Chapter 1344: Chapter 1343: Vegetative Warrior vs. Vegetative Warrior

In the small garden covered with countless white flowers, an invisible wind swirled twice around the round table at the center of the garden. But this was not an "environmental parameter" simulated by the neural network—in essence, this was a space independently created by the expansive neural nodes of the Sorin Giant Tree, attached to the network in the form of an independent visitor area. The wind blowing across this sea of flowers was essentially the "thoughts" of the Sorin Giant Tree.

A few seconds later, the wind gradually died down, and Beltira also finished her information exchange with her distant limbs. While stirring the steaming tea in her hand, she looked up at Gawain: "Yes, I can clearly sense Bertrum’s signal response. He’s with a group of malformed monstrosities near the front line, always lingering around my distant root system..."

She paused here, squinting slightly as if seriously perceiving the signals from afar before continuing: "I can feel... he is leading his team to dig up those of my peripheral roots that haven’t fully grown, releasing targeted toxins and inhibitors into the underground water bodies, and directing the dark root network from the wasteland area to counter my spread... Now, he should have become the main commander of the Wasteland Immune Barrier. His involvement... is highly effective."

Beltira squinted her eyes; she didn’t like to praise her enemies, but acknowledging Bertrum’s confrontation with her, she had to use the phrase "highly effective" to describe his achievements.

"I thought after such a failure, he could never return to the front line. Unexpectedly, not only did he come back, but he was also entrusted with a significant responsibility," listening to Beltira’s words, Gawain couldn’t help but frown, "It seems that Balken, the ’Grand Dark Archbishop,’ isn’t as harsh and irritable, critical, and unkind as you said—at least he knows how to utilize a capable failure."

"Or perhaps the number of followers around him is limited, not allowing him to waste them casually," Beltira assessed calmly, "In any case, Bertrum’s appearance indeed gave me a ’surprise.’ I hadn’t thought before that he still had this ability... It seems last time’s failure gave him enough of a jolt, making him desperate to wash away this disgrace, and moreover..."

Her expression turned somewhat strange, her mouth twitching slightly as she continued, "Moreover, it seems he utilized last time’s ’lesson’ quite well—I previously attempted a mental parasitism method to dig information about the wasteland from his thoughts, which also established a reverse connection. Now, as he leads his team to intercept my distant root system, the accuracy and efficiency of each action are noticeably higher than other dark priests."

"...The hunted overcame a primal psychological fear and instead used their ’predator fear’ to actively search for the predator’s position..." Gawain mused, "This sounds like a ’talent.’ How do you plan to deal with such a returning opponent?"

"Deal with? For a predator, ’prey’ doesn’t deserve the term ’deal with,’" Beltira’s tone carried unmasked contempt, but she clearly wasn’t underestimating the opponent to the point of not planning at all, "Rest assured, I’ve prepared the best trap for him and his monstrous minions. Since he’s so interested in those secrets buried deep underground, let him come."

The master consciousness of the Sorin Giant Tree smiled, planning the next delightful hunting action like a seasoned predator, and only then did she elegantly lift the steaming teacup, elegantly raising it above her head, elegantly pouring the hot tea over her own head.

Gawain looked at this scene, bewildered, unable to react to what had just happened, then watched as the green-clad woman in front of him suddenly threw the teacup, sprang from the chair with a "whoosh," frantically ruffling her hair while exclaiming, "Hot, hot, hot..."

Only then did Gawain react, belatedly reminding from across the table: "You’re inside the neural network... our tea is generally for drinking..."

"I’m used to watering..." Beltira scratched at her wet hair, glanced up at Gawain while her figure rapidly faded, quickly said, "I’ll go back to continue advancing the plan!!"

In the next second, her figure completely disappeared in front of Gawain, leaving only the empty white flower field and the round table and benches in the center. Gawain stood beside the table, looking in the direction of Beltira’s disappearance for a moment, then images from memories slowly surfaced from the depths of his mind. After a long while, he shook his head with a complex smile, "It’s been seven hundred years since I’ve seen that expression..."

With those words, his figure also vanished from the flower field, and this "attached" space constructed by the peculiar structure of the Sorin Giant Tree’s neural nodes sank into darkness within the neural network.

...

In the depths of the Sorin Giant Tree’s canopy, within the "Main Consciousness Chamber" formed by massive wooden structures interwoven with countless vines and foliage, a specially modeled Immersion Capsule was quietly operating near the central platform. However, its cockpit cover remained open, and the capsule interior was empty, with only a large number of nerve fibers, resembling thin vines, winding from various places on the "floor" and "walls," squirming all the way into the cabin, attaching themselves to the metal contacts on the back of the seat with their suction structures.

Suddenly, those nerve fibers entangled with the cabin twitched, then quickly detached from various contact points, retreating into the shadows of nearby wooden structures in the blink of an eye. On the nearby central platform, a mass of floral vines wriggled away to reveal Beltira’s mimetic form—this mimetic form blinked after disconnecting, seemingly adapting to the sensory changes from the virtual world to reality, fully regaining consciousness a few seconds later.

She lifted her hand, touched the dry, rough "hair" on top of her head, and on the face lacking in expression, a hint of dejection seemed faintly apparent. Her voice murmured through the chamber, "Too stupid, I was so stupid..."

A moment later, the dejected murmur turned into a cold soliloquy: "This embarrassment should be reimbursed by Bertrum..."

...

Bertrum suddenly shivered—despite the lack of any cold wind across the wasteland at the moment and his long-mutated body being less sensitive to external temperature variations, he nevertheless distinctly perceived a "chill" like cold water soaking through his mouth and nose into his spirit, heightening his vigilance instantly.

