Chapter 298: Fire Book

Click, click, click.

As soon as the voice fell, a fungal hyphae human head in the corner was undergoing expansion strangely. The terrifying face kept twisting, bulging like a balloon.

Lin Xian felt it was not good as soon as he saw it, and immediately said to Kiki: "Kiki, wrap it up!"

"Good!"

Kiki immediately used a telekinetic shield to wrap the expanding fungal hyphae human head. Sure enough, the next instant, the fungal hyphae human head exploded with a roar, and the blue-white rotten brain matter sprayed out along with the strong brownish-yellow spore mist, which was tightly wrapped by Kiki's telekinetic shield.

"So disgusting!"

And at this time, other fungal hyphae human heads also began to expand constantly, rolling toward the crowd rapidly.

"Run."

Realizing the trouble, Lin Xian made a decisive decision. Kiki didn't hold back and directly grabbed everyone with telekinesis and rose into the air, flying toward the distance.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

The dull bursting sound rang out constantly. The center of the street where they had just been was instantly covered by thick spore mist.

"What is this? Spore bomb?" Xiang Xiang Ningjing's gaze carried a bit of lingering fear. For her, terrifying monsters were not something she dared not face, but this kind of spore mist that could parasitize and devour people made her feel a sense of powerlessness. Fortunately, there was a telekinetic ability user like Kiki in the team, otherwise it would really be difficult to deal with.

"Go directly to that auto city, two streets away, hurry up." Realizing the trouble of these things, Lin Xian could only rush into Yijin City in danger. He didn't want to stay in this place for a second longer.

Whoosh, whoosh~

Over the city of Yijin, the air was full of a damp and moldy smell. Kiki supported a transparent telekinetic shield, shrouding the 7 people inside, and then flew rapidly toward the direction of the auto city.

Not long after, a patch of low streets appeared in front, and a large parking lot appeared in the rear. Countless abandoned and damaged cars were piled up in this open space of the auto city. At a glance, there were at least hundreds of them. At this moment, those cars were covered with fungal blankets and night-glowing mushrooms. Looking at it, it was very dreamy... if one didn't know that under the mushrooms was a rotten brownish-yellow fungal blanket.

"The cars that can be driven are estimated to have been driven away." Luo Yang frowned looking at this scene.

"It's okay, what I want is not the car."

Xiang Xiang Ningjing saw A-Bai beside her with a sinking face at this time, and couldn't help but ask: "A-Bai, what's wrong?"

"Sister Ning... I always feel that there are monsters everywhere, all staring at us..."

Xiang Xiang Ningjing looked around upon hearing this. Under the dark night of the dead silent city, there were fungal blankets everywhere. Except for those human-fungi in the streets, she didn't see any moving living things.

However, she knew that A-Bai's perception would not be wrong, and then her gaze turned to Lin Xian, signaling him.

Lin Xian nodded: "We will solve it quickly. This place definitely has some anomalies. If we are marked, we must find a way to finish them off with all our might, otherwise we definitely won't be able to run out of this polar night."

"Hmm." Xiang Xiang Ningjing nodded.

The human-fungi and fungal hyphae human heads just now didn't mark the crowd, so although it was strange, Lin Xian and others still bit the bullet and entered to search for devouring materials.

"Hey, Lin Xian, look quickly."

At this time, Kiki pointed to a large parking lot center in the auto city: "That seems to be a fleet camp!!"

Everyone looked in the direction of the sound, and sure enough, they saw an area surrounded by a circular formation in a pile of chaotic cars, which was clearly a survival camp. Outside, there were more than 20 heavy trucks used as a defense line, while inside were various large and small living vehicles, off-road vehicles, trucks, buses, oil tankers, solar power vehicles, etc. It looked like there were at least more than 50 vehicles, which could be counted as a medium-to-large fleet.

It was just that this fleet camp had no vitality and lights at this time, and was completely covered by fungal blankets and night-glowing mushrooms, like a round fungal flower bed, sitting in the central area of the parking lot.

"This fleet should be gone, not a single heat source." Ding Junyi, wearing Black Eagle combat armor, said at this time.

Kiki manipulated telekinesis to slowly land from the air. Just at this time, Lin Xian and Xiang Xiang Ningjing's crimson Phoenix Orders suddenly made a sound.

Beep, beep, beep.

The two reacted immediately.

"Someone left a fire book information package!"

"Is this fleet a Phoenix Order fleet?"

"Not necessarily, it could also be left by a night walker."

Lin Xian immediately took out the crimson Phoenix Order and opened it, finding it was a piece of left-behind radio audio signal.

