How had the fissure already grown so large? If that opening expanded by another two circles, it would match the size during the demon tide. Speaking of which, the fissure that the slimes were suppressing had also enlarged considerably—what was originally a fist-sized crack had now expanded by about half. Fortunately, the two-colored slime was quite large in size and could still plug it for a long while.
Lin Jun's greatest fear now was that before one trouble was resolved, another would immediately arise, ultimately turning the entire deep layer into some kind of battle royale—the kind where there were no winners in the end.
The cavern where Qis's fissure was located was separated from the former snake den, now Puffshroom Fortress, by only three connected caverns. The distance was neither far nor near, precisely at a delicate alert range.
In fact, ever since suffering a loss at the snake den last time, Qis's activity range had obviously avoided areas where the fungal carpet had spread, seemingly wary of the puffshrooms.
But Lin Jun still relied on scout puffshrooms to track them down.
The search process was much easier than expected—the caverns that the Qis had "cleaned" were simply too "clean."
That near-predatory clearing left not only no life, but even moss and lichen had been swept away, leaving only bare, lifeless rock.
Following the emptied caverns, Lin Jun discovered the fissure's location within just a few days.
After Scout Puffshroom No. 1 was killed in action, Lin Jun immediately sent out No. 2 and No. 3 scout puffshrooms to conduct a circular reconnaissance around the fissure area.
The intelligence they brought back was simple: the Qis were conducting a massive, bloody hunt throughout the deep layer.
They were like tireless butchers, sweeping through the dark underground. Flesh, plants, even magic crystals—everything was being collected and transported back to their lair.
Lin Jun even discovered their "supply wagons"—creatures called [Qis-Packbeasts].
These creatures possessed eight thick, stubby legs covered in hard calluses, supporting their cumbersome but remarkably stable bodies. Most striking were their enormous stomachs that nearly dragged on the ground, making muffled gurgling sounds as they slowly undulated.
Their heads resembled oversized vacuum cleaners. When their massive mouths opened and closed, accompanied by deep "whooming" sounds, scattered meat scraps, broken shells, and even dirt and stones stained with nutritious substances were all forcibly sucked in.
Once their stomachs were stuffed full, they would turn around and slowly crawl back into the depths of the fissure.
Each group of packbeasts was accompanied by guardian species, clearly indicating these "transport vehicles" lacked self-defense capabilities.
Lin Jun's expansion brought life and order to the caverns. Each conquered cavern became a thriving fungal carpet kingdom, dotted with mushrooms and traversed by puffshrooms, forming a self-sufficient ecological node.
But the evil Qis clan was different—they only knew destructive plunder. They seemingly had no intention of moving their nest out, only wanting to use the fissure as a center to scavenge resources from the surrounding area.
Of course, they didn't visit every cavern. Those with powerful monsters were bypassed, high-temperature caverns with lava were avoided, and now they also bypassed areas with fungal carpets...
In fact, due to their clearing activities, the first few caverns of his territory had recently experienced a significant reduction in invasion pressure from wild monsters.
Honestly, if they were further away—say, seven or eight caverns distant—Lin Jun wouldn't bother with them. After all, considering logistics, their activity radius was limited.
But a mere three caverns' distance clearly fell within the range of potential surprise attacks.
However, trying to seal them back up wouldn't be easy. Setting aside whether he could even defeat them, just the low temperature around the fissure wasn't something puffshrooms could withstand.
After digesting that last batch of beetles, Lin Jun's [Cold Resistance] had finally reached LV5, meaning he could operate nearby but wouldn't be in good condition. In Lin Jun's view, this resistance needed to reach LV6 or even LV7 before puffshrooms could remain unaffected by the severe cold within.
The path to upgrading [Cold Resistance] naturally fell upon these Qis that had emerged from the fissure...
The fungal carpet had already begun spreading toward the Qis direction both above and below ground. The "below ground" naturally referred to burrowing puffshrooms digging forward while dispersing spores in the tunnel network.
Since they were still far from the decisive battle phase, and he couldn't let the Qis situation affect the expedition's progress—that would be putting the cart before the horse—Lin Jun only had about six hundred puffshrooms at his disposal.
With insufficient combat power, Lin Jun naturally set his sights on the relatively weak "supply train"...
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In a cavern filled with giant webs, some agile, reptilian-looking Qis were using sharp blades to cut the connection points between the webs and cavern walls.
Once all connections were severed, the webs would fall along with the prey remains stuck to them, to be devoured by the dozen or so packbeasts below.
As for the owners of these webs, they had been slaughtered by Qis assault forces a day ago.
A football-sized eye-creature floated in the center of the cavern, constantly turning in circles to survey the surroundings.
At a certain moment, its half-closed eyeball suddenly opened wide. A silent signal spread throughout the cavern and also transmitted to distant locations.
It had spotted puffshrooms approaching!
All packbeasts stopped feeding and began running toward the fissure, though even at full speed they were quite slow.
The guardian monsters, however, charged in the opposite direction, trying to reach the passage entrance to occupy advantageous terrain.
The previous encounter had taught them that puffshrooms had strong ranged attacks—they had to engage in close combat at places like passage entrances with corner cover.
Unfortunately, the puffshrooms were faster.
Over a dozen scale-covered puffshrooms rolled into balls and charged out first, diving straight into the Qis ranks and exploding with a "boom," flowing smoothly without the slightest pause.
The explosion scattered the scales from the puffshrooms' bodies in all directions, creating a fragmentation grenade effect. Large numbers of Qis were pierced by scales—not killed, but rendered combat ineffective.
The massive damage also caused the Qis' charging steps to hesitate slightly as they tried to spread their formation out rather than maintain their current dense arrangement.
Otherwise, without needing those ranged puffshrooms, a few more rounds of self-destructing would completely annihilate this batch of guards.
While they were reorganizing their formation, Lin Jun wouldn't wait. The puffshrooms successfully took their firing positions and subjected these Qis to artillery bombardment.
The already small number of Qis guards had few survivors after three rounds of mushroom cannon fire.
By this time, those packbeasts hadn't even managed to run from the cavern into the passage—they were completely like lambs awaiting slaughter.
The eye-creature in the sky, seeing the situation turn dire, prepared to flee. Its form blurred and disappeared from view.
However, under Lin Jun's dual perspective of [Mana Perception] and [Sonic Detection], he could see its location crystal clear.
Although the eye-creature was at high altitude where puffshrooms had difficulty hitting it, the squad soon had several bat puffshrooms jetting after it with their [Slipstream Propulsion].
Even though half of them lost control and spun wildly through the air, four still managed to catch up to the eye-creature.
With four explosions, the eye-creature's shattered body fell along with countless spores.
This bug, despite being over level thirty, had pathetically low health—it couldn't even withstand two puffshroom self-destructions, let alone four.
With the eye-creature eliminated, the dozen or so packbeasts on the ground immediately panicked, huddling together and trembling, while the puffshrooms swaggered up to them.
However, at this moment, [Sonic Detection] feedback indicated a big creature was approaching from the direction of the Qis' home base.
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