The wisdom tree was here.
Its branches let out demonic rustling sounds as they danced in the wind. They sounded like murmurs, sighs, and soft laughter.
Aside from pollen, there were also a lot of colorful leaves. They were scattered by the wind, and when they landed on the humans and monsters, they disappeared without a trace like crystalline snowflakes. It was as if they had fused with the bodies of carbon-based life forms.
Thousands of semi-transparent tentacles hung down slowly from the tree crown. They looked like colorful strips and lanterns for the strange festival, but they squirmed, danced, and stretched out slowly.
The dancing of the tentacles had a bewitching rhythm, causing everyone's breathing and heartbeat to slow down involuntarily. It was as if they were dancing with the largest jellyfish in the world in a bottomless ocean.
All the people and monsters of Peach Blossom Town closed their eyes and mumbled, sighed, and smiled with the wisdom tree.
As they waited in delight, the semi-transparent tentacles finally descended on their heads.
Small spikes that looked like goosebumps rose up from the tentacles, and they secreted a large amount of sticky liquid that gave off a strange fragrance.
First, they wrapped themselves around the humans and monsters. The spikes pierced their skin gently and released bioelectricity that connected them to the nerves of the humans.
The ends of the tentacles bloomed slowly, and they looked like bewitching chrysanthemums. They were gentle and soothing, and they covered the humans and monsters' heads. It was just like the superbrain helmet that Dragon Citizens developed and could create a virtual world.
Some of the people sat down cross-legged with solemn expressions.
Some of them were brought into the air by the tentacles, and they danced in the air while putting on all sorts of strange poses. They flew like eagles, ran like lions, and twisted like dragons.
The monsters whose heads were covered by the ends of the tentacles let out human-like laughter. They even used their deformed and twisted organs to speak in human language that they could not understand and mumbled gibberish in their sleep.
This scene was very harmonious and natural, but it was also very strange. It made people feel chills down their spines and their skin crawl!
At that moment, a really thick tentacle that shone with a seven-colored light from its roots to its ends crawled out of the depths of the tree crown and slowly stretched out in front of Meng Chao.
Inside the translucent "petals" were clusters of fluorescent "stamens" or "nerve clusters".
They did not stab Meng Chao's head in a simple and crude manner.
Instead, it stopped in midair and trembled slightly, as if it was inviting Meng Chao into a wondrous new world.
Meng Chao sensed Lu Siya's nervousness and wariness.
He took a step forward and stood between the semi-transparent tentacles and Lu Siya so that the wisdom tree would not be able to see the abnormality in Lu Siya.
At the same time, a memory palace was constructed in the depths of his brain.
There was a time when Meng Chao was most worried about having his core memories read by the monster mastermind — the memories from the apocalypse.
But now, the monster civilization was already at the end of its road. Even if it stole part of its memories, the monster mastermind could not change its fate of being crushed by the steel army.
Hence, Meng Chao deduced that the final trap the monster mastermind had meticulously set up was not to "steal", but to "implant".
It was just as Lu Siya said. It wanted to implant some mind viruses into the exploration team members' brains, and during the final battle, it would explode like a zombie virus. It would spread out and turn a large number of humans into its puppets.
Of course, if it wanted to implant the mind viruses into people, it would need to steal part of Meng Chao's memories and thoughts.
Then, through Meng Chao's thoughts, it would take advantage of the situation and subtly influence him so that Meng Chao could not sense the process of the implantation. He would think that all his thoughts were his own free will.
To obtain the wisdom tree's trust and attract its attention, Meng Chao did not intend to make his defense watertight. He did not want to open the brain port in the monster's mastermind without it noticing.
He intentionally placed a lot of his daily life's memories at the outermost perimeter of the memory palace.
They were memories of eating, sleeping, sleeping, and madly cultivating. They did not involve any secrets, so it would be fine even if the monster mastermind saw them.
Then, there were memories related to the Broken Star Club, Blue Home, Battle God Palace, the Lair Reconstruction Committee, and Superstar's business arrangements.
These involved a lot of trade secrets.
But aside from him, the higher-ups of the Broken Star Club and the other organizations also knew about these secrets. With the monster civilization's infiltration of Dragon City, the monster mastermind had plenty of channels to learn about them. In fact, it already knew about them.
Besides, these secrets did not involve the direction of Dragon City's strategic development, and they did not affect the outcome of the Monster War either. They were the typical important but ineffective secrets.
In the third level of the memory palace, Meng Chao prepared some of the secrets of Battle God Lei Zongchao's martial arts and the various projects in the ancient ruins.
These were the core secrets of Dragon City.
Of course, all the memories were incomplete and blurry. Even if the thinking tendrils of the monster's mastermind could crawl to that level, it would not be able to get any useful information from the mottled images within a short period of time and use that information to turn the tables.
However, the three levels of the memory palace might not be able to completely satisfy the monster mastermind.
