Chapter 540: The Rising Red Sun

"Help, save me..."

"Ying ying ying..."

"Damn monster, I'll fight you..."

"Mom, I'm scared..."

Accompanied by the beast roar, there were also many human voices, the angry roar of men, the desperate crying of women, and the helpless wailing of children.

Just hearing these voices, the witches could already imagine the appearance of a group of people fleeing in despair under the pursuit of terrifying disaster beasts, which also made them frown slightly.

How could there be people in the wilderness in this era?

You have to know that the doomsday era has not been a day or two, and the existing humans are all in major shelters. With the harsh environment where disasters are rampant outside, mortals can't live for a few days.

There is probably a trap in this.

The witches thought so in their hearts.

However, they were all young people, and young people are generally still relatively kind, even the young people of the witch, a war race, are no exception. After all, the hearts of witches are no different from mortals.

Therefore, even if they knew there might be a trap, everyone still wanted to go and see.

"Clown-sama?"

The saint knight with the most sense of justice among the crowd stood out. Although the one hidden under the mask of the saint knight was a succubus, Madeline, the disciplinary committee chair of the Witch Academy, was indeed a good person.

However, the succubus witch also respected rules and order, so she didn't act without authorization, but asked for the superior's opinion first.

"Then let's go and see, anyway, there's nothing to do?"

Dorothy also nodded. As a five-good youth who died for righteousness in her previous life, she naturally wouldn't oppose such kindness.

She was even quite happy about this. In the witch world, which is a war-crazy world, such kindness is truly rare.

She actually doesn't hate the witch's character of admiring the strong. After all, pursuing strength is the instinct of living things, and backwardness will be beaten.

But pursuing power is one thing, and abusing power is another.

If this kindness belonging to young witches will not be forgotten as they grow older or become stronger, that would be even better. In that case, the future of the witch world might be slightly better.

After all, the name of the disaster race, although it sounds quite majestic, is not a commendatory term.

If possible, Dorothy actually prefers titles like Star of Myriad Worlds, Master of All Heavens.

She is a bit greedy. She wants both power and reputation.

Of course, such things are not something she, a small witch, can decide. However, it is better to improve a little bit. Doing it is better than not doing it. At least by her side, she still hopes that there are more good people with kindness.

As for the question of whether this will be a trap this time.

It can only be said, what if? What if it was just them overthinking?

She actually hoped that she was overthinking, so that at least she could save a few people.

It's a pity...

When the witches galloped along the direction of the sound and finally arrived at the destination and saw the situation on the scene clearly, everyone's eyes gradually became indifferent.

Sigh, it can only be said that there are not so many "what ifs" in this cruel doomsday.

Before they even got close, the witches already smelled a strong stench.

That is the smell of corpses rotting. And one or two corpses would not have such a strong corpse smell.

At that time, the witches had actually prepared in their hearts, but when that scene finally appeared in front of everyone, it was still somewhat beyond everyone's expectations.

It was indeed not one or two corpses, but a mountain of corpses directly.

A mountain of corpses that filled a small valley.

At a glance, there were at least tens of thousands of corpses here, or rather, these could no longer be counted as corpses, but skeletons. It's no wonder that everyone had misjudged the number of corpses before.

It's just that the terrifying disaster beast ate too cleanly.

Countless pitch-black tree roots like tentacles swam in this mountain of corpses like snakes, knocking bones and sucking marrow, and the gaze followed these terrifying tree roots upward, all the way to the top of the mountain of corpses, where they could see a strange giant tree whose canopy was huge enough to cover this small valley.

The beast roars and human voices before were all transmitted from the canopy of this giant tree.

And it seemed to be aware that another batch of food had been lured to the door by its trap. The tree roots that were knocking bones and sucking marrow suddenly stopped swimming. They stood up like real snakes, and in the canopy that was as huge as an oak tree, various sounds became louder and more urgent.

Finally, the tree leaves that covered the canopy well opened one by one, revealing the strange tree fruits hanging on the branches.

That was a strange tree fruit as big as a human head, and every fruit had a lifelike face on it. Men, women, old people, children, and even the faces of various wild beasts were all there.

And now, these human-faced fruits suddenly opened their eyes in unison and stared at the crowd expressionlessly. Their mouths were still making various calls for help that the witches had heard before, but the friction of the tree leaves around the fruits made a strange sound as if someone was laughing.

