"Didn't they say..." Fifteen halted his steps, surveying the vast cavern before them—dead silent and utterly barren of life, his voice carrying a trace of confusion, "that the deep layers of the Amethyst Underground City are crawling with dangerous magical beasts everywhere?"
This was already the third cavern they had traversed since entering the deep layers.
As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but jagged gray-dark rock walls and crushed stone and dust covering the ground.
Forget about the ferocious magical beasts they had anticipated—they couldn't even spot so much as a patch of moss.
"It used to be quite lively before," the Sword Saint walking ahead replied without turning his head.
"How long ago?"
"Uh..." The Sword Saint's steps paused momentarily, as if searching through his memories for some vague point in time, "About twenty years ago?"
Fifteen fell silent. Information that was twenty years out of date was utterly meaningless...
Inanna, meanwhile, stared downward without speaking. She could sense... beneath the rock layers, there seemed to be the presence of mycelium...
The thought of mycelium made her start suppressing her urges again.
She had been struggling with restraint ever since they had made their way down from the first layer.
How she longed to transform into a puffshroom and lie upon the fungal carpet, that feeling of merging with the mycelial network, carefree and filled only with peace.
It hadn't been so bad when she'd never experienced it, but once she had tasted it, returning to that feeling of being cut off from the mycelial network, all alone—it was truly terrifying.
However, the mycelium beneath her feet seemed buried rather deep, making her perception quite hazy.
She couldn't help but glance at Aiding, only to see him looking straight ahead as if he hadn't noticed anything at all.
...
At the other end of the cavern, where the Chiss Rift was located, a battle concerning the survival of their homeland was raging.
This time, the Chiss had become the defenders.
Countless Chiss of various forms packed the cavern, pressed against the jagged rock walls and natural cover, forming a barrier of flesh and blood as they desperately resisted the assault of the puffshroom army.
Having dealt with these puffshrooms for the better part of a month, the Chiss knew all too well what kind of hellish creatures they were facing—they absolutely could not allow the puffshrooms to seize control of this rift.
Otherwise, even its main nest would face the risk of annihilation.
Fortunately, occupying the advantageous terrain gave the Chiss a moment's respite.
Beholders floated against the upper rock walls of the passage, pulling their altitude as high as possible to prevent the heavy-armored puffshrooms' massive explosions from harming themselves.
At the same time, through petrification rays projected vertically downward, they prevented the heavy-armored puffshrooms from providing cover for other puffshrooms.
The other Chiss forces took the opportunity to focus fire on heavy-armored puffshrooms that had no other puffshrooms following them. Using this tactic, the Chiss had forcibly contained the surging offensive near the passage entrance.
Meanwhile, the frigid terrain was quite disadvantageous for the puffshrooms. Although this batch of puffshrooms were all equipped with [Cold Resistance LV7] and wouldn't freeze, they couldn't handle the icy ground.
Those smooth stubby legs were extremely prone to slipping on the ice surface. Just advancing required extreme caution, and when firing mushroom cannons, they would spin in circles and slide backward from the recoil.
In contrast, the Chiss could easily pierce through the ice surface with their sharp claws, gripping the ground firmly. They moved and struck with agility on the ice, demonstrating their flexibility advantage to the fullest.
The battle situation thus fell into a brutal war of attrition, with both sides like tireless millstones, continuously feeding low-level cannon fodder into the meat grinder of the passage.
Besides the mutual consumption, another contest was playing out on the battlefield—fighting over corpses.
Whether Chiss or puffshroom remains, the moment they fell, figures would immediately pounce, dragging them away to quickly disappear into their respective camps' rear areas, never leaving any recoverable resources for the enemy.
Because of this, despite the fierce battle having continued for some time, the scene of corpses piled like mountains did not appear within the passage. Only scattered mycelium and purple blood were spread around the passage walls.
At a certain moment, the puffshrooms suddenly ceased their attack and departed!
But this wasn't defeat—it was an orderly retreat, so the Chiss made no attempt to pursue.
After all, it was already giving its all just to defend the rift...
