Underground in the ancient castle, a mushroom forest was slowly growing. The low temperature had stretched the growth time of this mushroom forest to over a month.
However, within this mushroom forest that was still only in its embryonic form, there were three mushroom houses that Lin Jun had accelerated with magic power to mature.
Compared to the mushroom houses in the Amethyst Underground City, the ones here were shorter and thicker, with entrances that were no longer open but rather resilient slits that could be pushed apart.
This design provided better insulation—otherwise Norris would really have to stay inside Jida even while sleeping.
Little Black's drowsy head squeezed out from one of the mushroom houses.
Upon waking, she discovered that the burrowing puffshroom in her arms had been attacked by an unknown assailant and was already dead and shut down. The killer's methods were brutal—more than half of the mushroom cap was missing, causing her to wake up from the cold.
"Boss! Cold! Puffshroom!"
Tsk!
Don't go randomly gnawing on the heater in the house!
Two burrowing puffshrooms came outside. Little Black, who was already awake, simply decided not to sleep anymore. Holding a puffshroom, she first stuck her head into Norris's mushroom house but didn't see anyone.
"Looking for Norris? He went that way." A puffshroom pointed in a direction with its tentacle.
Before leaving, Little Black didn't forget to remind Lin Jun: "Shiny things, move them!"
"Okay, okay, I remember, I remember."
She was asking Lin Jun to move the shiny things she had stored in her nest on the fifth floor.
To be honest, it was quite troublesome.
That pile was so large it needed to be packed in a chubby puffshroom, but they couldn't let the chubby puffshroom walk down the stairs all the way—it would probably get eaten halfway through.
They could only have bat puffshrooms transport them down in batches through the crack. Fortunately, the pressure had been light recently, so he could easily spare some effort to do this.
Having been in the Stone Castle Underground City for some time, Lin Jun had figured out the situation.
Chess was actually trapped in the middle levels of this underground city!
After the great battle in the deep levels, the Sword Saint's casual slaughter, and several rounds of puffshroom lodging troubles, Chess had clearly run out of steam.
When the puffshrooms first entered, Chess could still fight defensive battles and engage in harassment tactics. Originally thinking it would be a prolonged war of attrition, unexpectedly after just a few days, the decline was already fully apparent.
The flesh tumors in the middle levels were replaced by fungal carpet, territory gradually shrank, and the remaining lone Evil Eye was in a dilemma of whether to use it or not.
It could be said that the situation was beyond salvage.
Of course, Chess's rapid decline was also thanks to the three great generals.
Little Black was afraid of the cold and lacked motivation, but was willing to follow Norris around. Norris was addicted to driving Jida and was indeed very active in causing trouble for Chess everywhere.
The most hardworking was still Little Pig, sleeping little and working much, throwing herself into battle as soon as she opened her eyes every day. Who knows why she had become so active—she clearly didn't like drinking Chess's blood.
As for the demon tribe.
Originally, Lin Jun planned to extend the fungal carpet over there and bring them under his command through a combination of soft and hard tactics, but... it was too cold outside!
The fungal carpet reaching the upper level was already the limit. Going further out really couldn't be sustained, unless [Cold Resistance] leveled up again—otherwise, using force was out of the question.
However, if hard tactics were temporarily impossible, soft ones were still viable. According to feedback from scout puffshrooms, the outside world was so barren that calling it poor would be flattering it. This demon tribe clearly survived entirely on underground city resources.
Given this, there was plenty of room to maneuver, and there was no need to rush.
First, deal with Chess!
...
Several beast-of-burden puffshrooms responsible for laying fungal carpet moved forward unhurriedly, their massive mushroom caps trembling rhythmically as fine spores dispersed quietly in the air like dust.
In the distance in mid-air, an invisible eye worm observed briefly before quietly retreating, not even summoning troops to harass. Chess seemed to have completely given up competing for territory.
Although Chess still appeared to occupy half the territory, with each step the puffshrooms advanced, it could only retreat one step. Once Lin Jun found the location of its command tower, this game would be over.
Honestly, Lin Jun was still somewhat puzzled. Even if lacking in strength, it should still struggle with all its might. Considering Chess's intelligence, Lin Jun had to think with the premise that it was plotting something.
Considering the flesh ball mentioned last time, regardless of its purpose, preventing the enemy from achieving what it wanted was definitely right.
Quite a few puffshrooms were dispatched by Lin Jun to the area where the ancient castle intersected with the upper level, essentially blocking Chess off.
It didn't take long for Lin Jun to lock onto Chess's command center.
The location was somewhat strange.
Although the underground area of the ancient castle was vast, most of it maintained the rough appearance of primitive caves.
Only here was it clearly an extension of the ancient castle's structure into the underground—broken stone flooring, the ruins of a massive, rotted door frame, and scattered around it, metal components that could vaguely be identified as remnants of some enormous magical apparatus.
And inside that hollow door frame, an enormously large, living flesh ball was suspended in mid-air, pierced through and hung by two thick metal pillars crossed through it!
[Race: Chess-Heart]
[Level: LV63]
[Racial Talent: Chess Breeding]
[Skills: Mental Integration LV9, Minion Control LV8, Cold Resistance LV8... Mental Dispersion LV7, Psychic Magic LV6, Physical Resistance LV5... Division LV3...]
Unexpectedly, it was called "Heart" rather than "Brain."
But this was undoubtedly Chess's command tower—not to mention those obviously overlapping skills with his own.
This was the first time Lin Jun had encountered an existence other than himself that didn't have five-dimensional attributes on its status panel.
However... what was with this appearance?
It looked like a skewered chunk of meat, clearly inconvenient to move—in this regard, his own mushroom body was much more convenient.
Regardless, now that it had been found, it was doomed!
Surrounding the Heart was presumably all of Chess's remaining forces.
One massive Evil Eye and over seven hundred Chess creatures of different types.
This number, compared to its heyday, could be described as quite pitiful.
On his side, besides the several hundred puffshrooms dispatched to block the exits, over a thousand combat puffshrooms had arrived on scene!
Not to mention he had also called over the fake lizardman, Little Black, and Little Pig!
It could be said that before the battle even began, the outcome was already determined.
Unless... a deity truly descended to save this flesh ball nailed to the pillars.
Just as Lin Jun was preparing to issue the attack command to respectfully send this neighbor to eternal rest, a thought was transmitted through a puffshroom.
"War, hope, peace, coexistence."
Psychic magic telepathy?
He didn't know if it was something it was born with or learned, but judging by how it couldn't even speak coherently, it was probably innate!
Although he had already learned from the two demons that this thing could communicate through thoughts, actually seeing a flesh ball attempting to converse with him still felt quite ridiculous!
He just wondered if through this telepathic channel, he could listen to the "dying screams" from the other side in real time?
"Attack!" The command spread instantly throughout the entire fungal network without delay!
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