Chapter 77: The Sky Collapses
's words had barely left his mouth before the missile pods on the 's shoulders snapped open.
The next second—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!
Several blinding exhaust trails tore through the dim sky, howling straight toward that bizarre giant tree of flesh!
The instant the missiles finished launching, the 's four long metal legs kicked off hard, and the whole machine plunged headlong into the tunnel entrance where everyone was gathered like a black cannonball, without a moment's hesitation.
[Who cares if it's a or not! Blast it a round first and check the purity!]
The calm electronic voice came through the speaker of this sci-fi-looking robot, carrying the serene nonchalance of a dead pig that doesn't fear scalding water.
, of course, knew exactly what this white-haired old professor was thinking.
The legend of the Buddha preaching the Dharma and planting the seed of wisdom had spread quite widely across the land of .
According to the tale, in ancient times, a Buddha once entered an emperor's dream and personally planted a strange tree at a corner of the imperial capital ( ).
No flowers, no leaves, no form, no bark; it bore strange above, harboring fetal breath within.
The emperor woke in great alarm and hastily sought someone to interpret the dream.
That night, an eminent monk entered the palace, and after interpreting the dream, the emperor learned that this was a . He quickly had a Buddhist temple built here.
A host of eminent monks and great masters were invited to take up residence, and at the spot where the tree had grown in the dream, a Buddhist pagoda was raised—and that was the origin of the .
Later, as dynasties changed, even the imperial palace was burned down by someone, yet this temple survived through a stroke of fortune.
Strangely enough, in the wars that followed, the temple was burned and renovated many times, but the pagoda remained standing firm—it didn't even need repairs.
Experts even made a special program exploring this remarkable pagoda, and their final conclusion was that the climate here was just right and the craftsmen had used sturdy materials.
Add to that good luck—no one had ever deliberately destroyed it—and people were able to enjoy such an authentic thousand-year-old pagoda.
In time, everyone became even more convinced that this pagoda was no ordinary thing.
Believing the temple to be highly efficacious, people rushed to come and make wishes, which in turn boosted the tourism economy of .
Back when was taking the college entrance examination, his class had organized a group visit to pay respects, but he had walked through the pagoda back then and found nothing supernatural.
It was just an ordinary ancient pagoda, utterly unremarkable except for being extraordinarily sturdy—a rather disappointing result for a who was into urban legends at the time.
Who would have thought that after the catastrophe, a bizarre, bloody tree like this would grow here without anyone knowing when? No wonder the white-haired old man beside him made such a connection.
But absolutely didn't believe in any of that stuff. Whatever monster it was, blasting it a couple of times to test its purity was never a mistake.
Several missiles landed with pinpoint precision on the thick "branches" coiled around the colossal " ."
BOOM—!!!
A violent explosion blossomed in midair. Fire and shockwave tore those fleshy branches to shreds in an instant.
The bound colossal " " finally broke free. It let out a shrill scream, its mangled body lurching in the air.
The next second, without a moment's hesitation, it beat its wings and fled madly northward without looking back, vanishing beyond the edge of sight in the blink of an eye.
[Coward! Not an ounce of backbone!] couldn't help cursing in his core. How can you swallow that? Fight to the very last moment! Damn it! Otherwise, didn't I save you for nothing?
It wasn't that actually wanted to save that monster—his intuition simply told him that he absolutely could not let this bizarre tree so easily devour such a powerful .
Otherwise, it would definitely become a huge problem later.
At the same time, the flesh giant tree under attack seemed utterly enraged.
The whole tree shuddered violently, and all its branches suddenly grew and stretched wildly. Within a few short seconds, they had expanded severalfold, nearly blanketing the entire sky above in a flesh-and-blood web that blotted out the sun.
[Getting hooked on the show, are you? All of you, run for it now!]
At the same moment the giant tree began to stir, shouted at the few people still standing there frozen, [Something's about to rain down from the sky!]
"Huh? Oh—let's go!"
, the armed police officer, jolted and finally snapped out of the overwhelming flood of information.
He hadn't fully understood, but that didn't stop him from making the wisest call at this moment.
He grabbed , still dazed at his side, and roared, "Everyone, fall back now!"
The whole group stumbled and scrambled after the , sprinting for their lives deeper into the underground passage.
The 's searchlight cut a path of light ahead. Behind them, the tremors of the wounded flesh giant tree came through the rock, and loose stones showered down.
"That... that robot!" shouted while running. "Are you a military rescue unit?"
[I am the management AI of , designation ,] said tersely. [The details can wait until you get out of here alive.]
At last, a faint light at the end of the passage came into view. A group of people was waiting anxiously at the exit.
" and the others are back! Quick, quick, quick!"
...
And while they were fleeing in disarray, the battle outside had already escalated.
The flesh giant tree's branches swelled to more than three times their size within seconds, spreading over the temple like a canopy that blotted out the sky, engulfing everything within a hundred meters beneath dark-red boughs.
