Chapter 101: Holy Light Forbidden Zone
Yuan Zhu carefully examined the structure of the underground space. Both in front of him and behind him, it stretched endlessly into thick, impenetrable darkness. It felt like being in a subway tunnel without lights, enduring deep oppression, confusion, and loneliness.
Although the soil walls and cave ceiling were covered with fungal clusters emitting faint blue-purple glows, they could only barely mark the direction of travel within an extremely short range, providing no real illumination.
This environment was instead extremely suitable for the Tiger Demon to unleash its power. Everywhere was darkness and shadows, giving a sense of returning to home ground. But he didn’t rush to switch forms. After all, it was a squad mission—what if his teammates were nearby?
So Yuan Zhu immediately took out the Bluetooth mouse from his backpack, transferred permission to the Little Spicy Stick, and instructed: “Help me call the companions for positioning.”
“Received! Sir.”
The half-mechanical mouse skull suddenly stood at attention, saluting Yuan Zhu with one small stubby hand. It then used its insect limbs to slowly extend the antenna on its head, swinging it left and right to search for signals, beginning an automatic call.
After some effort, the Little Spicy Stick responded disappointedly: “Report to boss, call failed! The underground space has super strong signal shielding. The mental waves emitted by the mouse are all shielded and absorbed by the root tendrils above. The space we’re in is like a signal cage—nothing can be sent out! This mouse was half-useless from the start.”
Yuan Zhu: “Looks like it’s the root tendrils overhead.”
He was now alone in the pitch-black underground tunnel, separated from his companions, communicator offline, and unsure of how deep he was. The air he breathed was not only turbid but mixed with soil stench, an indescribable unfamiliar rotten odor, and highly concentrated polluted aura.
“What a terrible start!” He sighed, flicked his fingertip, and a small jellyfish-shaped holy light suddenly lit up, floating in the air and illuminating the darkness. The surrounding scene became much clearer.
This was a little skill he had figured out in the Disease Garden: Illumination Technique.
By throwing a small clump of holy light into the air using Holy Cough, it could slowly release limited light like a flash illumination grenade, with zero damage, providing only basic lighting.
If the Holy Cough’s burning speed was pulled to the minimum, it could provide faint lighting for 2-3 minutes. And due to the special nature of the ‘light,’ it wouldn’t fall. Instead, it was under his control, able to float and move, barely counting as a little lightbulb.
As for the jellyfish shape? It was entirely due to the Holy Cough itself. His holy light inexplicably exhibited viscous, adhesion, tentacle traits. Fortunately, the holy light itself looked good, appearing quite holy and cute. Yuan Zhu named it ‘Light Tendril’ to improve public acceptance.
As the Illumination Technique twisted forward in the air like a jellyfish, the slime molds and mushrooms originally emitting faint fluorescence, as well as the root tendrils overhead, all made rustling sounds when illuminated.
Anything hit by the Holy Light released a foul burnt stench, then rotted, withered, decomposed, and melted into foul, sticky substances. The few root tendrils on the ceiling curled like hair singed by flames, releasing uncomfortable highly toxic polluted aura.
Yuan Zhu frowned and increased the Holy Light output, wanting to purify the pollution. Unexpectedly, this triggered a chain reaction: more root tendrils were burned and purified by the holy light, releasing even more polluting poisonous gas, rapidly worsening the already turbid air. The air was no longer breathable.
With the eruption of these toxic auras and release of polluting energy… the already melted sticky substances suddenly flickered with faint fluorescence again like they were injected with chicken blood, but before they could revive and regrow, they were hit by the Holy Light again, incinerated and deactivated into another puddle of stench.
It was like hitting a dead loop, but as the Holy Light continued releasing, more pollution exploded and proliferated in the limited space… forcing him to extinguish the Illumination Technique, kick off with his feet, leap several meters, and sprint hundreds of meters into the dark tunnel depths before feeling the pollution concentration in the air gradually normalize.
