In a small garden full of white flowers, an invisible wind circled the round table in the center of the garden twice. But this was not an 'environmental parameter' simulated by the neural network. In fact, this was a space created by the massive nerve nodes of the giant Solin tree. It was attached to the network in the form of an independent visitor area, and the wind that blew through the sea of flowers was essentially the 'thinking' of the giant Solin tree.
A few seconds later, the wind slowly weakened, and Bertilla also ended the information exchange with her distal limbs. Stirring the steaming tea in her hand, she looked up at Gwen. "Yes, I can clearly sense Betheim's signal response. He is leading a group of deformed freaks near the frontline, and they are always around my distal roots …"
She paused again, narrowing her eyes slightly as if she was seriously sensing the signal from the distance again. "I can feel that … he is leading his team to dig up my marginal roots that have not fully grown in the soil, put targeted toxins and inhibitors in the underground water, and guided the dark root network in the wasteland to resist my spread … Now he should have become the main commander of the immune barrier in the wasteland. His intervention … is very effective."
Bertilla narrowed her eyes. She did not like to praise her enemy, but sensing Betheim's confrontation with her, she had to use the word 'very effective' to evaluate his results.
"I thought after such a failure, he would never return to the frontline. I did not expect that not only did he come back, but he was also entrusted with a heavy responsibility." Listening to Bertilla's words, Gwen could not help but frown. "It seems that the 'dark patriarch' named Borken is not as mean, irritable, and ungrateful as you said. At least he knows how to use a capable loser."
"Maybe the number of followers around him is limited, and he can't afford to waste them," Bertilla calmly commented. "In any case, Betheim's appearance has indeed given me a 'surprise'. I did not expect him to have this ability … It seems that the failure last time has given him enough stimulation that he desperately wants to wash away the shame, and …"
Her expression became a little strange, and the corner of her mouth twitched as she continued. "And it seems that he has made good use of the last 'lesson'. I tried to use mental parasitism to dig out information about the wasteland from his mind, and this attack actually established a connection in reverse. Now he is leading his team to intercept my distal roots, and the accuracy and efficiency of each action is obviously higher than other dark priests."
"… The predator overcame the psychological instincts of fear, and in turn used his own 'natural enemy' to actively search for the location of his natural enemy …" Gwen was deep in thought. "This sounds like a 'talent', how do you plan to deal with this opponent?"
"Deal with? For a predator, 'food' is not the word 'deal with', "Bertilla said with undisguised contempt, but she obviously did not underestimate the enemy to the point where she did not even have a plan." Don't worry, I have prepared the best trap for him and his monster minions. Since he is so interested in the secrets buried deep in the ground, let him come. "
The sovereign consciousness of the giant tree of Solin smiled as she planned the next beautiful hunt like a seasoned predator. Then she gracefully picked up the steaming teacup, raised it gracefully over her head, and gracefully poured the hot tea on her head.
Gawain looked at this scene with a dumbfounded expression, and he didn't even realize what had happened. Then, he saw the woman in the green dress suddenly throw the teacup away and bounce up from the chair with a swoosh. She scratched her hair in a disheveled manner and exclaimed, "Hot, hot, hot …"
Only then did Gao Wen realize what was going on. He was a few beats slower before he reminded him, "You're in a neural network … Our tea is usually drunk …"
"I'm used to watering …" Bertilla stood in the flower field with her wet hair and looked up at Gwen. As her figure quickly faded, she quickly said, "I'll go back and continue with the plan!"
In the next second, her figure had completely disappeared in front of Gwen, leaving only the empty white flower field and the round table in the middle of the flower field. Gwen stood by the table and looked in the direction where Bertilla disappeared for a moment. Some memories slowly emerged from the depths of his memory. After a long time, he smiled and shook his head with a complicated expression. "I haven't seen this expression for 700 years …"
As his voice trailed off, his figure also disappeared in the flower field. This' attached 'space, specially constructed by the nerve nodes of the giant tree of Solin, fell into darkness in the neural network.
…
Deep in the canopy of the giant tree of Solin, in the 'main consciousness cavity' formed by a large number of wooden structures, vines, and leaves, a special model of immersion cabin was running quietly near the central platform. But the cockpit cover was kept open, and there was no one inside the cabin. A large number of vine-like nerve fibers grew and clustered from the nearby 'floor' and 'walls', spreading all the way into the cockpit and using the suction cup structure at the end of the nerve fibers to attach to the metal contacts on the back of the seat.
Suddenly, the nerve fibers wrapped around and attached to the cockpit twitched, and then quickly detached from the various contact points and retreated into the shadows of the nearby wooden structures in the blink of an eye. On the central platform nearby, a cluster of flower vines wriggled and retreated to the surroundings, and Bertilla's pseudo-avatar emerged from it. This pseudo-avatar blinked after being detached from the connection, as if adapting to the sensory changes from the virtual world to the real world. After a few seconds, she was completely awake.
She raised her hand and touched the dry and rough 'hair' on the top of her head. Her expressionless face seemed to be vaguely depressed. She muttered in the cavity, "Stupid, I'm so stupid …"
A moment later, the depressed muttering turned into a cold murmur. "This embarrassment should be repaid by Betheim …"
…
Betheim suddenly shuddered. Although there was no cold wind blowing in the wilderness at the moment, and his mutated body was no longer sensitive to the changes in temperature, he still felt a 'cold' seeping into his spirit like cold water through his mouth and nose, and this chill made him fully alert in an instant.
