205: Chapter 205 The Core... It's there!

The scarlet-gold fire dragon let out a deafening roar; everywhere its body passed, the eerie blue was scorched to barren earth.

Like a red-hot branding iron, it forcibly burned a path of death through this strange sea of mycelium leading toward the abyss.

Rolling waves of heat completely dispersed the damp, cold air, replacing it with a pungent smell—a mixture of ozone and charred fungal protein.

But this path representing hope was narrowing and dimming at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The fire's might was consuming Song Yiqing's Qi at an alarming rate.

On both sides of the path, beneath the ashes of the incinerated mycelium, new threads shimmering with eerie blue light seemed to possess immortality.

In the peripheral areas where the flames slightly weakened, they began to writhe and proliferate frantically again, like countless greedy tentacles trying to reseal this path of life.

Overhead, those giant fungal plants, over ten meters tall, stood like silent, eerie watchtowers.

Beneath the fungal caps, tens of thousands of bloodshot scarlet eyeballs stared fixedly at the tiny figures running below, their venomous, cold gazes seemingly wanting to nail their souls to the spot.

“Lord Song! The fire... the fire is about to give out! Both sides are closing in!”

Fatty shouted hoarsely while running for his life; he had already gone through three magazines for his rifle, but the tongue of fire it spat was as insignificant as a laughable matchstick before that endless sea of fungi.

At this moment, he felt like he had been thrown into a meat grinder, surrounded by spinning blades, and the only safe gap was closing rapidly.

“We just need to charge to the end and kill the biggest one, right?!”

“There's no time.”

Song Yiqing's voice was as cold as eternal ice.

His face was pale, and fine beads of sweat had already seeped from his forehead; maintaining such a domineering Burning Heaven Flame was an immense burden for him as well.

While struggling to maintain the fire dragon's advance, he spoke calmly; his voice wasn't loud, yet it reached everyone's ears clearly.

“What we see now isn't necessarily real.”

The movements of the running group suddenly stiffened.

“What do you mean?”

Lin Tianyi followed closely behind him, his lenses already covered in a layer of white mist; he asked with a grave expression while quickly wiping them.

“We are currently inside a Soul-Bewildering Maze.”

Song Yiqing's words were like a thunderclap from the highest heavens, exploding in everyone's minds.

“The environment here, these fungi—they are both monsters and part of a formation.”

“We think we're charging forward, but very likely, we're just spinning in place.”

His cold gaze swept over the giant Fungal Mother that seemed to be right ahead.

“Our true goal is to find and enter the ‘Mongoose Gate,’ not to waste away against these endless mushrooms.”

“A Soul... Soul-Bewildering Maze?!”

Fatty's voice instantly changed pitch; the small spark of hope that had just ignited was completely doused by a bucket of ice water, replaced by a nearly broken sense of absurdity and despair.

“Are you kidding me! Where the hell are the walls? Where's the road? It's wide open all around, nothing but mushrooms! How could this be a Soul-Bewildering Maze?!”

He couldn't believe that they not only had to face inexhaustible monsters but that even the road beneath their feet was fake.

This was no longer just danger.

This was pure, maddening torture.

After a brief moment of shock, Lin Tianyi's heart sank to the bottom.

He understood.

He understood completely now.

Why these mycelia could never be fully killed.

Why that cloying, sweet fragrance in the air made one's head spin and thoughts sluggish.

All of this was to deceive their five senses, distort their sense of direction, and exhaust their physical and mental strength without them noticing, until they were trapped to death here!

“An ecological... Soul-Bewildering Maze...”

He squeezed these words out of his throat with difficulty, a flash of horror and helplessness appearing in his eyes when facing a creation of higher intelligence.

...

[Inside the Livestream]

After a brief moment of excitement, the bullet chat fell into an eerie silence again.

A few seconds later, a massive wave of question marks began to flood the screen.

[????????????]

[Soul-Bewildering Maze? What is God Song talking about? I can't see it at all?]

[Exactly! Isn't this just a super large underground cavern? It's clear from start to finish! Where's the maze?]

[Holy crap, now that you mention it, I've got chills! It's terrifying to think about! Could it be that what we see through the stream and what they see on-site are completely different things?!]

