The underground chamber was dark, damp, and suffused with an ominous red glow.
Huge, contorted plants crowded the space like living lumps of flesh. From the cave ceiling hung a crimson "sun" that writhed slowly in the dim light.
No sooner had Lin Feng stepped into the cave than three massive energy arrows shot straight at him. The air around them hissed with a corrosive stench, white smoke curling off their shafts.
A chill ran up his spine at the sheer malice in those bolts. Without waiting to take in the whole cavern, he hurriedly raised layer upon layer of wooden barricades before himself.
Emerald-green energy braided through solid timber, creating a double-layered defense of material and force.
The crimson arrows slammed into the brown-and-green barrier like hot branding irons — the outer wood charred and melted almost immediately while the green energy slowed their passage, eventually grinding them into nothing.
—About a third of the barrier had been destroyed. Acceptable.
Estimating the Withering's strength from the assault, Lin Feng steadied himself. He maintained the defense as he peered through a gap at the cave's interior.
Not long after, he saw the enemy he'd been sent to defeat: the aggregation at the heart of this fungus forest, a Withering nexus that had almost formed a body and a will of its own.
The corrosive force hung everywhere in the air. Whether this was the rapid expansion of a corrupted region or the slow death of the Virid Thicket, the root cause was the floating crimson "sun" above them.
"Lanna-jen, Langarlu, Lannaga!" Lin Feng called to the three Aranara he had sheltered behind him.
"I'll hold the defense. Break the seals on each Withering branch as fast as you can!" he ordered.
He conjured independent Dendro shields for the three little Aranara, then stowed his barricades and prepared to counterattack.
Using his elemental control, Lin Feng drew massive amounts of Dendro from the surface into the ground around him. The thick green force pushed other elements away and formed a verdant domain at his feet.
When the Withering core fired three huge arrows again, Lin Feng leaped forward and placed himself between the projectiles and Lanna-jen, who was still working to dispel a seal. He condensed Dendro into a slender arrow — only two fingers thick — and shot it at the incoming energy.
The thin green dart was almost invisible beside those massive bolts, yet it pierced like a solid steel spike, driving through and nullifying all three giant arrows.
As the green needle aimed at the crimson core, the gigantic sphere sensed danger. It drew on centuries of accumulated leyline energy and formed a scarlet shield around itself, stopping Lin Feng's shot.
When the arrow shattered, the stray Dendro returned to the field around Lin Feng as if it had its own will.
Lanna-jen, who had been frightened, relaxed on feeling Lin Feng's protection and hurried to finish breaking the first seal.
"Well done!" Lin Feng praised, sensing another Withering branch revealing itself. He gathered the nearly solid Dendro beside him and wiped out the branch along with the sixty-plus level fungal projections that guarded it.
Even an incomplete godlike control over elements was a death sentence for those ordinary monsters.
"Langarlu—help! The bad mushrooms want to kill me!" the Aranara that had just finished a seal cried, trembling at the sudden appearance of guardians, only to realize the Dendro shield prevented any harm.
Ignoring the puffed-up little cabbage that swelled with relief behind him, Lin Feng mopped up the mushrooms without ceremony, then led the two successful Aranara toward the final seal.
The Withering core sensed the successive losses of its branches. Instinctively, it grew uneasy.
It condensed a red orb — as large as a house — and launched volleys toward Lin Feng and the three Aranara.
Supported by the abundant Dendro of the Virid Thicket, Lin Feng felt stronger than ever. The three little ones following him briefly thought they were seeing the very creator from their memories.
He raised a massive green elemental shield and blocked the core's attack, then destroyed the last Withering branch and turned his gaze to the core that now writhed in desperation.
The immense crimson sphere, realizing all its branches were gone, decided to fight to the death. It summoned three ancient fungal beasts that had been infected by it since its birth.
Bathing them in the core's final infusion, the three beasts charged at Lin Feng, their presence erupting with unprecedented terror.
[Individual Information: Fungal Beast — Terran Basal Fungus]
Level: 67 + 15 (Ancient fungal beasts infected at the Withering's inception. After ages of devouring Withering power, they have become overwhelmingly strong — foes ordinary life cannot hope to defeat.)
Attribute: Geo / @#$%
Traits: Forbidden Power, Withering Core (incomplete), Ancient, Reinforced Body 7, Quake 6, Devastating Ram 6
Emotion: @￥#%
Affinity: @#￥%
Seeing the three funguses boosted to roughly level 80 by the Withering, Lin Feng felt none of the helplessness he'd experienced facing the Ruin Drake.
He sent the three Aranara to the cave entrance with a burst of Dendro, then returned to the center to meet the fungal onslaught.
Perhaps enraged by being underestimated, the trio surged forward, their bodies wreathed in ominous red light. The head Terran Basal Fungus slammed with terrifying force — a charge that generated wind pressure like a high-speed train, an unstoppable sense of impact.
Facing the rush of the brown mushroom-like Terran Fungus and the winged herbaceous fungus floating above, Lin Feng quickly formed vines, lifting himself high and evading the lethal strike.
He didn't try to grapple with them. Suspended in the air by vines, he compressed the elements around him with unprecedented intensity.
Drops of materialized liquid Dendro began to appear. Using them as a base, Lin Feng attempted, for the first time, an assault like a demigod — wielding his incomplete "authority."
At his will, countless great trees and vines sprang up in the underground chamber. Luxuriant flowers bloomed amid the crimson Withering; the force of life flooded in like a tidal wave, binding, assimilating, and absorbing the three fungal beasts.
Relying on that enormous life force, the fungi and the Withering tried to resist, but despite their high levels, the Withering — never having truly formed independent will — was still only a mundane corruption.
Within the Dendro domain the incomplete "authority" had produced, the Withering's power began to erode. The three ancient fungi were gradually consumed by the writhing plants.
The terrifying Withering, reshaped by the living power he unleashed, recovered life in an instant.
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