But the uncarbonized layers of fungal hyphae along both sides of the passage were abnormally active.
Yet they did not attack on their own. Instead, they spasmed unconsciously.
Like a dying body, its muscles making their final involuntary twitches.
In the Living Wall sections embedded in the walls, all those grayish-white arms stretched out, struggling in agony.
The Crawlers overhead let out piercing shrieks and fell from the ceiling, rolling across the ground in convulsions as the grayish-green fungal hyphae on their bodies peeled away from beneath their skin.
The fungal hyphae network, having lost The Center, was collapsing.
The fungal hyphae parasitizing every host had suddenly lost their commands. Some contracted madly, some expanded blindly, and some burst straight out of their hosts.
The entire Pipe Network had become a massive rotting corpse.
[Sanity: -1... -1... 44/120]
The rearguard of the Iron Guard Battalion swung his sword, cleaving apart a Living Wall arm that had shot halfway out of the wall. The dark red furnace fire had only its final embers left.
"Don't stop! Don't get bogged down in a fight!" Wolf's voice came from ahead.
"Just charge through!"
The vertical shaft soon appeared before them.
They could see the iron ladder.
Wolf was the first to climb up. The layer of grayish-green film that had once covered the ladder had completely withered and fallen away, exposing rusted iron beneath.
The fungal hyphae were dying.
Starting from the ground, they withered section by section.
Everyone climbed the iron ladder as fast as they could.
Bolen was carried up by Kael and a Night Watcher. The old man did not say a word the entire time.
Lu Yuan was the last one up.
The moment he climbed out of the shaft, the night wind rushed into his lungs.