Sensing that Inanna and Aiding's signals had finally moved away from the range of the Qis Rift, Lin Jun quietly commanded his puffshroom army to turn back.
This time, they encountered virtually no resistance as they entered the cavern battlefield that had previously been impossible to traverse.
After all... how could a pile of corpses possibly stop a puffshroom invasion?
The entire cavern was now stained with a layer of purple. When the puffshrooms arrived, the low temperature had already frozen all this purple blood solid.
Unlike Fifteen, who had carved through the puffshroom army like a whirlwind, slaughtering the surrounding puffshrooms into fragments, every Qis here had been killed with a single sword strike.
Either decapitated or cleaved in half—not a single corpse bore the marks of a second blade, not even the Evil Eyes.
The massive eyeball had been sliced vertically in two, then fallen from high above to splatter its juices everywhere.
Damn, that's way too strong!
Due to the distance caused by the Qis clearing away the fungal carpet, Lin Jun hadn't been able to directly observe the battle. But from his distant perception, Inanna and Aiding had merely paused briefly before passing through the cavern.
In other words, all these thousand-plus Qis could accomplish was making the Sword Saint pause for just a moment. So what about his puffshroom army?
Though he was deeply wary of this Sword Saint, Lin Jun still dispatched a scout puffshroom to follow them from afar, wanting to see where exactly the core was located.
As for now?
Considering that the Sword Saint and his group might return the same way, occupying this place now would be meaningless. Lin Jun decisively began transporting the corpses.
Meanwhile, the Qis seemed to have been beaten into depression, now cowering behind the rift and refusing to emerge.
Maybe they'd all been wiped out!
However, the puffshrooms Lin Jun sent to probe were still eliminated immediately, so they probably weren't completely without resistance capabilities.
After the humans repaired the core, these rifts would disappear, right?
Thinking about it this way, Lin Jun actually felt a bit reluctant to part with the Qis.
Unlike those miscellaneous monsters with their chaotic assortment of skills, the Qis had relatively unified abilities.
Decomposing the same number of corpses, monsters would provide Lin Jun with 10 different LV3 skills, while Qis would provide 2 LV5 skills.
It was really hard not to love them.
After half a month of this love-hate relationship, both [Refractive Invisibility] and [Cold Resistance] had reached LV7, not to mention acquiring [Petrifying Ray] and [Magic Shield] from the Evil Eyes.
Among these, [Magic Shield] was manageable—the puffshrooms had successfully integrated it and applied it in actual combat. The second-tier magic shield allowed puffshrooms to last 5 seconds longer under the Evil Eyes' gaze.
It was a level issue, Lin Jun understood. Considering the number of Evil Eyes, this skill could only be improved through his own gradual practice.
But [Petrifying Ray] was somewhat awkward—puffshrooms... couldn't grow eyes!
Previously, when decomposing other monsters, he'd acquired similar skills like [Far Sight], but unfortunately, after puffshrooms were equipped with them, there were no changes whatsoever.
[Petrifying Ray] wasn't quite that bad—there was still some effect, but only a little...
Within the fluorescent glow the puffshrooms emitted, there would be a very small range with an extremely weak petrification effect.
No way to control direction, range, or power—it was like spraying poison all around, an area-of-effect group damage.
But unlike the hallucinogenic spores, other puffshrooms and the fungal carpet weren't afraid of hallucinogenic spores, but they were afraid of petrification!
So when petrifying puffshrooms activated their ability, the first things to be petrified were the surrounding fungal carpet and other puffshrooms. Moreover, the petrification efficiency was quite touching—it took an hour or so to petrify a single layer of fungal threads on a puffshroom. Too awkward...
It wasn't completely useless—converting biomass into stone felt like it could have some applications, but using it against enemies was too far-fetched.
Suddenly...
The scout puffshroom... was eliminated.
...
Silver light flickered beneath his feet as Sword Saint Elvien's figure bounded forward in several leaps, catching up with the group that had stopped in place due to his sudden departure from the formation.
"I wondered what was sneakily following behind us—turns out it was this little thing." He waved the longsword in his hand, its tip still skewering a twin-winged puffshroom. "Look, it's one of these things again."
