When all the obstacles were burned to ashes.
Meng Chao finally saw the true face of the wisdom tree hidden in the vines and bushes.
It turned out that its true form was not a colorful or deformed towering tree.
Instead, it was a gigantic, fleshy, parasitic herb that resembled a king flower.
The 'petals', which were almost a hundred meters in diameter, looked like mushrooms that were covered in crimson stripes and emitted an intense stench of corpses.
The hollow at the center of the petal was filled with a thick liquid that looked like brain matter. Clusters of fluorescent mycelium that looked like nerve bundles were growing in the liquid.
Countless mycelium pierced into the vines in all directions, and through the tubes inside the vines, through the thorns, they were connected to the human neural network.
This "King Flower" used this method to create an illusion, dragging humans into an endless nightmare.
When it sensed Meng Chao's spirit flames, which were as fierce as a tidal wave, the surface of the King Flower let out a buzz, and countless red flies flew out.
As it turned out, the so-called "scarlet spots" were actually dense swarms of insects.
They were attracted by the stench of the King Flower's corpse. While they licked the juice, they helped the King Flower spread the spores to a wider area.
Meng Chao remembered that when the exploration team carried out their mission at the edge of the sinkhole, they had indeed run into a lot of red flies flying around them.
At that time, no one cared — it was normal for mosquitoes and flies to hover in the depths of the forest.
Now that he thought about it, it should be these mosquitoes that initially numbed their nerves.
Only the vines controlled by the King Flower could entangle their hands and feet without anyone noticing and drag them into the sinkhole.
With this thought in mind, Meng Chao snorted coldly. Golden Tooth Bloody Soul turned into a torch that burned the heavens. Spirit flames that were more than one thousand degrees Celsius burned the flies in the air into sparks that danced madly before they turned into charcoal that fell to the ground with crackling sounds.
After peeling off the mosquitoes and flies, the King Flower seemed to be trembling and extremely fragile.
Inside the brain-like fluid, countless pistils or mycelium grew out in a hurry and interweaved into the shape of a human, revealing a face that resembled Jin Qianxi again.
Its shrill voice reached Meng Chao's ears. "Don't kill me! We can … change the world together!"
"Of course I will stop the apocalypse, save Dragon City, and change the world."
Meng Chao enunciated each word firmly. "But my comrade is definitely not a monster like you!"
Before his voice could fade away, five spirit flames that looked like aquatic dragons gushed out of his back.
They were like five powerful jet crystal engines that helped him accelerate to the maximum.
"Pu!"
Meng Chao fused with Golden Tooth Bloody Soul Saber and tore through the mycelium that resembled Golden Millennium. The blade pierced the Great King Flower's "brain".
In an instant, the entire forest in the sky was filled with hoarse screams.
Every vine and branch was shivering. Every cluster of thorns and bushes was cramping. Every carpet of fungi and lichen quickly retreated and crawled back into the holes and crevices.
The King Flower, which was dozens of meters in diameter, started burning.
Meng Chao's saber glares turned into dozens of dark golden flowing lights that rampaged through its body. Then, they tore through the petals and crawled out.
Countless golden flames licked the surface of its flesh, causing it to wither, carbonize, and shatter in just a few seconds.
The King Flower, which was struggling in its death throes, released incredibly sharp mind lightning in an attempt to stake it all in one attack and destroy Meng Chao's mental defenses.
But no matter how terrifying the spirit energy ripples that were similar to brain waves were, it could not compare to the destruction of the apocalypse that Meng Chao had personally experienced.
It made the same mistake as the Demonic Abyss Eye.
It was exaggerating the horrors of the apocalypse to a person who had returned from the future.
"Go to hell!"
Meng Chao injected spirit energy into Golden Tooth Bloody Soul Saber, causing it to grow larger.
The blade was only a few meters long.
But the saber glare that was strengthened by spirit flames expanded to dozens of meters.
The saber glare that was dozens of meters long flashed, and it cut the charred King Flower in half cleanly!
At this moment, something seemed to let out a blood-curdling scream from the roots of the Kingflower.
Then, at the speed of lightning, it escaped the roots of the King Flower and headed into the depths of the sinkhole.
Lu Siya reacted quickly. She summoned nearly one hundred spikes on the ground in succession.
But these things were similar to the Vortex. They were nearly transparent and semi-liquid, so they were not afraid of sharp weapons stabbing them. Soon, they disappeared without a trace.
And the King Flower's life force was completely drained once this thing fled. It turned into a black ball of carbon, and with a light shake from Meng Chao's Golden Tooth Bloody Soul Saber, it was torn to pieces. It fell dozens of meters from the sky and shattered when it hit the ground.
After losing the support from the King Flower, the vines that were full and could suck human blood, spinal cords, and brains like demonic tentacles withered rapidly. With just a light tug, they were snapped.
More and more people broke free from the illusions.
First, it was Railway Cannon Long Feijun and the other veteran fighters who were close to the peak of Heaven Realm.
When they noticed that they were hung upside down in a place where they could not reach the sky or the ground, they were dumbfounded for a few seconds.
