149: Chapter 149 Meat on the Battlefield

The deep war zone outside the moat could no longer be called a battlefield.

It was more like a huge mixing pit of garbage and viscera that had been repeatedly churned by a colossal force.

Broken crane booms were stabbed into the charred soil, half of a carriage was overturned on the ground, and shattered alloy armor plates mixed with human bones, covered by a layer of sticky, black-red plasma and corpse mud.

Jiang Ming's consciousness sank into this sumptuous "dinner plate," no longer conducting any complex tactical deployment.

He switched to the most primitive and purest mode.

Retrieval.

All the underground pipes connected to Dead City, whether they were sewage channels, water supply pipes, or ventilation ducts, changed their function at this moment.

They no longer outputted pollution; instead, like countless open mouths, they began to crazily suction toward this area.

The first to be locked onto was the blown-open chest and abdomen of that large anomaly.

In the breach, that core mass of flesh, forcibly twisted together by countless organs, blood vessels, and deformed bones, was still pulsing weakly.

Dozens of the thickest roots, like forks reaching out from hell, precisely stabbed out from below, plunging fiercely into that mass of flesh and pulling hard downward.

At the same time, more roots surged out from the cracked ground fissures; their target was clear, no longer entanglement, but "packaging."

The remains of a Pure Fire Squad member were wrapped by a few thin roots and dragged toward the nearest fissure.

An Awakened with a broken leg had just struggled to sit up when the ground beneath his feet collapsed entirely, sliding into the darkness together with him and the soil.

Gao Zhuo was still alive.

The bones on half of his body had broken under the collision of the giant object, and he could barely stand only by leaning against a twisted piece of rebar.

He looked at the scene before him, watching those companions who had once fought side by side, dead or alive, being dragged underground by this invisible giant net; a sense of powerlessness deeper than death seized him.

"Don't... don't let it eat everything..."

He used his last strength to squeeze this sentence out from his throat.

He wanted to detonate the remaining vibration core on his body, at least on this dinner plate, to tear open another gap.

But the moment he raised his hand, a snake-like root silently popped out from the shadow behind him, its tip as sharp as a bone spur, and with a squelch, pierced through from his back and emerged from his chest.

Gao Zhuo's body suddenly stiffened, and his final strength and consciousness were rapidly drained along with that bloody hole in his chest.

The last two standing members of the Heart-Cutting Squad exchanged a glance.

They no longer tried to attack Jiang Ming's roots, but instead simultaneously twisted the valves of the last two remaining cans of high-compression pure flame in their hands to the maximum, aiming at that huge and ugly anomaly core being dragged underground.

"Blow it up! Leave a hole for it too!"

This was humanity's last stubborn resistance in this war.

Not for victory, but just so that after death, they wouldn't become a part of the enemy.

Two white-gold pillars of fire fiercely bombarded that writhing mass of flesh.

But Jiang Ming didn't give them the chance to detonate at all.

The moment the flames touched the core, the ground of the entire collapsed area was pushed upward by an even more majestic giant force.

The earth, like a tablecloth, was abruptly flipped up.

Soil, gravel, broken rebar, and burning flames, along with those last two members, were all blown into mid-air, then fell heavily, dropping into an even deeper, more gigantic meat-grinder cavity intertwined with countless roots and flesh.

Jiang Ming began to enjoy his main course.

The core of the large anomaly was completely dragged into the central node of the underground main root network.

That mass of flesh was still frantically counterattacking; the cystic cavities on its surface continuously split open, spraying sticky viscera mixed with bone spurs and acid.

From the inner walls of those cystic cavities, one could even see human faces that had been devoured by it before death and had not yet been fully digested.

Jiang Ming did not engage in a contest of strength with it.

The organs of the entire Dead City linked together at this moment.

The Broadcast Tower emitted a muffled low-frequency oscillation, physically suppressing the pulsing of the core.

The remaining medicinal liquids and strains underground in the Old Hospital were injected into the root network through diversion pipes, chemically corroding the epidermis of the core.

The high-heat corpse ash accumulated in the incineration pit was blown underground by the ventilation ducts...

This was no longer a battle.

This was an industrial-process-like decomposition.

The multi-layered cystic cavities on the core flesh mass were squeezed to burst, crushed, and pulverized layer by layer.

High-pressure black blood, broken bones, and shapeless flesh paste were scraped and absorbed by the countless suckers and barbs on the roots.

Deep within Jiang Ming's tree heart, massive streams of data crazily refreshed the screen.

[Devoured: S-class Mutant - Scrapped Machinery Aggregated Soul (Core)]

[Acquired: Massive Xeno-Flesh-and-Blood Essence]

[Acquired: Chaotic Assembly (Incomplete Ability): Can utilize battlefield debris and corpses to quickly assemble low-tier Flesh Puppets]

[Acquired: Multiple Stomachs (Incomplete Organ): Slightly increases the digestion and storage efficiency of xeno-energy]

[Devoured: Regional High-tier Awakened Group (Remnants)]

[Acquired: Resonance Power Echo, Hardening Power Echo, Wind-Cutting Power Echo...]

[Devoured: Pure Fire Squad (Lingering Flames)]

[Acquired: Holy Flame Resistance (Increased)]

[Devoured: Wartime Corpse Tide, Fear Echo, Despair Emotion...]

[Evolution Condition Completion: 99%...]

The Heart-Cutting Squad, a team that gathered the highest-end combat power of humanity in the entire region, along with that large anomaly lured by the bloody battle, ultimately only became rows of data on Jiang Ming's evolution panel.

Inside the command post of Ash Lamp City, there was dead silence.

When the life signal of the last Heart-Cutting Squad member disappeared from the map, everyone knew they had lost.

Not losing a battle.

But losing the very last tooth they dared to extend outside the city.

Looking at that completely darkened area, Xu Baiheng slowly closed his notebook.

"Prepare... to abandon the outer defense line."

His voice was not loud, yet it made everyone in the command post shudder.

In the temporary tent of the medical area, Lin Qiu reacted almost simultaneously.

Without waiting for orders from the command post, she directly commanded the medical workers beside her.

"Abandon Isolation Sheds Three and Four. All slightly injured personnel who can still move are to immediately transfer to the inner city. Burn all medicines and bandages that cannot be taken away on the spot; do not leave even a single thread behind."

She knew that when that tree was full, it would start strolling toward Ash Lamp City more leisurely.

And at this moment, deep underground, Jiang Ming's tree heart was feeling an unprecedented sense of tearing.

That was not growth, but metamorphosis.

It was as if an even larger, more ferocious heart was forcefully pushing its way out from his original core.

On the system panel, the last line of text finally jumped.

[All prerequisites have been met]

[Taboo evolution is about to begin]