Chapter 92: Chapter 92 Mushrooms

“Did you smell something?” Kheto asked, looking at Sedin.

Drew and Gio also looked at Sedin.

Sedin broke eye contact with Sylas and replied to his three companions, “No, nothing.”

The four of them walked towards Major Kyle and started to discuss how to deal with the purple mist.

All the ability users gathered together, trying to come up with a way to deal with the poisonous mist.

“We don’t know how far it stretches along the road. From the looks of it, the poisonous mist seems to extend for quite a long distance,” Major Kyle said.

“I have wind ability, let me try,” Gio said to them.

Everyone looked at Gio, who stood quite a distance away from the poisonous mist. Then suddenly, wind energy erupted from his body, and the nearby tree branches swayed in the air. Gio gathered the wind energy and, raising both hands, thrust it forward towards the poisonous purple mist.

The wind howled and slammed into the purple mist, but the wind didn’t even stir it. The wind scattered, and the poisonous purple mist still remained the same in place.

“What the hell?”

“Am I seeing things?”

“It neutralized the wind energy.”

“What a strange mist!”

“Unbelievable!”

The ability users who were watching uttered in surprise and shock upon seeing the scene.

Major Kyle also frowned at the scene. From the energy he had sensed earlier from Gio, he could tell that Gio’s strength was stronger than his.

“What? Gio’s wind ability got neutralized by the mist?” Drew said with a shocked expression.

“This is no ordinary mist,” Sedin said.

“If even Gio couldn’t handle it, we are out of the question,” Kheto also said, raising his brows.

Gio himself was shocked. He looked at the purple mist in front of him with his eyes wide open in shock. He had wanted to use his wind ability to clear the mist, but as soon as his wind energy touched the purple mist, he felt like it melted away just like lard in a hot pan.

Sylas also narrowed his eyes. Such a strong wind was neutralized by the mist, shocking everyone.

Gio slowly lowered his hands. The howling wind gradually died down, but the purple mist in front of him remained exactly the same.

It was as if the wind had never touched it at all.

Everyone stared at the mist with complicated expressions.

Major Kyle narrowed his eyes. “If wind can’t disperse it… and space can’t absorb it…” he muttered.

Sylas remained quiet.

He was thinking.

Earlier, when he opened the spatial rift, it should have swallowed a massive portion of the mist. Even if it couldn’t clear all of it, at least it should have reduced it. But it didn’t. Not even slightly. Which meant… either the mist was constantly being replenished, or the mist itself wasn’t the main body.

“Let’s try fire,” Major Kyle suddenly said.

Everyone looked at him.

“If wind can’t disperse it, maybe we can burn it.”

“That might work,” Dylan nodded.

Fire ability was destructive by nature.

Major Kyle slowly walked towards the purple mist. He gathered the fire energy in his palm. The heat around him rose rapidly, and the air distorted slightly. He raised his hand and threw the fireball into the purple mist.

Boom!

The fireball exploded inside the mist.

Flames roared, and the heat waves surged outward. Everyone stared intently, but then… the flames dimmed, and within seconds they were extinguished.

It was as if something swallowed the fire.

The purple mist remained unmoving and unchanged.

Major Kyle’s pupils contracted. “My fire…” he muttered in disbelief.

“It even suppressed fire…”

“This is too strange,” Shuan said seriously.

“It’s not about dispersing the mist. It’s about stopping whatever is producing it,” Sylas said.

Gio’s eyes flashed.

“You think there’s a source?”

Although they had searched for the source and couldn’t find it, Sylas believed that there must be a source.

“There must be,” he said in a firm tone.

Gio nodded.

“That makes sense. Nothing appears without reason.”

Sedin suddenly crouched down near the edge of the mist. He leaned forward slightly, but he did not step inside. He inhaled deeply.

Everyone tensed.

“What are you doing?” Drew asked.

Sedin narrowed his eyes.

“I still can’t smell anything…”

“That’s strange,” Kheto muttered. “Even poison usually has some scent.”

Sylas stepped closer as well, stopping right at the boundary where the purple mist hovered over the road. The mist did not swirl, and it did not drift either. It simply hung there quietly, covering the road like a layer of thin fog.

But everyone knew it was anything but normal.

“Don’t get too close,” Major Kyle warned.

Sedin lowered himself further and squinted at the ground.

“There’s no smell at all,” Sedin muttered. “No poison scent. No… nothing.”

