Fake Professor, Misunderstood As Strong-Chapter 296: Conspiracy. Part-1.

*Huff* *PANT* *HUFF*

A man wearing a dark black robe with reddish linings on it ran across a vast barren land.

While running, he frequently looked back, and a look of horror and fear was etched on his face.

His entire left arm was missing, and, in its place, a weird flower was growing on his body.

The flower had a humanoid face on it, and it was smiling creepily at the injured man while sucking his blood and mana to grow rapidly.

"H-help... cough! Cough!"

The man staggered and almost fell down while running; his toes bled from accidentally hitting a stone, but he had no time to stop and take care of his injuries.

His strength was slowly being sucked by that strange flower, which was grinning and laughing at him as if it was amused by his struggle.

After running for several minutes, the man’s legs gave away as the weird flower sucked all of his blood and started eating away at his internal organs with its roots.

The plant’s entire root system took hold of the man’s body and made him collapse on the ground.

"H-he...lp..."

Even while in such immense pain and trouble, the man didn’t stop moving; he used his hands to crawl forward and refused to stop.

As if he was more afraid of what was chasing him than dying.

He was afraid that the monster chasing him would catch up to him before he died fully, and the horror and fear of that monster were evident on his face.

"J-just... a b-bit more..."

With great difficulty and resolve, the man crawled forward as his entire body rubbed against the ground, and his clothes scratched, causing his skin to get injured.

Oddly though, there was no bleeding even after suffering serious wounds; in fact, the man did not have enough blood left in his body to even bleed.

The gigantic flower was laughing at him creepily while sucking his entire body dry like a blood-sucking vampire.

Before the man could crawl too far, a sound of steady footsteps rang in his ears.

"Ara ara~ You are such a cutie~ You managed to run so far even after I placed my little flower on you? You are sturdier than I expected! That’s so nice!"

A woman’s voice entered the man’s ears and made his entire body shudder in fear and horror.

That was the voice he didn’t want to hear ever again.

"N-no... no! no!"

The man started crying in despair as if his entire world had collapsed when the woman caught up to him.

"Oho? You are crying? A grown man crying like this? Hehe, you are so pathetic... I guess I overestimated you, hehe..."

"I am bored of you; you can just go and die~"

The gigantic flower immediately grew up in size, and its massive roots dug into the ground as it ate away the man’s entire body while sucking all of the nutrients from it.

Only the dirty clothes of the man were left hanging on the weird flower’s roots; there was nothing left of his body, as if he never even existed in the first place.

The only thing the man saw while dying was the grinning face of an extremely beautiful woman.

"Ahhh~ what a waste~ I want something else to play now~"

The woman grinned happily and stroked the giant flower; she used her mana to cast magic.

[Grade-3 Wood Magic: Plant Communication!]

The woman was none other than Luche herself; she used the spell on the flower and communicated with it to find out all the information that the flower had sucked out of the man.

This flower is a type of curse she planted on the man, and it sucks everything out of the victim, including their memories.

Luche can then communicate with the plant and gather whatever intelligence she wants.

As a half-fairy and half-succubus, her ability to cast curse magic along with the nature elementals like wood, etc., is very high.

"Hmm, oh!! So, you are saying that his fellow was escaping to their secret base, located here! I finally found the lead!"

Ever since Jareth told Luche about Zion’s powerful armor, she’s been tracking the members of the ’False Dome Cult’ and hunting them down to find the armor.

She plays with them, toys with them, and treats them like how a cat treats a mouse.

She lets them escape with the curse and then tramples on their hope to satisfy herself, and then she extracts all the information from them.

Most of the members of the cult are just mad, mentally disturbed people, and most of them don’t even have a functioning brain.

They just take orders from their cult and do whatever they are told.

The rest barely has any knowledge that is worth something; that’s why it took a lot of effort for Luche to finally get some information related to the False Dome Base that she’s been looking for.

The False Dome Cult is an organization that is very good at keeping itself hidden.

No one knows how many bases they have and where exactly Zion’s armor might be located among all of them.

Luche knew that the armor was something that was infused with tremendous amounts of light elementals, so it was likely not something that any random cultist could get close to.

Most cultists are corrupted by miasma and might get killed on the spot if they touch that armor; thus, there must be some special place prepared to store it. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Luche used this principle to track down cult members who were purchasing artifacts or items used for suppressing light elemental-related artifacts.

This way, she finally managed to find a solid lead.

"Hehe, then what’s stopping us. Let’s go!"

Without a single thought of hesitation, Luche flew in the air and shot toward the direction the cultist was trying to escape.

After flying for a bit, she reached a small valley hidden behind massive boulders in the barren wasteland.

She used her mana detection and found that there was a powerful illusion magic placed in the valley and a massive door was hidden at the bottom.

Without even bothering to investigate, Luche pointed her finger towards the ground and cast a spell.

[Grade-2 Wood Magic: Hand of the Tree God!]

A gigantic magic circle appeared in the sky above the valley, and a gigantic hand made of wood and plants appeared out of the magic circle.

The hand was so massive in size that one finger alone was as big as an entire city!

*BOOOOOM!!!*

The massive hand dug the entire valley and scraped out the hidden base right from the ground, like how a human hand can easily dig through an ant’s hill!

"AHHHHHH!!! WHAT IS THIS!!!!"

"WHAT IS THIS PLANT!!! MY BODY!!! MY BODY!!!"

Whoever came in contact with that massive hand, their entire body got affected by pollens, and a massive amount of plants started growing on their bodies.

The scene was horrific to watch as those blood-sucking plants ripped apart hundreds of cultists in a matter of seconds and sucked them dry in the most horrible way possible.

Some of them tried to escape, but they fell on the ground soon after as their bodies lost strength due to being sucked dry.

And some were swatted into meat paste by the gigantic hand on the spot.