#638Chapter 638 Super Mushrooms are DeliciousAI Model: gemini-2.5-flash
Chapter 638: Super Mushrooms Are Delicious
My Battle Fortress... has been taken!
This was likely the first thought that popped into Root of Mars's head when he faced the fully charged Annihilation Cannon.
Just a short while ago, Root of Mars had indeed sensed a problem with the Machine Spirit he left in the Battle Fortress; it had completely severed its connection with him. Root of Mars initially thought his Battle Fortress had completely disintegrated in space, and thus the backdoor he left (he didn't realize it was part of the Machine Spirit) was destroyed along with it.
But he never imagined that not only had the spaceship not disintegrated, but it had also fallen into the hands of others.
Despite lacking his core energy, someone was able to re-energize it, halt the spaceship's self-destruct sequence, and possess enough psychic power to control such a massive behemoth... Although there was no concrete evidence pointing to a specific target yet, Root of Mars's exposed brain, due to the shattered glass dome, immediately brought to mind Cheng Tian, the human who exposed the Martians' true nature as refugees.
Freed from its fixed core state and restored to its free form, Root of Mars's Agility attribute increased from 0 to 40. He could also achieve psychic flight through his powerful psychic energy. For such a massive body, 40 Agility was temporarily sufficient, at least for less intense aerial combat.
However, if he were to compete in flight speed with a Battle Fortress that could freely traverse between Earth and space using pure psychic flight speed, that would truly be asking too much.
Thinking of this, Root of Mars's massive brain, exposed to the air, began to exhibit extremely violent psychic fluctuations. Simultaneously, four metal pipes, still partially attached around his brain, resonated with the brain like Tesla coils.
This was Root of Mars's powerful ultimate attack in its second phase, an ability to directly convert psychic energy into the purest destructive waves, capable of destroying all units in a full 360-degree radius without blind spots—
Psychic Shockwave.
From a design perspective, this move was almost indefensible. Given the one-hit-kill nature of Metal Slug characters, as long as Root of Mars unleashed this move, death was inevitable.
The only way to counter it was to exploit a special game mechanic: when entering or exiting a vehicle, players and vehicles gain a brief period of invincibility, thereby forcibly negating Root of Mars's Psychic Shockwave.
In the normal game flow, when players are thrown out of the mothership, they receive a Metal Slug as a vehicle—one for a single player, two for two players. During the descent, Root of Mars, freed from the core's restraint, would actively attack, firmly gripping both Metal Slugs. The developers' original intention was for players to use these two immobile individual tanks, which could only function as fixed turrets, to complete the final boss battle.
Whether players discovered the true use of these two Metal Slugs, intentionally left by the developers, was entirely up to them.
Anyway, Cheng Tian didn't know this strategy back then. He just hunkered down in the vehicle and shot wildly. After the vehicle was destroyed by the shockwave, he was forced to activate the pay-to-play mode, using the 10 grenades that came with each respawn and the heavy machine gun given with each coin insertion to slowly grind down the boss.
Of course, in the game, it was possible to exploit an enter/exit bug to make oneself and the vehicle immune to the Psychic Shockwave. But in the current situation, the Psychic Shockwave's screen-clearing damage was real. If following the normal strategy, the players would have to face Root of Mars.
Speed and firepower were the biggest challenges in Root of Mars's second phase battle!
Without the 'original flavor' attributes, exploiting the vehicle bug was basically out of the question. Players had to use maximum firepower in a short time to destroy Root of Mars's brain, and during this time, they also needed enough health or defensive capability to withstand the repeated Psychic Shockwave releases.
Furthermore, entering the boss battle required a hidden qualification: possessing flight ability, a flying vehicle, or the ability to stay on Root of Mars's head without being thrown off... The overall difficulty was imaginable.
However, Root of Mars's Psychic Shockwave could easily destroy almost all flying projectiles and cause indiscriminate heavy damage to vehicles and living beings. But when facing an entire cosmic-class Battle Fortress, this shockwave likely wouldn't even penetrate the mothership's saucer-shaped outer armor.
Even the thinnest part of the hull was a full 100 meters thick.
There was a considerable difference between being able to control the mothership and being able to destroy the mothership.
Root of Mars naturally knew that his Psychic Shockwave couldn't significantly affect the spaceship, even in its damaged state... but he couldn't just wait for death.
Having successfully led his people to escape during the Venusian invasion and consistently protected them, Root of Mars certainly did not lack courage.
However, just as he released the Psychic Shockwave, preparing to resist the Annihilation Laser Cannon's output, he discovered that what was fired from the cannon's muzzle was not a high-energy laser, but a projection.
It was a projection of Cheng, styled like Professor X, wearing a helmet with wires, his backside embedded in a "toilet."
"Surrender. Your people still need your protection."
Cheng unceremoniously shifted the projection's view to his side, revealing a group of Martian units, tentacles intertwined, trembling in fear under the threat of the Doll Troopers' and Modern Troopers' guns.
Cheng Tian had found these units in a corner after synchronizing with the mothership. With his intervention, these Martians couldn't escape via the vehicle projection device.
Moreover, as units that participated in the psychic confrontation, they had also seen Cheng Tian's modeled Venusians in the psychic space. It could be said that their fear was directly maximized, and they had completely lost all thoughts of resistance... Who was the villain after all?
This was the thought that popped into a group of players' minds when they saw Cheng Tian unhesitatingly use hostages to threaten the boss.
Facing Cheng's threat, which was more villainous than any villain, Root of Mars responded as follows.
He reached into the stitches on his body with one claw, rummaged around, and then pulled out a mushroom covered in an unknown slime. It was a head-sized mushroom with a red cap and white spots, quite plump and thick, giving off a sense of abundant vitality. Then, he unhesitatingly shoved it into his mouth.
The next second, Root of Mars's body visibly expanded at high speed!
Red cap with white spots "poison" mushroom, body growing larger... "It's the Super Mushroom from the Mario dungeon! There's a traitor in the Martian faction!"
Cheng said this while fully activating a psychic scan of the ship's interior.
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