Lu Yuan looked at the enormous inverted tree.
From roots to trunk, from trunk to fruit.
A complete ecosystem.
A suspended farm.
Then he noticed the edge of the cave.
On one side of the sphere, near the wall at the deepest part of the cave, the cross-section of a Copper Pillar flickered into view.
It was exactly like those he had seen in The Abyss.
Its bronze-colored surface was covered in dense runes, faint blue light flashing in the darkness.
Several thicker vines extended from the sphere's roots in that direction, burrowing into the rock wall near the Copper Pillar.
The thickest one had already touched the Copper Pillar itself.
Gray-green filaments extended from the vine's tip and pierced into the rune grooves on the pillar's surface.
Where they pierced it, the copper was changing color.
From bronze to dark brown, then from dark brown to gray-green.
The copper was being replaced.
Around the lower third of the Copper Pillar, the runes had already gone completely dark.
The remaining two-thirds still flickered with faint blue light, but along the boundary, gray-green roots continued creeping upward.
[Target detected: Bronze City core sealing structure detected... being eroded by an unknown organism... you have learned the full story...] [Bronze City Status: +5... 12/50]
The moment the gray text appeared, Lu Yuan finally understood why a breach had appeared in Bronze City's seal.
Why Bronze City had ended up in its current state.
So this thing had caused it all.
At the same time, Lu Yuan noticed something else.
On the sphere's side facing the Copper Pillar, in the area where the roots were densest, large patches of gray-green tissue had turned scorched brown.
The damage had seeped out from within.
The faint blue light emitted by the still-lit runes on