The path ahead was already becoming difficult to traverse. The fine mycelia erupting from the landing platforms had corrosive properties, and Lin Yuan couldn't imagine the extent of the corrosion from the slime mold aggregates, as large as old tree roots, further below.
Before he could finish his thoughts, the zombie that had just fallen to the ground had already gotten back up. In the darkness, three pairs of blood-red eyes lit up; more zombies were coming.
However, Lin Yuan and his team did not retreat. Instead, he calmly issued orders: "Change the formation. I'll still be first. Wang Zhihai and Zhao Mengnan, you two form the second echelon and attack with wooden spears. If you spot any special zombies, Zhao Mengnan, shoot without reporting. Mu Qingtian, continue to provide long-range fire support with Wu Tian. Wu Tian's arrows take priority. Mu Qingtian, use the two flashlights to illuminate the area and be ready to support at any time. Zhu Mingjun, guard the rear."
Zhu Mingjun, standing at the very back, pouted. All other corridors had been sealed; only this one remained. How could zombies possibly come from behind?
Though he thought this, Zhu Mingjun still turned around to guard the rear.
The growls grew closer. Their feet made "plop, plop" sounds as they stepped on the strange slime mold spread across the floor. He wondered if their soles would be corroded.
In the beam of the flashlights, the faces of the zombies, terrifying enough to give ordinary people nightmares for days, appeared, one after another.
Lin Yuan and his team were already accustomed to these monstrous beings. They simply gripped their weapons tighter.
Locking onto the moving food source on the stairs, the zombies roared with excitement and charged forward.
They were then stopped by the anti-tank obstacles, and the remaining zombies lunged forward one after another, piling onto the first zombie.
"Quickly finish them off, don't let them stack up like a human pyramid."
As Lin Yuan spoke, his axe descended, cleaving into the skull of a zombie that was preparing to vault. The already hardening skull instantly shattered, and the zombie convulsed and fell backward.
Even a fully evolved fungoid was still just a fungoid. Since it hadn't transformed into a Night Demon, the strength of its body parts was only slightly greater than that of ordinary zombies—barely noticeable.
Two more wooden spears jabbed out from the sides. One pierced directly into a zombie's mouth, emerging from the other side, and was immediately followed by an arrow. The other wooden spear struck a zombie in the chest, hindering its movement.
Seeing this, Lin Yuan quickly followed up with another axe strike, giving it no chance to break free.
The remaining zombie was now pinned under the bodies of three other zombies, unable to move.
He chopped the head of this zombie to pieces with an axe. However, they weren't planning to stop there. Since they had come this far, they decided to go all out.
They had Mu Qingtian continue to operate the remote-controlled car up the stairs. Unexpectedly, the remote-controlled car moved as freely as it had when it went down.
After moving the anti-tank obstacles and the remote-controlled car arrived, Lin Yuan and the others discovered that only the remote-controlled car's four wheels had been slightly corroded, becoming pitted. It hadn't been reduced to a bare metal frame as they had imagined.
"The quality is pretty good," Lin Yuan commented on the quality of modern toys, shining his flashlight over the car's body. There were small pitted holes, but the car body was intact, with no corrosive liquid present.
After retrieving the mobile phone, Lin Yuan said, "Fall back for now."
"Zhu Mingjun, Zhao Mengnan, Wang Zhihai, and Wu Tian, go up to the supply warehouse and prepare ten barrels of oil. Transport them down. Mu Qingtian and I will guard below. Hurry up."
Mu Qingtian had a sniper rifle, and Lin Yuan was the strongest and could withstand impact. Even if a Night Demon appeared, as long as Mu Qingtian didn't make a mistake, it would die here.
As for going all out, it meant burning this entire area clean. The broadcast hadn't mentioned any harm from burning these things; otherwise, they would have issued a notice.
However, this was something they hadn't seen before, so they would have to test burning a small amount first to see the reaction.
After seeing Wu Tian and the others head upstairs to fetch the oil, Lin Yuan opened his phone and reviewed the video he had just recorded.
The video began with their descent. They had seen these scenes before. It wasn't until they reached the stairs and were turning that Lin Yuan noticed something unusual. Under the illumination of the phone's built-in light, he spotted an anomaly in the direction of the underground garage.
At the corner, two heads lay there. Around them, this slime mold had grown, radiating outwards. These two heads were already covered in the yellow-black slime mold, as thick as pythons.