This was not an illusion. After many days of wandering on the edge of the wilderness, he had already accumulated valuable experience in this regard. This soul-chilling chill was real. It was the aftereffect of the mental attack, and also the reason why he could still return here after making a series of terrible mistakes. This was the spiritual perception between the predator and the prey.
Unfortunately, he was in the position of the prey, and every time the chill hit him, it meant that the terrifying "predator" that had mutated completely beyond the scope of common sense was emitting a strong hostility toward him. It meant that the sharp fangs and claws of the predator were moving at a very dangerous distance nearby.
But Bertram was already used to it. Anyway, it wasn't a day or two since the crazy "Saintess" emitted this hostility and "desire" toward him. And for so many days, his main job was to carry out destruction under this "hostility".
"I sensed it." Bertram quickly calmed down. His branches shook in the wasteland in the winter, and many leaves pointed to the same place. "A very large nerve cluster, a very strong thought pulse … In the east, the signal just appeared not long ago. There should be a piece of unformed root system there. Act immediately!"
Behind Betheim, several twisted treants and a large group of mutants quickly responded. This' special team 'began to move quickly under the command of the dark patriarch, crossing the vast plains and poisonous valleys toward an area closer to the line of fire. Not long after the move began, a dark priest with grayish-black skin and a twisted tree crown approached their commander. "Patriarch, can we catch the' organ 'that emits the thought pulse this time?"
"I don't know, but I am sure … We are getting closer and closer to that organ."
As Bertram spoke quickly, he secretly issued a series of instructions to the nearby root network: let the offensive vines wriggling underground secretly interweave into a strangling encirclement, let the secretory organs that grew between the roots produce a countermeasure pheromone, let a portion of the 'young vines' transform themselves, simulate the nerve signals of the living forest to get as close to the other party as possible, and let the interfering toxins they carried infiltrate the nearby soil as much as possible before they were recognized and strangled by the other party …
All of these were the 'skills' that he had developed during his' battle 'with Bethel. Many of them were even methods that he had learned from Bethel. These methods were unimaginable, but he had to admit that after the crazy' saintess' turned into a real plant, she had indeed created many tactics that only plants could 'think of', and these tactics were quite effective in the process of using them.
Fortunately, they were of the same origin. What Bertilla could do, the root network in the depths of the wasteland could basically do as well. As long as a smart person could learn from the crazy woman, the countermeasure would be born.
Betheim felt that he was such a 'smart person'. This was the only thing he could be proud of these days.
This even diluted the shame and resentment he had accumulated after the failure.
At the same time, in the depths of the dark and decaying wasteland, a fierce battle that ordinary people could not see had quickly erupted and intensified under Betheim's command.
The roots that belonged to the distal limbs of Solin's giant tree were strongly hindered in the process of spreading southward. Some of the root structures that had just grown and did not have complete combat ability were strangled in the process of maturation, dying in the mud and underground rivers. The dark root network from the direction of the wasteland immediately launched a rapid 'encirclement'. Some chilling sounds of friction and squirming echoed in the underground caverns and tunnels. A large number of living vines drilled in the darkness, weaving into a net while releasing all kinds of toxins and tiny 'biological soldiers'. There were also thin vines that disguised themselves as Solin's roots spreading and growing all the way to the north.
The counterattack of Solin's roots came quickly, and the attacks were not inferior to the opponent's. The root network that belonged to the dark priests began to die on a large scale in the border area.
And these necrotic root tissues had already transmitted enough information to Betheim before they completely died.
"The counterattack is very fast. Concentrated and continuous thought pulses. Nerve signals are converging toward the east."
In the cold wilderness, Betheim led the team to move quickly to the target location while carefully sensing the information from below. Suddenly, a surge of joy came to his mind.
At the same time, he also felt the increasingly obvious and strong smell of the predator. The smell of the predator brought an almost instinctive fear to him. The two opposite emotions impacted his already abnormal mind, and the process of repeatedly tearing his consciousness apart made Betheim even more excited. An abnormal excitement made him shout to his followers, "We have caught the big guy! My compatriots, we have caught it! "
"Hierarch, you mean …" A low-ranking dark priest was stunned for a moment before he quickly reacted. "You mean we have caught the 'thinking organ' this time?"
"Yes, I sensed those strong thought pulses and the nerve signals that are constantly converging toward the target location. We caught it," Bertram said through gritted teeth (although he had no teeth now). "That crazy woman can extend her consciousness to such a long distance and easily control such a huge body by herself. Her auxiliary thinking organ, we finally caught it!"
As he spoke, he had already sensed that he was near the target location. He immediately ordered his followers to stop to prevent falling into a trap.
Although he was excited, Betheim still maintained his basic judgment and calmness. He knew how cunning the 'ancient saintess' named Bertilla was, and he also knew that there was no such thing as good luck in the world. Well, maybe there was, but he did not believe that such a thing would happen to him.
The target was right in front of him, but he didn't dare to rush over and dig. Who knew what the crazy woman had prepared there? Maybe if he ran over, he would directly open up a big hole in the ground, and below it would be a stomach full of sharp teeth and digestive fluids.
"Hierarch, how do we get there?" The low-ranking dark priest asked.
Betheim did not respond. Instead, he secretly contacted the underground root network that was fiercely fighting the enemy. A moment later, the ground near him suddenly rumbled, and then the thick soil and rocks were torn open by the force from the ground. A slanted 'passage' that led underground and was supported by countless living vines and roots appeared before his eyes.
"I suspect that the crazy woman has prepared a trap for us. But it doesn't matter. We will slowly push forward under the cover of the root network. No matter what she has prepared underground, we will tear it all down!"
(End of Chapter)
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