone; these infected individuals possessed a level of coordination that surpassed the ghouls' natural instincts. While ordinary greater ghouls had some intelligence, they were far from capable of commanding their own kind or organizing a defense.
Even the greater ghouls back in the pipe network layer had only developed intelligence after being contaminated by that unknown seed...
They were consciously guarding the bronze pillar, pushing ordinary ghouls out to exhaust the opponents' combat strength while not wasting a single one of their own.
Lu Yuan etched this information into his mind.
The front line continued to advance. Lake, the Blue Knight, and the Great Ascendant worked together to tear a path toward the bronze pillar. The worm tide led the way, threads protected the flanks, and mechanical fists crushed everything attempting to encircle them from the sides.
The combined suppression of three rank 4s was magnified to the extreme in this enclosed space. The ghouls' remains piled higher and higher on both sides of the path.
A blood-soaked path was taking shape.
Between the team’s position and the bronze pillar, the rubble-strewn ground was covered in ghoul remains and the shriveled skins left behind by the worm tide. Large numbers of ghouls still surged and hissed on either side of the corridor, but the line in the center had been cleared.
Lake glanced back at Lu Yuan. The meaning in his eyes was clear: the path was open.
Lu Yuan stood up and looked at Adrian.
The old Archbishop had already retracted some of his holy light, extending the halo’s coverage forward. The holy light advanced along the bloody path, suppressing the restless ghouls on either side and keeping them at bay.
The two walked one after the other along the cleared path toward the bronze pillar.
The ghouls on either side hissed continuously under the pressure of the holy light. Occasionally, one or two tried to lunge in, only to be scorched and thrown back by the advancing radiance.
Lu Yuan followed behind Adrian. The turbid aura from the brain cores still covered him, maintaining a sharp, distinct boundary between himself and the holy light emitted by the old Archbishop ahead.
The bronze pillar grew closer. The exposed inscriptions on the upper half flickered with a faint, dark-gold light in the gloom. The pits and corrosion on the surface were clearly visible under the light of the march lamps. Those Forest Seed mutants were still there, clinging motionless to the pillar.
When Lu Yuan and Adrian were about twenty paces from the pillar, the outermost layer of mutants suddenly released their grip simultaneously, moving in unison as if pulled by the same string.
The first batch of seven or eight jumped down. Upon landing, they didn't charge the team; instead, they lined up shoulder to shoulder, blocking the way to the bronze pillar. Immediately after, a second and third batch followed, filling the gaps in the first row and stacking layer upon layer.
Within seconds, a living barrier of Forest Seed mutants appeared before the bronze pillar. Their blue-grey carapaces pressed tightly together as wooden roots sprouted from adjacent individuals, intertwining to bind them into a single, continuous wall of flesh.
They were here to block the path. Their only purpose was to prevent anyone from approaching the bronze pillar.
With the mutants peeled away from the pillar, Lu Yuan finally saw what was actually perched upon it.
Because the hive had looked so massive, he had always assumed its volume was the result of layers of mutants piled on top of each other. But with all the mutants gone, what remained on the pillar was far larger than he had anticipated.
A giant serpentine creature was coiled around the lower and middle sections of the bronze pillar. Its body wound around the base up to the midpoint several times over. The diameter of the snake’s body was thicker than an adult man’s waist. Its surface was covered in the greyish-white flesh characteristic of ghouls, but beneath that skin, he could vaguely see a skeleton woven from wooden fibers and blue-grey roots writhing within.
Ghoul and plant had fused into a single entity within it. Flesh and roots were so entangled that it was impossible to tell where the skin ended and the wooden structure began.
What made Lu Yuan’s heart sink the most were its roots. Numerous thick roots sprouted from the underside of the snake’s body and burrowed directly into the bronze pillar, wedging into the grooves of the inscriptions and biting firmly into the copper. Large patches of corrosion pits had formed around where the roots entered, and the lines of the inscriptions were completely severed in those areas. This thing was eating the bronze pillar.
The Serpentine Amalgamation had a flat, wide head with no eyes. Its entire face consisted of nothing but a giant maw filled with rows of wooden teeth. Its mouth hung slightly open, with rows of teeth stacked deep into its throat as heat slowly vented from within.
At the edge of Lu Yuan’s vision, the grey-white text jumped out.
【Target Detected: Greater Ghoul Pollution Source (Special)】
【An eerie creature produced by the complete mutational fusion of a ghoul and a Forest Seed】
【Weakness: Sacred items】
After reading the weakness line, Lu Yuan immediately turned his gaze toward Adrian.
“It’s afraid of holy light.”
