On the sea surface, densely packed fluorescent floating mushrooms were like a layer of light gauze draped over the sea; even the ocean waves could not smash them apart.
The sunlight over the entire sea area was completely absorbed by the floating mushroom fungal mat, all converted into mana.
Beneath the sea surface, aside from the faint fluorescence emitted by the floating mushrooms which extended for about a dozen meters, it was a pitch-black expanse.
To a certain extent, the fact that the floating mushrooms could spread so rapidly also had a bit of Keith's contribution in it.
If it were a normal sea, Lin Jun would definitely leave a portion of normal sea surface between the fungal mats in order not to trigger a large-scale mass extinction. As for the issue of fish eating the fungal mat, as long as it wasn't too serious, Lin Jun would also turn a blind eye.
However, now that Keith had practically eaten the sea empty, Lin Jun naturally had no more scruples, spreading as much as he could.
Today, beneath the floating mushroom fungal mat, fleets of the navy from the Tidal Sanctuary, under the command of Marshal Piggy, launched a large-scale search of the seabed. Several fishmen and a large swarm of Puchis swam past under the fluorescence of the floating mushrooms.
In the center of the formation, a Puchi suddenly twisted nimbly, squeezing out sideways from the dense ranks.
Its four tentacles, already compressed to the limit, suddenly shot out, piercing into the side of a nearby hidden reef.
Pfft—
In the originally empty spot, purple blood diffused, and the pierced corpse of a Keith bug slowly revealed its form.
Keith's [Refraction Stealth], which was ever-victorious against other races, was virtually non-existent to the Puchis.
Having taken the lead to kill a bug, the former lizardman and current Fungal Converter, Baroque, did not relax, but instead used [Mana Perception] to observe his surroundings again. Sure enough, there were more Keith bugs nearby.
After discovering their traces were exposed, facing the fishmen teammates and large swarm of Puchis rushing over behind Baroque, the bugs decisively chose to flee. Baroque skillfully flicked his tail and chased after them; every time he shot out his tentacles, he reaped a harvest.
Thanks to his earnest underwater training from some time ago, Baroque's movements were now like a true aquatic creature, perhaps even slightly more agile than the fishmen behind him.
The bugs were killed until they constantly fled, possessing no power to resist.
After killing two more strange bugs of different species, Baroque was just about to continue the pursuit when Marshal Piggy's order suddenly came into his mind: "Fourth Deep Dive Squad, you have exceeded the designated activity range. Stop the pursuit, return to your squad's target location, and do not fall into Keith's ambush."
Baroque paused, only then realizing that he had unknowingly almost swum out of the area covered by the fungal mat.
He abruptly halted his figure, retracted his tentacles, and waved at his teammates behind him. The squad changed direction and began to swim back.
Seeing this, those originally fleeing bugs suddenly swam back.
They cruised around the edge of the team, even launching several provocative attacks, but all were ignored by Baroque and the others.
A bug swam a bit closer again. A fishman suddenly struck, controlling the water current to entangle the bug. At the same time, Baroque's tentacles shot out again, killing this bug, and the other bugs immediately scattered once more.
Seeing this, Baroque and the others no longer pursued, but continued to return the way they came.
Within the Mushroom Fortress army, orders were absolute.
Under circumstances where the Marshal personally issued an order, even if it meant certain death, no one would disobey.
Dying in battle still allowed one to reincarnate as a mushroom, but if something went wrong due to disobeying orders, then that would be...
Outside of Baroque's squad, some other squads also encountered similar situations. However, Keith failed to successfully lure any of the squads.
Outside the Tidal Sanctuary, Piggy sat cross-legged on a giant mushroom cap floating on the sea surface. In the center of her consciousness, there was a three-dimensional model of the sea area.
The real-time light dots of over thirty deep dive squads moved slowly within this model. Every light dot could pull up an image at any time to check the specific situation of the members.
Along with the squads' exploration, those sea areas originally hidden in darkness were sketched out bit by bit, more accurately and intuitively than any map.
Watching those bugs trying to lure them in vain, she sneered.
