Chapter 22

Countless trees emitting brilliant light like Christmas trees.

When Yuseong unconsciously deactivated Eye of Truth, pitch darkness without a speck of light descended.

‘It was all energy?’

The scene revealed through Eye of Truth was dreamlike enough to entrance even Yuseong with his dry sensibilities.

However, as his eyes adjusted to the light and he could observe his surroundings in detail, Yuseong realized this wasn’t such a beautiful place after all.

The paths where light flowed were bizarrely twisted stems, and the beautifully glowing multicolored lights were fruits with hideous appearances.

‘Given there’s not a speck of light, this is either underground or worst case I’m inside some giant plant-type monster. Either way, I need to escape from here as quickly as possible.’

Though anxiety about possibly dying here crept up, instead of giving in to momentary emotions, Yuseong thoroughly examined his surroundings and fell into thought.

‘First, normal movement is impossible.’

Earlier he’d barely survived because there weren’t many plants, but now he was completely surrounded by plants – the moment his presence was detected, this entire space would turn hostile and bury him.

After looking around and confirming no one was nearby, Yuseong took out an energy bar he’d kept in his pocket and threw it far away.

Crack!

The moment it hit the ground, stems completely surrounded the energy bar without leaving a single gap and crushed it.

After several more tests like this, Yuseong was able to get a sense for this space.

‘Extremely sensitive to stimuli but quite dull to sound. Given they’re not attacking me now, they either have no vision or only perceive when needed. Come to think of it, when I first returned from the quest they were still until I moved and touched a stem. These stems, leaves and branches I’m seeing are all basically sensors.’

A hopeless situation with the entire space wallpapered in bomb triggers.

However, instead of giving up, Yuseong desperately racked his brain and found a way forward.

“If these are sensors, why can’t they detect me?”

Objects react instantly upon contact yet show no interest in him at all.

The difference between objects and himself was very simple.

“Phew.”

Yuseong let out a long sigh and slowly stepped forward toward the outside.

Thud!

Even after stepping onto a stem, Yuseong received no attacks.

The secret was in his feet.

Vines created with the Thorny Vine skill wrapped around his feet, acting as shoes.

Rustle!

As if sensing something strange, nearby stems slowly began stretching upward like snakes along the vine shoes, but Yuseong calmly grew Thorny Vine to guard against the stems touching him.

After some time passed, the stems that had wrapped around Yuseong like a giant cocoon slowly began returning to their original positions.

“As expected.”

After walking around and poking fruits and leaves with Thorny Vine, Yuseong was confident his camouflage made from Thorny Vine was sufficiently fooling the plants.

Though his combat power dropped severely in this state, since fighting meant instant death anyway, there was nothing to regret.

‘Now then, time to move…’

Countless holes opened in all directions.

Though it was a hopeless situation like being thrown into the vast ocean without map or compass, fortunately Yuseong had a skill that could establish a reference point.

Through Eye of Truth, he could clearly see massive energy flowing through the stems at regular intervals, like blood flowing through blood vessels.

‘If this is underground, following the energy flow direction might lead outside, but if I’m inside a monster, I could just endlessly wander through its body.’

After pondering between these two options, Yuseong judged this was more likely the monster’s interior than underground, and headed toward the energy’s source.

Yuseong moved silently forward while desperately enduring the bizarre scenery that drained mental fortitude just looking at it – pulsing vines like blood vessels, randomly moving branches, passages suddenly closing or newly appearing.

Walking where there were paths, making paths with Thorny Vine where there weren’t, Yuseong had traveled quite a distance when he stopped at hearing a faint sound.

“Uuugh.”

‘A human!’

Unmistakably human groaning.

Energetically moving forward to finally reach the sound’s source, Yuseong froze at an unimaginable sight.

Hundreds, maybe even thousands of cocoons densely packed the floor, walls and ceiling without discrimination.

That alone was bizarre enough, but the real issue was the cocoons’ contents.

“Uuugh.”

“Ah, ahhh…”

“Kek, keek!”

The cocoons’ contents were none other than humans.

While some just looked pale, most were so emaciated they could die any moment or dried up like mummies.

A scene so lacking in reality it felt like watching a cheap B-grade creature film.

However, the countless groans from all directions proved this was reality.

Though Yuseong wasn’t heartless enough to feel nothing seeing such a scene with his own eyes.

‘Calm down. Stay calm.’

Of course, he also wasn’t sensitive enough to be completely overwhelmed by emotion.

“Is it extracting energy from humans?”

With Eye of Truth activated, Yuseong could see energy endlessly flowing from the cocoons and gathering at a certain point.

Energy gathered at a massive pillar in the center of the clearing, and like a heart pumping blood through the body, that gathered energy was being sent in all directions.

