Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

Craft easily and effortlessly dodged the incoming host body sideways. Its explosive movements were not inferior to those of a living person, but it was so upright that it had no reservations. What made it difficult to deal with was that its appearance was confusing and its power movements were counter-intuitive. It could only rely on Pure reaction speed response.

Leveraging its own inertia, the sword blade cut through the left waist as it shifted, splitting half of the abdominal cavity in two.

This thing may not be consistent with biology, but at least it is very consistent with physics. The incision inevitably tilted the mushroom-filled torso to the left, restricting movement. He used the counterweight to hit the spine where the mycelium was connected, causing it to fall in front of Coop.

"Don't hit your head, break your legs first."

Without looking back and saying a word, Kraft faced another bloated body full of Schizophyllum hepatica, and used the length of his weapon to cut off half of the opponent's arm. Unexpectedly, he saw the body combined with the fungus. The remaining muscle tissue shows a brown-black rust color that is incompatible with the yellow and white mycelium due to the deposition of oxidized iron components.

The fungi woven into the muscle fiber bundles seem to be replacing nerves and blood vessels, allowing those functional tissues that should die with the body to be manipulated and used when necessary, inaccurately imitating the activities during life.

To those who are sensitive to this, this activity may seem pathological or even disposable.

The sudden tight tension exceeded the structural load limit, and because of the lack of pain reflex, the patient continued to execute unfinished action instructions after being cut, aggravating the injury until it pulled itself apart.

From a normal biological perspective, this may be a very uneconomical solution.

But its essence is hard to say whether it is the body or the fungus that lives on it. There is no need to consider this issue. Being entangled with something like this, unless someone helps cut off its limbs, it is impossible to escape in a short time.

And once you fail to escape within half a minute, someone has already personally demonstrated the consequences.

There is still a long way to go before the painful lessons can be translated into practice. Even if you are reminded that you need to adjust your strategies, the habits formed through training cannot be adjusted immediately.

There is no fatal blow and it is difficult to predict the next move. The most embarrassing thing was that he was wearing armor but not full-body armor, which was of no benefit to the situation. It also slowed down the action, and soon there were people who couldn't react in time and were attacked.

In the peripheral vision, a guard on the edge of the battlefield was stabbing the victim's neck. The body with unimpaired athletic ability caught him with the blade of the sword at the next moment. The rotten wood-like arms covered with fungi were tightly wrapped around the chainmail for protection. upper body, knocking him to the ground.

The companion pushed the host away with his shield, broke its thigh with a hammer, and turned around to rescue him. However, the body holding the target made a sound of popping dry pods, and the bloated head like a silk crown opened, and dust clouds erupted. The mixture of deep purple-red and dark yellow spread and faded in the air, and quickly changed color as it faded. Showing an indescribably rich variety of tones.

The dry cough and wheezing caused by the dust mist spread simultaneously with the color. The affected person hurriedly distanced himself, but the nearest shield-wielding guard could not dodge. After escaping for a few steps, he weakly grabbed his throat and fell down, losing himself in the deep and futile breath. consciousness.

"spread!"

In several rounds, Martin managed to cut his opponent's thigh tendon and shatter his patella, and he immediately noticed this scene and shouted a reminder after he was able to escape.

He felt like he was inhaling the dust when he opened his mouth. They were everywhere. Just a little bit of it would give him a burning and scratching discomfort in his throat. Inhalers with more severe symptoms coughed and their faces turned red and their eyes bulged. However, the body controlled by the fungus did not wait for their slow relief, and a chain reaction of deterioration occurred in the corner of the battle.

Those powder particles looked very heavy, and the clouds formed after they were sprayed spread out and began to settle and dissipate not far away, with a limited spread.

"Ahem... cover your face!" Martin coughed and warned, pulled out a dagger, pierced the elbow of the mottled arm that hugged him from behind, and twisted left and right to disconnect the unexplainable rope.

He felt something clinging to the back of his helmet, like an expanding water bag or an overturned cow's stomach. The bumps and mesh pleats came alive, looking for a breakthrough in the metal.

Before a certain "sac" burst open, Martin held his breath and severed the tendon across the elbow joint, broke free, and threw the dangerous guy towards another of the same kind rushing through the defensive gap.

They collided and fell, and the caps of the hemispheres cracked and released psychedelic-colored dust, which quickly shriveled up.

The command had basically failed. In order to keep the distance, everyone was fighting independently in the camp. At this time, when he had a little breathing space, he realized that his side did not encounter a numerical disadvantage.

According to what I saw during the day, the number of those things was at least three times theirs. There might be more in unseen places. If they were swarmed, there would be no chance of survival.

As far as we can see now, there are only twenty or thirty beautiful bodies moving in the camp. Most people can only block one, and at most they will be attacked from the front and back and fall into danger. They can barely cope with each other's help.

