Chapter 262: Elegy of Druids, Wild Life

"Bang!"

The fist-sized spores released by the giant mushroom detonated in mid-air, and countless fine, dust-like particles rained down, triggering a "blizzard" in a forest where the temperature was nowhere near cold enough for snow.

The fungal mat on the ground churned, a vast network of mycelia twisting and extending, surging toward Wang Yu atop that thick "white velvet carpet." The entire mat rolled and heaved like a white tidal wave.

Mixed within this "blizzard" and "tidal wave" were the mushroom-men, their bodies completely overtaken by the mycelia. They sprinted wildly, brandishing crude weapons as they launched their assault on Wang Yu.

"Sif, come closer."

Wang Yu gestured toward the towering tree beside him, signaling the elven ranger perched above to descend. The blizzard of fungal spores made the high ground unsafe for Sif; inhaling these body-snatching spores would be a troublesome affair.

"Thud."

Sif dropped from the canopy, landing lightly and steadily on Wang Yu’s shoulder. With both Avia and Sif, their combined weight was nothing to him.

Glancing at the incoming tide of enemies, Wang Yu’s expression remained indifferent. Half a year ago, he might have retreated before such an overwhelming force, but now, there was no need.

"Boom!"

The Broken Meteorite Blade swept across his palm, which was wreathed in ghostly green spellfire. The Blood-Rage Knight secret technique forced the blood within his veins to surge outward.

This blood, brimming with vitality, burned fiercely. Under Wang Yu’s control, it was further stimulated, and the ball of fire hovering in his hand grew significantly larger.

"Snap! Bang!"

Wang Yu slammed the flame into the ground. The burning fire spread outward like a tidal wave, manipulated by the power of the Chariot. Simultaneously, the scorching fireball Avia had created soared into the sky and erupted in a brilliant bloom.

"Sizzle, crackle, crackle!"

The fire wave surged. The thick fungal mat beneath their feet, woven from countless enchanted mycelia, was absurdly flammable. Before they could coat Wang Yu in their corrosive secretions, they—along with their own life force—were ignited by the blood-fueled spellfire.

The fireball released by Avia created a rain of fire; highly penetrative drops of fire elemental energy fell from the sky, mixing the crimson "downpour" with the white "blizzard."

In an instant, the spore-filled blizzard was dyed red. Flames roared in the air, and within moments, the entire curtain of snow was ignited, incinerated, and reduced to fine black particles that drifted away.

The surrounding trees suffered a miserable fate. As the fire rain and flame waves incinerated the fungal mats and spores, they also thoroughly scorched the trees and the mushroom-men running between them.

Trees with their bases seared through and their branches stripped by the fire rain collapsed, hitting the ground with a thunderous roar.

Flames engulfed the surroundings for a brief moment. When they dissipated, the white fungal mats and spores were gone, leaving only the massive, slightly yellow-tinged giant mushroom rooted in place, while everything else had been reduced to charcoal.

"Gah... gah-gah!"

Amidst the sound of cracking earth and twisting wood, Wang Yu saw the "Mushroom God"—as the mushroom-men called it—tear through the ground around its roots and stand up.

Thick, massive legs, proportional to its gargantuan frame, stomped onto the earth, causing the ground to tremble incessantly. Two fissures split its torso, and arms—made of the same fungal material yet looking incredibly powerful—sprouted from its body.

Wang Yu frowned as he watched the mushroom grow limbs. It gave him a strong sense of déjà vu, and he was not keen on going head-to-head with this thing.

"Let's pull back a bit. There's no need to fight this thing to the death if we don't have to. Its agility definitely can't keep up with us if we decide to leave."

Wang Yu stated his plan while keeping a wary eye on the colossal mushroom-man lumbering toward him. It wasn't fast; if he wanted to leave, he certainly could... wait.

Wang Yu’s intention to ignore the giant mushroom was interrupted by a line of text appearing in his field of vision. He halted his turn to retreat, his gaze fixed on the center of the giant mushroom's body.

[High concentration of natural mana detected. Estimated intensity: Formal Stage, High Rank. Druidic profession.]

