Chapter 504: Explanation (4K)

The abilities of the Fungus King include, but are not limited to: high-speed movement, self-healing, cloning, mushroom bombs, spore infection, and hallucination.

Wanli Fengdao spoke at a pace rivaling a rap artist or an American auctioneer, laying out every piece of information he knew: "Especially beware—the air is filled with microscopic spores invisible to the naked eye, which enter the lungs through breathing and take root and sprout."

It is recommended to use energy-based attacks, particularly fire attributes, to clear the spores.

As he spoke, the battle intensified.

Bai Ma Mubei halted her high-speed movement; her skin was riddled with countless fine cuts, and some fungal spores, resistant to extreme heat, burrowed into the wounds, feeding on flesh and blood to grow into dense clusters of tiny mushrooms—visually resembling those of the Agaricales family.

These mushrooms grew at peculiar angles, embedding their roots inside the wounds while their caps protruded outward.

Even if Bai Ma Mubei's blue flames burned the caps to ash, the roots within could still absorb nutrients and regrow.

Clang!

She slammed her fists together; the iron chains serving as gauntlets rang sharply, erupting two streams of purple flame that surged over her entire body, seeping deeply into the wounds to eradicate the mycelium.

Unlike blue flames, which left her unharmed, the purple flames caused her skin to curl and blister; inside the wounds, a sizzling sound of searing flesh rose as her blood evaporated before it could even drip to the ground.

The Fungus King, not one to miss a perfect opening, lunged forward and stopped abruptly, slashing both cleavers horizontally across Bai Ma Mubei's body.

Tap.

Bai Ma Mubei stomped the ground—not to leap, but to twist her waist to its extreme limit, like a gymnast, slipping through the gap between the two cleavers.

Simultaneously, she loosened her grip slightly, extending the chain gauntlets, then sharply flicked them to wrap the chains around the Fungus King's arms.

Wave Fist!

Bai Ma Mubei vibrated both hands; the wave force traveled along the chains toward the Fungus King.

His muscular arms trembled violently; the dense muscle fibers composed of mycelium gradually tore apart, then exploded with a "Boom!"

His arms, along with both cleavers, flew into the air. The Fungus King's core felt no awareness, no sensation, no pain—only a glance, and the mushrooms clustered in the treetops "came alive,"

transforming into smaller, eye-equipped mushroom people who leapt from the canopy, seized the two cleavers, and landed seamlessly onto the stumps of the Fungus King's shoulders, becoming new arms of different colors.

"."

Bai Ma Mubei's eyelid twitched violently; the script missions issued by the Arena were difficult, yes, but at least tailored to the chosen ones' personal conditions,

never reaching extremes like "entering a Cthulhu world and fully embodying a seven-foot-tall, barrel-shaped, five-winged, five-tentacled Ancient One alien, required to single-handedly kill an evil god."

The types of NPCs and bosses in script missions were all things players had seen or heard of.

But the situation with non-human players from other worlds was entirely different—who knew what their planet's environment, evolutionary path, anatomy, physiology, or technological development looked like?

Thus, Earth-human common sense and intuition could not predict their behavior.

Bai Ma Mubei exhaled a long breath and punched twice toward Claudia and Lei Yesi nearby.

Blue flames surged like a dragon, engulfing the two human players—Mubei-sis precisely controlled the punch's power: the flames burned away the tiny mushrooms growing on their bodies and incinerated the airborne spores, yet inflicted zero physical damage.

They both knew the air was filled with fungal spores, so from the start of battle, they had slowed their breathing, using blood magic to oxygenate their bodies or breathing through oxygen tanks.

Claudia glanced gratefully at Bai Ma Mubei, seized the opening with Lei Ting, and teleported three hundred meters behind the griffin; her red short leather boots struck the ground, revealing a magical array.

Nine streams of bloody crimson light extended from the array, slithering toward the griffin, whose body crackled with Lei Guang; in the instant it tried to flap its wings and flee, the light surged violently, wrapping tightly around its entire body.

"Wait—"

Wanli Fengdao, still explaining, narrowed his pupils and reached out his hand: "Don't!"

Too late.

Blood Magic: Frost-Covered Blood.

Freezing cold surged along the crimson light toward the griffin. Its eagle-faced visage twisted into a strange smile, refusing to dodge, absorbing the blow directly.

The Blood Magic failed to freeze the griffin's blood; instead, it struck an invisible wall and reversed course along the crimson light back to its source.