"City-level disaster beast, Human Fruit Tree."

Looking at the strange giant tree in front of her, Dorothy was silent for a long time and said the name of this tree, or rather, this disaster beast.

In this doomsday, although ordinary people in the Magitech Republic have been restricted from traveling and are not allowed to leave major shelters, this does not mean that they are completely isolated from the outside world and closed to the country.

In fact, Dorothy and Di Nisha have been sending investigation corps composed of elites of magic equipment knights and armed heroic spirits to investigate the situation in areas that have turned into ruins and where disaster beasts are rampant, and Dorothy has read all the piles of reports brought back by these investigation corps after paying many sacrifices and prices.

The investigation corps had made a simple classification of the disaster beasts they encountered, from low to high, they are: Village, Town, City, Country, World.

Well, a very simple and simple naming method, very intuitively indicating the scope of the disaster that major disaster beasts could once create.

This Human Fruit Tree is a city-level disaster beast, which means that this tree once harmed an entire city.

The Home Witch silently adjusted the report she had once read from her memory palace, manifested it into a parchment in her hand, and read it carefully again.

"Human Fruit Tree, city-level disaster beast, suspected of possessing high intelligence, speculated to possess some kind of powerful wide-area mental ability, capable of confusing people's minds."

"Its first appearance location was in the small city of Carol City in the southwest region of the Republic, with a permanent population of 200,000, only three survived..."

"Investigator Melanie Evans found these three survivors, and the investigation situation is as follows: After the disaster beast appeared, the whole city immediately fell into a state of possession. Many people claimed to have received divine oracles and began to kill each other in the name of sacrificing to the gods..."

Well, a very simple report, so simple that Dorothy just glanced at it casually at the beginning and didn't pay any more attention. After all, compared to other country-level disaster beasts that slaughtered several giant cities as soon as they appeared, this tree was not eye-catching.

But now...

Looking at the mountain of corpses piled up in front of her, looking at the dense human-faced fruits on the tree, Dorothy was silent.

Is this the difference between reality and paper reports?

Originally, her training journey was quite aimless, but now, she suddenly realized what she should do.

"It's time

The Home Witch looked up and cast a cold glance at the giant tree before her.

The countless human-face fruits on the Human-Fruit Tree were also staring at the witches, and then a powerful mental shock enveloped the entire scene.

This power was so immense; one can only say it is worthy of a power that once dominated hundreds of thousands of mortals. And after receiving the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives, the power of this Human-Fruit Tree has become even stronger.

According to the hazard level classification of the Investigation Corps, a Calamity Beast capable of destroying several cities at once can be rated as National-level. After all, there are only two countries in this world in total; it's impossible to truly use "having destroyed a country" to evaluate a National-level Calamity Beast.

Therefore, a Calamity Beast capable of destroying several cities at once theoretically already possesses the strength to destroy a country, and can be called National-level.

When the Human-Fruit Tree was first born, it was only City-level, but now, having completely drained the nutrients from those sacrifices, this terrifying Calamity Beast has already touched the edge of National-level.

This is a Calamity Beast with high growth potential. If given a little more time to develop, perhaps it would have the chance to grow to a degree that could be considered powerful even among the National-level.

And at this moment, this terrifying Calamity Beast still displayed that potential.

As the sound of leaves rubbing together, which resembled laughter, grew more urgent, the original "light chuckle" had turned into "maniacal laughter." Before the judges, layers of illusions appeared instantly. Those illusions were so real, directly projecting the greatest desires in everyone's hearts—be it powerful strength, peerless beauties, or monstrous power...

Even the Phantom Girl, who specialized in illusions among the judges, was inevitably dragged into the illusion by this overwhelming mental power. Of course, the Phantom Girl did not panic; after all, she was a professional. She realized instantly that she had been hit, and then made a judgment on the situation.

She only needed three seconds to break free.

Therefore, the Phantom Girl immediately prepared to cast a spell. Such a shameful thing as losing face in front of the Clown must absolutely not happen. Moreover, since this Calamity Beast is of the mental type, it should naturally be solved by her, a witch of the Mental School.

"But the amount of this mental power is truly terrifying. Where is this a City-level Calamity Beast? This thing has definitely touched the edge of National-level. The data over at the Investigation Corps needs to be updated."

