I can see experience bars after being transported to another world.

Chapter 295 Tragic Scene

Densely packed, from the dome to the ground, covering every inch of the wall.

They vary in thickness, the thickest being as thick as a wrist, the thinnest as thin as a hair, woven together into a living net.

They were pulsating, rhythmically contracting and expanding, making the entire hall seem like the heart of some enormous living thing.

The cloyingly sweet smell in the air was so strong it was nauseating.

Lu Yuan shifted his gaze from the roots to the middle section of the hall.

The tree-man leader who escaped from the street during the day is right there.

But he's no longer human.

His body merged into the wall. Flesh and twisted branches intertwined, like a wrung-out rope.

The limbs were gone, and the outline of the torso was almost gone. Only the ribs could be seen in the chest cavity, faintly visible through the gaps in the torn skin.

Grayish-green roots pierced through his waist and abdomen, pinning him to the rock wall. Only his head retained a semblance of facial features, tilted to one side, his features blurred.

But he was smiling.

His face lit up with joy, and the corners of his mouth turned up, as if he had seen something he liked.

The silk thread left by the worm of knowledge was attached to him, and it had clearly reached its end.

Lu Yuan didn't look at him again.

Because there are more things around the hall.

Dozens of people are embedded in the wall.

They were all alive.

The moment Lu Yuan saw them, he knew they were beyond saving.

Because the boundaries between those people's bodies and roots are now difficult to distinguish.

Grayish-green branches pierced through the tops of everyone's heads, running through their entire bodies and emerging between their legs before disappearing into the ground.

Meanwhile, the branches grow inside the body, squeezing the internal organs and bones to the sides. You can see inside through some places where the skin has cracked. The ribs are stretched at an inappropriate angle, and the organs are squeezed into flat pieces of flesh, embedded in the gaps between the branches and the skin.

The flesh and blood had turned grayish-black, but it was still wriggling.

Thicker branches grow horizontally from the waist and ribs, wrapping around the limbs and torso, constantly rotating.

Like wringing out a soaking wet hemp rope.

The human body was twisted in an unnatural way by the twisting force of the branches.

The spine was twisted into a spiral, and the ribs pierced the skin from the side, their tips sticking out and hanging with a strand of dried fascia.

The flesh and blood were slowly squeezed out from the gaps between the branches. It had stopped flowing and looked like minced meat being pressed out bit by bit. It solidified on the surface of the gray-green roots and formed a dark brown shell.

In some places, the shell cracked, revealing fresh, still oozing red flesh underneath.

Some people were twisted more than once.

The one closest to Lu Yuan had his entire torso twisted nearly 180 degrees, with his face facing forward but his chest facing backward.

Both arms were pulled apart by branches, stretched taut, elbows bent backward, the bones of the forearms clearly visible under the skin. The fingers were spread open, the skin at the fingertips wrinkled and gray, but the nails were still growing, twisting and wedging into the nearby roots.

Further away, there was an even smaller body.

Lu Yuan's gaze lingered on it for only a moment before shifting away.

But their heads.

Everyone's head was intact.

The face was not invaded by branches, the features were clear, and the color of the skin had not even completely faded.

It looks like it was deliberately preserved.

The main branch that pierced through the top of the head left a circular opening where it entered the skull, with a ring of tender green tendrils growing around the edge, like the roots of some parasitic plant that had sunk into the soil and were constantly absorbing something.

These people's bodies are fertilizer.

But they seem to have retained consciousness.

In the very center of the hall, an open space had been cleared out.

The roots here weave into a ring structure, like an altar, and the wood fiber pattern is exactly the same as that on the mutated creatures on the street.

Three humanoid constructs were kneeling on the altar, exactly the same as the "wooden man" that the tree man had carried away during the day.

Its surface is covered with fine bark texture, and it bows its head in a devout kneeling posture.

The fourth wooden figure is being placed in its position.

Roots rise from the ground, slowly wriggling, securing it in the position of kneeling worship.

The gray and white text began to dance densely at the edge of my field of vision.

[Detection Target: Imperial Residents (Parasitic)]

[Target for testing: Residents of Sandworm Town (parasitic)]

[Detection Target: Residents of Bronze City (Parasitic)]

[A group of humans used as root fertilizer, yet they seem to retain consciousness and awareness.]

Lu Yuan fell silent for a moment upon seeing this.

It's not just the locals from Bronze City.

There are also some from Sandworm Town, those labeled "Imperial Residents" were brought from even more distant places.

His gaze swept over the four wooden figures on the altar, then returned to the bodies pierced through the wall.

The image of the abandoned house they found when investigating the disappearance with Raymond flashed through his mind. There was a wooden body lying on the ground, which was then stolen by unidentified people, and the entire building was burned to the ground by a blue and white fire.

There are four here, plus the one that went missing from the warehouse, making at least five.

They had been lying in wait in Bronze City for a long time.

