64: Chapter 64 The Ancient Tree of Flesh and Blood?

Tie Shan's corpse was dragged into the deepest part of the root chamber of Tree Nest No. 2...

"Clatter!"

The heavy cleaving blade was sealed separately into the storage cavity.

Jiang Ming did not rush to digest the spoils of battle!

Instead, he first used the remaining secondary roots of Tree Nest No. 1 and the damp soil belt of Tree Nest No. 2 to seal off the battlefield simultaneously!

Fragments of heavy shields, copper cans of fire oil, remnants of saw chains, and scattered bags of lime were separated and buried at different depths in the mud layer.

The drag marks were repeatedly smoothed over with wet soil.

Even the footprints in the mud at the spot where Tie Shan stood last were re-soaked and filled in by the damp soil belt!

He could not let the Settlement reconstruct Tie Shan's cause of death through the residue.

Tie Shan was not Shen Kui.

Shen Kui lost contact!

It could be interpreted as breaking through while heavily injured!

Tie Shan losing contact would only be interpreted as one result... death!

But "how he died," "where he died," and "to what extent he slashed before dying"—these details must remain forever underground in the Tree Nest!

The energy backflow from devouring Tie Shan surged from Tree Nest No. 2 along the combat-biased energy transmission line into the secondary tree core.

Then it poured from the secondary tree core into the main tree core through the circular loop.

It was not the trickling stream of the Supply Team or the Fire Attack Team, but a whole piece of red-hot metal slamming deep into the tree core.

The dark patterns on the periphery of the secondary tree core hacked out by the heavy cleaving blade were refilled with a dark red gloss in this thermal current.

The pulsation frequency slowly fell back from slightly fast to stable.

The energy supply limit of the main tree core loosened the moment the devouring was completed—not an increase, but a loosening.

Like a sluice gate that was originally jammed had a gap pried open.

The system panel popped up a prompt:

[Three prerequisites for the second major evolution have been met—the devouring volume of high-tier Awakened, the stability of the dual tree cores, and the maturity of the multi-node network.]

[The fourth item is still lacking: a sufficient scale of human fear resonance and persistent outer-line collapse.]

Jiang Ming read the prompt word for word.

It was not telling him to rush into the center of the Settlement and hack blindly.

Instead, it was to let the seed of "Tie Shan is dead" grow into a patch of fear by itself within the outer peripheral system.

Tie Shan was not only combat power, but also the brake of the Settlement's order.

Tie Shan's memory fragments floated up in the lingering aftertaste of devouring.

The highest echelon of the Settlement was not some super-powerful and invincible individual, but a fragile order maintained by the balance of fear, the balance of resources, and the deterrence of combat power.

Tie Shan himself did not participate in arguments, did not approve account books, and did not draw routes; he only stood beside the iron stake in the training ground, and occasionally raised the heavy cleaving blade with one hand, and everyone around would automatically shut up.

It was not fear of him hacking people, but the belief that the fear capable of suppressing monsters was itself suppressed by an even more controllable fear.

Now this ballast stone had been chewed to pieces by Jiang Ming.

The menu needed to be rearranged.

The ones most worth eating next were not necessarily those who could fight, but those responsible for giving orders.

Those who stockpiled supplies, stabilized people's hearts, and managed retreats.

Once they began to tear each other down, they could tear apart the Settlement faster than any Root Spike.

The recovery phase began.

The remaining shed of Tree Nest No. 1 was almost completely destroyed, and the annular damp soil belt was burned through in multiple places under the blow of Tie Shan's lime and fire oil.

The shed frame was no longer rebuilt; only the remaining few charred pillars were retained as a surface camouflage, and the root network was rearranged deeper down.

The cracks scraped out by the blade on the outer wall of the root chamber of Tree Nest No. 2 were filled with new fibers, the water level of the damp soil belt slowly rose, and the bud tips on the surface of the fallen log were re-buried under the mud.

In addition to the original two lines—perception-biased and combat-biased—the energy transmission line between the dual nodes added a redundant circuit in the middle layer of damp soil to specifically deal with extreme situations of being cut off in a concentrated manner.

An unexposed Flesh Puppet continued to lurk in the temporary wounded corner on the side of the Camp Administration Room.

No one interrogated him anymore, because everyone's attention was waiting for Tie Shan's reply.

Jiang Ming kept this puppet in a semi-stupor state, leaving only the minimum tactile sensation online, waiting for the next order.

As daylight was coming to an end, the residual information on the channel in the direction of the Settlement changed.

It was not an order, but a questioning.

Someone repeatedly called the call sign of Tie Shan's adjutant in the channel, but there was no response.

Someone asked why the torch in the Outer Ring didn't light up a second time, and someone replied with "Wait a little longer," whose tone was no longer as certain as it was at dusk.

This subtle change from certainty to anxiety was transmitted into the Tree Nest along the mycelial network, and Jiang Ming stored it in the panel's memory area.

It was not a numerical prompt, but it made him more convinced than any numerical value—their bones were broken.

