The Mission Must Continue!

When all the cover had been burned to ashes.

Meng Chao finally saw the true form of the Wisdom Tree, hidden deep among the vines and shrubs.

Its true body was not a towering tree, either dazzlingly colorful or grotesquely twisted.

It was an enormous fleshy parasitic herb, resembling a Giant Rafflesia.

Its "petals," nearly a hundred meters across, resembled mushrooms covered in crimson blotches and gave off an overpowering stench of rotting corpses.

The hollow at the center of the petals was filled with a viscous fluid like brain matter. Clusters of fluorescent hyphae, resembling bundles of nerves, grew within the slime.

Countless hyphae pierced into vines stretching in every direction, then followed the channels inside the vines and connected to human Neural Networks through thorns.

This "Giant Rafflesia" used this method to create illusions and drag humans into endless nightmares.

Sensing Meng Chao's Spirit Flame surging like Stormy Waves, the surface of the "Giant Rafflesia" buzzed, and countless crimson mosquitoes and flies took flight.

So the so-called "crimson blotches" were actually densely packed swarms of insects.

They had been drawn in by the corpse stench of the "Giant Rafflesia." While lapping up its juices, they also helped it spread Hallucination Spores farther afield.

Meng Chao recalled that when the exploration teams had carried out their mission at the edge of the Heavenly Pit, they had indeed encountered many crimson mosquitoes and flies buzzing around them.

At the time, no one had paid attention—mosquitoes and flies circling deep in the jungle was perfectly normal.

Now that he thought about it, those mosquitoes and flies must have initially numbed their nerves.

Only then could the vines controlled by the "Giant Rafflesia" silently coil around their hands and feet and drag them into the Heavenly Pit.

At that thought, Meng Chao