Adrian frowned. “How do you—”
Before he could finish, the Serpentine Amalgamation gave them no further chance to speak.
The snake’s body suddenly unfurled from the bronze pillar. The form that had been coiled for who knows how long lunged forward in an instant, accompanied by a cloud of pollution spores shaking loose from its skin. It pounced directly toward the barrier of mutants in front of the pillar.
The barrier was smashed and scattered by the force of the snake’s sweep. Over a dozen mutants were sent flying, crashing against the rock walls and shattering into fragments of flesh and wood.
The snake didn't stop, lunging straight for Lake.
Lake didn't even have time to raise his short-blade. The moment the snake swept toward him, his entire being exploded. His flesh and skin shattered in an instant, transforming into a sky full of dark red Swarming Worms. Instead of scattering to flee, the swarm surged forward to meet the snake’s charge.
They swarmed over the surface of the Serpentine Amalgamation, covering it from head to tail in a dense blanket.
The Serpentine Amalgamation showed no fear. Its massive body shook violently as it rolled and thrashed in the air, attempting to shake off the swarm. The greyish-white flesh on its surface peeled away in patches under the worms' gnawing, revealing the wooden fiber skeleton beneath.
However, the hardness of those wooden fibers far exceeded ordinary flesh. The swarm’s consumption speed slowed significantly upon reaching this layer.
Lu Yuan retreated several steps and turned to Adrian, shouting urgently, “Now!”
The old Archbishop’s prayers suddenly rose in pitch. The tome above his head flipped through several pages, stopping on a page Lu Yuan had never seen before. There was no text on that page—only a single golden circular pattern.
The moment the pattern lit up, an eye glowing with golden holy light emerged from the page and hovered above the tome. Its pupil slowly dilated, and golden light poured from its depths, instantly flooding the entire cavity.
The intensity of the holy light exploded to several times its previous strength. Every bit of corpse-rot fungus in the cavity charred instantly under the Holy Eye’s light. The greyish-white fungus mats on the floor and walls curled and blackened in massive patches, turning into drifting ash. The remaining ordinary ghouls nearby let out shrill screams, clutching their heads as they fled in a frenzy. A few that were too close to the Holy Eye collapsed directly to the ground, convulsing.
The moment the Serpentine Amalgamation was enveloped by the holy light, its reaction was violent in the extreme. Its entire body twisted and thrashed frantically in the air. The ghoul flesh fused to its body emitted thick, acrid smoke under the holy light. The sounds it made were a mix of hissing and screams, and every spot where the golden light touched its surface burned into charred, festering sores.
Taking advantage of the opening, the Blue Knight drew a longsword from her waist that she had never shown the group before. It was a rapier, and faint red patterns flowed across its blade.
The moment she drew the sword, the aura around her changed completely. Whether she was harvesting ghouls with threads or weaving through the chaos of battle, her posture had always been calm and elegant, as if she were performing a task that required little effort.
But the moment the sword left its scabbard, a powerful killing intent radiated from her. It was bone-chillingly cold; even Lu Yuan, standing over a dozen paces away, felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Her figure vanished from where she stood. When she reappeared, she was already at the base of the Serpentine Amalgamation’s roots—the point where the snake’s body bit most tightly into the bronze pillar.
As she thrust the rapier, the slender blade erupted with a force completely out of proportion to its size. A visible shockwave expanded from the tip of the sword. The point where the Serpentine Amalgamation’s roots gripped the bronze pillar was blasted through. A hole wide enough for a person to pass through was punched through the roots, sending severed tendrils and shattered wooden fibers flying.
The Serpentine Amalgamation let out a deafening wail of agony.
The Great Ascendant stood frozen for nearly a second. His silver-grey pupils contracted sharply as the mechanical parts of his face spun frantically. Then, he launched himself forward, following the Blue Knight toward the Serpentine Amalgamation.
Lu Yuan did not follow. He had retreated out of the attack range the moment the Blue Knight drew her sword, crouching at the edge of Adrian’s holy light. However, his eyes were fixed on the hole blasted through the roots. The roots were clamped onto the bronze pillar; had the shockwave from that strike damaged the inscriptions on the pillar as it tore through the roots?
He wasn't sure, but worry was useless now. If they didn't kill the Serpentine Amalgamation, the bronze pillar would eventually be devoured anyway.
Under the triple assault of being covered by the Swarming Worms, scorched by the holy light, and having its roots severed, the Serpentine Amalgamation’s struggles grew increasingly violent. Lake’s swarm had spread across almost its entire body, and no matter how hard it shook, it couldn't dislodge them. Meanwhile, the continuous glare of the Holy Eye caused the ghoul flesh on its surface to rot away in massive chunks.
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