The Phantom Girl complained about her colleagues in her heart.

She herself is actually a member of the Investigation Corps, and this time she had just rushed back from the outside world because of the summons from Lord Clown.

Just in her perception, the total amount of mental power of this Human-Fruit Tree is truly terrifying. A rough look shows it is at least three times her own, which is very scary.

After all, there is a saying in the Illusion School: the essence of all illusions is actually a contest of mental power. Whoever has stronger mental power and controls it more precisely, their illusion is stronger.

The reason she was directly dragged into the illusion by this Human-Fruit Tree was because the Human-Fruit Tree formed a mental power suppression against her.

Fortunately, one can only say a beast is a beast. Although the total mental power of the Human-Fruit Tree is vast, the quality is very poor and not condensed at all. It gives the feeling of being mixed together from countless messy mental powers.

Moreover, the way it uses mental power is also too crude, simply without any technique, purely relying on brute force. At this level, it cannot stump her.

Hmph, damn thing, count your sins, and then sink into that hell.

The Phantom Girl immediately prepared to fight poison with poison. She prepared to directly flip the illusion, letting this Human-Fruit Tree fall into the illusion she wove instead. She also hated these Calamity Beasts to the core; after all, she had made many mortal friends in this Witch Night. She is the type of witch who is pro-human, and now the mountain of corpses under this Human-Fruit Tree and the human-face fruits on the tree made her feel disgusted from the bottom of her heart.

However, just as the Phantom Girl began to weave her illusion, she suddenly felt the surrounding temperature rising rapidly.

No, wait, my body doesn't feel hot; this is also an illusion...

Hiss...

Just as the Phantom Girl was facing this anomaly like a formidable enemy, thinking this was also a new trick of the Human-Fruit Tree, she suddenly discovered that this mental heat source did not seem to be coming from the tree opposite, but from beside her.

It was coming from Lord Clown's side.

Before the Phantom Girl could even take a full breath of cold air, the illusion she had just cast halfway suddenly dissolved.

This naturally was not because her learning was not refined leading to a spell failure or anything, but there was another reason.

Just as mentioned before, the contest of the Mental School is essentially a contest of mental power. When the gap in mental power between you and someone is large to a certain extent, let alone influencing the other's mind, you might not even be able to cast a spell in front of her.

Now the Phantom Girl is in this situation. Under the shroud of the vast mental power that was slowly rising but had directly taken over the control of the whole scene from the hands of the original Human-Fruit Tree, she had directly lost the ability to weave illusions.

The Phantom Girl now knows very clearly that under this situation of absolute mental power suppression, if the other party wanted to kill her or dominate her, it might only take a single thought.

No, it doesn't even need the other party to have this thought anymore; at this moment, she has directly defected herself, instead sincerely wanting to be dominated by the owner of this terrifying mental power.

After all...

"What a warm mental power. Regardless of quality, quantity, or technique, everything is so perfect. I really love it so much."

As an illusionist whose XP is actually mental power, the Phantom Girl has to admit that she had never experienced such perfect mental power fluctuations as Lord Clown's before. This simply grew on her XP—no, it directly twisted her XP into the shape of the other party.

Although she also knows that being horny on the battlefield is not very appropriate, she really cannot control herself. She is now full of that red sun rising in the east.

In the illusion system, every illusionist's mental power actually has a shape. For example, the shape of the Phantom Girl's mental power is a rainbow, while the shape of the Human-Fruit Tree opposite is like a slime-like flesh block composed of countless wailing wronged souls—ugly as hell.

But the Phantom Girl had truly never heard of anyone whose mental power image was the sun.

But never mind, anyway, she is now shrouded in the sunlight of this mental sun, and it is truly warm to her heart.

And on the other side, someone was also directly warmed on the body.

"If this world has no light, then let me become this sun that illuminates everything."

Dorothy's gaze lowered.

And the sun wheel behind her turned, and endless light and heat directly illuminated everything, and also ignited the Human-Fruit Tree.

Just like pouring oil on a raging fire, this purifying holy flame instantly ignited the entire Human-Fruit Tree.

It should have been just an illusory mental flame, but at this moment, this Tree of Calamity was burning in reality.

It became the firewood for the cremation of that mountain of corpses.

... Purifying in the raging fire...