Hunter of Mysterious Creature

Chapter 860 - 98: Cordyceps

"It should be completely dead, right?" Sun Hang said.

Although the Type A anomaly is formidable, it pales in comparison to the three monkeys—moreover, the anomaly known as "desire" has a very obvious flaw: it cannot achieve its goals directly through the "willpower" like Sun Hang’s wishes do. In many cases, it must adhere to certain special rules.

For example, the ascetic monk, whose body was originally broken into pieces. If "desire" wants to resurrect him, it must stitch his body back together with needle and thread.

As for the "resurrection" method of Blade Whip, it’s even more straightforward and brutal—"desire" directly turned her into a monster similar to a zombie.

To satisfy desire, one must pay a corresponding price, and there must also be a ’logical’ path to realization.

As for those desires that even "desire" cannot fulfill, it can only use deceptive means to make people mistakenly believe that their desires have been satisfied.

Now Sun Hang can basically confirm that the "half brain of the Sphinx" seen by Candle Dragon is just a false image projected by "desire" into his vision.

Even if Nagano Souta’s father genuinely wanted to use "desire" to change the status quo of human civilization, the change would likely be only in the world as he perceives it... and from an outsider’s perspective, it can be simply described with two words.

"Mad."

The Sun Hang that it replicated isn’t truly a "clone" in the real sense, but rather an existence akin to the concept that often appears in martial arts novels—the "Heart Demon."

The other Sun Hang, in fact, doesn’t exist. What it wanted to kill wasn’t Sun Hang’s physical body, but his self-awareness—as long as "desire" could manage to kill Sun Hang’s self-awareness in the cognitive world, it could usurp control of his body.

Unfortunately, it didn’t anticipate that hidden behind Sun Hang was a currently undefeated hidden BOSS, "the Three Monkeys."

"Let’s not discuss this for now." The three of them retreated several hundred meters, "That big guy below is about to come out!"

"My ability isn’t very suitable for dealing with such massively large anomalies." Candle Dragon said with a troubled expression, "Unless we can find a weak spot on its body... that could kill it in one blow."

As they spoke, the ground around the pit quickly collapsed, forming an even larger pit. A bloated and massive worm body rose from the pit, and countless fragments of stone and earth fell from it.

"A worm? No... not a worm!"

The enormous "meat worm" has a body diameter exceeding thirty meters, with an unknown body length, but just the part emerging from the ground measures over two hundred meters long.

On the abdomen of the "meat worm," hundreds of pairs of insect legs wrapped in a black chitinous layer are curled up, but these legs seem dead, firmly pressed against the "meat worm’s" body, motionless.

The surface of the "meat worm" is covered with densely packed black patterns, and on either side of its head, two large black eyes are veiled with a layer of gray, cloudy substance—a very strong aura of death exudes from this "meat worm." From a biological standpoint, it is as dead as can be.

Sun Hang suddenly recalled something a researcher, who served as an instructor during his temporary investigator training, had once said.

"The classification of anomalies isn’t that precise. Historically, there have been cases of ’hybrids,’ for example, some beast fused with fungi. This has to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking, if the fungal part controls the behavior of the animal part, it belongs to a ’Type E anomaly’; if the fungi are merely ancillary to the animal body, then it falls under ’Type C anomaly.’"

The entity emerging from the mine in Nanhua Town clearly belongs to the former.

On the head of the meat worm, a thick fungal stalk pierced through its body surface, and on top of the stalk, a gigantic canopy with a radius of fifty meters unfolded slowly like a blooming bud.

"It’s a Type E anomaly." Candle Dragon said solemnly, "A fungal type."

"What’s this thing’s original form? Cordyceps?" Sun Hang glanced at Candle Dragon with the corner of his eye, "Does the Hexi Corridor produce cordyceps?"

"I’m not sure... but in terms of appearance, this anomaly should have some... uh..." Candle Dragon said, "... ’genetic relation’ with cordyceps."

"If there were really such large cordyceps, how much do you think they’d be worth?" Sun Hang assessed the giant anomaly and said.

"Now’s not the time for jokes; after the target shifted from a Type C anomaly to a Type E anomaly, dealing with it becomes much trickier." Candle Dragon said seriously.

"Why?"

"The weaknesses of Type C anomalies are more apparent than those of Type E anomalies; for instance, structures like the heart and skull." Candle Dragon explained, "But Type E anomalies... without going into details, like the Taixu Fungus you frequently use, does it have any particular weaknesses?"

"Uh... you seem to have a point." Sun Hang nodded.

As a type of fungal anomaly, Taixu Fungus doesn’t have the distinct vulnerable parts that animal anomalies do; the brain, heart, and toenails of the fungus puppet have essentially no differences... To eliminate a Type C anomaly, there’s a high chance that blasting its head or piercing its heart can kill it, even if it doesn’t die, it can be severely injured.

But when facing a Type E anomaly, the best way to deal with it might be to burn it completely.

"It’s too large; it’s very difficult to eliminate it with individual weapons. Burning it is an option... but this oil field has already been depleted, and we don’t have a way to gather enough fuel in a short time." Candle Dragon looked at Sun Hang, "My suggestion is that you use the mainframe authority to order the City Defense Army of Dragon City to launch ground-to-ground missiles, and conduct a saturation bombardment on the target."

"Mainframe, is that possible?" Sun Hang immediately asked the mainframe.

"Uploading target precise coordinates, unlocking missile launch permissions, calculating missile trajectory and bombing range..." There’s no doubt about it, the mainframe’s efficiency is quite high, and in less than five seconds, it told Sun Hang, "Now, you just need to give a launch command, and sixty-four ready-to-launch ’Yangsand’ short-range ground-to-ground missiles will ignite."

"Sixty-four? Is that many necessary?"

"Due to the large number of interference factors present in the uninhabited area of the Hexi Corridor, it’s estimated that only one-tenth of the sixty-four ’Yangsand’ short-range ground-to-ground missiles can hit the target." The mainframe answered, "Based on the power of ’Yangsand,’ at least five must hit at the same time to possibly eliminate the target anomaly, ensuring the minimum firing quantity for a successful operation."

[P.S. Today’s writing wasn’t flowing well, I wrote more than half a Chapter and wasn’t satisfied, so I deleted and rewrote it. Significant changes were also made to the subsequent plot, so for now, I can only release half a Chapter, and I’ll try to update the remaining part as early as possible tomorrow.]