The " " creature in the sky and the " " on the ground tacitly turned their targets to the giant tree.
beat its wings once, turning into a streak of black light barely discernible to the naked eye, weaving around the countless growing branches, heading straight for the top of the giant tree.
There hung the most enormous " " of all, its internal embryo outline the most complete and distinct.
The , meanwhile, burrowed madly on the ground, its six arms and hundred-legged body easily tearing apart the earth. Judging by its movements, it seemed to be trying to peel the entire giant tree, along with its vast root system, cleanly away from the ground.
At the crown, 's claws were about to touch the " ."
Sssss—!
A laser carrying terrifying energy, as if appearing out of thin air, arrived first despite being fired later, piercing straight through that "strange " with pinpoint accuracy.
The struck froze for an instant, then rapidly shriveled and disintegrated like a popped balloon, dissolving into a puddle of rancid liquid that dripped from the branch.
It was the " "!
A full eight UAVs, leading a formation of more than three thousand swarm drones, finally arrived on the battlefield like a silent cloud of steel!
From the very moment realized something was wrong, he had already urgently mobilized air power from .
If he hadn't seen it, so be it—but since he had, did that thing really think it could carry out its plan without a hitch? Wasn't that asking for a bit too much?
The moment they entered, the swarm opened fire with everything it had!
Lasers and micro-missiles came down like a torrential downpour, instantly ripping huge gashes through the flesh branches on the tree's periphery and clearing out a clean airspace.
Seeing its prize that had been within reach destroyed, let out a deafening roar of fury, and the orange-red vertical pupil on its face blazed with light.
Then its six blade-like appendages folded in, and the pair of huge scale-wings on its back beat violently—a sonic boom cloud burst open on the spot!
So fast that only had time to see an orange-red afterimage streak across his field of view.
"Crrrrack—"
A evading at full speed was split in two right through the middle, its wreckage trailing flames as it plunged to the ground.
's consciousness snapped tight.
That speed was a notch faster than last time at the mining area! It seemed its performance was still improving after breaking out of its cocoon.
But didn't panic.
The next second, dozens of high-energy lasers had already locked on, slamming into 's glossy black carapace.
Zzzz—!
The carapace was scorched with deep pits, wisps of green smoke rising.
[It can break through!] Having confirmed this, was completely relieved.
Back on the ground, you bullied my Sentinels for not being able to fly. Well, this time, let's have another round up in the sky!
Having confirmed that the enemy's targets were those "fruits," held nothing back and immediately shifted the focus of his strikes to the giant tree's .
More than three thousand drones instantly turned into the most terrifying metal locusts, launching indiscriminate, devastating strikes against the giant tree.
At the same time, several hundred Soldier Bees, like a swarm of maddened wasps, worked in tandem with the Sky Blades, clinging to relentlessly.
Every time it accelerated, a group of drones intercepted ahead in suicidal trajectories, forcing it to change direction.
was clearly thoroughly enraged. Abandoning the attempt to pluck the , it beat its wings violently, surging to even greater speed in an instant, trailing blurred afterimages through the air as it actively charged the drone swarm.
BOOM!
Another failed to dodge, instantaneously cleaved in two by 's bladed appendages, exploding into a brilliant fireball in midair.
So fast!
's heart clenched, but his hands never paused for a moment.
The remaining six Sky Blades and a sea of laser drones immediately adjusted their formation, weaving a fire net with no gaps, trapping firmly within.
Lasers burned more wounds into its carapace, missiles burst into blossoms of fire across its body, and for a time, they finally managed to suppress its insanely fast speed.
Meanwhile, on the ground.
The parasitic had finally found the giant tree's roots—dark-red root tendrils exposed through cracks in the temple's foundation, each one as thick as a water bucket.
It opened its enormous mouth, covered in dark-red flesh membrane, and bit savagely into the roots.
As it fed, its body rapidly swelled again, growing more than a meter taller in the blink of an eye.
It made 's control stick jump in his hand. No! He couldn't let it keep eating like this!
A formation of five hundred bomber drones dropped to low altitude and began dive-bombing the 's head.
Micro-missiles burst across its face and spine, interrupting its feeding rhythm.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The 's colossal body was blasted with flesh flying everywhere; its dark-red membrane kept tearing and healing.
It flailed its six arms in a frenzy, yet couldn't even touch a shadow of a drone, reduced to roaring with impotent rage.
However, the situation in the aerial battle was deteriorating.
After brutally downing three more Sky Blades, finally tore open a gap and burst out of the fire net, and 's offensive suddenly weakened.
But his goal had been achieved as well. Under the drones' reckless, cost-be-damned assault, the flesh giant tree's rate of expansion had visibly slowed.
As if it had finally exceeded some damage threshold, its repair speed could no longer keep up with the rate of destruction.