Sylas’ eyes flickered slightly. Something must be generating this poisonous mist.

He lowered his gaze. “Shuan,” Sylas called.

“Yes?”

“Lift a small section of the road at the edge. Slowly.”

Shuan nodded.

He crouched down and pressed his palm onto the ground. Earth energy flowed into the soil. The cracked asphalt trembled slightly. Carefully, he lifted a thin layer of broken asphalt and dirt, just enough to reveal what was underneath without disturbing too much of the mist.

The soil beneath was dark and damp. At first glance, nothing seemed unusual.

Everyone stared silently.

“See anything?” Dylan asked.

Shuan shook his head.

“Nothing special…”

Sedin leaned closer.

He narrowed his eyes and shifted slightly to the side to get a better angle as the sunlight fell across the exposed soil.

Then…

“Wait.”

His voice became low.

“What?” Gio asked immediately.

Sedin pointed at the ground. “There,” he said, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Everyone focused. At first, they saw nothing. Then slowly, as their eyes adjusted, they noticed it.

Tiny purple dots were extremely small and scattered across the damp soil.

“…What are those?” Drew whispered.

Serena stepped closer and observed it carefully.

“They look like…” She hesitated slightly.

“…mushrooms,” she said.

The tiny purple spots were mushrooms. They were so small that they were barely visible to the naked eye. If not for all of them being awakened humans with sharper vision than normal humans, they wouldn’t have noticed them.

They were thin and short, like grains of sprouting rice, with faintly purple caps. If one didn’t look carefully, one would assume it was just dirt particles. But they were everywhere, covering the cracked soil beneath the asphalt.

Sylas’ eyes sharpened.

“Don’t touch them directly.”

Gio immediately stopped Drew, who had subconsciously moved his boot forward.

“Careful.”

Shuan slowly lowered the lifted asphalt piece back down.

“So these are producing the mist?” Kheto asked uncertainly.

As if answering him, one of the tiny mushrooms trembled slightly. A thin strand of purple vapor rose from its cap, and it joined the larger mist layer above.

Everyone saw it clearly this time.

“No way…” Leo breathed out.

“They’re releasing it continuously,” Serena said softly.

Major Kyle’s expression turned grim.

“That means this entire stretch of road…”

“…could be covered with these things,” Sylas finished.

They all looked toward the long stretch of purple mist extending down the highway. It faded into the distance. No one could see where it ended.

“We don’t know how far it stretches along the road,” Major Kyle said seriously. “From the looks of it, it could extend for a very long distance.”

Dylan let out a low whistle.

“This is going to be troublesome.”

Gio crouched down carefully and picked up a small stone.

“Let’s test something.”

He threw the stone gently toward a patch of exposed soil.

The stone landed and crushed several of the tiny mushrooms.

Pfft.

A visible puff of purple mist burst out instantly. The mist above thickened slightly for a brief moment before stabilizing again.

Everyone stiffened.

“So damaging them releases more mist?” Drew said.

“It looks that way,” Sedin replied quietly.

“Don’t destroy too many at once,” Sylas said calmly. “If we trigger too much at the same time, the mist could thicken rapidly.”

Major Kyle nodded.

“Then we need to clear them carefully.”

Shuan frowned. “Even if we dig out the soil, there will be more underneath.”

Serena’s brows knitted together.

“Fungi spread underground,” she murmured. “There might be a network beneath the surface.”

That made the situation even worse.

If the mushrooms were connected underground, removing surface ones wouldn’t be enough.

Gio stood up slowly.

“Let’s check how deep they go.”

Shuan inhaled deeply and once again pressed his palm to the ground, this time at a spot slightly outside the mist’s boundary.

The soil shifted slowly. A thin layer of earth peeled back. More tiny purple mushrooms were visible beneath the topsoil.

And below that, even more faint purple threads intertwined in the dirt like hair.

“Roots…” Serena whispered.

“Not roots,” Sylas corrected calmly. “Mycelium.”

Even though no one was a scientist, the structure was clear enough.

It had formed a dense network beneath the road, spreading and producing mist upward.

Kheto swallowed.

“So if we don’t destroy the network…”

“It will keep spreading,” Gio finished.

Major Kyle exhaled slowly.

“We can’t just turn back.” Behind them were civilians, soldiers, and vehicles. This highway was their direct path forward.

“We need to clear a path,” Major Kyle said firmly.

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