The two tree cores beat in slow synchronization deep in the wet mud, as if waiting for a wave big enough to slap over.

No one could hold the fort for them—on the second day of Tie Shan's lost contact, the Outer Ring of the Settlement raised warning fire signals three times in a row.

The torches on the wooden fence Watchtower were replaced with new oil every half quarter-hour, and the border posts were reinforced with twice the usual manpower.

Then the fire signals were artificially suppressed again—not because the crisis was lifted, but because the upper echelons were afraid that panic would blast through people's hearts.

Jiang Ming lowered his head through Puppet No. 3 and the surrounding crows, simultaneously capturing the real situation in front of the Council Shed.

Ma Shoucai of the Camp Administration Room stood at the door of the Council Shed, clutching the account book in his hand, facing another adjutant of the combat line.

The people of the patrol line squatted by the wooden fence, not interrupting, but not leaving either.

"Is Tie Shan not coming back?"

Ma Shoucai spoke first.

"It's not yet time for the confirmation limit of lost contact."

The combat line adjutant's voice was much lighter than Tie Shan's, and his tone sounded like he was holding on.

"Time limit? Eight people in the clearance team, one adjutant, and Tie Shan led the team in person. Now there's not even a signal. Time limits are for the lost, not for the eaten."

Ma Shoucai slapped the account book against the shed pillar: "Seal the gate. The Black Tree Mouth direction is completely abandoned, the northern line Outposts are withdrawn to the inner ring, and the remaining supplies on the outer line are no longer wanted."

"Withdraw completely? The charcoal kiln and logging line are not wanted? Now sealing the gate, what will the Settlement use to burn fires? Can the supplies your Camp Administration Room previously deducted be conjured up?"

"Deducted? I'll put my words here—the Outpost supplies haven't been verified and written off to this day. Who has been sending people out all along? Who sent Tie Shan out to risk his life too?"

Ma Shoucai was seizing the right to explanation.

He turned the old accounts of the camp administration line deducting fire oil into evidence of the patrol line's rash advance; the combat line adjutant was clumsy with words and could not refute it, his fists clenched tightly but he didn't punch out.

Jiang Ming saw very clearly deep in the Tree Nest:

This was not a group of people trying to survive; it was three factions fighting over who gets to define "why Tie Shan died."

Tie Shan was not here!

No one could suppress the argument with personal prestige.

In the past, as long as he stood out, even without speaking, everyone would shut up first.

Now no one shut up, everyone was talking, and everyone was seizing the right to explanation.

What the Settlement truly lost was not combat effectiveness, but rather the brake of order.

The next step plan automatically emerged.

If one group of people believed that sealing the gate was the only way to survive, and another group believed that they must recapture the outer line, then every trip they made, every bucket of fire oil allocated, and every guard post stationed thereafter would hold each other back.

Puppet No. 3 accepted a new command.

In the intervals of his coma, he turned over, blood foam mixed with residual saliva spilling from the corner of his mouth, and vaguely said half a sentence to the camp administrator squatting beside him changing his dressing:

"The living forest outside will crawl back along the fire path."

The voice was extremely light, at the volume of a low-grade fever delirium, and after finishing, he turned back over and continued to sleep.

The camp administrator's hand paused, put down the medicine, and walked quickly out of the shed.

The same night.

Another carrying puppet near the wooden tag warehouse misinserted a supply tag that should have been sent to the northern post into the Outer Gate's supply box.

The number on the wooden tag differed by only one digit, but the destination was completely wrong.

Early the next morning, the northern post found that the supplies had not arrived, and the Outer Gate received fire oil that should not have been sent to them.

The two sides confronted each other.

The border post said the Camp Administration Room randomly issued tags, and the Camp Administration Room said the border post plugged the wrong box themselves.

Not a single person thought of monsters regarding the matter.

The border post began to refuse to accept some verbal commands from the Camp Administration Room.

A night watchman yelled back at the camp administrator who came to deliver the wooden tag:

"Without Tie Shan's signed tag, I won't let anyone pass!"

The camp administrator retorted:

"Do you know that Tie Shan is not coming back?"

The two people stared at each other in front of the wooden fence for a moment, and then scattered separately.

Commands began to be discounted at the execution level.

A small number of ordinary survivors began to squeeze from the Outer Ring toward the inner ring.

They weren't this scared before Shen Kui lost contact, but they were scared after Tie Shan lost contact.

It wasn't fear of monsters—they weren't particularly timid.

It was fear that the Outer Gate couldn't be defended!

Some people hugged their bedding and slept behind the Council Shed.

Some people stuffed their privately hidden dry rations into the crevices of the inner ring's drainage ditches.

Every shrinking person was voting with their feet.

And order was trodden out into stripes by this silent voting.

Jiang Ming sensed through the surface-cracked damp soil the panicked footsteps, lowered arguments, and the clattering sounds of wooden tags thrown into empty boxes outside the shed.

It was not the clamor when Carrion Crows circled!

It was a quieter, more fatal cracking sound that the Settlement itself was making.

He didn't need to eat anything for the time being, he just needed to listen...