After pondering briefly, Yuseong slowly began approaching the pillar.

‘Don’t know if what’s inside is a heart or what, but need to break it.’

Not out of any meager sense of justice.

Simply choosing the best path for survival.

Though currently camouflaged with Thorny Vine, without knowing how vast this place was, carelessly trying to leave could mean endless wandering.

Rather than that, might as well break the heart while here.

Best case could kill this thing, worst case could at least inflict critical damage.

‘Worst worst case, can just escape through a quest.’

Energy concentrated at the pillar’s exact center.

Though it looked almost ten meters high, Thorny Vines under his feet endlessly multiplied and slowly rose up until Yuseong could reach the pillar’s center.

Crackle!

Materialized purple plasma lit up the dark clearing, displaying its presence.

The surrounding stems began thrashing as if sensing something wrong, but the plasma hatchet was already cutting through the air.

Crack!

“It withstood this?!”

Yuseong inadvertently muttered at the absurd situation of mere wood withstanding plasma that could tear through steel like paper.

—–!

A massive resonance he remembered hearing before.

As instinctive terror crawled up his spine, Yuseong grit his teeth and kept swinging the hatchet.

Swinging the plasma hatchet in a trance revealed a green glowing sphere inside the pillar.

‘That’s it!’

Yuseong drove his fingers into the pillar with Shadow Moon Style 16 Rock Piercing using strength of 99, grabbed the green glowing sphere with his right hand and poured in all his strength.

Crack!

As the green sphere shattered to pieces, the pillar began thrashing madly and shooting stems in all directions.

However, Yuseong was already inside a cocoon made of Thorny Vine.

—–!

* * *

The subjugation team trembled in fear.

Until just before starting the operation, they thought it would be easy.

Though they hadn’t been fighting long, compared to previous opponents like horrifying monsters that could break your mind just looking at them, formless spirit entities, and monsters that withstood military bombardment head-on, this enemy was just a big moving tree.

But it far exceeded their imagination.

“How is this a tree?!”

The tree that had been normal building height kept growing larger throughout the battle until it rivaled a skyscraper, and its endlessly spreading roots had completely dominated an entire neighborhood.

“Buy time!”

“Damn it! If you’re going to use fire net or whatever just use it! It’s completely useless!”

“U-useless?! It’s definitely working, what nonsense!”

“What good is it working? It recovers instantly!”

Moreover, this damn tree regenerates at visible speed the moment it’s wounded.

A disaster-class monster that moves slowly but completely devastates every area it passes through while absorbing people.

‘Want to request support but everyone capable of fighting this thing is either down in the provinces or dealing with even more dangerous ones. Should we retreat?’

The woman shook her head after brief consideration.

If left alone, it would only grow larger and Seoul would become that much more dangerous.

If they couldn’t defeat it, they needed to at least buy time.

“Everyone fall back!”

“Are we retreating?”

“No, I’m going to hit it with one shot!”

Whoosh!

Sweat poured down the woman’s forehead like a waterfall before a flame spear the size of a decent building appeared above her palm.

The tree began extending numerous stems as if sensing danger from the heat felt even from far away, but the flame spear flew first.

“Haaaaah!”

A desperate strike using most of her power.

Though it might look flashy, she knew better than anyone that this wouldn’t work.

Boom!

“…Huh?”

That’s why she could only make a dumbfounded sound when her flame spear pierced through the tree causing a massive explosion.

—–!

The tree that had shown no reaction to any attack until now was writhing and twisting while making sounds so wretched it seemed its heart might have been torn out.

“W-what? You had such a technique? Should have used it earlier! Are you some kind of power hoarder? Why pretend to be weak?!”

“Ah, no. That’s not…”

“Thanks to you miss, we survived! Thank you, thank you!”

“We won! We actually won!”

‘What exactly happened?’

The momentary confusion at the incomprehensible result was soon replaced by sighs of relief as people saw the tree collapse silently to the ground.

“…Let’s start searching.”

According to information from above, this tree had the characteristic of growing by capturing living beings and absorbing their energy.

People were surely somewhere in that massive body – while dismantling the tree for quite a while, commotion suddenly broke out somewhere.

“Here! There are people here!”

“Uurp!”

“If you have time to vomit, save one more person!”

People trapped by the tree having their energy drained like prey caught by carnivorous plants.

Though most were dead or in critical condition near death, everyone busily worked to dismantle cocoons to save even one more person, and thanks to this they were able to save quite a few people.

“Are you alright?”

“Ah, yes. I’m fine.”

And the fact that among the rescued victims was a young man who looked incomparably healthier than the others drew no one’s attention.