"A druid? Don't tell me this giant mushroom is a druid. I've never heard of a druid turning into a giant mushroom. At most, they turn into griffins, owlbears, or green dragons."

Wang Yu muttered, confused by the information transmitted by his Perfect Fractal Lens. He decided against running, instead maintaining a distance from the charging giant mushroom, running backward at a similar speed.

"I'll overload the mana output of the Perfect Fractal. The structure should collapse, but the 'magnification' effect right before the crash should provide a massive boost. With your body strength at the Great Knight stage, you should be able to glean enough information in that split second."

Avia and Wang Yu were perfectly in sync; she understood what he needed the moment he started muttering.

Giving the girl an 'OK' sign, Wang Yu signaled he was ready. The next moment, the illusory lens over his right eye was flooded with mana far exceeding its circuit's capacity. After a sudden, intense flash, it shattered into scattered mana.

In the instant before collapse, the analytical effect of the Perfect Fractal spell reached its limit. A deluge of chaotic information flooded Wang Yu’s vision. Most of it was useless—the lens had collected everything from the surrounding soil to the trees.

However, Wang Yu’s Great Knight-stage reaction speed was sufficient to find what he needed within the fleeting stream of information before it collapsed along with the spell. He saw a blurred figure outlined in red light inside the giant mushroom, and the flow of natural mana within it...

"I saw it. There really is a druid's skeleton inside that mushroom. The core of the mana flow is that skeleton. The skeleton provides the natural mana that gives this thing its power, while the mushroom feeds its life force into the bones to sustain that mana."

Wang Yu relayed his discovery to Avia and Sif. The corruption of the Sorenson Mountains seemed inextricably linked to the druids after all. It appeared he had no choice but to fight this giant mushroom.

"If it's natural mana, as long as I find an opening—whether or not I can pierce its body—I can use the Natural Secret Tongue to temporarily suppress its actions."

Sif pulled an arrow from the quiver on her back, nocked it to her longbow, and drew the string to its limit. Power began to gather in preparation.

"Separate that druid's remains from the mushroom's body, and it will lose its power."

Avia told Wang Yu how to handle the creature.

"Fine. Let's knock this thing down first; that's the only way to drag the remains out."

Because of that sense of déjà vu, Wang Yu hadn't wanted a direct confrontation, but in reality, he was more than capable!

Wang Yu lifted his arm, giving Sif a boost as she stood on his shoulder. The elven ranger leaped high, firing her arrow at the junction between the giant mushroom's cap and its torso, while Wang Yu charged straight at the creature.

"Click, click, click..."

Avia jumped from Wang Yu’s back and opened a Phase Gate. A massive amount of alchemical metal poured out, instantly commanded by Wang Yu’s Chariot Power.

The metal turned into a liquid-like substance, keeping pace with his sprint, climbing onto his body, and hardening into an incredibly thick suit of armor.

The heavy armor made Wang Yu appear a size larger. Although his three-meter frame was still dwarfed by the mushroom-man, Wang Yu only wanted the strength boost and the weight provided by the armor driven by his Chariot Power.

"Swoosh!"

The green arrow, imbued with the power of the Natural Secret Tongue, struck the giant mushroom. Green vines formed from light spread and climbed across its body.

An invisible force penetrated the giant mushroom, disrupting the flow of natural mana that sustained it for a split second, causing the mushroom-man to stumble in its stride.

At that moment, the ground around the giant mushroom was saturated with mana. Earth elements converged, and with a deafening roar, a massive fist of earth and stone erupted from the ground.

The ten-meter-tall rock fist looked even more imposing than the giant mushroom itself. A Fifth-Circle spell? Earth Vein Punch. Since crossing the threshold between Formal Mage and Archmage, Avia’s strength had seen an explosive increase.

"Bang!"

The earthen fist struck the mushroom-man, who had been momentarily stunned by Sif’s spell. The staggering force stopped the creature in its tracks, its body tilting to the side.

However, this sudden blow helped it recover from the suppression of the Natural Secret Tongue. It swung its thick arm, aiming a punch at the rock hand formed by the spell. The fist tore through the air with terrifying momentum.

"Clang, clang, clang!"

