novelraw Chapter 168: The Root of Sorrow
Chapter 168: The Root of Sorrow
Lin Jie's assertion wasn't blind optimism. As long as the enemy still followed some basic rules, it wasn't invincible.
"I'll clear the path."
The warrior's fire within William, extinguished earlier, was reignited.
He no longer paid attention to the root wall that couldn't be pierced, focusing his attention instead on the unknown darkness Lin Jie pointed towards.
He raised his Winchester, its muzzle aimed at the ground ahead, covered in thick digestive fluid and tangled roots.
Each blast used the explosive shockwave to clear out a safe area to step on.
Julian, gripping the Withered Thorns tightly, walked at the rear of the group, responsible for covering their retreat and keeping watch.
He knew that physical dangers were secondary on the journey ahead. The UMA wouldn't let them easily approach its heart;
that bizarre mental attack was probably waiting for them just ahead.
The Iron Triangle began their arduous trek towards the core of death within this living stomach.
The process of advancing was more difficult than imagined.The ground beneath their feet, composed of massive fleshy walls, was soft, slippery, and slowly, rhythmically undergoing peristaltic movements like a stomach.
Each movement caused their bodies to sway, draining their stamina and sense of balance.
Digestive fluid with a sour, rotting smell continuously dripped from the ceiling like an acid rain, corroding their clothes and equipment with faint sizzling sounds.
More lethal than the harsh physical environment was the UMA's persistent and malicious mental harassment.
As they stepped over a pile of beast skeletons digested down to only teeth and skulls, Lina's phantom appeared again.
This time, she wasn't just smiling and waving. She lay curled up among the pale bones, her face etched with pain and fear, emitting heart-wrenching moans from her mouth.
"Brother... so cold... I'm so scared... save me..."
The visual impact of sorrow struck Lin Jie's heart, but this time he didn't fall into confusion or lose control. As long as Karl's consciousness didn't gain the upper hand, to him, Lina was just a poor little girl who was already dead.
"Julian! It's an illusion!" Lin Jie instinctively warned the scholar behind him.
This was tactics, but also self-preservation based on trust.
At this moment, he needed an external, rational anchor point to help him calibrate reality.
"I know!" Julian's reply came without hesitation.
"Don't look at her! Remember what I said before about the ancient Greek Sophists' method of resisting the Sirens' song! Use logic to fight it!"
"Recite anything in your mind that can distract you! Build a wall of reason!"
Lin Jie complied.
He forced himself not to listen to that mournful cry, not to think of that pitifully delicate face.
His brain, in a self-abusive manner, mechanically began reciting the cold geometric axioms he had forgotten in the corner of a university library.
Pure mathematical logic acted like a sacred exorcism prayer, building a rational barrier composed of countless triangles and parallel lines within his mental world.
Lina's phantom remained visible before this barrier, but the soul-penetrating cognitive lethality attached to it was weakened.
The UMA's attack didn't stop because of this.
It was like a psychiatrist, switching to another insidious mode after finding one therapy ineffective.
This time, its target was William, walking at the very front.
Familiar shouts of battle, carrying the smell of gunpowder and blood, emanated from behind the dark root wall ahead.
Immediately after, phantom images of tall, robust Zulu soldiers holding long spears and massive cowhide shields surged out from the writhing roots like a black tide, charging towards William.
"For Ulundi! For the King!"
"Kill these red devils!"
That was Isandlwana.
That was the most horrific nightmare of William's life.
Yet, facing this phantom constructed from blood and death, William's face showed no emotional fluctuation.
He slowly raised his gaze, sweeping it over the enemies charging towards him.
Then, in a voice so calm it was almost indifferent, he said:
"Fake."
"Their spears are held too high. Real Zulu warriors would keep their center of gravity much lower during a charge."
His words were distilled from countless life-and-death struggles, from muscle memory and battlefield instinct.
No matter how realistic the illusion, it couldn't replicate the truth branded deep within the marrow of a soldier.
With his assertion, carrying the weight of real experience, the phantom army composed of several Zulu warriors instantly crumbled and dissipated.
The UMA's second mental attack was declared a failure.
Under the dual pressure of physical and mental strain, the Iron Triangle Team, relying on mutual reminders and unbreakable trust, arduously advanced towards the core where the roots ultimately converged.
They didn't know how long they had been walking forward in the dark stomach.
Time lost its meaning here.
They only knew that the last high-explosive shell in William's hands had been fired.
Ahead, the end of the roots, shrouded in darkness until now, finally revealed a faint, dim green light, like will-o'-the-wisps.
"We... are here."
Lin Jie's voice carried exhaustion and relief.
They quickened their pace, passing through the final archway formed by massive roots, like the ribs of a giant beast.
Immediately after, a scene of hellish, bizarre beauty—one that would drive an illustrator of *The Divine Comedy* to madness—unfolded before their eyes.
It was a massive, circular cavity resembling an underground cavern, its volume large enough to contain a small Gothic church.
Forming the walls and dome of this church were precisely the thousands upon thousands of massive plant roots converging here from all directions.
The roots all converged here as their endpoint. They intertwined and fused together like countless frenzied pythons, ultimately co-constructing a slowly pulsating, dark green heart at the very center of the cavity.
The diameter of this heart exceeded ten meters.
Its surface was covered with root nodules that bulged and pulsed like blood vessels. Each pulsation caused the entire cavity to emit a low, deep heartbeat sound.
A dense, spiritual power, carrying an aura of sorrow and regret, was continuously being transmitted from this heart to every corner of the digestive space.
Without a doubt.
This was the Swamp Tree Fiend's true form.
This was the final lair marked in Karl's diary with blood-red handwriting.
It was also the absolute core that, as Julian said, maintained the existence of the entire demiplane.
It was—"The Root of Sorrow"!
However, even more shocking than the pulsating, disgusting heart itself was the thing imprisoned at the very center of the heart, wrapped layer upon layer by countless translucent, slender roots like spider silk.
It was the skeletal remains of a young girl, already turned to bone.
Her skeleton was curled up in the pulsating heart in a posture of peaceful slumber.
Countless roots gently twined around every inch of her bones like tender vines, like a loving mother embracing her most beloved child.
The pure, concentrated aura of sorrow was continuously emanating from this small skeleton, then being absorbed and transformed by the massive heart.
This UMA used a human skeleton as the core nutrient it relied on for survival. It had formed a bizarre, terrifying symbiotic relationship with Lina's remains.
Lin Jie felt his blood freeze. He finally understood why this UMA could so precisely mimic Lina's phantom.
Because it was guarding Lina's reverberation.
Just as Lin Jie was stunned by this hellish scene before him, which carried a blasphemous meaning.
The beam from his searchlight fell upon the small skeleton wrapped in the roots.
He saw that within the slender finger bones of the skeleton, it was still tightly clutching a black object so corroded its original form was unrecognizable.
The massive, pulsating "Root of Sorrow" seemed to sense the three uninvited guests who had intruded into its sanctuary.
Its pulsating rhythm halted. The entire massive cavity began to contract violently.
Countless massive roots on the dome and walls, like giant pythons, "came alive." Their ends became as sharp as tempered steel spears.
Then, from all directions, they mercilessly stabbed towards the three invaders at the center of the cavity.