Arrows poured down like rain. Blazing fireballs exploded at their sides, sending out waves of scorching heat. Puchis fell one after another during the charge, yet Number Four—curled into a rolling ball—was only slightly slowed even when grazed by attacks.
Alama’s Puchi legion had not yet reached the battlefield when the demons, thanks to aerial scouts, detected them ahead of Threehill City.
What now blocked their path was a demon interception force that had split off to engage.
It could not truly be called an ambush. With all manner of bizarre scouting methods, hiding a large army was nearly impossible.
All the demons had done was seize favorable terrain along the only route and wait at leisure.
The moment battle was joined, Number Four shot out of the front line amid Inanna’s worried shouts.
Though impulsive, Number Four was astonishingly agile.
Even while curled into a high-speed ball, it could use bumps in the ground to bounce at the perfect moment, dodging whistling arrows and magical projectiles.
When Number Four leaped into the air once more, every demon soldier’s gaze was involuntarily drawn to it.
The spinning mushroom ball suddenly unfurled mid-air, mycelial tentacles whipping outward like a gyroscope.
[Blade Storm]
[Sharpness]
Before those razor-sharp tentacle-blades, demon-forged steel breastplates tore like paper, the flesh beneath blooming open.
The instant Number Four landed, four mutilated corpses already lay around it.
The sole survivor was a mage who, at the critical moment, had blasted himself away with a burst spell. Now he dragged a broken leg across the ground, struggling.
Just as the nearby demons prepared to counterattack, ripples spread across Number Four’s body. Under everyone’s eyes, it vanished.
“Invisibility! Mages, cast—”
The squad leader’s order never finished. A line of blood sprayed from his throat, and he toppled stiffly to the ground.
The panicked demons slashed wildly at the empty air where the “puchi” sound had come from, arrows and spells wounding many of their own.
In its first taste of true bloodshed, Number Four showed none of Number Nine’s hemophobia. Instead, it displayed terrifying adaptability.
The chaos it created tore a hole in the demon line. Swarms of self-destruct Puchis rolled through the gap.
Explosions rang out in an unbroken chain. Soil and severed limbs flew, and the once-orderly formation began to crumble.
Under the cover of heavily armored Puchis, Alama’s main force steadily advanced.
A massive axe cleaved through the air with a piercing screech.
Number Four, freshly revealed by magic, barely twisted aside. The axe blade grazed its cap, shearing off two mycelial tentacles and one short leg.
Xenophon the pigfolk duke finally lost patience and struck.
A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes—he hadn’t expected a mere diamond-tier Walking Mushroom to dodge his surprise attack?
But that was all it amounted to: surprise.
He swung his giant axe in a relentless barrage. Number Four dragged its broken body desperately dodging, yet new wounds kept appearing.
Each pass of the axe sent mycelial fragments flying. The once-round cap was now battered and ruined.
“What do we do? How do we save it?!” Inanna stamped her foot frantically in the rear, nails digging into her palms.
Number Four had charged too far ahead and was now completely cut off from the main force. She had no idea how to rescue it.
Number Ten gently patted her back with a tentacle. The thought it sent through the mycelial network was calm: “No major problem.”
Inanna looked at Number Ten with desperate hope, voice trembling. “Little Ten, do you have a way…”
Before she could finish, the gravely wounded Number Four finally faltered. Xenophon’s axe came down with mountain-crushing force. With a dull boom, the mushroom body shattered into pieces, splattering fungal flesh across the ground.
“Peh!” The pigfolk duke spat at the remains, eyes full of irritation. He hadn’t expected killing a single diamond-tier mushroom to take so much effort.
“Little Four!” Inanna covered her mouth, tears blurring her vision.
Number Ten, perfectly composed, crawled to an inconspicuous hole in the ground and extended a tentacle to feel around. Moments later, it dragged out an ordinary cannon-fodder Puchi.
“That pighead was really strong. Couldn’t even hit back,” came the familiar thought through the network.
Inanna whipped her head up, staring tearfully at the Puchi now adjusting to its new body. “Little Four? You’re not… How?!”
“You didn’t know? The Great Puchi Will protects us. Death is just changing shells…”
Before it could finish, Inanna scooped it up in a crushing hug—so tight the cannon-fodder body actually felt a little strangled.
For once, Number Four felt a rare twinge of embarrassment.
Number Ten’s thought, unusually tinged with annoyance: “Did you forget what our mission is? You wasted a perfectly good body already. How are you supposed to protect Pink Puchi now? By self-destructing?”
“Hah… hahahaha…”
The battle continued. The two sides had finally collided fully, but the situation was far from good.
Even though the Prince was still focused on Threehill City, the force he had split off was more than enough to handle Alama’s battered remnants.
If anything, the cannon fodder was now almost entirely carried by the Puchis.
Unlike the Battle of Dragonroar Valley, they had been ambushed this time. Lin Jun hadn’t had much time to prepare the battlefield in advance. Fungal mats were present but sparse, and Puchi production efficiency was greatly reduced.
Alama and Lorenzo were also struggling against Xenophon and another blood-clan duke.
Their favored greatsword and staff had been lost or destroyed in Dragonroar Valley. The replacement weapons severely hampered their combat strength.
After just a few exchanges, several chips had already appeared on Alama’s temporary blade. Facing Xenophon’s relentless assault, he was forced mostly to dodge.
Lin Jun watched the scene and weighed whether to use [Kin Maker] here.
A giant Puchi would definitely turn this battle around, but routing the entire demon army was wishful thinking.
This wasn’t the narrow pass of Dragonroar Valley. In open terrain, a giant Puchi’s threat level dropped dramatically.
The skill could only be used once per week. It had to be saved for the critical moment.
Lin Jun decided to first check the situation on the other front.
…
On the other front, over a dozen massive Burrowing Puchis erupted from the ground near the now thinly defended demon camps. Mushroom-race members led swarms of Puchis pouring out of the holes.
These Puchis were far weaker than the elite troops fighting on the main battlefield, but they weren’t here for head-on combat. Under the mycelial network’s efficient command, Number One and Number Two each led squads that split up and struck deep, targeting supply points with clear objectives.
“Northwest granary is on fire!”
“East armory under attack!”
“Invisible Puchis spotted in the magic crystal reserves!”
The blood-clan commander instantly became a firefighter captain—barely extinguishing the granary before rushing to stop acid Puchis corroding weapons in the armory…
Despite his strength, he was run ragged.
Even more maddening were the Puchis’ elusive tactics. They used burrowing tunnels to appear and vanish at will, going invisible the moment they met strong resistance. Every time Earn arrived at one blaze, new chaos erupted elsewhere.
Twice he thought a fire was out and left—only for hidden Puchis to reappear and reignite it.
Too few defenders and they’d be swarmed; too many and the Puchis would hit another weakly guarded spot.
High above, Visarius took in the chaos of his rear camps, his scarlet pupils narrowing slightly.
Yet he issued no order to return and reinforce.
Instead, he turned his gaze toward Threehill City.
There, Sword Saint Airaven had already led the city’s main force out of the gates. The silver Hazy Moon gleamed coldly in the night.
(End of Chapter)
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