Fifteen stared at the impaled puffshroom and suddenly thought of something: "Speaking of which, weren't there some puffshroom corpses scattered in that cavern where the Qis were entrenched? It seems like not only the first ten floors, but even the deep layers have traces of their activity. I just don't know... whether they're from the same group as the ones above."
This was merely a small interlude. The Sword Saint casually tossed the scout puffshroom to the ground, and the team continued their journey.
However, despite such a small wound, the scout puffshroom failed to revive...
After a full two days of trekking following the guidance of the positioning crystal, the team finally approached the core area of their destination.
From the latter half of their journey onward, various grotesquely-shaped monsters suddenly multiplied.
Cunning cave giant spiders, flocks of shadow bats, venomous slime worms lurking in rock crevices... It was as if they had only now truly entered the crisis-ridden primitive ecosystem that the deep layers should possess.
They even encountered a super-giant earth worm exceeding level sixty!
Its massive body was like a mobile fortress, with thick rock armor and a grotesque, gaping maw that brought unprecedented oppressive presence.
It was precisely this colossal creature that became the only monster throughout their entire journey to force Sword Saint Elvien to strike a second blow.
The team finally reached a platform that was clearly different from natural caves. It was paved with some kind of smooth, cold black stone material, with regular edges, as if carved by a master craftsman.
No monsters would attempt to enter the platform's range, just like how they wouldn't approach the stairs of the first ten floors, making this place a dead-silent island of safety.
At the end of the platform near the entrance sat a single instrument covered in thick dust. Its metal casing had long lost its luster and was covered in grime, with only a few dim magical formations barely recognizable.
A trace of extremely weak magical fluctuation, like a candle in the wind, emanated from within—this was precisely that outdated magical fluctuation collection device.
At the far end of the platform stood an imposing, seamlessly integrated pitch-black gate. On both sides of the gate, two stone statues over ten meters tall with bizarre yet dignified forms stood in silent vigil.
The group didn't attempt to approach the gate and statues.
"Right here." Under Guge's direction, the accompanying mages skillfully opened the heavy crates they had carefully carried all this way.
Inside were numerous precision components gleaming with mithril light, crystal prisms carved with microscopic runes, and energy conduits.
Right beside that dust-covered old instrument, they began assembly work.
After half a day, a bizarre-looking new instrument full of magical technological aesthetics stood next to the old device.
With assistance from other mages, Guge personally operated this apparatus. Magical power flowed through his withered fingers, guiding powerful detection energy streams.
The energy fluctuations emitted by the instrument even caused slight distortions in the air at the platform's edge.
Time passed minute by minute. On Guge's aged face, the originally serious and focused expression gradually faded, replaced by an expression of incredulous shock. His brow furrowed deeper and deeper, and his complexion grew increasingly grim.
"What's wrong?" Everyone could see something was amiss, but only the Sword Saint asked directly without reservation.
Old mage Guge finally slowly raised his head, his wrinkles seeming even deeper. His Adam's apple moved with difficulty, his voice dry and heavy: "We... I'm afraid we're going to... lose the Amethyst Dungeon..."
"Why?"
"Because... as it appears now," Guge's voice carried the powerlessness of witnessing approaching disaster, "this is no longer the predicted level of magical current turbulence disorder. The core... the core's operation itself is gradually approaching a standstill, like a heart about to stop beating. The current situation is like trying to feed healing potions to a cold corpse... Even if we exhaust all our efforts to regulate the magical power, it would be futile..."
Guge then went on to explain a bunch of complex terminology that left everyone else confused. But the core meaning was ice-cold and clear: this exceeded the capabilities of these formation maintenance experts—the problem was beyond repair.
The Sword Saint gripped the sword hilt at his waist, his gaze sharp as a blade as it passed over the platform and fell upon those two silent, oppressively imposing stone statues: "What if you were to enter the core directly? Would there be even a glimmer of hope?"
Guge shook his head: "It's useless. When it comes down to it, what we master is merely the core's maintenance methods. The deepest level technology of dungeon cores... we never possessed it."
With Guge speaking to this extent, even the Sword Saint was at a loss. He glanced at the distant gate and said helplessly: "Then... we can only prepare to return."
Aiding beside him was slightly stunned, while Inanna covered her small mouth, her eyes darting about, not knowing what she was thinking.
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