[Definitely! This Forbidden Land is too wicked! It's not deceiving our eyes, but their perception! Using the environment itself to create a labyrinth—the designer is a psychopathic devil!]

[It's over... it's over! How do they even fight this? I thought it was an action movie, but it turned into a suspense thriller! If the road is fake, then the path the fire dragon burned is just drawing circles in place!]

[Don't panic! I believe in God Song! Since he can see through it, he must have a way to break it! He must!]

[But look at his face, it's so pale! That fire is about to go out!]

...

Meanwhile.

In another landscape dozens of kilometers away in a straight line, the entire Dawn Squad came to a halt.

“Ecological Soul-Bewildering Maze.”

Wei Fengzhao looked at Song Yiqing's pale face on the screen and slowly uttered the same words as Lin Tianyi.

His expression was so grave it looked like it could drip water.

He stopped, took out a vacuum-sealed waterproof hard folder from the inside of his tactical vest, and carefully opened it to reveal several yellowed paper files that looked like they might crumble at any moment.

He pointed to one page, where a giant 'X' was drawn in striking red pen.

“According to the military's top-secret files, seven years ago, the first ‘Alpha’ special forces team to explore the Forbidden Land encountered a similar Soul-Bewildering Maze in the ‘Rotting Lands’ of the Third Forbidden Land.”

His finger slid gently across the paper as if he could feel the despair of that year, his expression extremely solemn.

“That kind of maze has no walls, no crossroads. Everything you see—flowers, trees, wind direction, even the ground beneath your feet—will inadvertently change your sense of direction and distort your spatial cognition.”

“They walked inside for three days and nights; GPS failed, compasses spun wildly, and eventually their stamina and food were exhausted. On the brink of mental collapse, they were worn down to death by the eerie creatures in the environment.”

Wei Fengzhao's voice was very low, yet it made the surrounding team members feel a chill rush from the soles of their feet to the crowns of their heads.

“The last communication they sent back to Earth was just one sentence... ‘We have been walking in a straight line, but we... have never left the original spot.’”

Hiss—

The surrounding team members all couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air.

This description was more powerlessness-inducing and suffocating than facing a terrifying monster directly.

Liu Tao's fist suddenly clenched, his knuckles making a cracking sound.

His face was somewhat pale, and fine cold sweat seeped from his forehead; as an experienced explorer, he knew better than anyone what this meant.

“This... this is harder to break than any traditional Qimen formation! Traditional formations at least have traces to follow, with distinctions between the Gate of Life and the gate of death.

This kind of ecological maze completely utilizes biological instincts and environmental deception to fundamentally pollute your perception, making you walk into a dead end yourself. It's impossible to guard against!”

He looked at the shrinking fire passage on the screen, the worry in his heart magnified countless times.

“Can Song Yiqing... can they make it?”

“I don't know.”

Wei Fengzhao slowly closed the file, his gaze becoming sharper than ever before.

“But the fact that he can see through this maze already surpasses the entire Alpha team from back then.”

He no longer hesitated and looked toward the direction the team was heading, his voice decisive and carrying an unquestionable command.

“We can't wait any longer! Full speed ahead! We must enter the area he's in ahead of schedule! Even if we can't help, we must block any potential threats for him when he's at his weakest after breaking the maze!”

“Yes!”

The entire team, like a wound-up war machine, started up again at a speed several times faster than before!

...

On the livestream screen.

“Roar—!”

The fire dragon let out an unwilling wail, its light dimming sharply, and its body had shortened to less than ten meters!

The mycelia on both sides counterattacked frantically, already compressing the path to less than two meters wide!

“Screech—!”

Several smaller fungal monsters even braved the scorching flames, pouncing out from the sea of fungi!

Scarlet-gold flames burned on their bodies as they let out shrill, piercing screams, yet they still fearlessly extended their claws and charged!

“Fatty! Lin Tianyi! Clear the sides! Buy me some time!”

Song Yiqing commanded without looking back; he had already given up on maintaining the fire dragon, condensing his remaining Qi into a circular wall of fire to barely protect everyone within.

And his eyes at this moment had taken on a strange, brilliant shimmer that seemed to contain countless Bagua runes.

Wuhou Qimen had been pushed to the absolute limit by him!