"Ssh... here... this is the Night Blade Fleet, ssh... I am the deputy captain Liu Zhong."

"We have been unable to evacuate... ssh... large-scale fungal spore infection has appeared here, all zombies are..."

"Ssh... spores will quickly invade the brain, causing hallucinations, firepower strikes are ineffective... those parasitized things will be attracted by sound and light... do not open fire, do not get off the car, do not turn on the lights, ssh... we can't rush out at all... the fungal groups in the entire city are alive, they are alive!!"

"We were forced to hold on here for three days. The captain discovered a secret research institution underground in the Deep Red Pharmaceutical Group during an exploration... they are studying the polar night and this kind of fungal hyphae. They dismantled the roads and destroyed the bridges, just to make those who entered the city have nowhere to go, and then catch the survivors as experimental specimens for fungal experiments. Our people had a conflict with them, but it was too late. Survivors or Phoenix Society personnel who receive this information must destroy them. This kind of fungal hyphae is more terrifying than a virus and will bring a destructive crisis to humanity. We can no longer leave!!"

"Ssh...! Their research institution we... couldn't attack, it's underground in that building!! Ah!!! Something is growing in my head!! Ah!..."

Beep...

The fire book radio signal disappeared, and everyone suddenly felt the atmosphere turn cold.

"Deep Red Pharmaceutical? Them again?!" Xiang Xiang Ningjing frowned.

Lin Xian asked: "Do you know this organization?"

Xiang Xiang Ningjing nodded, her gaze looking at A-Bai: "The Deep Red World, a descent faction organization, is behind this pharmaceutical group, very mysterious. A-Bai and Xiaoqing were caught by them before..." She swallowed her words here and looked at A-Bai.

Everyone looked at A-Bai and found that he had a look of fear and terror on his face at this time.

On the other side, Lu Xingchen looked at A-Bai, and his face was also slightly sinking.

"Deep Red Pharmaceutical..." Kiki quickly searched with her mobile phone, and then immediately found the target: "Eh, really, at No. 223 Nanda East Road, Deep Red Pharmaceutical Group Yijin Branch. It used to be the leading scientific research enterprise here."

"So the tracks and bridges were destroyed by them, really hateful!"

Lin Xian immediately tried to pass the information back to the train with the communicator with a sinking face, but found

"This is troublesome."

"What should we do, Team Leader Lin? Should we retreat?" Lu Yang asked with a cautious expression.

Lin Xian shook his head and looked at the human-fungi in the shadows around them: "Retreating is useless. Without tracks, we can't leave Yijin at all. Once those human-fungi entangle the train, no one will be able to escape."

"This group is one of the best in the global pharmaceutical field. Not only are they financially powerful, but they also have highly authoritative research in the fields of genetics and cancer treatment," Ding Junyi said at this moment. "According to the information revealed in this fire-book, the fact that they can continue their research here proves they possess defensive measures, and they must have a foundation of research on these mycelia. If we find these people, we might find a solution."

"That makes sense!"

Lin Xian nodded immediately. He looked toward the direction of the joint train tracks and said in a deep voice: "Wait until I finish handling this place and gather enough materials for the tracks, then we'll go to that Deep Red Pharmaceutical to investigate. If these people are still there, we'll either take them out or find a way to isolate the mycelia through them. I have a premonition that even if we fix the tracks, it won't be easy for us to leave!"

Repairing the tracks requires passing through the city, and it is a slow process. The commotion cannot be small. Even for Lin Xian, who possesses mechanical abilities, it is almost impossible to completely avoid mycelial attacks while quickly manufacturing tracks along the way and having the track-laying machine install them over a distance of more than 20 kilometers, especially while considering the need for clearing obstacles.

Upon realizing the current predicament, Lin Xian immediately prepared to adjust his strategy.

"Do you mean we should go find this pharmaceutical group and obtain a solution for the mycelia from them?" Xiang Xiang Ningjing asked.

"Is it possible that people from this organization are also monitoring us?" Lu Yang said at this moment.

"Strictly speaking, the mycelial network possesses the ability to transmit information and hunt. From a biological perspective, it can be understood that the entire fungal colony is a single entity. The largest organism in the world is actually a fungus, so your worry is not without reason," Ding Junyi said at this moment. "Our train must have already been targeted by some kind of creature in this city."

"Then we should take the initiative even more," Lin Xian said with a somewhat anxious expression. "And we must be fast. Once these things launch an attack on our train, we have no strategy to deal with it." After he finished speaking, he pointed to the heavily armored doomsday truck in front.

"This convoy wasn't defeated by guns and cannons."

