Not only do the Zerg love peace, but the puffshrooms' yearning for peace is equally fervent!
Look here—as soon as they crossed the rift, the puffshrooms eagerly threw themselves into the "purification" cause, diligently sweeping away those obstacles that hindered peace, such as certain magical creatures that kept respawning at the edges of the creep!
A scale-covered, corpulent puffshroom rolled clumsily into the rift and was immediately met with acid attacks from the Zerg.
Through multiple skirmishes, the Zerg discovered that acid was far more effective against puffshrooms than other methods—wide area of effect, capable of killing multiple targets at once, and difficult to dodge.
Puffshrooms with only 10 health would die instantly upon contact, and were difficult to revive.
The only drawback was the short range, which would result in being overwhelmed when trading shots with the puffshrooms' mushroom cannons.
However, as a defensive measure for blocking passages and maintaining stability, acid was incredibly effective!
But this tactic clearly had no effect on the corpulent puffshroom.
The corrosive "hissing" sound echoed from the fat creature's body, yet it couldn't kill it instantly. The next moment, a deafening explosion erupted at the rift's entrance!
Accompanying the shockwave were countless sharp scales flying outward!
In an instant, the front-line Zerg were riddled with holes, turning into a pile of rotting flesh.
The Zerg's firepower weakened considerably for a moment. Taking advantage of this opening, more puffshrooms surged in.
The Zerg reacted swiftly as well—backup forces quickly filled the gap, attempting to drive the puffshrooms back, but the puffshrooms clearly wouldn't easily abandon the territory they had already occupied.
In the end, it was only with the help of a hurriedly arriving Evil Eye that a large swath of the invading puffshrooms were turned into stone sculptures, barely managing to push the battle line back.
However, just this one action nearly cost the Evil Eye its life!
Faced with the suddenly appearing Evil Eye, an armored puffshroom detonated itself without hesitation.
Its body exploded like a powder keg, and the tremendous impact force launched the giant mushroom cap on its head like a cannonball!
Unfortunately, the angle was tricky—the mushroom cap tumbled through the air, missing its target, and with a tremendous crash, embedded itself firmly into the rock wall above the Evil Eye's head!
Debris rained down like a shower. The Zerg hastily concealed the Evil Eye again, not daring to expose it carelessly anymore.
However, after losing the Evil Eye's strategic deterrent, the Zerg inevitably began to fall into a disadvantage in the struggle for the rift entrance.
When the two thousand puffshrooms serving as the vanguard had lost more than half their numbers, and puffshroom fragments could actually float on the viscous purple blood flowing from the Zerg, Lin Jun finally deployed the piglets to the other side of the rift.
The moment Louisa's figure stepped across the rift, she elegantly raised her arm—
A massive shield formed from viscous purple blood rose thunderously, blocking the acid and spikes attacking from all directions!
Following closely behind were a group of vampire puffshrooms!
【Blood Manipulation LV4】
Due to the lack of acquisition channels and having to train on their own, the skill level wasn't high, but these were genuine puffshrooms with vampiric blood manipulation abilities!
On a battlefield abundant with fresh blood, they could be far more useful than ordinary puffshrooms!
With the vampire puffshrooms joining in, the task of maintaining the blood shield was quickly handed over to them.
They manipulated the inexhaustible purple blood on the battlefield, erecting somewhat thin but continuous purple barriers in front of the puffshroom army.
Although the individual blood shields weren't as strong as Louisa's, they made up for it in numbers. Multiple blood shields overlapped and covered each other, with purple blood flowing endlessly, forcibly blocking the Zerg's attacks.
Meanwhile, Louisa freed her hands to display her specialty—blood threads.
Countless blood threads, thin as hair and moving like living venomous snakes, deftly wound around the gaps in their own blood shields and shot into the Zerg positions!
The blood threads shuttled, coiled, and sliced through the swarm... Ordinary Zerg had no way to defend against such eerie and cunning attacks, while their counterattacks were all firmly blocked by the puffshrooms' blood shields.