It was less like seeing just two heads and more like being encased in slime mold, leaving only the heads visible.
This scene was eerily similar to the tree demon preying on humans in *A Chinese Ghost Story*.
It seemed this was the source. However, although they had found the source, a question arose in his mind.
If their previous guess was that the birth of Night Demons might be a mutation caused by powerful fungoids devouring human flesh and blood along with the bodies of their own kind.
Then this current situation seemed somewhat similar to the process of Night Demon genesis.
But it was clear that the two zombies, whose heads were the only visible parts, had lost their ability to move autonomously. At least, among the four zombie corpses from before, Lin Yuan hadn't found anything similar to these two heads.
A theory began to solidify in his mind: perhaps there were failed instances in the process of fungoids evolving into Night Demons. The cost of failure was complete control by the internal fungal spores, transforming into something more fungal in nature. The main body would be immobile, preferring dark and damp environments, and would propagate through released spores.
Fortunately, Lin Yuan had considered this possibility before going down. After all, fungi spreading through spores to reproduce was common knowledge from junior high biology. The air was clean, and there were no visible aerosol-like spore aggregations on the ground.
Nor were there any structures resembling spore-releasing organs.
This point also differed from typical fungi. If anything, it was somewhat similar to the slime mold aggregates in Resident Evil 7; they only grew where zombies were present and did not propagate via spores, merely absorbing moisture from the air to grow.
He carefully checked the surfaces of Mu Qingtian's and his own masks again, finding no attached substances resembling spores.
Shaking his head, he figured the national biological research team was probably still studying this kind of thing. Perhaps there were many varieties, and they hadn't had time to unify their characteristics.
Soon, Wu Tian and the others came down carrying ten barrels of oil. Zhou Ping followed them. Zhao Mengnan had intended to carry four barrels of oil by himself, but Zhou Ping stopped him, saying she wanted to go too.
Time was pressing, so they let her.
"Zhou Ping, why are you here?" Lin Yuan asked, taking an oil barrel and looking at Zhou Ping with some confusion. Under normal circumstances, the medical team did not accompany the combat team on missions.
The young nurse's eyes darted around, as if she had thought of an excuse: "I'm here to gain combat experience! Is that okay, Captain!"
Lin Yuan found it both amusing and exasperating. "Gaining combat experience." He could tell she hadn't experienced the beating of zombies.
However, he said sternly, "This situation is rather unusual, so let's forget it. You stay upstairs and guard for us."
Then, he looked at the members of the combat team and said, "Put on your masks and goggles. We're going to burn away the hidden dangers below this time!"
"Understood!"
Zhu Mingjun and Mu Qingtian wore large swimming goggles, which could also serve the purpose, though they would fog up with prolonged wear.
They reached the spot where they had previously intercepted the zombies. No new zombies appeared, which was good news. However, it was a bit strange that there were only this many zombies in the underground garage.
Lin Yuan first poured a small amount of oil onto the ground and then lit it.
The flames touched the mycelia on the ground and ignited a large portion of them as if they were fuel.
???
Was this stuff growing in the underground garage made of gasoline?
With this doubt, Lin Yuan tried another larger area. The result was not the imagined scene of it burning up like a fuse with a "whoosh"; it only intensified the burning, and not much smoke was produced.
Perhaps it was protected by the mycelial outer layer, but it could still be considered fuel. He hoped this thing hadn't consumed all the oil in the underground garage, as they still relied on it for escape.
With this thought, Lin Yuan directly used his knife to cut open the mouths of the oil barrels, creating a large opening, and poured the oil as evenly as possible onto the mycelia.
It took three barrels of oil to cover half of this landing, and he took out a lighter. "Everyone retreat to the first floor. Brother Wang, take my axe up. Be careful not to damage it. I'm going to light it now."
"Captain, perhaps I should do it. It might be a bit dangerous."
"It's fine. My recovery ability is quite strong, and the risk of explosion isn't high. You all retreat first. I'll be right there."
"Understood," Wang Zhihai nodded and took the others upstairs.
Seeing that they had all gone upstairs, Lin Yuan took out two sheets of paper, crumpled them into a ball, and lit them, throwing them over.
Then, holding up his shield for defense, he ran upstairs without looking back.
Roasted mushrooms, ready to be served.