Chapter 164

Kraft sidestepped the approaching host body with ease; its explosive movement matched that of a living person, but it was blunt and utterly predictable—its danger lay in its deceptive appearance and counterintuitive force patterns, which could only be countered by pure reflex speed.

Using its own momentum, his blade sliced through its left waist as they passed, splitting the lower abdomen in half.

This thing may not conform to biology, but it certainly obeys physics. The cut caused the hollowed trunk, packed with fungal clusters, to tilt irreversibly leftward, restricting its movement. He followed up by striking the fungal-connected spine with his weight hammer, sending it sprawling face-first before Kup.

"Don't hit the skull—target the legs first."

Without looking back, Kraft charged toward another bloated host body covered in liver-red Schizophyllum commune, using his weapon's reach to shear off half its arm—and unexpectedly saw residual muscle tissue fused with the fungus, stained rust-brown by oxidized iron deposits, starkly incongruous against the yellow-white mycelia.

The mycelial cords woven into muscle fibers seemed to replace nerves and blood vessels, allowing these otherwise dead tissues to be manipulated and exploited when needed, crudely mimicking pre-death movements.

To those sensitive to such things, this activity was clearly pathological—and one-time only.

Sudden tension exceeding structural limits, combined with the absence of pain reflexes, caused severed limbs to continue executing incomplete commands, worsening injuries until they tore themselves apart.

From the perspective of a normal organism, this was an extremely inefficient strategy.

But its essence was hard to define as either host body or the fungus parasitizing it—none of that mattered. If one was embraced by such a thing, escape was impossible in a short time unless someone cut off its limbs.

And if you couldn't escape within half a minute, the outcome had already been demonstrated firsthand.

There remained a considerable gap between painful lessons and practical adaptation. Even after being warned and realizing the need to adjust tactics, ingrained habits couldn't be changed instantly.

With no vital organs to target and unpredictable next moves, the most frustrating issue was that they wore partial armor but not full plate—offering no protection against this threat while slowing movement. Soon, several men reacted too slowly and were struck down.

In his peripheral vision, a retainer at the battlefield's edge had just pierced the neck of a host body—yet the unimpaired corpse lunged forward, gripping the blade with its arms, now covered in fungal rings like decaying wood, and clamped its grip around the man's upper body protected by chainmail, wrenching him to the ground.

A companion shoved forward with his shield, knocked the host's thigh bone apart, and turned to rescue. But the grasping host emitted a sound like dry pods bursting—its swollen, mushroom-cap-like head split open, spraying a cloud of dust: deep purplish-red mixed with dark yellow, spreading and fading in the air, rapidly shifting through countless indescribable hues.

The coughing and wheezing triggered by the dust spread in sync with the colors; those affected scrambled back, but the nearest shield-bearer couldn't dodge in time. After stumbling a few steps, he collapsed, clutching his throat, losing consciousness amid long, futile, gasping breaths.

"Fall back!"

Martin, having just severed his opponent's hamstring and shattered the patella to escape, immediately noticed this and shouted a warning.

He felt he'd inhaled some of the dust as he spoke—everywhere, it was everywhere. Just a trace had already caused a dry, scratchy irritation in his throat. Those who inhaled more severely coughed until their faces flushed red and eyes bulged, but the fungal-controlled hosts didn't wait for them to recover—chaos erupted in one corner of the battlefield.

The dust particles looked heavy; the cloud they formed spread only briefly before settling and dissipating, limiting their range.

"Cough… cover your face!" Martin coughed out a warning, drew his short dagger, and plunged it into the elbow of the mottled arm clutching him from behind, twisting it to sever whatever cord-like structure connected it.

He felt something pressed tightly against the back of his helmet—like a swelling water sack, or an inverted cow's stomach—its bumps and netted folds now alive, searching the metal for a way in.

Before one of the "sacs" ruptured, Martin held his breath, severed the tendon across the elbow joint, broke free, and hurled the dangerous thing toward another host charging through a gap in the defense.

They collided and fell, their hemispherical caps cracking open to release psychedelic dust, then quickly shriveling.

Command had largely broken down; everyone fought independently to create distance. Only now, with a moment to breathe, did Martin realize their numbers weren't outnumbered.

Based on what he'd seen during the day, those things numbered at least three times their own—possibly more hidden from view—and if they'd charged en masse, none would have survived.

As it stood, only two or three dozen mottled hosts moved within the camp. As long as each man held off one, they'd only risk being surrounded—manageable with mutual support.