And several people were already lying next to Kraft. He is the main force to induce the enemy to attack, relying on his excellent timing and sense of space to pass by.

Anyone who passes by him will have a wound that destroys their running balance, causing them to fall out of balance, and the follower with the hammer will follow up and hit the connection between their torso and thighs.

A hip joint that has lost the protection of thick fat and meat pads and is osteoporotic may not be able to be cut off, but it is really vulnerable to striking weapons. Even if the smash is not accurate, the femoral neck segment next to it, which is a famous fracture risk area, will shatter into an orthopedic nightmare.

The deliberately selected position for striking the sutra is much more efficient than the knee. Kupu usually only needs two hammers to complete the task, and he can also find time to add another hammer to the upper limbs to ensure that they do not crawl around.

At a cursory glance, Martin found that there were several familiar faces missing among the people standing, including a knight conferred by the Duke. The threat of death greatly accelerated the ability to observe and adapt. They knocked down several times as many attackers as casualties, while the density of enemies on the field did not seem to change much.

Even with Kraft and Martin knocking down a few quickly and putting out fires everywhere, the pressure would only be relieved briefly, and they would soon fall into a state of being suppressed again.

They have reduced from their twenties and thirties to their early twenties now. Their number has been exceeded by the remains on the ground, and there are always new ones to replace them.

He kicked open a crawling host body, sheathed his sword and picked up the two-handed ax left by the fallen servant. Avoiding the head, he slashed at its shoulder blades and chopped a section of its spine into pieces. When Martin was about to chop it up completely, he was surprised to see that the thing didn't move any further.

He thought these things had to be burned to kill them completely, but it just stopped.

This discovery caused the attention to shift from looking up to the feet. Most of the mushroom-hosting bodies with various injuries and completeness were already stationary, and only a small number were still trying to get closer to the living.

And the common feature of this small part of the activity is...can you still crawl?

As long as he still retains the ability to move, the one with most of his torso damaged can still crawl. On the other hand, Kraft's only one with broken hips and arms, even if his appearance is 90% intact, is still dead.

"Professor, Professor Kraft!" Martin fended off the body that rushed out from behind the tent and moved closer to Kraft. He felt that he had realized something important. He could not be distracted by the underlying pattern behind this weird fueling tactic. Sum it up.

These horrific-looking bodies are not the point.

"Look at those things on the ground, they don't look right!"

Martin believed that Kraft's thinking didn't require much reminder, just that he should pay attention to the problems he discovered.

"Huh?" Kraft responded while dodging the attack and casually cutting off a structure that was probably part of the original quadriceps muscle. He also stretched out his foot to trip it up and handed it over to Coop.

He just knocked down any guy who was still standing with a mushroom on his head. He didn't feel any pressure. Someone who fell to the ground would take over. It was only then that Martin reminded him to pay attention to his defeated soldiers.

The consciousness records what it sees, quickly compares and evaluates the body crawling or standing still in the dust and grass, and comes to a very subjective conclusion.

It seems that their life and death has nothing to do with the vital points and the degree of damage, but has a clear purpose of "selectivity"? Once again, he recalled the ideas that had arisen during his first contact.

[This is unreasonable for individuals]

An individual rarely spares his own life, and this is no exception among the deep creatures he has come into contact with. He will avoid harm or respond to it.

This is not reflected in their behavioral patterns.

After Kupu destroyed the hip and shoulder joints, the body no longer moved, as if it was controlled by some kind of consciousness or soul that gave up and left on its own initiative.

[This is not its body]

It's not a long-dead human, or a fungus, or a combination of the two, it's nothing. They still face some kind of invisible and intangible threat, the nature of which is unknown.

In the direction of the village, another body hosting a fungus emerged from the forest. The team seemed to have achieved a lot of results, but in fact they made no progress, repeatedly killing consumables driven by unknown things, and there were still many such consumables.

Kraft can keep up with it, but others may not be able to, especially knights wearing full body armor, whose physical strength will be exhausted faster. After losing this group of backbone forces, it will not take long for the front to collapse.

However, its ability limitations are also obvious. There is an upper limit on the number of controlled bodies, and the behavioral logic seems to be very rigid?

"Coop, just try to break the legs next!" It's better to leave more crawling ones than to get new ones, and this is the only way to try now.

Kraft turned over a host body heading toward Martin, pinned it to the ground with the sword he picked up, and watched as it twisted and twitched, unable to break free on its own or suddenly stop.

The moving fungus reminded him that his first encounter with this phenomenon was not today, but in the Duke's lungs.

"Martin, where did those heretic corpses end up?"

"Most of them were dealt with by others." Martin was first confused as to why Kraft mentioned things far away in Westminster for no reason during the battle, and then suddenly got stuck.

Without the helmet and visor, Kraft would have definitely seen the drastic change in his expression.

"But I kept a few of them, thinking they might be useful..."

"ah?!"