"You two, go inside and scout ahead."
Outside the cavern, the Viscount pointed at the deep passageway, her words making Hack's heart plummet like ice.
Having cleared the buried and airborne puffshrooms along the way, Hack had gained a thorough understanding of this floor's danger level.
As a level 42 Gold-rank adventurer, he had absolutely no chance of surviving alone on this floor.
Hack couldn't fathom how the local adventurers normally managed—did they only operate on the first four floors?
Now the Viscount wanted him and another person to scout this obviously suspicious tunnel together?
If a few explosive puffshrooms appeared in terrain like this, he had no confidence he could escape...
But he had no choice. Under the Viscount's oppressive gaze, Hack could only steel himself and walk inside.
The sloping upward tunnel was pitch black. Fortunately, Hack's illumination spell lit the uneven uphill path beneath their feet.
If he weren't a mage who knew illumination magic, perhaps the Viscount would have chosen someone else to go in, Hack thought to himself.
"Just how long is this passage?"
After hearing his companion complain like this for the third time, the two finally arrived at a chamber.
Finely polished stone walls, eight peculiarly shaped support pillars, and at the very back, a stone altar with a yellow-covered book upon it.
"Is that the holy scripture the Viscount mentioned?"
If he took it back to the Viscount, it would surely be a great achievement!
Hack thought this way, yet his body remained motionless.
His companion beside him had originally prepared to step forward, but after glancing at the immovable Hack, he gave a knowing chuckle and also stopped in his tracks.
Tch!
The type Hack detested—a cunning fellow.
At times like this, he found himself missing Short Axe, who would always foolishly charge ahead.
*Puff puff—*
During their standoff, four puffshrooms emerged from behind the stone altar—two scaled, two unscaled.
More puffshrooms?
Hack scanned the surroundings—no other monsters.
If it's just four puffshrooms...
Hack exchanged glances with his companion.
"I'll provide magical support."
This time his companion didn't refuse, nodding his head. The danger seemed manageable now.
Fourth-tier magic—Wind Speed!
Second-tier magic—Wind Blade!
The acceleration effect enhanced his charging teammate, and Hack unleashed a wind blade, planning to eliminate one puffshroom first.
The wind blade arrived first, but just as it was about to slice into the puffshroom, a black whip flashed past.
Like the clash of blade against sword, one puffshroom whipped out its bladed fungal tendril tail, perfectly intercepting the incoming wind blade.
"Huh?"
If the puffshroom had dodged, he could accept that, but directly dispersing the wind blade with a single lash—what the hell was that?
It wasn't over yet. Hack noticed the two unscaled puffshrooms across from them suddenly gathering massive amounts of magical power...
"Watch out!"
Fortunately, his teammate wasn't a novice either. He dodged the sudden magical explosion using his wind speed enhancement, then engaged in close combat with the scale-armored puffshrooms.
At this point, anyone who wasn't an idiot could see that these four puffshrooms were absolutely not ordinary—at least different from those outside that only knew how to self-destruct.
For a moment, neither side could gain the upper hand.
Hack decided to break the stalemate with something ruthless—ruthless toward his teammate!
More magical power gathered before his staff. After a considerable charging period—
Sixth-tier magic—Great Storm!
Countless spinning wind blades flew forward, indiscriminately baptizing the entire battlefield.
"Hack! You fucking %&)*&¥...@"
Amid his teammate's furious curses, the two unscaled puffshrooms were shredded by the storm, and even the two scaled close-combat puffshrooms suffered several cuts.
As for Hack's teammate, unfortunately, he became a bloody mess, though he wasn't dead yet.
But with only two heavily wounded puffshrooms remaining, a few more strikes would...
The smug Hack suddenly caught sight of a stone pillar beside him.
This pillar had been affected by the Great Storm, causing some of the outer rock layers to crumble away, revealing the white puffshroom flesh underneath.
A chill shot straight to Hack's skull!
His eyes quickly swept to the other pillars—beneath some fallen cracks, all showed the same white coloration of puffshroom bodies!
"Run!"
Hack turned and fled. Behind him came his teammate's angry curses, but Hack didn't care—that single warning was the extent of his moral obligation as a teammate.
Whether these puffshrooms hidden in the stone pillars were the explosive type or combat type, they clearly weren't something he could handle. Better to get out and report to the Viscount, let the Viscount decide what to do!
But when he finally managed to escape, what he saw was a field of craters and some familiar-looking corpse fragments, along with the Viscount battling in a sea of puffshrooms in the distance...
That's right, a sea of puffshrooms!
Countless glowing puffshrooms continuously bombarded the rapidly moving Viscount in the distance, while the Viscount kept transforming the blood in her hands into fine threads that shot out.
