I Can Add Passives to Plants

(Do you even understand blocking? My fists are tougher than your sword.)

The excitement on Swordfish Zombie's face had not even faded before the follow-up punches wiped it away completely.

Bok Choy did not hold back his uppercut. After knocking away the swordfish spike, it continued upward and landed squarely on the Zombie's chin.

Swordfish Zombie's head flew off his neck and spun several times in the seawater. The final expression on his face was confusion—until the moment he died, he could not understand how this cabbage... could be so powerful.

"ORA—"

Bok Choy's roar made the seawater tremble faintly.

The final straight punch... pierced through the other Swordfish Zombie's thruster. The fuel tank detonated under the force of the punch, and the blaze from the explosion lit up the entire right side of the sea.

The Zombie's body was blown into pieces, its fragments turning to ash amid the firelight.

Then, the oxygen tanks of the two Deep-Diving Zombies beside the thruster were also detonated by the shockwave, setting off a chain of orange-red fireballs underwater.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

One explosion followed another, blowing the entire cluster of Zombies gathered before Bok Choy into fragments.

After the firelight faded, a vacuum zone appeared to the right of the submarine.

The Zombies still crowding forward in the rear stopped in entire waves.

"Clang—"

A Buckethead Zombie at the very front had a piece of swordfish bone strike its bucket, producing a crisp clang.

He lowered his head to look at the fragment—it was a broken piece of swordfish bone spike, its fracture still fresh.

Then he raised his head, looked at the empty seafloor ahead, then at Bok Choy's fists, which were still smoking.

Buckethead Zombie... shuffled back half an inch.

Buckethead Zombie: ε=ε=ε=(?◇?ノ)ノ

The group of Zombies behind him did not crowd forward either.

They stood there, the dark red light in their eye sockets flickering on and off as though they were pondering an extraordinarily profound philosophical question—could their heads withstand a punch from that cabbage?

Thinking.

The Zombies were thinking.

Their rotten brains, reduced to nothing but instinct, were working desperately, trying to calculate a probability.

That cabbage had thrown no fewer than a hundred punches since the battle began. Not one had missed, and not one had been dodged.

Every punch had taken at least one Zombie's head, arm, or some other important body part.

And on their side, Swordfish Zombies had charged and died.

Deep-Diving Zombies had charged and died too.

Conehead Zombies had charged and vanished.

Buckethead Zombies had not charged, but one bucket had just been dented by a bone fragment.

They could not figure it out.

Their brains lacked the processing power.

Zombies did not have many usable neurons to begin with. Being able to think about whether to charge was already an exceptional performance.

In the end, instinct led them to a compromise—do not charge yet. Stay where they were and wait to see whether some other... idiot would go up and test the waters first.

And so the entire row of Zombies froze.

They did not retreat—Zombies did not retreat—but they did not advance either.

They stood where they were, separated from Bok Choy by a vacuum zone littered with broken bones, forming a bizarre standoff.

Bok Choy lowered his fists.

His chest rose and fell slightly, not because he was tired, but because that last barrage had been too dense and his breathing rhythm had not fully settled yet.

Bok Choy... shook his right fist, scattering the debris stuck to it into the seawater.

Then... he raised both fists before his chest again and stood firmly in place like a guardian statue, silently staring at the hesitant Zombies before him.

There was no anger left in his eyes—after breaking through in his boxing technique, his anger had settled into something deeper.

Bok Choy... now looked at those Zombies the way an old carpenter looked at a pile of firewood waiting to be chopped.

Power Lily... bloomed quietly behind Bok Choy.

Her petals opened and closed as if she were breathing deeply.

The tiny green motes scattered by dead Zombies—the emerald particles that drifted out whenever a Zombie died—were gathering toward her from every direction.

Whenever a mote landed on a petal and merged into it, the vein patterns on its surface glowed faintly.

A new Energy Pea rapidly condensed in the center of the flower core, its emerald radiance becoming denser and brighter.

Not just the Zombies Bok Choy had taken down.

Those shot by Kitty, killed by Starfruit, and headshot by Peashooter—all the energy motes drifting out after every Zombie's death were drawn in by Power Lily and absorbed without a single one being missed.

The Energy Peas were condensing more than twice as fast as usual—the one in the flower core had already taken shape, and the outline of a second Energy Pea was beginning to emerge at the base of the petals.

Power Lily's leaves trembled slightly, not from weakness, but from overload.

Absorbing so much energy at once was a happy problem for a Power Lily... there was too much energy, and the flower was nearly too busy to handle it.

Magic-shroom stood in his planting tile, watching Power Lily absorb energy and condense peas with all her might from afar. Then he looked at the vacuum zone before Bok Choy on the right, and then at the Zombie horde still surging endlessly on his own side.

Magic-shroom... turned his gaze toward Power Lily.

Power Lily: =(??? ?)... Mushroom... forcing flower to work.

Magic-shroom tilted his cap slightly, then sent an expression toward Power Lily.

Lin Yue recognized that expression at a glance.

Magic-shroom: ???

(Give me some energy, okay? Look, Bok Choy has already used his ultimate twice, and I haven't used mine even once. I can fight too, really! Give me one Plant Food, and I'll put on a big show for you.)

"Zombie Tide" Versus... Zombie Tide

Magic-shroom: ???