Looking at the survivor camp of dozens of vehicles in front of him now wrapped in a mycelial carpet, with everything inside rotting away, Lin Xian realized the severity of the situation. The Infinite has almost no defensive means against these fungal spores and human-fungi, and they don't even dare to open fire in retaliation.

Xiang Xiang Ningjing and Lu Yang nodded with solemn expressions upon hearing this.

"That makes sense. With such a long train line, once a chain reaction occurs, the situation could immediately spiral out of control," Lu Yang said.

"Then let's go meet these people," Lu Xingchen said with a cold expression. "Eliminating pests for our human race can also be considered a meritorious deed."

Xiang Xiang Ningjing's eyes flickered, and she took a deep breath: "I didn't expect these things to be so difficult to deal with. Now it seems they are much more troublesome than attacks from strange entities."

"Don't be so pessimistic," Ding Junyi said at this moment. "At least for now, these mycelia haven't shown extreme aggression. As long as we stay quiet, there is still a lot we can do."

"Hmm."

Lin Xian and the others landed in the parking lot. He wasted no time and immediately began to devour the large trucks in this convoy.

【Devour successful, Mechanical Source Point +20, Mechanical Devour skill proficiency +10】

【Decomposition: Obtained High-Manganese Steel*10, Hot-Rolled Forged Steel*10, Cold-Rolled Dual-Phase Steel Plate*5, Ordinary Carbon Steel*20, Non-metallic foam materials, non-metallic composite materials...】

【Devour successful, Mechanical Source Point +15】...

While Lin Xian was devouring, Kiki and Ding Junyi looked around the convoy and discovered that in such a large convoy, there wasn't a single corpse.

"How come there isn't a single person left?"

"They should have all turned into human-fungi." Ding Junyi looked toward the large parking lot. In the darkness all around, many black shadows stood densely. They had various shapes, with strange mycelia growing on their bodies. The mycelial vines on their legs connected to the ground, and their root systems were linked together.

Ding Junyi looked at the dense mycelial network under her feet and couldn't help but say, "I remember an experiment that used the splitting fungal network of Physarum polycephalum for the design of urban subway networks. This kind of fungal root system is like a substantial information network that can transmit information. Now the entire Yijin City is covered like this, just like the kind I mentioned..."

"Ah, you mean that every single human-fungus might be a sensory terminal, like a monster's tentacle, monitoring us?!!" Lu Yang reacted first, his expression turning ugly as he spoke.

"If the mycelia have consciousness, yes," Ding Junyi replied calmly. Once these words were spoken, the others suddenly felt a chill.

Lu Xingchen, feeling very impatient, stomped and broke a mycelial vine. He always felt there was some kind of energy flowing inside it, and he said with great frustration: "I really want to burn it all clean with fire."

"Hey! Do you want to blow us all up!" Kiki immediately spat at him upon hearing this: "I didn't bring you along to cause trouble, don't move around randomly."

"Sigh~" Fire Brother shook his head helplessly.

At this moment, Abai suddenly stepped back a few paces and leaned against Xiang Xiang Ningjing's side.

"What's wrong, Abai?"

Abai pointed at the abandoned cars all around: "They... are all watching us."

Upon hearing this, the group immediately looked up. At this moment, everyone discovered with horror that the human-fungi all around seemed to have increased in number, and accompanied by a 'click-click-click' sound, they seemed to be moving slowly.

"Are they surrounding us?"

"We didn't turn on any lights."

!

"It's not just the lights; we possess heat and biological energy. They have already treated us as prey."

"Mycelia?"

"I hope so," Ding Junyi frowned slightly and said: "If it's just the instinct of these mycelia, it would be simpler, but if it's not, then we are in big trouble."

Lin Xian, who was rushing to devour, said at this moment: "Don't move. If they continue to approach, we will devour from the air!"

Click-click-click~

Click-click-click~

As time passed by the second, it reached 20:10. The atmosphere all around began to gradually turn eerie. More and more humanoid ghost shadows stood in the darkness. They moved slowly, their joints making extremely strange, subtle sounds, slowly surrounding the convoy in the middle.

The squad members surrounded Lin Xian in a defensive formation, watching the human-fungi getting closer and closer all around with guarded expressions.

Whoosh~ Whoosh~

Car after car kept disappearing under Lin Xian's remote devouring. A large amount of debris from the cars fell to the ground with a clatter, leaving behind a hollow fungal framework.

During the devouring process, Lin Xian discovered that all the internal components of these survivor vehicles, which were originally running well, seemed to have aged by ten years. Yet the information in the fire-book information packet was no more than 10 days old. This made him even more wary of this kind of mycelia. If the Infinite were to be climbed upon by this stuff, it would simply be a disaster.