With the sound of metal striking earth, Wang Yu, clad in his exaggeratedly thick metal armor, sprinted up the stone fist. The armor, driven by the Chariot Power, posed no hindrance to his movement.

Wang Yu reached the palm of the stone hand, his battle aura, muscles, and the armor's auxiliary power erupting in unison. He kicked off the base of one of the stone fingers, the counter-force snapping the hard digit right off the giant hand.

The armored knight shot forward, leaped into the air, and threw his shoulder into the giant mushroom’s fist without hesitation. The two collided with a thunderous impact.

The metal used to forge Wang Yu’s exaggerated armor had been carefully selected by Avia; its primary characteristic was its immense density.

Wang Yu’s suit was, in reality, absurdly heavy. If not for the Chariot Power’s ability to ignore weight and force matter to move, he would likely only be able to walk, let alone run or jump.

And this weight was exactly why Wang Yu dared to go head-to-head with the giant mushroom. Imagine what happens when a strong man punches a flying lead ball that is three times as dense as normal—the outcome was self-evident.

"Bang!"

The giant mushroom man's fist, brimming with immense power, halted the instant it collided with Wang Yu, twisting and deforming as its surface tore away to reveal the dense, fibrous structure beneath. The impact of raw force against metal backfired, the recoil shattering the creature's own hand.

"Snap, boom!"

The reverberating shockwave forced the giant mushroom man to stumble backward, its balance further compromised.

Avia would never let such an opening slip; she transformed her Geopulse Fist into an open palm, slamming it down onto the creature's crown. Magic surged, amplifying her strength until she pinned the mushroom man to the earth with a thunderous crash that shook the surroundings.

"Clang! Clang! Clang-clang!"

A pile of armor plates rained down onto the ground as the Chariot Force allowed Wang Yu to shed his heavy plating, ejecting the absurdly weighted gear from his body.

Freed from the burden, Wang Yu descended from above, landing on the fallen giant with a new purpose for his Chariot Force.

He rushed to the spot where the druid's remains were buried within the mushroom man's flesh. Twenty shards of broken meteorite blades flew out, spinning at high velocity under the control of the Chariot Force to form a ring, which he then drove into the creature's body.

"Vrrr-vrrr-vrrr!"

A high-pitched whine filled the air. The extreme sharpness of the meteorite shards, combined with their rapid rotation, sliced through the giant organism's flesh as easily as a tunnel-boring machine, carving out a cylindrical void.

"Found you!"

Just as the giant mushroom man began to thrash, its wild, flailing fists smashing the Geopulse Fist that held it down, the spinning blades had dug deep enough to reveal the druid's skeleton—wrapped in countless fungal threads, draped in tattered green robes, and crowned with deer antlers.

Wang Yu made a pulling gesture. As the meteorite blades returned to him, he exerted the full extent of his Chariot Force, forcibly dragging the skeleton out from the depths of the giant mushroom man.

The moment the remains were severed from the mycelium, the giant mushroom man froze. Its struggling body and flailing limbs went instantly still; just as Avia had predicted, without this core, the creature lost all combat capability.

"OK."

Wang Yu hoisted the skeleton above his head, signaling to Avia and Sif in the distance.

"Hm?"

As he held the remains aloft, an object tumbled out from the surprisingly well-preserved bones. With his hands occupied, Wang Yu used his Chariot Force to catch the item, suspending it in mid-air.

It was a bone shard, inscribed with some sort of text.

"Wild and blooming life shall not perish in disaster—what does that mean? Are you Wang Feng...?"

Wang Yu read the Elvish script aloud; it seemed this druid had been a Dark Elf.

The meaning of the phrase remained a mystery, leaving Wang Yu slightly bewildered. However, he would soon learn exactly what kind of "wild and blooming life" it referred to.

"Wang Yu!"

Avia's shout drew his attention. He looked around, and his expression froze.

On the ground where the giant mushroom had been slain, and where the fungal carpet, spores, and native forest had been burned to ash, something was erupting with manic intensity, spreading a vibrant green across the earth at an impossible speed. Was that... moss?

"That is certainly wild enough..."