In an instant, the scene of the world in his eyes was completely different.

The spores floating in the air were no longer disordered but followed some profound trajectory, forming lines of flowing rhythmic Qi.

The frantic growth of the mycelium on the ground was also not without order; it followed a specific pattern, constantly reinforcing this giant illusionary formation.

The entire cavern transformed in his eyes into a giant three-dimensional formation diagram composed of countless energy lines and key nodes!

Complex and precise, yet full of fatal flaws!

“Wang Xianzhi!”

Song Yiqing's voice rang out sharply with an unquestionable command!

“Seven o'clock direction, twenty meters away, that fungus with three eyeballs on its cap! Sever its root!”

Wang Xianzhi didn't hesitate for a second, not even asking why.

The moment Song Yiqing spoke, the longsword in her hand let out a clear, vibrating hum!

Clang!

A bone-chilling sword light, like a silver flash of lightning piercing the night sky, arrived after being launched and struck with absolute precision at the direction Song Yiqing pointed!

As the sword Qi swept past, that monster—seemingly unremarkable among tens of thousands of fungi—snapped apart.

Hum—!

The moment it was severed, the entire cavern let out a dull, heavy boom!

The ground beneath everyone's feet suddenly shifted several meters to the left, as if the entire space had been forcibly twisted!

The scene before their eyes also underwent a violent distortion, like a bad signal!

The giant Fungal Mother that was originally at the deepest point directly ahead, emitting the strongest light, now eerily appeared to their back-right!

“Holy crap!”

Fatty was just using his rifle butt to knock away a pouncing small fungal monster; seeing this, his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“We really were going in circles! Running toward that big guy just now was actually going in the opposite direction!”

“Don't get distracted!”

Song Yiqing shouted lowly; his brain was performing deductions and calculations at an unimaginable speed, with countless possibilities appearing and vanishing in his mind.

“That was one of the formation eyes of the ‘Alarm Gate,’ just an optical illusion!”

His gaze was like lightning as he locked onto the next target!

“Zhang Qilin! Straight ahead, twelve meters! Use your fingers to destroy that fungal stalk twisted into a human shape!”

Zhang Qilin said nothing; the instant the command was given, his figure had already darted out like a ghost.

He ignored the mycelia frantically coiling from beneath his feet, his figure flashing past the edge of the fire wall; his two fingers pressed together, as hard as metal and fast as lightning, struck with absolute precision on that fungal stalk twisted in a prayer pose!

The penetrative power of the Fa Qiu Finger erupted to its limit at this moment!

Crack!

The fungal stalk shattered, turning into a puddle of blue pus!

Rumble!!

The vibration this time was ten times more violent than before!

The entire cavern seemed to be shaking violently, with countless dust and gravel falling from the ceiling!

The blue spores floating in the air seemed to receive some invisible command, frantically converging toward a certain direction in the cavern!

There, light distorted and space folded as an eerie gate composed of countless mycelia and spores, emitting a faint glow, slowly emerged in the void.

An aura of liberation, peace, and temptation to enter emanated from it.

“Mongoose Gate... it's the Gate of Life!”

Lin Tianyi cried out in surprise, a look of post-disaster joy appearing on his face!

“Wrong!”

Song Yiqing's gaze, however, remained terrifyingly cold!

The hexagram runes in his eyes spun frantically, nearly overflowing from his sockets!

“This is a trap! It's the gate of death! It's luring us in!”

He suddenly turned his head, no longer looking at that magnificent 'Gate of Life.' His gaze pierced through layers of illusions and locked onto a palm-sized, unremarkable gray mushroom beside the narrow fleshy tunnel entrance they had originally come through!

It didn't glow, it had no eyeballs, and its cap was covered in dust; it just grew quietly in the shadows of the corner, seemingly out of place with everything around it, so fragile it could be crushed with one step.

But in Song Yiqing's Wuhou Qimen vision, all the flowing rhythmic Qi and all the energy lines of the entire cavern eventually converged into this unremarkable little mushroom like a hundred rivers returning to the sea!

It was the heart of this giant ecological Soul-Bewildering Maze!

“The core... is right there!”

Song Yiqing found it!

That was the true formation eye of the entire Soul-Bewildering Maze! The only... path to life!

...