"Ha ha ha~"

When Lin Yue saw Magic-shroom's expression, he could not help chuckling.

This guy—usually timid as hell, but now... heaven came first, and he came second.

Magic-shroom's passive really was strong. Lin Yue knew that much.

The Zombie pressure on the left was no small matter either. Though they were not packed together as densely as on the right, their numbers were steadily increasing, and Kitty and Starfruit's single-target clearing speed was not enough.

If Magic-shroom used his ultimate, the Zombies he summoned could help relieve a lot of the pressure.

"Power Lily, support Magic-shroom. This mushroom wants to make some trouble too."

Power Lily was concentrating with all her might on condensing a third Energy Pea. At Lin Yue's words, her petals trembled slightly.

She looked at the pea in her flower core, which had not fully formed yet, then at Magic-shroom, who was wildly signaling at her from afar.

Power Lily: (???)

(Flower is almost too busy! Is flower some kind of perpetual motion machine? Flower is just a Power Lily. Can't you see the petals are getting curled from exhaustion?)

Complaints aside.

Power Lily's petals still clenched and opened forcefully, squeezing out a stream of pure green energy from her flower core.

That stream was a little smaller than the one she had given Bok Choy before—not because she was reluctant, but because there really was not much left in her flower core. This small amount had been... squeezed out by force.

Magic-shroom's cap suddenly stiffened.

The instant the energy entered his body, his red bow tie stretched taut and his black top hat rose high.

Magic-shroom's lips slowly curled upward—not a smile, but the assured, arrogant, reckless grin of a Gambler who had drawn an absolutely unbeatable hand.

"Boom—"

Behind Seaweed Guard on the left side of the submarine, a huge mass of black smoke erupted in the seawater.

Within the smoke, the outlines of six top hats appeared at once—not one, but six.

Six identical black top hats lined up in a row, each one... concealing something mysterious beneath it.

Seaweed Guard... was startled by the commotion behind him.

He turned around and saw six enormous black top hats appear out of thin air behind him. The entire strand of seaweed froze.

He clearly remembered that Magic-shroom could only summon one top hat.

Now there were six? What would come out of six? Six giants?

Seaweed Guard: ∑(??д??lll)

(Why behind me?! Magic-shroom, did you mess up the summoning location? What if six giants come out of there? Seaweed won't even have time to run—not that seaweed has legs!)

The Zombies on the left also saw the six top hats.

There were now six... six of them over here.

Zombies: ⊙﹏⊙∥... This human is terrifying. Why does he have so many tricks up his sleeve?

(So many polite hats! This is too impolite!)

Before the Zombies on the left could react at all, the top hats vanished simultaneously.

Six clouds of black smoke swirled away through the seawater, revealing six Buckethead Zombies within.

The buckets on their heads... were covered in different rust marks and dents. They varied slightly in size and height, but all wore the same diving suits.

They stood there with empty eye sockets aimed at the Zombie horde surging ahead, their expressions identical to those of the other Zombies—blank confusion.

Buckethead Zombie: Σ( ° △ °|||)︴... Why do I feel "hungry" when I see my own kind?

These six Buckethead Zombies clearly had not figured out what was happening. Before them stood a group of equally confused fellow Zombies staring at them, while behind them were a strand of seaweed and a submarine.

The leading Zombie did not give them more time to think.

The current pushed a large number of Zombies onward. Though the Zombies at the front were wary of the six top hats... when they saw the Buckethead Zombies had already infiltrated the enemy's ranks...

Zombie: Heh~ heh~ heh~

Foolish humans... you never expected our great Buckethead Zombies to have already reached your interior, did you?

So they kept charging... and then those six Buckethead Zombies pounced on them.

They had defected.

The six Buckethead Zombies completed their faction switch in the same second—

One second, they looked at the plants and thought... enemies. The next, they felt... family. Meanwhile, the fellow Zombies rushing toward them had become hated enemies who had to be torn apart.

They opened their mouths, revealing rotten teeth, turned toward the Zombie horde outside, lined their six buckets up into a defensive line, and charged without hesitation into a Zombie tide ten times their number.

The left side of the sea instantly turned into a vortex of chaos.

Buckethead Zombies bit Buckethead Zombies, diving suits tangled with diving suits, rotten arms clawed at one another, and black blood churned through the seawater like a murky cloud of ink.

Though the six defecting Bucketheads were at a numerical disadvantage, they had one enormous advantage—the plants were supporting them from behind.

"Pfft pfft pfft pfft..."

In a corner no one noticed... Puff-shroom had now become a hero, his attack range covering every Zombie from the first row to the third.

Seaweed Guard stood behind the defensive line, watching this civil war that had not been part of the plan at all.

Bucket against bucket, nails against nails, teeth against teeth.

Toadstool: "These buckets are... even better at eating Zombies than I am!!!"

The "defecting" Buckethead in the first row bit down on an ordinary Buckethead's neck;

The "defecting" Buckethead in the second row knocked over a Deep-Diving Zombie that had pounced at him;

The "defecting" Buckethead in the third row had his bucket knocked off by a Conehead Zombie, exposing his bald head, but he did not care in the slightest. He rammed his head directly into the other Zombie's traffic cone, and both sides were badly hurt.