Mushroom Lord in the Underground City

Chapter 752: Chapter 739: Flesh and Blood Chorus

The swordfish is missing.

According to the plan, as the main force for firefighting, he was supposed to go down once, clear the way of Chis, take a quick look at the situation underwater, and then surface to report back.

The scale of Chis now was long beyond what one person could kill clean, Lin Jun knew this, and didn’t expect him to handle it all.

But half a day had passed, and the Sword Saint had neither surfaced within the Fungal Mat’s sensing range nor died to respawn at the Mushroom Garden.

Was he captured? Or trapped somewhere?

Lin Jun thought it unlikely he was captured; after all, he was the Sword Saint. How could he be beaten by a bunch of bugs without even having time to hit [Self-Destruct]?

While waiting for the Sword Saint’s return, Little Pig hadn’t been idle.

Real naval reinforcements began to gather toward this sea area, and the floating Fungal Mat on the surface changed its appearance under Lin Jun’s will.

The mycelium originally spreading on the water’s surface frantically proliferated under the influence of magic power, but instead of spreading out into a mat, they entangled with each other, spiraling downward and growing into pillars that stretched toward the seabed.

These mycelium pillars were extensions of the Fungal Mat, and although they were assets negative in magic power consumption, they could provide the descending main forces with all the support the mat could offer.

They dangled from the surface, with blue-green fluorescence slowly flowing along the pillars, like numerous glowing tentacles reaching down from the sky, bunching together and plunging into the dark deep sea.

The naval forces of Fungus Castle accompanied these mycelium pillars in their descent, and Norris was among them.

Through Jida’s perception, he "saw" the floating insect corpses in the sea.

Dense and bizarre, many were species he had never seen before.

Some looked like flattened starfish, some like vines full of thorns...

Some bugs were not completely dead yet, but there were no living Eye Worms nearby anymore; they had lost command and were left only with primal instincts, either struggling or consuming the corpses of other insects nearby.

As long as they didn’t get too close, the bugs wouldn’t even attack the descending forces.

Of course, this didn’t mean Lin Jun would let them off.

Lower-level bugs that had lost their Eye Worms had no power to resist, and one by one, they were blasted to pieces by the Mushroom Cannon.

Following the mycelium pillars further down, Norris finally encountered organized living bugs.

A giant, fleshy whale-shaped bug was retrieving the floating pieces of meat with the help of some smaller bugs.

They seemed not to have anticipated the Puki army would descend, and when illuminated by the fluorescence on the mycelium pillars, the flesh whale frantically moved its body, trying to dive deeper to hide. But Norris had long aimed the Resonance Cannon on Jida’s shoulder at it.

This cumbersome bug, used for transport and similar to a live target, naturally couldn’t avoid the Resonance Cannon’s attack.

And its defensive shell of blood and flesh was easily obliterated by the Resonance Cannon.

The flesh whale bug’s body was pierced with a big hole; after struggling twice and letting out a mournful cry, it fell silent.

The small bugs assisting in collecting meat scraps were partially wiped out by attacks from other Puki’s tentacles and the Mushroom Cannon and then fled afar.

After taking out a wave of bugs, the subsequent descent did not encounter any living bugs again.

Chis was annoying like that.

Every time he couldn’t win, he would hide, never offering Lin Jun a chance for a final fight.

Lin Jun could only compress its living space, bit by bit consuming its strength, but this method was quite time-consuming.

Finally, the vanguard forces reached the bottom.

Norris scratched his head through Jida: "Where on earth did Fourteen swim off to?"

In the latter half of the descent, although there weren’t many insect corpses visible, the faint purple in the water was still detectable, clearly indicating that Fourteen had fought all the way down, but most of the insect corpses had been retrieved.

But the problem was, even now, there was still no sign of the Sword Saint Puki.

"Search the surroundings, be careful not to stray too far from the mycelium columns, watch out for..."

Before Norris could finish his sentence, a sudden change occurred.