Hack could roughly guess where that mass of blood came from...
Although the Viscount's current appearance of taking on countless enemies single-handedly looked impressive, Hack instantly judged that she couldn't win—the blood in her hands was running low, while the puffshrooms on the ground were endless.
Even worse, Hack actually saw several puffshrooms that had been pierced by blood threads and should have died, lying down for a while before standing up again!
What kind of ghost fight was this!
Hack decisively pulled out a scroll from his pouch—Invisibility!
Then he cast Wind Speed on himself. Taking advantage of the Viscount drawing almost all the firepower, he made his escape!
Though he didn't know what the future held, at least preserving his own life for now was the real priority!
...
Lin Jun noticed this deserter, but since the puffshrooms were all focused on hunting the vampire, he couldn't be bothered to divert forces to deal with him.
He just generated some puffshrooms on the upper floors to block his path upward.
This time, Lin Jun deliberately didn't let Little Black take direct action—he wanted to test how he measured against a Diamond-rank opponent.
The result was that he took a small loss right from the start.
Every bat puffshroom struck down by the blood threads died without exception, all smashed to pieces.
Her blood manipulation abilities were even stronger than Lakus's. This kind of skill that could accurately attack multiple targets over a wide area was indeed formidable.
Though formidable, it couldn't be called a counter.
After suffering losses, Lin Jun deployed only ground forces, all equipped with [Fungal Reconstruction LV4].
Blood threads, being a low-trauma skill, even when they killed puffshrooms, the creatures could rise again before long under the effect of [Fungal Reconstruction].
Combined with the puffshrooms' staggering numbers, it created an effect of endless hordes.
The vampire across from him should have noticed this detail too, but she clearly had no solution other than drinking poison to quench her thirst.
Puffshrooms blocked her retreat, and the blood extracted from cannon fodder in her hands dwindled with each use...
In reality, even with more blood, she would struggle to break through. Manipulating blood also consumed magical power, and after fighting until now, she had little magical power left...
The all-angle, continuous attacks left her no chance to transform and escape. She could only futilely kill the puffshrooms gathering in front of her, over and over again.
At a certain moment, with her magical power exhausted, the vampire's remaining blood orb collapsed with a thunderous crash, yet the sea of puffshrooms before her still had no end in sight...
---
When Vera led the twins out of the dungeon, she instinctively stopped in her tracks.
Something seemed wrong?
The surroundings were too quiet—no passing adventurers, no sounds of small animals, and even the guards who should have been watching the gate were nowhere to be seen.
"Vera?" Felin asked in confusion.
After leaving the dungeon, Felin naturally became less vigilant.
"We're going back inside."
Though Vera didn't know what had happened, she decided to retreat and observe for a while.
Fourth-tier Light magic—Light Barrier!
A wall of light suddenly appeared behind the three, blocking their retreat, while the sound of dense footsteps came from beyond the trees.
Vera instantly drew the curved blade at her waist, standing on guard with Felin and Fion, while quickly searching for an escape route.
Soon they saw the insignia on their encirclers.
"The Church?"
A group of Church warriors formed a battle array, their meticulously maintained armor gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight.
"Our target is the demon race. You three, do not act rashly."
Priest Mane stood behind the formation, maintaining the light barrier while persuading Vera and the others not to resist.
Looking at the Church warriors who had them cornered—at least thirty of them, none below Silver rank.
Vera could only lower her weapon...
After a simple body search, they were cleared of suspicion.
This wasn't unexpected. Solarin's [Truth Sight] in the team hadn't reacted, indicating no demons among them, and with no suspicious items on their persons, they most likely weren't part of that demon group.
Mane and his team had already checked many adventurers like Vera throughout the day, but hadn't yet discovered that demon group.
*Bang—Bang bang bang—!*
Sudden sounds drew everyone's attention toward the dungeon entrance.
Hack appeared at the dungeon exit, disheveled and having lost his staff, frantically pounding on the light barrier with both hands.
"Quick! Let me out! Let me out!"
Suddenly, something seemed to hook him from a blind spot in everyone's vision, yanking him to the ground.
"Shit! Let go of me! Save me! Help—"
The piercing cry for help left everyone somewhat dazed.
Solarin leaped from the formation toward the gate, shouting loudly: "Mane, the barrier!"
Mane snapped to attention, quickly dispersing the light barrier blocking the exit.
However, when Solarin rushed into the dungeon hall, after searching around, she saw no one. The hall connected to several corridors, and that screaming man had been dragged into who knows which one. She only found a small box dropped on the ground.
"What's the situation?" Mane asked anxiously, catching up.
Solarin shook the box, pouring out several gray-white pills from within. "Mane, we might not be able to wait for that demon team..."
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