"They are getting closer!" Kiki said anxiously at this moment.

"Let's go up!"

Lin Xian shouted immediately. Kiki immediately took the 7 people and flew to an altitude of more than ten meters. Not long after, the place where they had just been standing was filled with human-fungi coming from all around.

At this moment, Lin Xian had already devoured more than half of the vehicles in this convoy. The materials in the decomposition center were constantly expanding. At the same time, his mechanical source points and devouring proficiency were also rapidly increasing.

Lin Xian finally realized his wish of devouring the parking lot. Counting it up, he hadn't devoured on such a large scale for a long time. If it weren't for the fact that the situation was truly a bit eerie, he could have completely devoured all the cars in this parking lot with this remote devouring technique.

"Lin Xian!"

Kiki shouted to him at this moment: "Look down quickly."

Lin Xian, who was concentrating on devouring, looked at the parking ground below and discovered that under the feet of those dense human-fungi, the intertwined mycelial carpet root systems seemed to be glowing slightly, with some kind of pale red halo flowing inside them like blood.

Everyone noticed this phenomenon at this moment. That red flow gradually became brighter and clearer, and the red light became more intense. The entire fungal network on the ground was like blood flowing, as if the entire area was performing some kind of rhythmic breathing.

Seeing this scene, Lin Xian also sensed something was wrong. He immediately stopped his devouring action. Just as he was about to have Kiki raise everyone higher just in case, within his peripheral vision, a floating luminous fungus suddenly fell slowly from beside his shoulder. That luminous fungus emitted a nimble white and pink glow, and the fungal cap was as light as goose-down white feathers or a dandelion.

Lin Xian's gaze immediately tightened. At this moment, Kiki saw it and screamed immediately.

"Lin Xian, be careful!"

As soon as the words fell, Kiki immediately erected a large telekinetic shield to wrap everyone up. That floating fungal cap was instantly shaken away by the telekinetic force, bursting in the air with a 'poof' into ten thousand tiny white light spots, like a dreamlike sand mist.

"Above our heads!"

Everyone looked up and only then discovered that under the black clouds, countless tiny white and pink fungal caps were floating down. They were shaken away by the telekinetic shield all at once. The entire top of their heads was full of sand mist, which then quickly slid down and fell onto the human-fungi below.

In an instant, those human-fungi began to mutate violently. A large amount of white mycelia surged out crazily from the human-fungi, then quickly broke through the body and proliferated. The torsos and limbs burst and fell off, leaving only the heads rolling away with a 'gurgle'. Then the entire human-fungus turned into a strange mushroom more than a meter high, covered in terrifying malignant tumors. From the neck, countless mycelia grew into a mushroom cap that looked beautiful and magnificent. As it swayed with the wind, a large amount of spores drifted everywhere.

Lin Xian and the others changed their expressions drastically upon seeing this scene. The white fungal cap spores had fallen below for less than a minute, yet they had actually split and proliferated to this extent.

"How strange, it seems only above our heads is this stuff floating!" Lu Yang looked at the sky and shouted with a surprised expression.

Lin Xian took a look, and sure enough, only this area was floating, so he immediately said to Kiki: "Quick, let's leave here."

Whoosh~

Kiki immediately took the squad and flew toward the empty airspace in the distance. After flying out a few kilometers, the fungal caps floating around had significantly decreased. At this moment, Lin Xian looked back and was shocked to discover that the sky above the car city was raining glowing fungal caps like a downpour, while other places were as quiet as before.

Ding Junyi looked at the breathing mycelial carpet network on the city ground and said: "Sure enough, the fungal colony of this entire city is a large biological network, and just now we stayed in one place for too long, so this fungal network responded to us."

Soon, those fungal caps floating in the sky seemed to have located their position and kept floating down from above their heads.

"What now?"

"We'll go directly to that Deep Red Pharmaceutical Group. Going back to the train now is just waiting for death!"

"Okay!"

After devouring those twenty-plus heavy trucks, Lin Xian's decomposition center had already obtained quite a lot of materials, and it might still be a little short of the track materials he estimated. So, while flying toward the direction of Deep Red Pharmaceutical along the way, Lin Xian had Kiki grab some abandoned cars on the road and then devour them in the air.

Lin Xian's premonition was correct. At this moment, the mycelial carpets all over Yijin City seemed to have come alive. As their squad flew through the air, blood-red light kept flashing from the mycelial root systems on the ground.