【Item Name: Lotus Pearl】

【Type: Magical Artifact】

【Quality: Perfect】

【Effect: Echo Barrier. Applies a 6-second barrier to the target; during this time, any magical skill cast upon the target is mirrored and reflected back to the original caster.】

【Cost: 200 Spirit Power】

【Cooldown: 1 hour】

【Requirement: Score at least 5% on the Unified Graduate Admission Exam for Arcane Masters】

【Note: The barrier activates only once and lacks recognition—reflects all beneficial and debuffing magic. When facing area-of-effect spells, only the portion contacting the barrier is reflected.】

【Note: Bounce, bounce, bounce—away with crow's feet】

Claudia immediately sensed danger and switched back to bat form, taking the full force of the Frost-Covered Blood spell.

Fortunately, the spell's effect was to drastically lower the target's body temperature; bats are small, with little blood and naturally high body heat,

so after her blood cooled below 0°C, she urgently reverted to her larger human form to mitigate the shock.

Even so, Claudia's body was coated in thick frost, delicate ice columns hanging beneath her nose, her petite frame shivering violently.

She trembled as she tore open an expensive spell scroll, using a rapid-fire tracking fireball spell to temporarily drive back the griffin, then shouted without looking back at Wanli Fengdao: "Can you please speak faster?! Faster!"

"I'm not Wang Yuyan! I'm already speaking as fast as I can!"

Wanli Fengdao was also furious, rolling his eyes, yet still faithfully continued his explanation: "The griffin is Lv28, an elemental controller specializing in thunder and gales."

Zing!

The griffin hurled a dozen eagle feathers into the area around Wanli Fengdao; each feather glowed with electricity, slicing through air with a hissing noise, blocking sound transmission.

Hui Yu instantly reacted; his liquid-metal legs stretched like a zoom filter, lifting the glass container holding Wanli Fengdao high into the air,

allowing him to speak above the ground-level thunderstorm noise: "Watch out for the rabbit-like subhuman—the ranged archer is just a disguise; his close combat is just as deadly. Don't be fooled."

"Tch."

Tu Youxia scowled, clicking her tongue; she had deliberately pretended her arrow supply was low and her bow strength weakening, hoping Lei Yesi would think he had an opening and close in for a killing blow.

The glass container holding Wanli Fengdao was indestructible, but Hui Yu holding it was not.

Tu Youxia moved nimbly, slipping effortlessly through the encirclement of over a hundred tattooed beasts, leaping high atop a tiger's back, her recurve bow firing a rapid volley of dense light arrows.

Lei Yesi urgently recalled a large number of tattooed beasts to block the first wave of light arrows, while himself was violently pulled backward by the tattooed ropes, evading subsequent attacks.

Tu Youxia redirected her fire toward Hui Yu, who held up the glass container.

Her root light arrows combined energy erosion with physical explosion—capable of striking ghosts and demolishing bunkers alike.

That lump of metal slime wasn't even a player; it couldn't possibly handle this.

Shh—dozens of light arrows shot toward him; Hui Yu's eyes widened, she drew a deep breath, and her entire head suddenly split open into a hollow ring, perfectly avoiding every arrow.

"Huh?"

Tu Youxia paused, disbelieving, and fired a row of vertical light arrows—but Hui Yu split her body in half again, evading perfectly.

"That's it?"

Hui Yu returned to her original form, raising her chin in provocation: "Big-brained Meile Sect, open-minded Anbei-san, loyal and blunt only Zhi Wang, flower-on-neck Charlie Kirk."

"Of the four, only Zhi Wang survived gunfire—clearly, adding defense is worse than adding evasion."

"I don't understand what you're saying."

Tu Youxia wasn't even from Earth; naturally, she had no idea what Hui Yu was rambling about. She immediately pulled a plain wooden arrow from her backpack slot and nocked it on the bowstring formed of light.

Zing!

Tu Youxia's drawing motion was nearly invisible; only the sonic boom of the arrow breaking the sound barrier could be heard.

At such speed, Hui Yu had no time to split her body to dodge. She made an instant decision, activating the 【Soul Ambush】 skill: her two legs sank into the ground, while her liquid metal contracted to lower her height.

The plain wooden arrow struck the glass container's surface and shattered into hundreds of wooden fragments; the explosion's force was comparable weight to a heavy artillery shell.

Hui Yu called out: "Uncle, are you alright?"

"Fine."

Wanli Fengdao pressed both hands against the inner wall of the container; most of the impact had been absorbed by the glass prison. He suffered no serious injury, but his face turned ashen: "Only severe tinnitus and spots before my eyes."

Hui Yu blinked. "Huh? Uncle, you support LGBT too?"

"It's the idiom 'spots before the eyes'! Not that transgender dancer Jin Xing!"

Wanli Fengdao's eyelid twitched violently. "Watch out!"

Another wooden arrow came flying. Hui Yu, now prepared, extended a liquid metal arm from her chest, gripping the Skullcrusher power hammer, while activating the optimized effect of 【Silver Wing Path】,

forcibly enhancing the mechanical life's visual resolution, high-speed imaging, and auto-tracking capabilities, locking onto the arrow's trajectory and smashing it midair with a single blow, shattering it.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of wooden arrows, trailing sonic clouds, arrived. Hui Yu drew a deep breath, gathering all her energy before her.

