Final Lord

Chapter 255 A Plunge

When the cap of the Queen of Enchantress mushroom unfolds, the pink markings wriggle like living creatures, coalescing into alluring female faces.

With each breath they exhale, a sweet, spore-laden mist erupts, causing those infected to experience mental confusion at best, and plunging them into madness at worst. Even more terrifying is that the stalks of these extraordinary fourth-tier monster fungi are as tough as refined steel, and their tentacles can easily tear through heavy armor when they strike, their physical destructive power no less than their eerie mental erosion.

Sixty Enchanting Mushroom Queens appeared simultaneously, and the mental fluctuations generated by the resonance of the fungal community caused the air to tremble.

Sutton's sheep-like eyes contracted sharply—his human soldiers, though well-trained, were utterly unable to withstand this level of mental erosion. If forcibly deployed, they would likely turn against him before even engaging the enemy. Furthermore, the magical artifacts he possessed had entered a cooldown phase and were unusable.

"Divide the troops!" At this critical moment, Sutton also had the courage to make a tough decision, and his shepherd's bells rang out with a piercing sound.

"Human forces, hold the outer perimeter and intercept the mid-level monsters! Half-goat legions, follow me to meet the enemy!"

Sutton had no idea that his seemingly safe instruction had stepped right into Wang Bufu's carefully woven death trap.

The moment the humans and the half-goat army were completely separated, the entire Black Forest seemed to be awakened by some terrifying will.

The sky suddenly filled with dark clouds, and inky raindrops poured down like melting asphalt, each drop hissing and crackling as it burned the humus.

Even more terrifying, these viscous liquids evaporated into a thick black fog upon contact with the soil. Countless mycelia swam like live snakes in the fog, greedily burrowing into the gaps in the soldiers' armor.

The human forces on the periphery were the first to suffer.

A shield bearer suddenly staggered to a stop, his calloused fingers frantically scratching his neck, as if something was crawling out from under his skin. Thick pus and blood seeped from between his fingers, the pus mixed with fine black fungal hyphae that writhed like living things. A hoarse whimper escaped his throat, but he couldn't even utter a complete scream—the next second, his eyeballs burst like rotting fruit, and dense fungal hyphae gushed from their sockets.

Immediately afterwards, the entire cavalry was swept away as if by an invisible plague. The warhorses had just neighed and raised their front hooves when they convulsed and collapsed to the ground. Their iron hooves dug deep pits in the humus, but could not stop the rot from spreading from their hooves to their bodies.

Foul-smelling pus seeped from the gaps in the knights' armor, and flesh peeled off their skeletons like molten wax, revealing bare white bones.

The monsters of the Black Forest would naturally not let such an opportunity pass them by.

The spore-bearing insects swarmed down like a torrential rain, their sharp mouthparts piercing the soldiers' festering flesh and injecting corrosive venom into their blood vessels. On average, four or five hundred spore-bearing insects crawled all over a soldier, sucking their blood until they were unrecognizable.

Further away, the roots of hollow trees burst forth from the earth like giant pythons, coiling around the incapacitated cavalrymen and dragging them into their mouths to chew them up. Slime worms crawled across the battlefield, greedily devouring flesh that was not yet fully rotten, while the fungal stone beasts strode heavily, crushing the struggling soldiers lying on the ground into a pulp.

The fog corrupted the soldiers' will, and the monsters of the Black Forest reaped their lives.

The defeat of the pacification army was like a landslide and a tsunami, and it was out of control.

The human forces' formation had long since crumbled, and the soldiers, corrupted by the black mist and allure, had completely lost their minds. Some had bloodshot eyes and festering skin, yet they still brandished their weapons, frantically hacking and slashing at their comrades.

Some scratched at the wriggling mycelium on their necks, their fingernails digging deep into their flesh; others knelt on the ground, vomiting up fragments of their internal organs mixed with pink spores.

In their agonizing madness, the heavy cavalry's horses reared up, throwing their riders into the humus, where they were then riddled with arrows. The shieldbearers' iron-clad oak shields, already riddled with holes, mechanically repeated their parrying motions until they were seized and swallowed by a hollow tree.

...The same tragedy also unfolded among the half-goat legions.

Those usually arrogant and haughty mist-seeking sheep are now staggering through the mycelium, dragging their rotting hooves.

The bone staff of the Dreamless Sheep Beast was stuck in the humus, and the hypnotic ripples were completely ineffective against the Enchanting Mushroom Queen, who had a stronger ability to control minds.

The cap of the Enchanted Mushroom Queen stretched out above the battlefield, unleashing a torrential downpour of pink spores. The half-goat people, already at their limit, were fighting against the mental corruption while battling these extraordinary fourth-tier monsters.

Now shrouded in black mist, their skin begins to fester in large areas, their movements become increasingly sluggish, and the battle situation takes a sharp turn for the worse.

Sutton stood in the center of the battlefield strewn with corpses, his sheep-like eyes reflecting two battle lines on the verge of collapse.

The cries of human soldiers mingled with the screams of the goat-men, but his mana was nearly depleted. The purifying light could only envelop one side, while the fate of the other was sealed: death.

Almost without hesitation, Sutton’s shepherd’s bell pointed toward the sambar legion.

"May the Mother of Abundance protect us!" The chaotic liquid in his abdomen churned violently, and the magic he had been holding back poured out like water bursting its banks. A purifying aura of emerald green rippled outwards, temporarily halting the festering wounds on the half-goat soldiers' bodies. Then, the silvery-white light of healing magic shone down, and the wounds eroded by the mycelium began to slowly heal.

As for human troops?

Sutton didn't even glance at them.

In his mind, these inferior races were merely expendable resources. Their current predicament was simply an early return to the embrace of the Mother Goddess.

"Assemble! Charge!" Sutton's roar echoed across the battlefield.

With the aid of the goat-men, the army managed to stabilize its position and launched a final counterattack against the Enchantress Mushroom Queen. Meanwhile, the remnants of the human forces became easy prey for the black mist and spores, meeting their end in madness and agony.

"Purify!" Sutton's bronze shepherd's bells rang out again with a piercing sound, and a green aura rippled outwards.

The half-goat man, enveloped in light, temporarily stopped festering, but the tiny mycelia were still wriggling under his skin.

The invisibility ability that the Fog-Transforming Sheep were so proud of has now become their death warrant.

When they try to blend into the fog, the mycelium in the black fog actually accelerates the corrosion process.

A half-goat, a second-tier extraordinary being, suddenly knelt down. Its transparent abdominal cavity was filled with mycelium, and the mead-like liquid was already murky like mud: "Patriarch... Your Majesty... Save me..." Before the plea could finish, the pink queen stepped down from the air and pressed its goat head to the ground. Its neck made a cracking sound, like rotten wood breaking.

Sutton desperately wanted to save him, but he couldn't. His magic was already at its limit.

Seeing that his spells had failed to reverse the tide of defeat and that his mana was about to run out, Sutton finally trembled as he pulled out a white rose carved from ice crystals. This was a one-time use item that could instantly teleport the entire legion, and Sutton only had this one.

(End of this chapter)