At the same time, in the darkness and shadow corners, a large number of mycelial human heads began to roll. Mushroom caps growing everywhere on the city street ground swayed with the wind, beginning to constantly spray spore mist. In an instant, the city, which had appeared clear and nimble under the night light of the luminous mushrooms, seemed to be filled and covered by brownish-yellow spore mist. These mists constantly expanded and rose, gradually shrouding Yijin City in a fog of spore mist.

Seeing this scene, Lin Xian immediately said to Kiki: "Quick, take us and fly over together!"

"Okay!"

"These fungal colonies have started spraying spore mist. Won't something happen over at the train?!" Lu Yang said with a nervous expression.

"Worrying is useless. I hope they can hold on and not make any sound or light."

On the other side, Shi Diyuan and Chen Sixuan on the joint train saw the brownish-yellow spore mist rising from the sky above the city and immediately sensed the danger.

"Quick, all air circulators must be switched to internal circulation. Find things to plug the gaps at the carriage connections!"

"Use wet cloth strips!"

"And the ventilation ducts and sewage pipes in the bathrooms. Spores must not be allowed to enter the carriages!"

"The communicator can no longer reach Team Leader Lin and the others. What should we do?" Shu Qin said.

"They will have a way. We will follow Lin Xian's request. Do not make any noise, and cut off all power to the train!"

"Okay!!"

"Everyone, put on your gas masks. No bare skin should be exposed!"

Chen Sixuan had a solemn expression. She and Shu Qin checked everyone's protection situation one by one. Even with the train as protection, the people on board didn't dare to take it lightly, and they even put on the cold-weather gear they had previously used in the snowfields.

In an instant, more than 4,000 people acted quietly one after another. Everyone found various things they could use to start sealing the gaps and loopholes that might exist in the carriages. The cabin doors of each carriage on the Infinite were closed just in case. The joint train became completely quiet, as if the air had frozen, and it fell into a state of silence.

A few minutes later, the thick, dim yellow spore mist began to cover them like a tsunami. Soon, it completely submerged the train, and a thin layer of yellow spores began to cover the train windows.

On the other side, following the fungal caps constantly floating down from the sky, Kiki took Lin Xian and the others and flew rapidly at high altitude. Soon, they saw a triangular single building with a huge footprint in the industrial zone of Yijin City. The original building wall had been transformed into a high-voltage electric fence, covered with thorny iron wire. There were machine gun sentry towers every few dozen meters, which looked like they were built to deal with the zombie crisis. At this time, the sandbag bunkers outside the wall had long since collapsed, and the sand and mycelial carpet had bonded into honeycomb-like tumors. The barrel of a heavy machine gun had been twisted into a twist shape by mycelia, and the unspent bullets on the ammunition belt had grown black, wood-ear-like fungal caps.

And that huge triangular main building was even more covered by glowing mycelial carpets and various fungi, like a huge malignant tumor incubator. Countless purple-black mycelial tumor bodies were spread all over the exterior of the building. The glowing tumor skin was translucent, and upon closer inspection, one could actually see human silhouettes inside. There were also security zombies wrapped in mycelia, as well as some staff members wearing research uniforms. The four blue characters 【Deep Red Pharmaceutical】 on the roof only had the two characters 'Deep Red' vaguely visible.

"What kind of fungus is this, it can actually eat people!?"

As the group flew closer from the air, Kiki immediately frowned tightly. The scene before them looked incredibly grotesque and terrifying. These mycelial networks were like some kind of internal organs, disgusting to the extreme.

"The mycelial coverage here is denser, which means we should be very close to the core of the fungal colony." Ding Junyi looked at the brownish-yellow spore mist rising all around and said: "These spores are also flammable, we must be very careful."

The entire city was covered in spore mist. If a flash fire were triggered at this time, the power would be unimaginable. Looking at the overwhelming spore mist, Lin Xian frowned deeply. Even with defensive means like an AT field, he wasn't sure he could survive such a flash fire.

At this moment, he suddenly discovered something.

"Kiki, get closer."

"Where?"

"There!" Lin Xian pointed toward the direction of the main building of Deep Red Pharmaceutical.

At this moment, Lin Xian saw several special black experimental van-type vehicles parked horizontally in front of the building, which had already been wrapped by the mycelial carpet. Kiki took Lin Xian and the others and flew over, and then Kiki tore the mycelial carpet away, revealing a logo symbol on the van.

It was a triangular symbol.

Lin Xian and Kiki had both seen this symbol before. It was the logo on the special metal box that Uncle Wu of the Great Eagle convoy gave him for the Silver Dragon One Hundred Thousand Disaster Plants when they had just left Hengshan Guancheng!

(End of chapter)