[Detection target: Unknown formation... Insufficient knowledge, analysis failed...]

Beren stood two steps behind Lu Yuan, his cane on the ground, watching everything before him without moving.

The old man's face looked very grim.

But it wasn't fear, it was anger.

Is Bronze City a sieve?

Beren's voice was a little hoarse as he looked at Rex.

"It's been thoroughly infiltrated, and nobody even noticed?"

Lu Yuan did not respond, because he could not refute it.

The Bronze City's array cannot detect the forest species.

The tree-man chase lasted for two blocks, but the formation showed no reaction.

Baron von Linde's mutation erupted in Crownstone Lane, but Bronze City remained unmoved.

Now, such a large lair is hidden underground in the inner city, with dozens of living people stuck on the walls as fertilizer, and it's unknown how long they've been stuck there.

No one noticed.

Including the Night's Watch.

"Get ready."

Reck did not answer Burren's question, but his voice suddenly turned somber.

Lu Yuan turned to look at him.

Rex had ceased to maintain his human form; his body below the neck was writhing violently. The shredded dark gray uniform was being torn apart, and gray worms were densely packed together, churning and struggling, as if enraged by something.

Lu Yuan's senses received the signal at the same instant.

[Environmental Sensing: High-level pollution source detected; please stay away.]

The shadows deep within the hall stirred.

A person emerged from the darkness behind the altar.

Grayish-white skin, thin, medium height.

Its form flickered slightly in the air, a unique remnant of the cloaking effect, like the last ripple on the surface of water.

A tiny metal pendant hung around his neck.

The pendant features a relief of half an eyeball.

Just by seeing his figure, Lu Yuan knew that it was the Gray Pact Society.

But this person was not one of those people I had met before.

The shadows in the other two directions of the cellar also moved.

The second person emerged slowly from behind the stone steps on the left, as if they had been hiding by the door waiting for them to enter. The third person jumped down from a crack in the rock wall of the right-hand dome, landing silently.

Three people.

There were three people in total.

Lu Yuan's senses lingered on each of the three people for a moment.

The intensity of their auras is completely different.

The man leading the group, whose figure kept flashing, had the strongest aura.

At the edge of my field of vision, gray and white text appeared.

[Target for detection: Gray Pact members (alienated extraordinary beings)]

[A superhuman, whose body structure has deviated from the conventional path of mutation, is based on the Glazed Water and has been fused with some kind of mutated source.]

At least four orders.

The other two are third-order.

Lu Yuan placed his hand on the "flame" at his waist, his thumb resting on the hammer.

The fourth tier, the Gray Pact Society, is still active in Bronze City.

During the pipeline incident, Klaus nearly wiped out a significant portion of the Gray Contract Society's forces in Bronze City.

One fourth-tier deputy was crystallized, two third-tier subordinates were killed and captured, and the leader liquefied and escaped.

But Klaus later mentioned that there was a fourth-order member codenamed "9" who never revealed his whereabouts.

Lu Yuan looked at the grayish-white-skinned man in front of him. There was something that did not belong to the Glazed Water flowing under his skin, and his aura was stronger than any of the Gray Pact members he had encountered in the pipeline.

It seems to be him.

The leading man stood beside the altar, his grayish-white skin appearing almost transparent under the dark green sheen of the roots.

He glanced at Lake first.

"You're Rick?"

His tone was calm, as if he were confirming a name.

"I've heard my companions mention you before, but I never imagined you guys would actually find this place."

His gaze shifted from Rick to the treant leader on the wall, who had already merged into the roots, and he looked disgusted.

"What a piece of trash."

When he said this, the contempt in his tone was undisguised.

"This can even be described as having a tail; it's just garbage that deserves to be used as fertilizer."

After he finished speaking, his gaze fell on Lu Yuan, lingered for two seconds, as if he were examining something.

"It was you who left the clues, wasn't it?"

His lips twitched slightly.

"An interesting night watchman."

Just at this time.

The "fertilizer" that had been pierced through the wall reacted.

It's unclear whether they sensed the presence of outsiders or if the Gray Pact leader's voice had alerted them.

The bodies twisted in the branches began to writhe. The movements were extremely faint, almost like twitches, but they were exceptionally clear against the silence of the wall.

Those heads, forced into a skewed angle, were spinning frantically.

Someone opened one eye halfway.

His cloudy eyes darted around in the gray-green luster, then fixed their gaze on the direction Lu Yuan was standing.

The mouth opened and closed again, the twig blocking most of the throat, and the vocal cords could only squeeze out a little sound.

Sobbing.

It was muffled and intermittent, as if someone was shouting while covering their mouth.

The second person also opened their eyes.

The third.

the fourth.

More and more eyes opened in the darkness, and more and more sobs came from every corner of the walls, merging into a low, desperate hum.

Lu Yuan understood.

Those sobs stuck in their throats, leaving only breathy sounds.