Chapter 577: and translation of title

A few people glanced at each other and all surprisingly approved Ying Duo's choice.

If conditions permitted, they might still take fungal mycelium samples for some research before deciding their action, but even if they had basic analytical instruments, most were left in the vehicle or malfunctioned due to the recent fall.

Meng Kexin stared at the nearby mycelium; she always felt that the deeper fungal clusters seemed different from those on the periphery. Chen Mo Zhi had mentioned to her that changes in aberrant flora are subtle, but even a slight difference in leaf shape could alter the plant's very nature.

She saw that the mycelium's surface here was coated with a faint, almost imperceptible slime; without close inspection, one might mistake it for a faint glow.

"Wait—!"

By the time Meng Kexin shouted, it was too late; someone had already advanced with a flamethrower, and the Rune device had already spewed a tongue of fire. When the flame touched the mycelium, the entire passage erupted in a dazzling Ying Guang Lu.

Confronted with such intense light, everyone instinctively shut their eyes, except Xiren, who silently unclipped the sunglasses he had been flaunting on his head, dimming his vision by several levels.

He had brought them from the real world; earlier he had heard others complain that Ying Guang Lu was too conspicuous and had taken them out to annoy, only for them to prove useful at this moment.

The mycelium screamed.

Or rather, they were transmitting some kind of signal.

The mycelium scorched by flame did not carbonize rapidly as before, turning to ash; instead, it twisted continuously in the fire, leaving terrifying silhouettes on the cavern wall like tentacles.

Xie Jingyan saw most clearly that the slime coating the mycelium solidified under the heat into a gray‑green hard shell, insulating it from the external temperature.

"What the hell is this?" Qi Junyi couldn't help cursing, while ordering the operator to raise the flamethrower's temperature another notch.

But that shell only grew thicker, and even sprouted new mycelium on its surface, as if mocking their incompetence.

The newly formed mycelium, adapted to the high temperature, outright ignored the flamethrower's tongues of fire and surged toward them.

"Those mycelia are adaptable to the external environment!"

Meng Kexin shouted, this kind of aberrant flora is undoubtedly the hardest to deal with; already difficult to handle, it has taken root in the Eternal Silent Abyss, possesses adaptability, and has even mutated high‑temperature resistance in such a short time!

Her words were cut off by a rumbling sound.

The ground beneath them suddenly began to tremble, as if the entire cavern were slowly waking up.

The mycelium still covered in flame started to swell en masse, cracking the hard shell and exposing the underlying Ying Guang Lu flesh. Now the mycelium's surface silver‑gray had been almost entirely replaced by Ying Guang Lu.

If they had previously mocked that Ying Duo's hair resembled Nightglow Mushrooms, they could not laugh at all when truly confronted with a sea of such Nightglow Mushrooms.

The surfaces of those mushrooms began to exude spores outward.

"Run!"

Sha Yufeng's voice was faster than anyone else's.

His twin pistols were already drawn, but the muzzles weren't aimed at the mycelium—what use could bullets have against this? He aimed at a passage above the cavern that had opened due to the recent tremor and was now rapidly closing.

"Is the upper route passable?!"

Although their exact abilities were unknown, from the way they led without hesitation, there must be a Special Ability Practitioner of the detection type among those Little Ghosts.

Ying Duo quickly glanced at the mini‑map, which was changing at a staggering speed, with previously charted routes turning back to black spot by spot.

Impassable.

The mycelium was almost trying to trap them to death here.

Ying Guang Lu lines traced a massive framework on Ying Duo's shoulder; when the lines first appeared, someone nearby nearly, in a reflex, swept the flamethrower's nozzle toward Ying Duo.

Yang Yixie was pondering, launching a mental blast at his own head, trying to gauge how likely their escape was.

He could easily clear a passage first, then digitize himself up, and lower a ladder, though the endless spores outside would still be an issue.

Suddenly, he saw a new change on the mini‑map.

"Keep moving forward!"

As soon as he spoke, everyone moved; a mycelium tried to coil around the Butterfly‑tonguer's ankle, and Su Jingming casually drew his waist‑mounted tactical knife, pinning the mycelium to the rock wall.

"Burn the mycelium blocking our path with flame; they need time to adapt. As long as you don't burn the main body, only the obstacles, you can buy a few seconds."

Meng Kexin quickly replied that if it's just for passage, this would still allow them to keep moving forward.

Qi Junyi immediately ordered them to readjust the flamethrower's pressure valve, aiming at the thin fungal carpet on the ground ahead; the newly formed mycelium was burned away before it could take hold, revealing a barely clean pathway.

The route they had come from behind them had been completely engulfed by mycelium; columnar fungal stalks rose from the ground, and the surrounding space was fully overtaken by Ying Guang Lu mushrooms within seconds.

Deep within that hall, something was taking shape.

Following the direction Ying Duo indicated, they squeezed into a narrow passage that was about to be sealed off, while a falling boulder from the tremor completely blocked the road behind them; in the dark space, only Ying Duo's head of Ying Guang Lu remained.

"Huff... damn..." Qi Junyi leaned against the rock wall, panting. After serving in the Heresy Tribunal for so long, this was his first time facing such an intense situation.

One could say it's fortunate that Chi Jin An had already trained his mental endurance, but who knows how that little madman is doing now......

Whether above or below ground, the Eternal Silent Abyss had become utterly unrecognizable.

Qi Junyi gritted his teeth hard, which is why he had told that kid not to leave the formation on his own; now, just after leaving, trouble erupted!

Xie Jingyan closed his eyes, placed both hands on the cavern wall, and began to re‑sense the life currents of the surrounding mycelial network.

"... this place can hold at most ten minutes," he thought. "If the mycelium's mutation speed continues to accelerate, this time will only shorten. Those mycelia are still growing; it's just that this path is off‑center, and they haven't spread here yet."

No one spoke.

The recent ordeal made everyone truly realize what they were confronting.

It was a disaster, the root of all misfortune in this world—Mutation.

Ordinary fungi would easily turn to ash under high heat, but Mutation does not; Mutation is such an irrational existence that it brings endless...

"Evolution."