Moreover, what made the Chiss uneasy was that at the beginning of the engagement, it had discovered some entities among the puffshroom ranks that could maintain [Magic Shields]. Although they were quite fragile and were immediately pierced by [Petrification Rays], the implications behind this filled the Chiss with dread.
If possible, it wanted to close the rift right now, but unfortunately, this wasn't something it could control...
However, what it didn't know was that the puffshrooms had departed for the simple reason that they had detected other people approaching!
In a certain passage connected to the rift cavern, an eye worm floated quietly, with over a dozen Chiss below responsible for protecting it.
Frontal assault to draw fire, while another force launched a sneak attack from behind, followed by a pincer movement from front and rear.
After suffering several losses at the hands of the puffshrooms, the Chiss had learned to be clever.
Even with the front lines in such dire straits, it still maintained reconnaissance forces in other passages to prevent ambushes.
This time, however, it hadn't detected puffshrooms, but rather a group of... creatures somewhat resembling demons.
From a distance, before it could observe clearly, all the Chiss including the eye worm lost contact in an instant.
A new threat!
...
"Finally ran into some magical beasts—I was starting to think they'd all vanished! But... why is this blood purple? What kind of weird species?" Fifteen crouched down, curiously poking at the still-warm Chiss corpse on the ground with his sword sheath.
The mage Googe stared at that pool of blood, thick as syrup and purple in color, his brow furrowed deeply. His lips moved soundlessly several times, but ultimately he said nothing.
Inanna nearby was more concerned with another issue: "It was actually invisible! Uncle Elvain, how did you detect it from so far away?" Her eyes widened with curiosity.
"It was the qi—" Fifteen had just started to explain when he was struck by a precise side kick from the Sword Saint beside him, hitting his rear and sending him stumbling aside.
"It's 'qi sense,' little one," Elvain retracted his foot with a cheerful smile. "You can directly sense the presence of things around you. The stronger they are, the more conspicuous the target becomes. How about it, little Inanna? Want to learn?"
Inanna thought for a moment, then shook her head: "Never mind. Father said most people can't learn Uncle Elvain's techniques, and besides..."
She raised her delicate hand lightly, and moisture in the air instantly condensed.
A water serpent as thick as a rice bowl and gleaming sapphire blue took shape with a hiss, coiling gracefully around her side. Its serpentine head rose alertly, scanning the surroundings with vigilant eyes.
It didn't matter if Inanna couldn't detect enemies—elemental spirits had their own independent enemy-detection techniques!
"Tch, almost forgot you had that ridiculous thing..."
The party continued deeper into the passage. Fifteen, who had been rubbing his rear and grumbling complaints under his breath, suddenly fell silent, his body tensing. The water snake on Inanna also entered combat readiness.
The passage opened up dramatically at its end, but the scene that met their eyes made everyone's hearts sink.
Ahead, a mass of black, grotesquely-formed Chiss army stretched out like a silent reef formation. Countless cold gazes focused on them in unison, carrying undisguised hostility.
Further away, several bloated carrion worms writhed as they greedily devoured the last remaining corpse fragments of Chiss and puffshrooms from the battlefield, producing nauseating slurping sounds.
Above it all, a massive beholder floated soundlessly, emanating the oppressive presence unique to giant beasts.
But most eye-catching of all was the enormous spatial rift in the center of the cavern.
"So it really is Chiss..." The old mage Googe's voice rumbled low, carrying a note of realization. "No wonder the areas we passed through before were like dead zones, devoid of all life."
"Chiss? What are those?" Fifteen kept his eyes fixed on the spine-chilling swarm ahead, gripping his sword hilt tightly.
"A type of magical beast that dwells in the bitter cold lands of the far north," Googe quickly explained. "In theory, humans could go their entire lives without seeing their traces. This is my first time seeing them in person... I never expected there would be a rift connecting to such a distant place!"
"Alright, alright, we can continue the lecture later," the Sword Saint rubbed his nose—the smell in this cavern was truly unbearable. "Let's get through here quickly!"
With that, he flicked his wrist, and the long sword at his waist was already unsheathed. Along the blade's surface rippled a layer of condensed and pure magical radiance.
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