Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 548: The Fungal Trap

Chapter 548: Chapter 548: The Fungal Trap

"I hadn’t seen her since I woke up," Xu Huo said. "There’s something wrong with this Mist Forest."

"No wonder I fell asleep so quickly," Zhuo Wangsun couldn’t help but think the worst, "Could it be that Xin Hui deliberately brought us here?"

While speaking, he took out his own navigation device, "Could she have tampered with it?"

Xu Huo took out a new navigation device from the luggage compartment, "Mine’s working fine."

Zhuo Wangsun was slightly surprised, then said, "You did it on purpose, didn’t you? You’ve been suspecting her for a while now?"

"She claimed she wasn’t a player from Clown City, but she knew a lot about the cleaning zone. Just watching other warriors eat dried mushrooms and she could match them with the river’s fungi? That’s too far-fetched. Even if her observational skills are extraordinary, she wouldn’t have drunk directly from the river unless she knew there were no problems with the water," Xu Huo explained.

Zhuo Wangsun pondered and said, "No wonder she wasn’t in a hurry when we told her the truth about the cleaning zone. She even planned to continue the cleaning mission. It seems she knew the inside story all along... Could she be an infiltrator sent by Clown City, aiming to eliminate those of us who have discovered the truth?"

Xu Huo couldn’t be sure about that, but he had already used the "Friendly Handkerchief" to track her position. Even if she ran first, he could catch up.

Following the direction of Xin Hui, the two delved deeper into the Mist Forest. Shadows of people still appeared around them intermittently, but every time they approached, the figures would vanish. They neither impeded nor attacked, and even their tailing seemed half-hearted.

"It’s no good having these people always following us," Zhuo Wangsun whispered, "Haven’t you noticed that their number is increasing?"

"They don’t seem like living people," Xu Huo said in a grave voice, "They could be props or mutated plants from the forest. As long as they don’t interfere, it’s no problem."

They had already scouted the path earlier. Even if they threw a branch at those figures, they would quickly move aside without any force behind them, making the two men more daring in their actions.

Just as they were about to catch up to Xin Hui, a row of figures suddenly appeared up ahead, standing immobile like ghosts, waiting in their path. Xu Huo felt these figures were different from the previous ones, so he grabbed a violin string and soared into the sky to avoid them, while Zhuo Wangsun, unable to stop his momentum, crashed right into them!

The shadows didn’t vanish like before; the "people" stood rigidly. Zhuo Wangsun collided with a hollow clang and then tumbled into a white expanse of mycelium, without making a sound.

The kite string had flown out the moment he rolled down, supposedly piercing through someone. However, after Zhuo Wangsun fell a certain distance, he suddenly stopped in mid-air, and Xu Huo couldn’t pull him back up.

The fog was too thick to see anything clearly, so he lowered a tiny surveillance monitor down. In its faint light, he saw large hollow pockets underneath, composed entirely of layers of mycelium. The edge of the hole that Zhuo Wangsun had created didn’t break off but stretched like a thin membrane bag, hanging straight down into the depths below.

And the space below was obviously more than just ten or twenty meters deep. Zhuo Wangsun was entirely wrapped in mycelium, stuck in the "Mycelium Bag," the more he struggled, the tighter it tightened around him.

Through the gaps in the mycelium membrane, he could see things resembling rhizomes and veins, covering the back of the membrane like blood vessels, with many connection points. Roots grew from these points and reached out to other membranes. Such interweaved and suspended layers of membranes were interconnected, forming a massive fungus colony cave.

Just by seeing Zhuo Wangsun unable to even speak, Xu Huo knew the mycelium’s stickiness was strong. He lowered his altitude, took out a lighter, and scorched the mycelium shaped like standing people on the ground. Although the reaction was slow, it was not entirely unresponsive, so he lit some fabric and dropped it down.

As soon as the fire started, the suspended mycelium quickly retracted to all sides. Zhuo Wangsun managed to struggle out of the cocoon, grabbed the kite string, and began to climb up proactively.

The burning fabric hadn’t yet been consumed completely, adhering to the mycelium membranes as it fell layer by layer downwards and continued deep down for several dozen meters until the fire extinguished, still not reaching the bottom.

"Underneath us is actually a mycelium cave!" Zhuo Wangsun said with a look of apprehension, "Are you sure Xin Hui went down here?"

The direction was definitely correct, but where exactly Xin Hui had gone from was unknown.

"There might be tunnels nearby." He had seen people living in cracks in the ground before.

"We definitely can’t get down from here; we should look around nearby," Zhuo Wangsun suggested.

Xu Huo was certain that Xin Hui had gone underground, but as he made his way there, he hadn’t noticed any special markings, leaving him unclear about which path she had taken. He could only search slowly in the vicinity.

In the meantime, "shadows" continued to follow them.

Now knowing these were just a form of mycelium, Zhuo Wangsun said, "These shadows don’t seem to be appearing randomly; they are actually following us. It’s unheard of for fungi to react to living humans after mutating."

"They’re herding us in one direction," Xu Huo said. "Plants also have a predatory instinct, and many fungi feed on the decaying bodies of animals."

Glancing at the "shadows" hopping nearby once more, he decided to head toward the edge of the Mist Forest.

After all, the deeper they went, the more dangerous it surely would be.

"So we’re not looking for Xin Hui any longer?" Zhuo Wangsun asked.

Finding her was secondary, Xu Huo replied. He was merely curious about the secrets Xin Hui carried with her. "If she continues to clean up the alien species, she will definitely leave the Mist Forest. It’s the same if we go out and wait for her."

Zhuo Wangsun nodded in agreement.

The two then proceeded toward the outskirts of the Mist Forest. It appeared that the "trap" had failed; the mycelium shadows gradually decreased in number, and by the time they reached the edge of the forest, the shadows had vanished.

With a navigation device in hand, they had planned to continue towards Clown City along the edge of the Mist Forest, but to their surprise, not long after the mycelium shadows disappeared, the ground mycelium began to wriggle. The snow-white filaments twisted like worms and released fine threads on a large scale, quickly covering the green grass on the ground and turning vast areas of the jungle white.

At the same time, a rustling noise emerged from within the Mist Forest, sounding like something being eaten or corroded, and soon a green mist seeped from the ground.

Xu Huo hurriedly left the ground, taking Zhuo Wangsun along with him.

By the time they completely left that area of woods, the large fog inside had been replaced by the green mist, appearing very eerie under the night sky.

"No wonder even the alien species refuse to go in," Zhuo Wangsun remarked.

Xin Hui had already moved out of the range of the device’s location-tracking capabilities, causing Xu Huo’s expression to darken. He turned and said, "Let’s head up front to intercept her."

Without missing a beat, the two crossed the Mist Forest area. Along the way, they encountered alien species twice, but Xu Huo dealt with them immediately, not even stopping to waste time, making it look no different from chopping vegetables, which led Zhuo Wangsun, who was following behind, to frequently glance at him. Finally, he couldn’t help but ask, "Are you really a Level D player?"