How could Chess know that Lin Jun had expended so much effort and performed so many acts for this elaborate "invitation into the trap"!
Despite the sprawling creep being able to detect all invisible units, he had to painstakingly disguise it as only a few scouting puffshrooms managing to discover them by chance.
Despite deliberately scheming to let the enemy discover this "mushroom weapons factory," he still had to control the pace, ensuring Chess wouldn't notice too easily or obviously, lest it arouse suspicion and expose the ruse.
In the end, he had to patiently wait several days before his prey finally fell into the trap.
Honestly, even Lin Jun himself was somewhat surprised that Chess chose the wide flanking assault rather than the shortest, most easily breached passage he had anticipated.
However, their detour plan had been detected halfway through by the creep scattered throughout the area. The supposed lack of time to assemble forces was entirely to lure the enemy deeper.
Now... it was harvest time!
The full fifty heavy-armored puffshrooms on the field had cost Lin Jun dearly to produce. For this, even Norris's transformation plan had been shelved—he was still lying quietly on the mycelium bed like frozen meat, awaiting further processing.
Facing the encircling puffshroom army, Chess naturally refused to submit meekly to slaughter.
The Evil Eye attempted to attack with [Petrification Ray], but all were blocked.
Cavern Eight was already filled with jagged rocks and mushroom trees Lin Jun had deliberately grown, creating complex terrain.
At this moment, the heavy-armored puffshrooms transformed into massive moving shield walls, weaving between cover points.
Each time, they protected a dozen or so ordinary puffshrooms during repositioning, steadily compressing Chess's army's survival space!
Chess's side wasn't without ranged capabilities—stone throwing, poison spine volleys, and acid spraying at close range.
However, when these attacks struck the heavy-armored puffshrooms born specifically for defense, it was like scratching an itch—they could barely damage the outer rock armor.
To cause effective damage required close combat output.
But whenever the six-claws launched fearless charges, they immediately faced merciless crossfire from puffshrooms behind cover, suffering extremely heavy casualties.
After several assaults that cost numerous elites, the results were merely destroying four heavy-armored puffshrooms... a drop in the bucket!
As the distance between both sides closed to under two hundred meters, Lin Jun unhesitatingly began carpet bombing.
Using terrain and heavy-armored puffshrooms as cover, he launched a massacre against the remaining Chess forces.
During the battle, one heavy-armored puffshroom penetrated deep alone, "clumsily" charging to the very front lines, even positioning itself directly beneath an Evil Eye that was busy rotating its eyeball, trying to petrify a puffshroom that had misstepped in the distance.
Chess had no energy to spare for this overly aggressive heavy-armored puffshroom—without mushroom cannon support, its individual lethality wasn't high.
Then, this heavy-armored puffshroom... exploded!
The 50 HP explosion damage far exceeded ordinary suicide puffshrooms.
That heavy stone mushroom cap was violently launched by the explosive force, like a cannon shell instantly piercing through the Evil Eye's [Mana Shield] above, brutally embedding into its massive, vulnerable eyeball!
Suffering a critical hit, the Evil Eye momentarily couldn't maintain its shield. The result was that over ten mushroom cannon shots instantly eliminated this enormous yet extremely fragile creature.
With the Evil Eye's fall, the battle situation instantly collapsed.
The puffshrooms no longer needed to hide, able to output at full power without restraint.
More crucially, the Evil Eye wasn't just the main damage dealer—it was the spiritual link node for the entire Chess army!
Without the Evil Eye, the remaining Chess forces became scattered sand, then became ground meat.
......
......
......
As usual, the post-battle cleanup of this carnage fell to the hardworking pack-mule puffshrooms.
This time, they not only had to clear the mountain of Chess remains but also dismantle the giant mushroom that had completed its mission.
This massive hollow shell that was all appearance had been continuously consuming vast amounts of mana just to maintain its form. Now that its decoy value was exhausted, there was naturally no need for it to continue existing.
This battle not only eliminated the Evil Eye but also harvested numerous Chess corpses. Presumably [Cold Resistance] could be upgraded to LV7. Later, he'd station heavy-armored puffshrooms at the crevice to block Chess, ensuring they wouldn't interfere with his continued expeditions!
At the cavern's edge, Louisa—who had served as reserve forces, ultimately never entering the battle but witnessing the entire fight—unconsciously swallowed.
As a diamond-ranked vampire, she had also experienced countless battles to achieve her current strength.
However, outside the dungeon, the largest engagement she'd ever experienced was merely small-scale military conflicts.
Commanding over a thousand puffshrooms to exterminate monsters was already the grandest scene she'd witnessed.
Yet today, several thousand puffshrooms and Chess forces engaged in brutal slaughter, with even behemoths like the Evil Eye involved... This scene struck her heart like a heavy hammer, bringing unprecedented shock!
She had also witnessed firsthand the might of those heavy-armored puffshrooms, perceiving with absolute clarity—Boss's puffshrooms were rapidly evolving!
A burning thought quietly sprouted: might she someday command these more powerful puffshroom armies?
Perhaps one day, no longer confined to this dark underground kingdom, but leading them back to the surface, bathing in moonlight?
Might she also wave her hand and unleash such scale, such bloody, such... intoxicating tides of war?
This thought made her heart surge with excitement, yet also brought a cold fear—she was afraid!
Afraid that her stagnant strength would eventually fail to keep pace with the puffshrooms' evolution.
Afraid that someday, Boss would consider her a useless piece, abandoning her in some dark corner to rot silently as mushrooms grew across her body...
As a vampire, she naturally couldn't be accepted by other races.
So much time had passed since her mission failure that even if she escaped back to the Empire, she would certainly be examined and they'd discover the anomaly of her fusion with mycelium.
She had nowhere else to go. If she didn't want to live in hiding, she could only follow Boss—at least puffshrooms didn't reject vampires.
But due to bloodline shackles, her level was restricted at 50 with no further progress, and Boss seemed to have no intention of replicating Norris's type of "transformation" on her.
She understood this as her status being "captive" rather than "one of his mushrooms."
Louisa's fingertips tightened slightly.
It seemed... she had to find a way to achieve a sufficiently significant merit, then use it to discuss with Boss about methods for her future strengthening...
......
On the other side, completely unaware of what his subordinate was thinking and only immersed in the joy of harvest, Lin Jun suddenly paused.
In his perception, a somewhat familiar signal had entered the creep coverage area of Mute Wind Town...
"Mmm—!!!"
A sudden, suppressed short moan made the middle-aged man riding at the front of the group turn back.
"Inanna, what's wrong?" The man's voice carried concern and confusion.
"It's... it's nothing, Uncle Elvian," Inanna forced herself to remain calm, though her pale fingers unconsciously gripped the reins tighter. "I just... suddenly shivered just now... I'm fine now."
She pressed her lips together, her legs unconsciously tightening around the docile mare beneath her, struggling to suppress that "homecoming" warmth and trembling caused by suddenly connecting to the mycelium network, forcing it deep into her heart.
Not yet... she couldn't transform into a puffshroom now, nor could she directly call out to Boss through the mycelium network.
Endure! Endure! At least wait until she was in a room with only herself...
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