At the same time, more cannon fodder puffshrooms continued pouring in like a tide.
The Zerg still wanted to struggle, but as soon as the Evil Eye returned, it was targeted by several blood threads. Multiple clumps of purple blood exploded violently against its magical shield, creating ripples!
Seeing Louisa condensing another massive blood spear nearby, the Evil Eye was forced to retreat before it could even counterattack.
Unable to resist any longer, after leaving behind more than ten additional corpses, the Zerg decisively fled!
The worker puffshrooms immediately surged in, beginning to diligently collect the remains and spread spores.
Soon, a creep covered with corpses and radiating with vitality spread across this cold place—the puffshrooms had established their first bridgehead in the far north!
So cold!
This was Lin Jun's first impression after arriving here.
Although his main body hadn't transferred over yet, the state of the creep alone showed just how cold this place was.
Despite having level 7 【Cold Resistance】, the activity of the fungal threads was still ruthlessly suppressed. The most direct manifestation was that the creep's expansion speed became quite slow.
Lin Jun had no choice but to order the puffshrooms to directly spread spores in the direction of advance to accelerate the creep's deployment.
Fortunately, the Zerg seemed to have been thoroughly intimidated. For every inch Lin Jun's creep devoured forward, the Zerg would tactfully retreat a step.
Even those areas filled with massive flesh balls, suspected to be spawning grounds, were easily abandoned by the Zerg without any resistance.
Had they given up?
Lin Jun didn't know that the Zerg were confined to the middle levels of this dungeon. Seeing them abandon territory so readily, he mistakenly thought they had vast retreat routes to choose from!
Since the Zerg didn't want to clash head-on with the puffshrooms anymore, Lin Jun was happy to leisurely occupy territory and expand his influence.
However, besides the bone-chilling cold, this land left Lin Jun with another deep impression—barrenness.
This wasn't referring to species scarcity. This was the Zerg's lair, so naturally there couldn't be any vibrant, life-filled scenery. The barrenness here referred to magical barrenness.
Compared to the surface, it might be slightly higher, but when compared to his own dungeon, the wealth gap was obvious!
The creep spread here could collect pitifully little magical power. In terms of the same area, the yield was probably only one-fifth of his deep zone back home, or even lower.
It could barely be considered that the income slightly exceeded the consumption needed to maintain the creep, with just a tiny bit of surplus left over.
With this level of magical concentration, one could imagine that the magical creatures born here wouldn't be too numerous either. No wonder the Zerg were so eager to cross borders and plunder as soon as the rift opened!
With this comparison, Lin Jun was even more hopeful about repairing his own dungeon's core. Otherwise, wouldn't he be stuck living in this cold and "poor" bitter land in the future?
Going from luxury to frugality—that would be too difficult...
Right, he could call Little Black and the others over now!
---
A warm lump of flesh was stuffed into the embrace of Qiong, who was leaning on a wooden staff. Even through his leather armor, Qiong could feel the beating of life within it.
Before Qiong stretched the corridor leading outside the ancient castle.
"Qiong! Don't trust it! This thing cannot..." Shou's warning was cut short!
A shell-covered insect claw gripped his throat, claws digging deep into flesh, cutting off all his voice.
Shou's face instantly flushed red, his bloodshot eyes staring fixedly at Qiong, trying to use his gaze to stop what he was about to do.
Qiong looked at Shou, whose life and death were in the Zerg's claws, and hesitated once again.
"Agreement. Bring out. All live." The Zerg's urging in his mind carried a hint of barely perceptible urgency.
"What if you don't keep the agreement?"
"You have no choice."
Looking at Shou once more and ignoring his opposition, Qiong limped toward the exit.
He hadn't believed the Zerg—just as Shou had said, it wasn't worthy of trust!
As soon as he stepped beyond that boundary, he would immediately turn around and use the strange lump of flesh in his embrace as leverage to force the Zerg to release Shou!
No matter what, he had to save Shou!
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