Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 542 Cordyceps
"He's probably dead," Sun Hang said.

Although the Type A monster is powerful, it is no match for the Three Apes. Moreover, the "Desire" monster has a very obvious drawback: it cannot achieve its goals directly through "the power of thought" like Sun Hang can. In many cases, it must follow certain special rules.

Take, for example, the ascetic monk. His body was originally broken into pieces, but "desire" wanted to revive him, so it was necessary to sew his body back together with needle and thread.

The way Blade Whip "resurrected" was even simpler and more brutal—"desire" directly turned her into a monster similar to a zombie.

To satisfy desires, one must pay a corresponding price, and there must also be a logically sound way to achieve them.

As for those desires that cannot even be satisfied with just "desire," they can only resort to deception to make people mistakenly believe that their desires have been fulfilled.

Sun Hang is now basically certain that the "half of the Sphinx's brain" that Zhulong saw was just a false image projected into his field of vision by "desire".

Even if Nagano Soya's father really wanted to use "desire" to change the status quo of human civilization, then most likely he would only change the world as he perceived it... From an outsider's perspective, his state can be described in two simple and clear terms.

"crazy."

The Sun Hang it replicated wasn't actually a "clone" in the true sense, but rather a concept similar to "inner demons" that appears in many martial arts novels.

The other Sun Hang does not actually exist. What he wants to kill is not Sun Hang's physical body, but Sun Hang's self-consciousness. As long as "desire" is enough to kill Sun Hang's self-consciousness in the cognitive world, then it can take over and complete the possession of Sun Hang's body.

Unfortunately, it didn't expect that behind Sun Hang was a hidden BOSS, "Three Apes," who had never been defeated by any monster.

"Let's not talk about that now." The three retreated several hundred meters more. "That huge thing down there is about to come out!"

“My abilities are not well-suited for dealing with such enormous creatures,” Zhulong said with a troubled expression. “Unless I can find a vital point on its body… the kind that can kill it in one blow.”

As they spoke, the ground around the pit collapsed rapidly, forming an even larger crater. A bloated, fat insect body rose from the crater, and countless pebbles and clods of earth fell from its body.

"Insects? No...it's not insects!"

This enormous "flesh worm" has a body diameter of over thirty meters and its length is unknown, but the part that has burrowed out of the ground is over two hundred meters long.

Inside the abdomen of the "flesh worm," hundreds of pairs of legs covered with a black keratin layer were curled up, but these legs were stiff and stuck tightly to the body of the "flesh worm," motionless.

The "flesh worm's" body was covered with dense black lines, and on either side of its head, two large black eyes were covered with a layer of grayish turbid substance—an extremely strong aura of death emanated from this "flesh worm," and from a biological point of view, it was already dead beyond any doubt.

Sun Hang suddenly remembered something the researcher who was the lecturer at his onboarding training for temporary investigators had said.

"The classification of strange creatures isn't that precise. Historically, some 'hybrid' types have been discovered, such as a kind of beast that's integrated with fungi. It depends on the specific circumstances. Generally speaking, if the fungus partially controls the behavior of the animal, it belongs to 'Type E strange creatures'; if the fungus is merely an appendage of the animal's body, it should be classified as 'Type C strange creatures'." The creature that emerged from the mine in Nanhua Town clearly belongs to the former category.

At the head of the flesh worm, a thick fungal stem pierced through the body and emerged. Then, at the top of the fungal stem, a giant umbrella-shaped canopy with a radius of fifty meters slowly unfolded like a blooming flower bud.

“It’s a Type E monster,” Zhulong said in a deep voice, “a fungus.”

"What is the prototype of this thing? Cordyceps sinensis?" Sun Hang glanced at Zhulong out of the corner of his eye. "Does the Hexi Corridor even produce cordyceps?"

“I don’t know… but judging from its appearance, this strange creature should have some… um…” Zhulong said, “… ‘kinship’.”

"If there really is such a large cordyceps, how much do you think it would be worth?" Sun Hang said, examining the giant, strange creature.

"Now is not the time for jokes. Now that the target has changed from a Type C monster to a Type E monster, it will be much more difficult to deal with," Zhulong said seriously.

"why?"

“Type C monsters have more obvious weaknesses than Type E monsters, such as structures like the heart and brain,” Zhulong explained. “But Type E monsters… putting aside everything else, just take the Tai Sui mycelium that you often use, does it have any particular weakness?”

"Uh... what you said seems to make some sense." Sun Hang nodded.

As a type of fungal monster, the Tai Sui mycelium does not have the obvious vital parts like animal monsters. The brain, heart and toenails of the mycelium puppet are essentially no different... To deal with a Type C monster, blowing its head or piercing its heart will likely eliminate it. Even if it doesn't die, it can be severely injured.

As for the type E monster on the other side, perhaps the best way to deal with it is to burn it all to ashes.

“It’s too big; it’s difficult to destroy with individual weapons. Burning it is one way… but this oil field is already depleted, and we have no way to get enough fuel in a short time.” Zhulong looked at Sun Hang. “My suggestion is that you use the mainframe’s authority to order the Dragon City’s defense forces to launch surface-to-surface missiles for a saturation bombardment of the target.”

"Mastermind, can you do that?" Sun Hang immediately asked the Mastermind.

"Uploading precise target coordinates, unlocking missile launch permissions, calculating missile trajectory and bombing range..." It must be said that the mainframe is very efficient. In less than five seconds, it told Sun Hang, "Now all you need is one launch command, and the sixty-four ready 'Yangsha' short-range surface-to-surface missiles will be ignited."

Sixty-four pieces? Is that really necessary?

"Due to numerous interference factors in the uninhabited area of ​​the Hexi Corridor, it is estimated that only one-tenth of the sixty-four 'Yangsha' short-range surface-to-surface missiles will hit the target," the mastermind replied. "Based on the power of 'Yangsha,' at least five missiles need to hit simultaneously to have any chance of destroying the target dummy. This is the minimum number of launches required to guarantee the success of the operation."

[P.S. I had some writer's block today. I wrote most of a chapter but wasn't satisfied with it, so I deleted and rewrote it. I also made significant changes to the later plot. Therefore, I can only release half a chapter for now. I'll try to update the rest as early as possible tomorrow.]

(End of this chapter)