Annihilation Deathlight!

The light column engulfed every wooden arrow, its residual force sweeping toward Tu Youxia.

She desperately dodged but was still caught by the beam, burning off a large patch of rabbit fur from her outer thigh.

"So she's a doe."

Hui Yu stared at Tu Youxia's thigh curve, rubbed her chin, and mused: "My Master Pi Fu once took me to a nightclub to show me the world, just to teach me the chicken-and-rabbit-in-the-same-cage math problem."

"Rabbit God is still a rabbit, right?"

Wanli Fengdao instinctively retorted: "That Master Pi Fu is a character."

As an elderly veteran of the second wave of Chosen Ones, Wanli Fengdao had heard the name Master Pi Fu from reports on the London incident.

But he didn't react with the same shock as the young forum kids.

Geniuses? Among tens of millions, one always emerges—if they survive.

He'd seen too many claims like: "Most OP Newbie Ever! Lv10 chest dropped Blue Lotus Heartfire + Twin Martial Souls."

"Innate Absolute Earth Warrior Body? Canadian newbie's Fibre Index exploded—admitted to Prometheus without exam, granted P12 benefits."

"【HLTV】: The wind will break waves someday; I'll hoist my sail and cross the sea! Lv5 inherits the Hindu Snow Goddess legacy, instantly receives 15 Grand Guild offers!"

Regardless of how much exaggeration or falsehood lay in these promotions, so-called geniuses flooded in like fish crossing a river—but a large portion vanished silently into the tide of time.

Either they died cluelessly in scripted missions, or were precisely assassinated by rival factions.

Those who barely survived round after round, becoming the backbone of guilds at Lv30, still faced the probability of dying in some forgotten corner, their corpses even denied preservation.

Fleeting, chaotic thoughts passed; Wanli Fengdao snapped back to reality, seeing the Fungus King and Tu Youxia simultaneously and tacitly shift the battlefield, retreating to give the Griffin space.

"The Griffin's about to unleash her ultimate!"

Wanli Fengdao's veteran instinct alerted him instantly. He roared a warning: "Don't let her finish casting!"

Bai Ma Mubei reacted swiftly, punching to drive back the Fungus King, preparing to open the stone coffin and release his future dead self.

But the Fungus King gave him no chance—his cap surged to catalyze spore bombs, filling the space around the coffin.

Tu Youxia did the same: she activated an overload skill, single-handedly holding back Claudia and Lei Yesi, pinning them both in place.

They watched helplessly as the Griffin soared into the sky, her eyes blazing with Lei Guang, wings whipping up a furious storm.

These interdimensional players had astonishing synergy: Tu Youxia fired countless rockets into the storm; the Fungus King controlled the entire parasitized forest, spewing oil-saturated fungal spores.

The rockets ignited the spores; the storm became a fire tornado, flickering with violent Lei Ting. Every second, the thunderstorm expanded another ring outward.

"Hey, girl."

Seeing this, Wanli Fengdao calmed his emotions and spoke firmly to Hui Yu: "These interdimensional players coordinate flawlessly—their power systems mesh perfectly. You can't handle them."

Find a chance to withdraw from the battlefield. Report this to GOC."

In the real world, Wanli Fengdao was already married with children—he and his cat-girl pet had even had a kid.

Long ago, he'd made preparations, refusing to delude himself like Jing Ge or other transcendents, making AI backups or clones to pretend he lived on.

Dead is dead.

Before every mission, he deposited all his savings with the Yincheng Special Affairs Bureau—the agency he trusted most, with whom he'd collaborated longest—believing they'd care for his survivors.

Tearing!

In the midst of the wildly violent thunderfire tornado, a tear ripped open in midair.

The Dark Duel ended; the colossal form of the Centipede Octopus squeezed out from the spatial rift.

The griffon-faced creature flapped its wings and slightly raised the position of the fire tornado to avoid injuring its allies.

However, as the spatial rift expanded further, the colossal body of the centipede octopus fully returned; its head bore a grotesque wound, both eyes vanished, and blue blood continuously streamed from its empty eye sockets.

A kilometer away, Li Cheng stepped calmly out of the rift, holding one eyeball in each hand like cheerleader pom-poms, raising them high.

"You wanna play cards with me? When I turned twenty yuan into thirty-seven million, you didn't even know where you were."

Li Cheng shook his head with a low laugh, then turned to see Wanli Fengdao, whose face was far from handsome, and exclaimed: "Holy shit, Lei Yesi, how the hell did you get beaten up like this? These otherworldly players are truly monsters."

(End of Chapter)