*Whoosh—bang—*
Another magically-infused cannonball exploded beside him, the splattered mud striking his face.
The four-meter-tall minotaur touched his bloodied and mangled abdomen—a result of taking several direct hits earlier. He knew he could no longer rely on his natural physical prowess to tank attacks as he had in the past.
Mindlessly charging forward would only result in being blown to smithereens, just like the giant spider beside him.
Under normal circumstances, if he had encountered this giant spider alone elsewhere, it would have been a life-and-death struggle between them.
But today, facing these suddenly attacking puffshrooms that launched indiscriminate assaults, these two mortal enemy races had no choice but to temporarily unite against their common foe.
In fact, right now he needed to borrow what remained of this giant spider's strength.
More precisely, he needed to borrow the rear half of the spider's massive torso—its thick abdomen.
The minotaur turned and swung his giant axe, severing the dead spider's abdomen. He grabbed this substantial piece with one hand, holding it in front of himself as a shield.
*Puff! Puff!*
Two more mushroom cannons fired, exploding against the spider's abdomen and spraying pale green bodily fluids, while the minotaur behind remained unharmed.
It worked!
The minotaur let out a low roar and, wielding this chunk of spider abdomen as a meat shield, charged toward the puffshrooms.
The minotaur wasn't the only one attacking the puffshrooms.
Mud slimes, crystal-shelled cluster beasts, demon-tusked boars, and the most numerous black shadow bats... they all surged toward the puffshrooms from every corner of the cavern.
This was a massive cavern that possessed the extremely rare freshwater resources of the deep layers, which attracted many different species of magical creatures to inhabit the surrounding area.
Any magical creature with basic survival instincts would avoid fighting near water sources, so as not to damage these precious resources. But those mushrooms clearly lacked such wisdom.
They carried out indiscriminate area attacks, slaughtering every living thing within sight.
Even during their initial assault, they had blown several poison lizards that were drinking by the lakeside into fragments, causing their toxic bodily fluids to seep into the lake water and contaminate the water source.
This behavior undoubtedly aroused the hostility of every magical creature in the cavern, temporarily uniting them under the common goal of confronting this shared threat.
*Moo—!*
Relying on the spider's abdomen, and thanks to other magical creatures drawing fire, the minotaur charged into the midst of the puffshrooms.
He tossed aside the spider abdomen that had been blown to bits, and the minotaur swung his giant axe in a great windmill motion!
The puffshrooms' fragile bodies offered no resistance to the axe blade whatsoever, even giving the minotaur the illusion that he was swinging at empty air.
But in reality, this single strike had eliminated eight puffshrooms.
Strike after strike, the minotaur swung the heavy giant axe until it became a blur.
After all, they were just weak creatures—once you got close, they were utterly vulnerable!
Immersed in the slaughter, the minotaur completely failed to notice several red blood threads rapidly weaving through the ranks of puffshrooms.
By the time he caught that pungent scent of blood, it was too late.
His thick fur and hard muscles couldn't stop these blood threads in the slightest. In just an instant, the minotaur's body was pierced through with several bloody holes, leaving him severely wounded.
The minotaur half-knelt among the puffshroom ranks, as several puffshrooms aimed their mushroom cannons at him.
A pale but powerful hand pressed down on one puffshroom's cap, gently turning it in another direction.
Louisa slowly walked forward, the puffshrooms actively clearing a path for her.
At this moment, her face was full and her bearing elegant—nothing like the wretched state she'd been in when she first descended here several days ago.
Clearly, for her, the food down here was much better.
Louisa herself stood two meters tall, and even though the minotaur before her was only half-kneeling, he still towered over her by a considerable margin.
Yet she didn't regard the minotaur before her with any concern.
The vampire directly inserted her finger into the minotaur's pierced arm, and accompanied by the minotaur's muffled grunt, she drew out a string of fresh blood and took it into her mouth.
Her other hand cupped her chin as her face revealed an expression of satisfaction.
Though not human, though carrying a slight bovine musk, this was at least the fresh blood of a humanoid intelligent being, and so vivid—the life force within the blood was so vigorous!
She was nearly intoxicated by it.
As Louisa closed her eyes to savor the taste, the severely wounded minotaur actually managed to stand up again through sheer willpower.
His right hand, still bleeding, raised the giant axe high and brought it down fiercely toward this woman who didn't take him seriously!
However, a single palm steadily caught the axe handle, and no matter how much force the minotaur exerted, he couldn't press it down even a fraction.
Only then did Louisa leisurely reopen her eyes.
Though not a strength-specialized race like the minotaur, the vast gap in levels still gave Louisa higher strength attributes than this minotaur—not to mention the minotaur was currently injured.
Looking at the minotaur before her who still refused to give up and wanted to strike with his fist.
Louisa lightly hooked her finger, and fresh blood poured out from the minotaur's wounds, gathering in her hand.
Before long, the minotaur would be drained dry.
"*Cough!*"
A sudden cough came from within the fungal network.
Louisa's hand immediately trembled, nearly spilling the blood orb in her grasp.
The deliciousness of the blood had almost made her forget the task assigned by that terrifying existence!
She hurriedly stopped extracting the minotaur's blood, even controlling herself to return a bit of it.
The boss's requirement—humanoid creatures, capture but don't kill!
Good thing, good thing—the minotaur still had a breath left. She definitely didn't want to experience growing mushrooms on her body again.
She looked with some reluctance as several pack-mule puffshrooms dragged away the unconscious minotaur—the final drops of blood before death were the most essential part.
What a pity that the boss's KPI came first; her life was far more important than a bit of gustatory pleasure.
Work, work...
She casually drew out some blood from dead magical creatures, condensing it into blood threads that shot toward the black shadow bats flying all over the sky, bringing down more than ten of the closest ones.
Looking at the countless magical creatures before her, Louisa had no intention of handling everything personally.
With a thought, the elite puffshrooms surrounded her and launched fierce attacks against the magical creatures.
She was only responsible for dealing with those lucky few that managed to slip through the network of fire.
In this puffshroom expedition force, she could directly command this elite puffshroom squad, which specialized in assisting her with handling some higher-level magical creatures.
As for ordinary magical creatures, they were handled by countless regular puffshrooms for cleanup.
Just like now—after discovering that the real trouble in this cavern was the swarm of black shadow bats flying chaotically in the air, the puffshrooms quickly deployed their own bats!
The troublesome aspect of black shadow bats lay in their elusive sneak attacks, while the speed of bat puffshrooms was nothing compared to black shadow bats.
But bat puffshrooms would explode the moment they were touched!
For a time, fireworks bloomed in the upper reaches of the cavern, as shattered fungal threads and broken black shadow bat corpses fell together.
The overall situation in this cavern was now decided.
Louisa drank down the remaining minotaur blood in her hand, her eyes becoming dreamy once again. Right now she only hoped she could stay down here forever and never return to that fifth layer filled with her painful memories!
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