Several hosts already lay dead around Kraft. He acted as the primary lure, drawing enemy attacks, using superior timing and spatial awareness to slip past them.

Anyone passing him inevitably received a wound that disrupted their balance, causing them to topple—then Kup would follow up with a strike to the junction between torso and thigh.

The hip joint, stripped of thick fat and padding and weakened by osteoporosis, might not be cleanly severed—but before a blunt weapon, it was utterly fragile. Even a glancing blow could shatter the femoral neck, a known fracture zone, into an orthopedic nightmare.

Striking deliberately chosen spots proved far more efficient than targeting knees; Kup usually needed only two blows to finish a target, and could spare a third to crush the upper limbs, ensuring they couldn't crawl.

A cursory glance revealed several familiar faces missing from the standing men—including a knight enfeoffed by the Duke. The threat of death had drastically accelerated their observational adaptation: they'd downed far more attackers than they'd lost, yet the density of enemies on the field showed little change.

Even with Kraft and Martin swiftly eliminating several and rushing to rescue others, the pressure eased only briefly before sinking back into suppression.

The number of active hosts had dropped from two or three dozen to just over twenty—but the ground was already littered with more corpses, and fresh ones always replaced them.

Martin kicked aside a crawling host, retrieved a two-handed axe left by a fallen retainer, avoided the head, and brought it down on its shoulder blade, shattering it along with a section of spine. As he prepared to completely chop it apart, he was startled to find it had stopped moving.

He'd assumed these things had to be burned to be truly killed—but it had simply ceased.

This realization shifted his focus from eye level to the ground: most of the damaged, partially intact fungal hosts lay still, with only a few still attempting to approach the living.

And those few that moved shared a common trait… they could still crawl?

Even with most of their torso destroyed, as long as they retained mobility, they crawled—whereas Kraft's targets, even if their bodies appeared ninety percent intact, were dead if their hips or arms were broken.

"Professor! Professor Kraft!" Martin blocked a host charging from behind a tent and moved toward Kraft—he felt he'd grasped something vital, a hidden pattern behind this bizarre reinforcement tactic, but couldn't pause to articulate it.

These horrifying host bodies weren't the focus.

"Look at the ones on the ground—they're not right!"

Martin trusted Kraft's mind needed no more than a nudge—he just needed to notice the anomaly.

"Huh?" Kraft responded, dodging an attack, casually severing what appeared to be part of the original quadriceps, then kicking the host down to hand it off to Kup.

He only cared about knocking down any host still standing with mushrooms on its head, feeling no pressure—fallen ones were handled by others. Only now, with Martin's reminder, did he glance at his fallen opponents.

He mentally recorded what he saw, rapidly comparing the crawling and motionless hosts amid dust and vegetation, arriving at a highly subjective conclusion.

It seemed their vitality bore no relation to vital organs or injury severity—instead, there was deliberate "selectivity"? Once again, he recalled his initial thought upon first encountering this phenomenon.

【This makes no sense for an individual】

Individuals rarely waste their own lives—this held true across all deep-life organisms he'd encountered; they avoided harm or responded to it.

Nothing in their behavior reflected this.

After Kup damaged its hip and shoulder joints, the host ceased moving—as if some controlling consciousness or soul had deliberately abandoned it.

【This isn't its body】

It wasn't a long-dead human, nor fungus, nor a fusion of both—it was nothing. They still faced an invisible, intangible threat, its nature unknown.

From the direction of the village, another fungal host emerged from the woods. The team seemed to be achieving great results, yet they'd made no progress—repeatedly killing disposable pawns driven by something unknown, and more such pawns remained.

Kraft could afford to stall—but others couldn't, especially the knights in full plate armor, whose stamina would drain faster. Lose this core force, and the line would collapse soon.

Yet its limitations were clear: the number of controlled hosts had an upper bound, and its behavioral logic seemed rigid?

"Kup—next one, just break the legs!" Leaving more crawling ones was better than bringing in new ones—this was all they could try now.

Kraft knocked down a host charging at Martin, pinned it to the ground with a borrowed sword, and watched it writhe and twitch—unable to free itself, yet not falling still.

Living fungus—this reminded him that his first encounter with this phenomenon hadn't been today, but inside the Duke's lungs.

"Martin, where were those heretic corpses finally taken?"

"Most were disposed of," Martin replied, puzzled why Kraft would suddenly mention events in Westminster Castle mid-battle—then he froze.

Had his helmet visor been open, Kraft would have seen his face turn ashen.

"But I kept a few… just in case they were useful…"

"Huh?!"