If they were in each other's shoes and Meng Chao was the monster mastermind, he would definitely be puzzled. 'Just who is this Meng Chao? How did he change so much before his national college examination and become a completely different person? Not only did he reach Heaven Realm in just a few short years, he even stopped and killed four of my generals — the White Spirit, Earthquake, Demonic Abyss Eye, and Vortex.
'Where did his strength come from? Just what sort of secret is he hiding?!'
The three levels of the memory palace could not explain this question perfectly.
If the monster mastermind decided to risk everything and destroy everything in its path to blast open Meng Chao's brain, Meng Chao could not guarantee that he would be able to hide the secret of the apocalypse completely.
Hence, he decided to do the exact opposite and compress the pictures of the apocalypse to turn them into a memory cannon.
He remembered that when the Demonic Abyss Eye was about to devour his soul, it had been the pictures of the apocalypse. It had stimulated the creature, and a gap had opened in its mind. Meng Chao had seized the chance to launch a desperate counterattack.
Hence, when the mastermind of the monster racked its brains and spared no expense to pry open the deepest part of Meng Chao's brain, it discovered that in the most probable future, Dragon City, Monster Mountain Range, and of course, the Hidden Fog Region where it was would be completely destroyed by fireballs that were as dazzling as the sun, as dazzling as fireworks, and as fierce as meteors. How would it react?
Meng Chao really wanted to know.
In fact, he wanted to laugh.
His lips curled up a little. He took a step forward, raised his arm, and extended a finger at the colorful pistil to accept the Wisdom Tree's invitation.
Since he was being so generous, wisdom seemed to be a little embarrassed.
The pistil first shrunk like a mimosa before it carefully extended and poked Meng Chao's fingertip. Then, it wrapped around his finger, wrist, and arm and swam up nonstop. After a full three minutes, it finally wrapped itself around Meng Chao.
When the huge flower enveloped Meng Chao like a superbrain helmet, the entire world instantly became different.
It was as if Meng Chao's senses had increased by more than one hundred times from the foundation of his Spirit Vision Realm.
He could hear the breathing and heartbeats of tens of thousands of people. He could hear the sound of pollen clashing in the air and leaves falling on the ground. He could hear the thousands of whirlwinds created by the wind.
He could see each side of the Wisdom Tree from more than ten thousand different angles. He could see more than ten thousand different colors and lights. He could also see himself smiling while he sat cross-legged in the huge semi-transparent flower from different angles.
This feeling was incredibly amazing.
It was as if there were no longer any secrets in the world.
Then, Meng Chao came to a realization. This was the "shared senses" Lu Siya mentioned.
The Wisdom Tree, or rather, the monster mastermind, had an incredibly unique and terrifying ability. It could create a huge neural network and connect the nerves of tens of thousands of humans and even carbon-based lifeforms together so that they could become … one entity.
And "shared senses" was just the first step.
Then, it was "shared memories" and "shared thoughts".
Of course, just like all the other things that seemed to be "shared", they were just the memories and thoughts that the Wisdom Tree chose for Meng Chao to share.
In an instant, countless memories flashed before Meng Chao's eyes.
It was as if he had just returned to the past, and the "kindling" exploded in the depths of his mind.
It was also as if he had stepped into a portal for the first time, and endless time and space exploded in front of him.
He became a citizen of Peach Blossom Town.
It was not just one, but more than ten thousand of them.
He was like a normal citizen of Peach Blossom Town. He ate his fill and lay comfortably under the tree on a day when the sun shone brightly. He listened to the wind blowing past the treetops and the birds chirping. They sounded like wind chimes, and without realizing it, he fell asleep.
Then, he woke up with a start in the cool stream and noticed that he was swimming in a pink stream filled with peach blossoms with the other citizens. It was as beautiful as a fairytale. The children were in charge of catching fish, and the boys and girls played with each other in the pink stream. They left behind the sweetest memories.
He was in the depths of the forest. He ate and danced around a bonfire with the citizens to relieve his fatigue from a day of hunting.
Due to the protection of the Wisdom Tree, the fog, wild, and forest that Dragon Citizens viewed as a dangerous path was like a leisurely stroll in Peach Blossom Town's backyard.
Over here, the most terrifying thing was not the monsters, but the old men with wrinkles all over their faces. They bared their fangs and brandished their claws while telling stories about Earthlings vividly.
"Earthlings! Earthlings! What terrifying Earthlings!
"Peach Blossom Town! Peach Blossom Town! What beautiful Peach Blossom Town people!"
The children were terrified by the terrifying nuclear war the old men told them about. No matter how much they racked their brains, they could not understand why Earthlings would use such terrifying weapons to destroy their homes and themselves.
There were also some mischievous children who mocked the old men for saying that their stories were fake. Just what sort of lunatics would invent nuclear weapons, which were something that should never exist, or rather, only exist in hell?!
Even though they did not believe it, they still winked at them and exaggerated the story to scare the children who were even younger than them.
The children's screams and the older children's laughter traveled through the mountains shrouded in fog and traveled far into the distance.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