Pathetic bugs, they completely didn't know how formidable the Boss's mycelial network was.
Currently, the squads were still operating in the shallow water area; their main task was to figure out Keith's underwater deployment.
The bugs wanted to lure the squads into an ambush circle. To put it bluntly, they were afraid of confronting the Puchis head-on and only wanted to chip away at their forces bit by bit.
Unfortunately, going for wool and coming home shorn, not only did they fail to lure and kill anyone, they instead gave away over a dozen bugs for nothing.
After successive failures, Keith seemed to finally realize that this trick wouldn't work.
Those figures in the dark successively sank into the depths of the seabed, disappearing one after another at the edge of perception.
Regarding the bugs' temporary retreat, Piggy didn't care at all. She knew the bugs would think of new methods, but she had already made ample preparations—simply countering soldiers with generals, and water with earthworks.
After the initial shallow water exploration, each squad took their positions at the designated locations and began deep diving according to plan.
Fungal Converters, one by one, stuffed their bodies into a sturdy container connected to a rope with special communication abilities, leaving only their mushroom caps and tentacles outside. Subsequently, they began to dive, gradually leaving the range of the fungal mat and entering the pitch-black deep sea.
A portion of the Fungal Converters hit the bottom not long after. After floating back up and reconnecting to the fungal mat, they naturally lit up another small portion of the sea map.
And some Fungal Converters dove even deeper, even encountering danger. When encountering such situations, the cannon fodder Puchis controlled by the Fungal Converter would charge up to buy time, while the team members on the other end would quickly retract the rope.
With good luck, the Fungal Converter could be pulled up intact. With bad luck, they could only pull back a dead mushroom with no cap or tentacles, its body covered in bite marks.
But it didn't matter; the sturdiness of the container protected the majority of the Puchi's body very well.
Send it to the fungal mat to decompose, and after a while, it would be another good mushroom again.
Keith also knew there was a large army of Puchis above, so naturally it wouldn't chase after them—under normal circumstances.
Thump, thump—
Muffled sounds of Puchis self-destructing came from the darkness one after another. The fishmen quickly reeled in the rope, pulling up Baroque who had dived to an extreme depth.
The moment he entered the influence range of the mycelial network, Baroque immediately shouted in the mycelial network: "Hit the jackpot!"
The fishmen took a look and, sure enough, following behind Baroque was a dense swarm of bugs.
They immediately didn't dare to stay any longer, pulling the rope and desperately swimming toward the sea surface.
On the other end of the mycelial network, Piggy instead revealed an expression of pleasant surprise.
She didn't expect that just exploring the first sea area would yield results.
She immediately ordered: "Area Number Four, encountering a swarm of Keith bugs attacking. Deploy Swordfish."
On the sea, atop the mushroom cap of a large floating mushroom, a massive amount of mana gathered. The radiance of a temporary teleportation magic array flickered, and the Sword Saint teleported over in two halves.
Beside him, two Puchis quickly pieced back together the Sword Saint Puchi, who had grown a mycelial fish tail.
"Can't you let me land alive just once?"
Revived by relying on [Mycelial Reassembly], the Sword Saint complained while checking his equipped swords—luck was good this time, not a single one was broken.
Suddenly realizing that he was only split into two halves this time, not divided into three or four sections like before, he didn't know if this could be considered an improvement in the Boss's teleportation technique.
Splash!
The fishmen, dragging Baroque whose mushroom cap had been gnawed away by a small half, broke through the sea surface and quickly looked around.
When they discovered there were only a few Puchis on the sea surface, they immediately revealed terrified expressions.
"Time to work, time to work! Slaughtering Keith, this is exactly the kind of thing a savior should do."
The Sword Saint drew his four swords, nimbly performing a sword flourish with each, and then executed a beautiful dive—
A streak of moonlight fell from the sea surface, illuminating the dark seawater for a split second.
In this split second, the fishmen stared dumbfounded as they saw the Keith bugs that had just been in hot pursuit of them turn into countless scraps of meat floating in the sea, while the figure of the Sword Saint Puchi had already gone deep into the seabed, disappearing from sight.
(End of Chapter)
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