50: Chapter 50 Humanity's Utter Defeat!

The hilt of the heavy cleaving blade was tightly bound deep within the root chamber.

Jiang Ming flipped the entire blade over, with three lead lines running from top to bottom along the back of the blade.

Fold forging was used during its creation... it wasn't something an ordinary blacksmith shop could forge.

He pushed the blade into the inner layer of the roots to temporarily seal it away.

He turned his attention to the entire Outpost!

After the fierce battle, only a few charred upright pillars remained in the main shed to prop up half of the framework, and most of the floorboards had been torn away.

Revealing the newly hollowed-out root chamber cavity beneath.

The diagonal bracing piles on both sides of the wooden fence gap had broken long ago, and fragments of shed boards torn down by iron-hooked hands were scattered across the courtyard.

The wooden frame at the side warning point leaned to one side, and the cover plate at the ditch opening was overturned.

Revealing the damp mud slowly seeping from the annular damp soil zone.

He took over all the remaining structures.

The floorboards of the main shed were completely stripped away, and the root chamber, which originally could only hold a clump of mycelium core, was expanded into a connected cavity, its four walls covered with a lignified root network, separated from the secondary tree core only by a layer of damp and sticky soil.

The debris of the wooden fence was no longer obliquely inserted into the mud; the lateral roots coiled around the fence piles from the bottom, twisting into an annular outer wall, and the gaps in the fence were filled with dense clinging tendrils.

The upper half of the wooden frame at the side warning point was dismantled.

Parasitic tendrils were poured into the interior of the lower half of the piles, linking them in series with the old wooden pile anchors to form a conduction chain triggered by the Tree Realm.

Both ends of the ditch were unblocked, and underground runoff was introduced into the annular damp soil zone.

After circulating around the secondary tree core for one full circle, it was discharged back downstream of the water storage ditch through the culvert, forming a constant-humidity cooling circuit.

The system popped up a prompt:

[Tree Nest No. 1 integrity has exceeded the threshold. Node buff: Tree Realm activation Speed increased, root network regeneration Speed increased, damage buffer sharing ratio increased, Spore Infection stability slightly increased.]

From this moment on, his first node was no longer called the Outpost ruins.

The illusion left outside the broken fence for humans to see was kept intact!

The half-collapsed shed framework was not straightened, and the burned rafters hung and swayed over the door frame!

The gap in the wooden fence was left wide open, with the annular outer wall hidden on the inside.

From the outside, the gap still looked as if it had been torn open from the outside inward by a giant force.

The broken wooden sign was re-inserted beside the threshold, crooked and askew, at an angle as if it had been hastily stabbed down by someone fleeing in panic and then pulled out halfway.

Any scout standing at the position of the Bell Line and looking over would make the same judgment at first glance: monsters occupied the Outpost, but the Outpost was not completely ruined yet and could still be retaken.

In the next few days, this judgment would continue to lead the middle layer of the Settlement toward the entrance of the Tree Nest for him.

The lingering memory fragments of the Heavy Cleaver Wielder slowly floated up in the aftermath after the devouring was complete!

A Council Shed illuminated by oil lamps, with a large topographic map hanging on the shed beams.

On the map, the Black Tree Mouth area was circled with a red charcoal pencil, and a wooden sign covered with small characters was pasted next to the circle.

Shen Kui's voice came from outside the frame, his tone not as nervous as those sentries during the battle, but rather straightforward, like taking stock of inventory:

"Cheng Lie is gone, the Fire Attack Team is gone, and the heavy cleaving blade is also gone.

Who is still saying that the sealing line can block them now?"

"This thing is not a passive defensive anomaly; it is chasing people down to eat them!

Either burn it flat, or dig it out and beat it to death—there is no third option!"

The scene cut to another setting.

Shen Kui himself stood by the wooden stake guardrail outside the Council Shed, holding a stack of rotation wooden tags in his hand, assigning tasks one by one to several couriers standing by in front of him.

His figure was not considered sturdy, but his standing posture was extremely steady.

Whenever anyone was called by name, they would subconsciously straighten their waist a bit.

Perimeter coordinator, signing off on supplies, and dispatching personnel.

The Outpost rotation list was signed by him, the Supply Team quota was approved by him, and the Rapid Response Team dispatch order was issued by him.

The Fire Attack Team's fuel allocation plan was reviewed by him, and his name was also signed at the end of the transfer order for the Heavy Cleaver Wielder to be transferred from headquarters to join the Subjugation Team.

He had not yet stepped foot into the Black Tree Mouth himself, but his orders had already killed several rounds in this forest.

This person was the next bite.

Further inside, there was another person.

In the corner of the training ground in the Heavy Cleaver Wielder's memory, there were dense blade marks on the iron piles, and the rammed earth on the ground had been repeatedly struck and trampled into a hard board.

Another person stood there.

The heavy cleaving blade on his back was even wider than the Heavy Cleaver Wielder's, with more lead attached to the back of the blade, and an anti-drop wrist strap added to the end of the hilt.

The person connected after Shen Kui's orders reached the highest level was him—the second-tier heavy cleaving Awakened guarding the Settlement headquarters!

Jiang Ming encapsulated this piece of information separately and would not process it tonight.

Tonight's focus was the passage.

He pushed the root network along the route from the Outpost to the Settlement to the middle section.

The lateral roots crept along the gaps in the roadbed of the transportation route, and several new tentacles of the forest will were selected at the turns of low-lying areas, both sides of narrow slopes, and the opening of a fallen tree struck by lightning.

These were not anchors, but dormant tentacles, buried closer to the Settlement than the Bell Line in a location where no one had patrolled yet!

The battlefield in the next stage would no longer be limited to the periphery of the Black Tree Mouth and the ruined fence of the Outpost, but would push one step closer toward the Settlement.

A few more segments of channel residual messages leaked out after midnight.

Inside the Settlement, they had officially split into two factions.

The main-war faction and the peace-seeking faction!

One faction insisted on sealing off the Black Tree Mouth, completely abandoning the outer logging line and the Outpost, and rebuilding an isolation zone in the middle section of the transportation route.

The other faction insisted that they could not retreat any further; retreating any further would mean ceding the logging area, the charcoal kiln, and the water purification point entirely to the monsters!

Once the resource chain was broken, the Settlement itself wouldn't be able to hold out for even a few months.

The debate continued, and the Black Tree Mouth transformed from a dangerous area into a fuse.

He lowered the pulsation frequency of the secondary tree core, and Photosynthetic Energy Storage was fully recharged once again.

The main tree core beat quietly deep within the Black Tree Mouth, and the leaves of the canopy layer were completing the last round of photosynthetic metabolism of the day.

The secondary tree core operated stably underground in Tree Nest No. 1, with a constant water level in the annular damp soil zone.

Separated by layers of heavy soil in between, the two tree cores beat in synchronization with complementary rhythms.

The human structures of the Outpost had completely turned into a root network, mycelium, anchor piles, and circulating damp soil!

In the distance, an Infected Crow flapped its wings and glided over the sky above the Council Shed.

The torches in front of the shed were denser than on any previous night, and a crowd gathered around the temporary map, arguing.

The voices were too chaotic to make out complete sentences!

Among the crowd, a tall and sturdy figure stood with a heavy cleaving blade on his back.

His single hand pressed against the end of the hilt, not participating in the argument!

The surrounding people fearfully moved half a step away from him!