"Ah~ ah~ ah~~~"

A melodious song came from the dark area outside the fluorescence’s reach.

"Be careful, it’s the Mermaid’s Charm!" experienced Fishmen swiftly warned within the Fungal Network at the first sound of the song, "Concentrate!"

However, it wasn’t just one or two Mermaids; it was a choir from all sides, surrounding Norris’s entire advance team!

"Damn, why are the Mermaids... attacking..."

With a charm power far beyond individuals, the Fishmen, Half-demons, Snake-men, and others in the advance team quickly fell into the [Charm] state.

Their tense expressions relaxed, and they dazedly swam toward the darkness.

Though the Puki wasn’t affected by the charm, they had lost the command of their Puki Master and could only follow the directive to follow, swimming along with their charmed Puki Masters.

In an instant, the advance team’s formation collapsed, with only two people remaining clear-headed.

One was a rare Spirit Spellcaster, whose rank wasn’t high but had basic mental defense skills, struggling to hold on under the repeated assault of the [Charm Song] chorus.

The other was Norris.

He made no defenses, nor was proficient in Spiritual Magic.

Yet under this choir’s attack, although he also felt it hard to concentrate, his situation was much better compared to the nearby Spirit Mage.

This was all thanks to Lin Jun’s occasional dream training, which enhanced his spiritual resilience far beyond ordinary people.

Of course, Norris himself didn’t know about this; he just thought he was more prone to bizarre dreams.

"Damn it, damn it!" That mage realized he couldn’t last much longer. Before his consciousness fell into a trance, he issued his final command to his Puki, "Blow them up!"

The Puki fish swam toward the darkness at once.

With attacks emerging from the dark, the Puki agilely dodged by themselves.

[Battle Instinct Level 7]

Though the attacks were dense, several Puki still reached close quarters... Boom—!

The brilliance of the explosion illuminated the darkness, allowing Norris, who was hindered from using [Sound Wave Detection] by the sound interference, to see what attacked them in the darkness.

"What... cursed things are these?" The scene before his eyes made Norris’s voice tremble.

It was an array of gigantic tentacles coiled around the advance team, embedded with countless Mermaids on the fleshy walls of the tentacles.

Flesh threads covered their bodies that protruded from the meat wall, making them appear hideous and terrifying.

It was this meat wall that controlled these living Mermaid specimens to perform the [Charm Song] chorus!

Resonance Cannon!

Without hesitation, Norris launched an attack, the cannon blasting the tentacles, shredding flesh and Mermaids alike into minced meat.

The attacked tentacles squirmed suddenly, retracting into the distance.

Replaced in the darkness were countless scarlet insect eyes.

The [Charm Song] vanished, yet Fungus Castle soldiers were still dazed, and their previously tight and orderly formation was completely shattered. Faced with the overwhelmed wave of insects, they could only instinctively order the Puki to stand their ground independently.

Without orderly cooperation, many Puki were torn apart by insects, the defensive line continually compressing. Norris tried to break out upwards, but consecutive shots from the Resonance Cannon failed to blast open a gap large enough for their escape through the swell of insects.

Back against the rocky wall, even with the separation of Norris and Jida, fighting two battlers’ worth, it was hard to hold out, almost to be wiped out before reinforcements arrived, starting his Puki life...

Suddenly, a pair of slender arms reached out from the rock wall, circled his neck, pulling him backward forcibly!

Norris vanished into the rock wall.

Several other Fungus Castle soldiers near the rock wall were similarly pulled inside.

But that was it, as more members of the advance team were ultimately engulfed by the insect swarm.

However, those soldiers didn’t collapse; they persevered and managed to hold on long enough. The insects that killed them couldn’t retreat in time, all wiped out when subsequently surrounded by Fungus Castle forces.

As for that giant tentacle, it didn’t appear again.

All the bodies were fed into the mycelium pillars for decomposition, with over eighty percent of soldiers successfully converting into Puki.

However...

"Where’s Norris?" Lin Jun controlled the Puki, feeling around the rock wall.