Chapter 2218: The Evolved Mutant Plant
Shortly after he finished speaking, round bulges appeared on the walls of the Inquiry Hall, not only moving rapidly but also straining outward repeatedly, as if trying to break through the walls.
"Stop with these acrobatic tricks. I know I'm not in an instance right now," Xu Huo said. "Although a good deed shouldn't expect repayment, I was about to leave, and you pull this move—it's a bit unreasonable."
As soon as he finished speaking, the eyes beneath the wall slowed down, gradually drifting toward the position directly opposite the main entrance of the Inquiry Hall, slowly converging into a larger circular object. Within a few seconds, this circle split open from the middle, like the eyelid of an animal, peeling upward and downward to reveal the giant orb inside.
When he noticed the eye beginning to open, Xu Huo was already prepared. The moment the eye opened, he had already moved outside the Inquiry Hall. But before he could create distance, the surrounding environment began to change as spiritual power spread out. In the blink of an eye, the nearby temple structures and scenery completely vanished, replaced by a sea of blood piled high with corpses. And directly ahead of the blood sea, a mountain made of eyeballs rose abruptly from the ground. As an overwhelming spiritual pressure crashed down, the giant eye also appeared at the mountain's peak, rotating as it looked down from above!
An unprecedented sense of oppression, as if it had become a tangible object, weighed heavily on Xu Huo. His body, every muscle, every bone, even every cell, was being pulled downward continuously, dragging him into the mountain of corpses and sea of blood!
His gaze shifted from the giant eye ahead to his own feet. He barely managed to pull his legs out of the corpses, but unexpectedly, the torn bodies immediately gave rise to countless eyeballs. They rolled around, quickly attached themselves to him, and began devouring his body...
"Again!" Xu Huo gritted his teeth, manipulating the Materialized Tangent and Space Ray Blade to slash wildly around him. Soon, all the corpses and eyes were turned into mud. But this didn't allow him to escape smoothly, because there were more corpses and eyes nearby—no matter which direction he looked, this sea of blood had no end!
Raising his head again to look at the mountain of eyes not far ahead, he decided not to retreat. He activated the Time Ring, and the moment the surrounding space froze, he gathered all his strength and leaped in a single bound toward the mountain. At the fastest speed possible, he pierced the giant eye with the Tangent, then split the Materialized power into countless slender vines, pouring them into the giant eye's position, cutting this product of concentrated spiritual power apart from the inside!
As the mountain began to collapse, he used the momentum to retreat backward, skimming across the sea of blood and raising two massive waves before stopping. Watching the collapsing mountain ahead, he took out the "Mini Mushroom Cloud."
The next second, the entire space of the corpse mountain and blood sea vanished. He was still standing outside the Inquiry Hall, now holding an additional item in his hand compared to before. Inside the Inquiry Hall, the giant eye was gone, replaced by a woman.
It was the woman who had appeared in the satellite city.
"Petals and petals are different, but the subtle details aren't worth dwelling on," the woman said, facing him with a demeanor that could be described as calm, bearing an air of transcendence. "But you are indeed different."
Xu Huo laughed. "Well, I suppose I should thank you for the high praise, considering you went to great lengths to turn me into an idiot."
"Don't be angry. Let me tell you something." The Divine Envoy gazed at him without beating around the bush, speaking directly: "I sense the aura of a kindred spirit on you."
"Kindred spirit?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.
The Divine Envoy seemed to know what he was thinking and explained, "Not a stone, but a seed."
The Divine Envoy instance was born from a divine statue. Although this was somewhat inconsistent with the eyes that appeared later, it should have been a coincidence in the instance's birth. When he used the Time Ring earlier, Xu Huo had assumed the Divine Envoy had a physical form, but this answer surprised him.
The Divine Envoy turned to face the wall. Under her control, the figure of a woman emerged on the wall's surface. "Humans and stones are evolving—why can't plants evolve?"
Xu Huo immediately thought of the district mentioned by other players, which was filled with spiritually attacking plants. Although it wasn't absolutely impossible for plants to possess some intelligence, the ability to think like a human was quite surprising.
Of course, considering that the true forms of the Art Gallery Curator and Little Pink Hat were likely not human, yet they had formed humanoid objects, a plant taking on human characteristics wasn't entirely beyond comprehension.
However, the Art Gallery Curator and Little Pink Hat seemed more like two states of a boss within the game's settings, with relatively simple thought patterns. The Divine Envoy in this instance appeared to possess higher-level thinking.
"My true form is also a seed. I drifted into this district by chance, and Little Sprout planted me. Because of her, I gained life." The Divine Envoy's tone was nostalgic, though her expression remained unchanged. "So I wanted to live with her forever."
"Later, I helped her with something, and she agreed to live together. But she felt that just the two of us was too lonely, so she tricked many people into joining us."
Xu Huo listened carefully, not finding it particularly surprising. Many legends and stories originate from various coincidences. Of course, it was also possible that the androgynous person who originally took the divine statue had different ideas from the Divine Envoy. The specific details were no longer verifiable, but the bond between a person and a plant—strange yet tinged with a hint of the unbelievable—was oddly captivating.
"Little Sprout really wanted me to be like a real human, but that was an impossible wish. I can only take on a human form within the instance; my true form remains a plant."
The Divine Envoy turned back. "You're right. This instance has no area restrictions. You're not a player here to clear it; you can leave anytime. But to others, whether there are restrictions or not doesn't matter—the entire district is under my watch. Over a hundred years, learning from and imitating millions of people, my true form has already covered most of this district."
Xu Huo couldn't help but look down at his feet, then raised his head. "The eyes in the temple..."
"Other players cut them off from me. They fell into the temple, and I didn't want them back, so I let them take them." The Divine Envoy said, "The eye you took from the Divine Emissary will die soon after leaving this district. But the eye in the box they gave you has been crafted into an item and can be used."
Xu Huo paused. "You said I also have a mutant plant like you on me."
He immediately thought of the wanted metal box. He took the box out of the luggage compartment, but the Divine Envoy didn't even glance at it. "It's a seed. It should have been made into an item."
A seed? An item?
Xu Huo took out the lentil-sized mental super item he had dug out of Dou Shengnan's eye. (Chapter End)