This was no illusion—after operating on the fringes of this wilderness for days, he had amassed valuable experience in this aspect. This soul-piercing chill was real, a residual effect of a mental attack and part of what allowed him to return here and gain critical use after making a series of dreadful mistakes: it was the spiritual perception between predator and prey.

Unfortunately, he was in the position of prey, and whenever this chill assailed, it signaled that the fearsome "predator," who had mutated beyond comprehension, was emitting strong hostility toward him, indicating that the predator’s fangs and claws were operating within a dangerously close range.

But Bertrum was already accustomed to this; after all, the insane "Saint Princess" had been exuding this sort of hostility and "appetite" towards him for a long time, and disrupting her actions under this kind of "hostility" was his main job content during these days.

"I’ve sensed it," Bertrum quickly calmed down, his branches trembling in the winter wasteland, many leaves pointed in the same direction, "A large neural cluster, strong thought pulses... due east, the signal appeared not long ago. There should be an undeveloped root system there, move immediately!"

Behind Bertrum, several twisted Treants in varied forms and a large group of aberrations responded swiftly. This "special unit" began transferring rapidly under the command of the Dark Hierarch, moving across vast plains and poisonous valleys towards an area closer to the battlefront. Shortly after the relocation began, a dark priest with gray-black bark and a crown of twisting, vortex-like branches approached their commander, "Archbishop, can we capture that ’cognitive organ’ emitting thought pulses this time?"

"I don’t know, but I am confident... we are getting closer to that organ."

Bertrum spoke quickly while secretly issuing a series of commands through the nearby root network: instructing the offensive vines wriggling underground to weave covertly into a strangling encirclement, directing the secretory organs thriving among the root systems to produce counteractive pheromones, and allowing a portion of "young vines" to transform themselves, simulating the nervous signals of that Living Forest to get as close as possible to the opponent, infiltrating the interference toxins they carried into the nearby soil before getting recognized and strangled by the opponent...

All of these were "skills" he developed during these days of relentless "combat" with Beltira, many of which he even learned from the opponent. These methods might seem unfathomable, but he had to admit, that insane "Saint Princess" truly created numerous tactics that only a plant could "think" of after becoming a real plant, and these tactics proved to be quite effective in use.

Fortunately, they all shared the same origin; what Beltira could do, the root network deep within the wasteland could essentially accomplish as well. Once a clever person could learn the strategy from that madwoman, countermeasures naturally emerged.

Bertrum regarded himself as such a "clever person"—this was his greatest pride during these days, perhaps the only thing he could take pride in.

This even slightly eased the disgrace and resentment he had accumulated since that failure.

At the same time, in the deep dark corrupted wasteland, an intense clash invisible to ordinary people had already exploded and escalated following Bertrum’s command.

Roots belonging to the Sorin Giant Tree’s distant limbs encountered fierce resistance while spreading southward, part of which just sprouted and hadn’t gained full combat capabilities got strangled during maturation, dying in clusters between soil and underground rivers. Meanwhile, the dark root network from the direction of the wasteland launched a swift "encirclement", with an unsettling friction and wriggling sound echoing in the underground caverns and passages, as numerous live vines crept in the darkness, weaving into an entrapment net while releasing various toxins and tiny "biological soldiers" all around, and mimicking vinelets disguised as Sorin roots spreading and growing northward...

Sorin roots’ counterattack soon followed, employing continually emerging offensive tactics not inferior to the opponent’s, causing the dark priests’ root networks in the border area to wither necrotically on a large scale...

And these decayed root structures had already transmitted sufficient intelligence content to Bertrum before their complete demise.

"The counterattack is very swift... concentrated and continuous thought pulses... neural signals converging towards the eastern area..."

On the cold open plains, Bertrum led the team swiftly transferring toward the target location while meticulously sensing the information coming from below, and suddenly, a surge of joy flooded his heart.

Along with that joy, he also felt an increasingly evident, increasingly strong "predator scent", which brought him an almost instinctive fear—the two contrasting emotions clashed his already abnormal mind, ironically making Bertrum more excited, a peculiar ecstasy made him shout loudly to his followers, "We caught the big guy! Comrades, we caught it!"

"Archbishop, you mean..." a low-rank dark priest froze for a moment, quickly reacting, "You mean this time we’ve caught that ’cognitive organ’?"

"That’s right, I sensed those intense thought pulses and the neural signals continuously converging toward the target location, we’ve caught it," Bertrum said through gritted teeth (even though he no longer had teeth now), "The truth of how that madwoman extends her consciousness so far and easily controls such an enormous body... her cognitive auxiliary organ, we’ve finally caught it!"

As he spoke, he already perceived that he had arrived near the target location—he instantly ordered his followers to halt, to avoid falling into a trap.

Despite the excitement, Bertrum maintained basic judgment and calm. He knew how cunning that "ancient Saint Princess" named Beltira was and also knew there’s no such thing as unreasonably good luck—well, perhaps it exists, but he did not believe such a thing would fall upon him.

The target was right ahead, but he dared not recklessly rush forward and dig down, who knew what that madwoman prepared there, maybe he would rush over and the ground would split open a big mouth, below would be a gastric sac filled with sharp teeth and digestive juices?

"Archbishop, how do we proceed?" the low-rank dark priest beside him asked.

Bertrum did not respond but instead covertly communicated with the root network currently engaged in a fierce underground battle with the enemy. Moments later, a rumbling noise came from a nearby section of the ground, and then thick earth and rock were torn apart by force from below, revealing a slanted "passageway" leading underground, surrounded and supported by countless live vines and roots right before his eyes.

"I suspect that madwoman prepared a trap for us, but it doesn’t matter—we’ll slowly push forward under the cover of the root network, no matter what she’s prepared underground, we’ll dismantle it all the way!"

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