But they were outstanding people who had survived hundreds of battles in mountains of corpses. When they saw Meng Chao's spirit flames and murderous aura while he held Golden Tooth Bloody Soul Saber horizontally while he stood beside a huge, strange-looking creature's carcass, their minds raced, and they soon registered what was going on.
"Damn it, it's an illusion within an illusion!"
"That was close. If Meng Chao and Lu Siya hadn't snapped out of it first, perhaps everyone would have been trapped here!"
They quickly tore off all the withered vines around them.
Then, they went to save the exploration members who had fallen into the illusion a few days ago and were muddle-headed and unable to free themselves.
Their mental strength indices had either plummeted to the bottom or increased by two or three times over the limit. They were on the verge of spirit energy deviation.
Fortunately, Long Feijun and the others had brought a lot of nerve tranquilizers with them. They could even cool down their brains and other organs so that they could temporarily enter hibernation. This was the Hibernation Medicine that could slow down their injuries and prevent them from entering spirit energy deviation.
Once they were woken up and treated in time, most of the exploration members were safe.
A small number of exploration members who had mental breakdowns were also injected with medicine and given proper treatment.
The group slid to the bottom of the sinkhole along the vines. When they stepped on soft humus, they sighed in relief.
They looked up at the charred carcass of the King Flower and remembered the Wisdom Tree in the double illusion. It was difficult to tell whether it was good or evil, and fear rose in their hearts.
But when it came to Meng Chao and Lu Siya, they were grateful and impressed.
Two rows of shining golden words popped up in Meng Chao's field of vision.
[Congratulations, Fire Relayer. You have killed the Supernatural Entity Wisdom Tree and awakened the survivors of the nineteen exploration teams. Your hard work has largely reduced the losses Dragon City will suffer when we launch a full-scale attack on Hidden Fog. Increased contribution points by 19533.
[Increased progress in unlocking the Mystery of the Supernatural Entities by 9%. Current progress: 80%. The truth will be revealed soon. Increased contribution points by 16741.]
'So, the thing that created the illusion isn't the ultimate mastermind hiding behind the monster civilization. It's just one of the Nine Great Supernatural Entities under the mastermind's command.'
Meng Chao was originally a little disappointed.
But when he thought about it carefully, he felt lucky.
The real mastermind was not so easy to deal with.
In his previous life, Battle God Lei Zongchao had burned his life to die together with the mastermind.
If he had been caught in an illusion created by the mastermind, his brains might have been squeezed dry.
Speaking of which, the reward for killing the Supernatural Entity Wisdom Tree was a little too little.
It was just around ten thousand contribution points, and it was not much more than the nine percent contribution points needed to unlock the Mystery of the Supernatural Entities.
Meng Chao remembered that when he killed the Vortex the last time, he had obtained more than six hundred thousand contribution points in one go!
Of course, the meaning behind killing the Vortex that time was to prevent the lair from completely collapsing, which ensured that they won the pitched battle at the borders of Dragon City.
But this time, killing the Supernatural Entity Wisdom Tree also ensured that the main attack would be carried out smoothly and saved thousands of soldiers' lives.
Ten thousand contribution points and six hundred thousand contribution points? Wasn't that a little too much favoritism?
Meng Chao did not think that Kindling would make a mistake in its calculations.
There had to be a reason behind it.
Also, at the moment he killed the Supernatural Entity Wisdom Tree, he seemed to have seen something escape from the roots of the Wisdom Tree.
Lu Siya saw it too, but she did not see it clearly.
But now was not the time to dwell on these details.
"Let's go, we still have to complete the mission!"
Railway Cannon Long Feijun and the others surrounded them and were about to express their gratitude to him and Lu Siya.
"That's right."
Long Feijun turned his gratitude for saving Meng Chao's life into heat on his palm, and he struck Meng Chao's shoulder.
After this battle, the most outstanding young officer in the Red Dragon Army was not just Meng Chao's senior brother in Battle God Palace, but also comrades who had gone through thick and thin with him.
Between comrades, everything was understood without words.
Both of them glanced at the surviving members of the exploration team.
But the Wisdom Tree's goal was not to kill them.
However, the mysteriousness of the Hidden Fog Domain and the irreversible damage to the human brain caused by the mental attacks still cost about half of the members of the nineteen exploration teams.
The blood of the victims could not be shed in vain.
Since he had braved all the hardships and dangers to get here, there was absolutely no reason for him to fail at the last step.
Regardless of whether there was an existence even more terrifying than the Wisdom Tree hidden in the depths of the sinkhole, they had to explore the terrain of the place clearly.
Then, they would summon long-distance heavy firepower and blast the monster's mastermind into the sky.
They found some of the surveying devices, thinking vehicles, and drones among the messy vines and soft humus.
Among them were more than ten Bread Crabs and Peregrine Falcons. They were the most advanced models.
These devices, fighting vehicles, and drones had been strengthened and upgraded to deal with the incredibly strong spirit energy magnetic field interference in the Hidden Fog Domain. As long as they were not completely torn to shreds by the monsters, they could maintain the lowest performance.
In truth, even though a long time seemed to have passed in the illusion, only a few hours had passed in the real world since Meng Chao and the others fell into the sinkhole.
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