In the cavern where ancient wood intertwined with fetid mud pools, the sludge was thick as ink, swallowing all light scattered by the glowgrass above. A pack of mud monsters wallowed within, savoring the womb-like comfort of their domain.
Compared to the other magical creatures sharing this dwelling—beetles, swamp pythons, and mist frogs—the mud monsters' numbers had exploded like wildfire. Just days ago, their population had barely reached twenty.
This explosive reproduction was thanks to a "feast"—the corpses of puffshrooms, rich with magical power. Decomposing just one could trigger three divisions in a mud monster.
Their rapid proliferation was purely due to abundant resources.
One mud monster lazily half-floated on the swamp's surface, quietly dissolving the final third of a puffshroom within its body. Suddenly, its form trembled, and several bubbles rose with soft "plop" sounds.
Rising alongside them was a newly born individual, two sizes smaller than its progenitor.
The bewildered newborn mud monster grabbed a dead branch and stuffed it into its body. The puffshrooms had already been claimed by its elders—freshly born, it could only make do with twigs.
The sudden division had reduced the original mud monster's mass slightly. It sank to the swamp bottom, rolling around to replenish its body with muddy water.
Disturbances echoed from above the swamp.
When it surfaced again, the newborn had vanished, leaving only a branch broken into three pieces floating nearby. Its simple consciousness hadn't yet pieced together what had happened when a magic cannon blast struck its body with pinpoint accuracy.
*Splat—*
The mud monster's body exploded instantly, though it didn't die immediately. Mud monsters had no vital points—attacks merely drained their health. The remaining portions struggled to reform themselves...
A foot wreathed in tremendous force came crashing down!
The surviving remnants burst apart completely. The mud monster was truly dead.
Louisa waded forward with half her body submerged in the swamp, her face dark with displeasure.
Cavern Eight—not much time had passed since its occupation, and aside from mud monsters, other magical creatures were few in number. But this environment was disgustingly filthy, and she had no choice but to personally wade in to ensure every last mud creature was eliminated.
Even the blood of creatures living here reeked, killing her appetite entirely.
She remembered being disgusted during the first assault on Cavern Eight—never imagined she'd have to endure it a second time.
The puffshrooms adapted well to this environment, their two legs moving quickly enough to actually run across the swamp's surface.
Though numerous, most mud monsters were newly divided individuals that hadn't grown to maturity.
After just half a day, the entire cavern was cleared and made suitable for puffshroom habitation.
Thanks to the magical creatures not completely destroying the mycelium mat, Louisa didn't need to wait for it to spread like last time—she could proceed directly to the next cavern: the snake monster den they'd failed to capture previously.
Another tedious location. Louisa had already prepared herself to waste several days there.
However, when she actually stepped into the snake den's entrance, she immediately noticed something amiss—from the depths of the snake cavern, the omnipresent, scalp-crawling hissing and the rustling of scales against stone had vanished.
Snake holes of various sizes still dotted the rock walls, but no living creatures writhed through them anymore.
Louisa frowned as she ventured deeper, surrounded by puffshrooms.
The entire snake den was shrouded in suffocating silence, as if all the snake monsters had evaporated overnight.
At the cavern's deepest point lay a massive pit, its bottom layered with countless dried, grayish-white snake skins.
Using her night vision, Louisa spotted some broken snake eggs beneath the pale shed skins. Not naturally cracked after hatching, but trampled flat into the ground.
She then caught traces of scattered drag marks on the floor—not the serpentine S-curves of snakes, but brutal straight scratches, as if something heavy had been forcibly dragged away.
The air nearby carried the scent of snake blood, already faint. If she weren't a vampire, she probably couldn't have detected it.
"Wiped out by... something?" Louisa murmured to herself.
Predation?
But what kind of magical creature could do this?
These invaders had left behind nothing but useless shed skins and barely detectable traces of blood in the air—not even a single snake monster's bones remained. They'd eaten remarkably clean.
Even Lin Jun's mycelium mat would leave behind some hard bones difficult to decompose.
Ordinary magical creatures, after gorging themselves, always left scraps and debris—never this thoroughly.
But if it were slimes or similar creatures, there'd be no reason to leave the snake skins behind.
For a moment, Louisa couldn't think of any known magical creature whose habits matched the scene before her.
Looking at this snake den, drilled by snake monsters for who knows how many years to reach this scale—their ability to exist here so long proved there were originally no natural enemies capable of complete extermination in the vicinity.
Louisa figured it was probably something that had crawled out of a dimensional rift.
Surveying the area, she suddenly curved her lips upward: "Did I just get a freebie?"
Not having to eliminate the snake monsters herself was good news, right?
*Sniff—*
Just as she prepared to summon the puffshrooms to begin spore dispersal, Louisa's nose twitched slightly.
She caught a familiar scent...
Louisa raised one finger, a small blood orb coalescing at her fingertip. Instead of weaving blood threads as usual, she flicked her finger, sending that crimson drop to the ground.
A crescent-shaped crimson blade suddenly extended from the earth, sweeping forward like lightning!
A series of tooth-aching *crack* sounds erupted from seemingly empty air!
Light twisted and shattered strangely as countless disguised beetle corpses materialized from nowhere!
Purple fluid gushed violently from their sub-ten-centimeter bodies. Where the blood blade passed, it carved out a striking corridor of purple gore.
The death silence lasted only an instant.
The next moment, a spine-tingling cacophony of dense crawling sounds crashed down from all directions like a tidal wave!
The outermost puffshroom was instantly severed at two stubby legs by the vicious giant pincers atop a beetle's head, then completely engulfed by the surging beetle tide.
Then it triggered self-destruction...
Many insects were blown away, but even more swarmed in from the surroundings.
Louisa decisively transformed into a bat and flew outward at high speed—she had serious psychological trauma when it came to one-versus-many situations.
Simultaneously, with a thought, the puffshrooms too slow to outrun the beetles all turned and dove into the swarm, becoming brilliant fireworks.
"Boss! The guys you're looking for!"
The guys I'm looking for?
Lin Jun, who was teaching Norris skills, diverted part of his attention back to the front lines.
[Magic Perception LV7]
[Sound Wave Detection LV6]
The enemies Louisa encountered quickly appeared within Lin Jun's perception.
[Species: Chis-Pincer Beetle]
[Level: LV9]
[Racial Talent: Mindless]
[Fixed Effects: Mental Control]
[Skills: Cold Resistance LV5, Light-Bending Invisibility LV4, Giant Pincer Strike LV3, Chitin Shell LV3...]
Besides the massive number of beetles, Lin Jun also detected something Louisa hadn't noticed.
[Species: Chis-Eye Worm]
[Level: LV31]
[Racial Talents: Mindless, Levitation]
[Fixed Effects: Mental Control, Mental Node]
[Skills: Night Vision LV7, Light-Bending Invisibility LV6, Acceleration LV6, Cold Resistance LV6...]
So this was the eyeball Norris mentioned?
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