Looking back at the area just polluted by the Holy Light, the toxic polluted aura in the air slowly declined, while the fluorescent slime molds on the ground, walls, and ceiling became more vibrant, various colors emerging one after another, ushering in a grand growth carnival.
“This world doesn’t seem to welcome Holy Light.”
Whether fluorescent slime molds, mushrooms, or the corrupted root tendrils on the ceiling suspected to be from Kunlun death spiritual roots, they all carried polluting energy and were indiscriminately attacked and purified by the Holy Light.
Because their life levels were weak with limited pollution concentration, they were easily burned away by the light, but released foul odors. Especially the root tendrils, which were like energy-laden dry grass and firewood—ignited by the holy light and then releasing highly toxic spiritual energy, eroding the underground environment with pollution.
After he fled, the slime molds and mushroom spores instead countered the highly toxic polluted aura released by the root tendrils. By absorbing and decomposing the polluting poisonous gas in the air, they rapidly proliferated and spread, repurifying the underground space’s air and releasing oxygen and strange smells.
If excluding the out-of-place Holy Light, the slime molds and mushrooms seemed to counter the root tendrils. And the omnipresent root tendrils contained corrupt spiritual energy, which could serve as energy, fuel, nutrients, nourishing the underground ecosystem.
Rustling…
Another scalp-itching rustling sound came. Yuan Zhu mobilized the power of his shadow uniform, pulled out a pair of night vision goggles from his backpack, put them on, and saw a swarm of thumbtack-sized black bugs appearing in the distance, crawling toward the newly grown patches of slime molds and mushrooms, munching away with a rustle.
During feeding, some beetles trembled violently, some inexplicably stiffened and died, falling like rain with plops, motionless—clearly poisoned to death. Some were pierced by root tendrils spreading from the ceiling during feeding, beginning to have their nutrients absorbed. Others finished eating and retreated like a tide…
It was clear that the dead beetles had overloaded internal pollution, over-mutating and dying on the spot. The survivors were all highly polluted demonic variants. Some unlucky ones were pierced by weak root tendrils and absorbed as nutrient packages.
The dead beetles on the ground suddenly struggled to rise, fungal threads emerging from their shell seams, with fluorescent threads on their heads. A group of slime molds and spores successfully hitched a ride, driving little beetle cars to race through the underground tunnel, spreading their seeds farther away.
And all this was just because his Holy Light casually illuminated, breaking the underground space’s balance and releasing excess pollution, immediately triggering a massive outbreak in the closed ecosystem.
The game sprite watched the entire process through the mouse’s pollution vision and couldn’t help exclaiming: “So exaggerated!”
Yuan Zhu: “To be reasonable, wood (root tendrils) rotting and releasing poisonous gas, slime molds and mushrooms parasitizing decayed wood to grow, insects eating mushrooms and slime molds, spore threads parasitizing insects to spread seeds… I can understand all that, and it fits biological common sense. But this process is way too fast, right? Over 1 minute?”
The scenes just now were like hitting super fast-forward.
Little Spicy Stick: “Got it, full process over 2.5 minutes. This might be a microcosm of the new world’s ecosystem? The underground world’s ecological cycle should be built on the spiritual root tendrils overhead. I just detected three pollution types: first, the corrupt spiritual energy pollution in the root tendrils, suspected Kunlun spiritual energy? But very decayed, probably spiritual energy rotten after death! Second, the polluting energy in the beetles’ bodies, which I named insect pollution—likely the ‘insect nurturing power’ the Mao Mao King needs. Finally, the slime mold spores contain pollution similar to corrupt spiritual energy but with activity and vitality. Also, the pollution inside root tendrils, insects, and mushrooms isn’t purely single-type but mixed and blended. Data too little, hard to analyze—please continue collecting.”
Yuan Zhu frowned, had his uniform envelop his whole body, put on a gas mask, and continued walking into the darkness.
He felt like he was in a flammable, explosive sealed warehouse, with Holy Light as the spark to ignite everything. He couldn’t use it lightly, or it would detonate the seemingly calm underground space.