And just then, an even more ferocious strike descended.
Shhhhww—shhhhww—!
Piercing sounds of tearing air came from afar. 122mm rockets slashed across the sky, falling like meteors with trailing flames, precisely blanketing the area within a fifty-meter radius around the giant tree's main trunk.
It was ! After receiving 's notification, they had immediately hauled out every operational 122mm wheeled rocket launcher from the base!
Everyone understood very well that this kind of cursed thing had to be cleaned up as early as possible.
BOOOOM—!!!
The rockets blasted against the giant tree, each one tearing up great swaths of flesh.
The dark-red tissue coked and vaporized under the extreme heat, exposing the twisted core structure deeper inside.
The crown shrank drastically amid the bombardment; countless branches snapped and fell, splattering clouds of blood mist onto the ground.
However, just as everyone thought victory was in their grasp, the giant tree began to fight back.
The flesh inside the already battered trunk suddenly contracted inward, and then hundreds of sharp branches burst out of the tree's body like bolts from a concerted volley of ballistae!
In the sky, hundreds of drones that couldn't dodge in time were pierced through and detonated in an instant, falling as balls of fire.
Then these branches interlaced and wove together in the air, rapidly building an airtight dome-shaped barrier above the main trunk.
When the third volley of rockets came down, every single one was blocked by this fleshy dome.
Explosions blossomed across the dome's surface but never managed to break through.
At the same time, noticed that some dark-red branches were stretching madly toward the source of the shelling, slithering between the ground and the buildings like giant dark-red serpents.
[ ! Cease fire, relocate your position! Stay concealed!]
Seeing the danger, immediately issued the order to retreat.
At the same time, his last formation finally arrived on the battlefield.
1,200 suicide drones—their airframes carried exactly one core module: the high-explosive module!
[Goodbye now!]
in the air seemed to sense something wrong. Its vertical pupil snapped toward the diving suicide formation.
But it was already too late.
The next second.
"BANG!"
Time seemed to be pressed into slow motion at this instant.
Twelve hundred points of light blazed with devastating radiance at the exact same moment.
Blazing white light swallowed everything—the giant tree, , the , and the entire ancient temple... all of it, everything within two hundred meters, was engulfed in the curtain of light.
The shockwave expanded outward in a sphere, blasting away the surviving structures of and shredding several nearby pseudo-antique pavilions like paper.
A mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke rose from the ground, soaring straight up a hundred meters into the sky.
High above, the last few Sky Blades, under 's extreme control, desperately pulled up their altitude, barely managing to escape being torn apart by the shockwave.
Watching through the camera as the small mushroom cloud swelled in his field of view below, fell silent.
He knew that anything the system labeled "high-explosive" was definitely no ordinary weapon, but he'd never imagined it would make this much noise!
Thank goodness that when he'd called in the drones, he'd violently cleared a path and gotten and the others out of the mall ahead of time—otherwise, they would absolutely have been in grave danger this time.
However, just as thought everything had finally settled—
The churning dust and smoke on the ground, as if violating the laws of physics, stopped spreading outward and instead began frantically converging, spiraling, and rising toward the point above the explosion's center!
As if someone had switched on a giant exhaust fan in the sky above!
The violent updraft created a terrifying suction that nearly dragged even the high-altitude drones in, forcing to retreat even farther.
And it was at that very moment that "saw" it.
Right at the center of the dust storm, in the core zone of the blast, at the spot where the giant tree had once stood, a fist-sized, crystal-clear was hovering silently.
This feeling of "seeing" was very strange.
Because the dust was still thick, the 's optical lenses couldn't penetrate it at all.
What's more, the thing was transparent and small; theoretically, it should have been very hard to spot.
But "saw" it anyway, as if it existed on a different layer from everything else in the world.
Even set against it, everything around it—the churning dust, the shattered ground—seemed false and unreal.
And it wasn't just him.
On the ground, countless surviving zombies and mutants seemed to "see" it as well.
They suddenly went insane, charging desperately toward the .
They even ignored that they themselves were being swept up by that dreadful suction, flying into the sky, hurtling toward the "void" that was slowly opening in the clouds.
And at the edge of the void, the outlines of certain even more colossal, indescribable limbs flickered past in the emptiness.
In that instant, a flash of insight struck , and he suddenly understood.
That wasn't a hole. It was an enormous mouth.
There really was something up in the sky. It had been waiting all along. It wanted to be the final oriole!
Having worked this out, steeled himself and shoved the engine thrust of his last remaining to maximum.
Nose aimed at the slowly rising directly above the explosion's center, he charged at full speed.
No matter what, there was only one left anyway—might as well gamble it all. At the very least, he absolutely couldn't let the thing in the clouds get it so easily.
At the same time, in the sky, an enormous, semi-transparent, limb-like structure extended from the rift, reaching swiftly toward the crystal as well.
Two trajectories, converging on the same point.