Threatening growls reverberated through the corridor. Little Black glanced toward Chess's direction, then looked down at the two warm puffshrooms in her arms... Her claws tightened, truly reluctant to let go.
She finally turned her gaze toward Norris.
Norris had come specifically for battle and showed no hesitation. The four-meter-tall Gida took heavy, thundering steps as it charged toward the Chess swarm, with the two mushroom cannons on its shoulders opening fire first under Norris's control!
Unfortunately, the puffshrooms fixed within the carapace couldn't aim independently—everything depended on Norris's own targeting, so the hit rate was predictably poor.
However, luck was decent this time. Of the two mushroom cannon shots, one successfully... aimed at Qiong!
A six-clawed Chess leaped up like lightning, intercepting the strike mid-air!
The cost was devastating: its spine was blown to pieces, and its broken body crashed down.
With the flesh mass under threat, the Chess had no choice but to engage actively.
Several Chess had light bend strangely around their bodies, instantly vanishing into thin air.
But Norris wasn't controlling Gida through vision now—the reconnaissance puffshroom perched on top of Norris's head could see these Chess's positions crystal clear through [Mana Perception]!
Gida suddenly thrust its left arm's "Rock Armor Puffshroom Shield" forward!
*Crack!*
A Chess that had stealthed to the wall was crushed flat against it.
Simultaneously, four blade whips from the right arm whistled out, precisely tearing several bone-deep gashes across another Chess's body.
Norris cleared these Chess along the corridor. Though he occasionally took a claw strike that left marks on the outer shell, as long as he wasn't surrounded, two or three Chess head-on posed little threat to Gida.
Most crucially, Little Black was behind him holding two tunneling puffshrooms—any Chess trying to circle around and ambush Norris from behind would be kicked to death by Little Black!
The Chess weren't entirely powerless to fight back. They cleverly left wounds on Gida's right arm several times, and when Norris swung the blade whips again, several Chess suddenly erupted, their claws precisely severing Gida's right forearm!
*Boom!*
The puffshroom inside the severed arm instantly self-destructed, the shockwave sending several Chess flying.
And from Gida's severed arm, what was revealed was another artillery puffshroom...
Seeing the situation turning unfavorable, the Chess decided to retrieve the flesh mass and hide temporarily.
Just then!
Shou, who had been tightly strangled by the six-claws around his neck, suddenly erupted in rebellion!
Completely disregarding the claws tearing several bone-deep gashes across his throat, he concentrated all his remaining strength and, using his right hand as a blade, viciously stabbed into the six-claws' chest cavity before him!
Amid the sound of shattering bone and flesh, the cost was his entire right palm being completely twisted and destroyed in the collision, dark red arm bones jutting out grotesquely!
Without time to feel the pain, Shou violently pulled back his blood-soaked mutilated arm and, like a savage beast, pounced toward the Chess approaching Qiong!
The Chess that reacted swung back in counterattack, claws tearing through the air in a horizontal sweep!
This level of attack—normally Shou could easily dodge and then kill it with a bone spear, but in his current state, he was already at the end of his rope.
Without a moment's hesitation, Shou resolutely raised his remaining left arm to meet the claws!
Blood, flesh, and bone became a shield once again, forcibly blocking this strike. At the same time, his right arm bone that had pierced through skin and flesh also successfully penetrated this Chess's skull!
Qiong threw aside the flesh mass and supported the swaying Shou. Her remaining right hand trembled as she gathered weak green magical light, trying to stem the blood continuously flowing from Shou's wounds.
"Shou... your hands!"
The Far North had no developed potion industry. Among the Elder Council's few potions, there naturally couldn't be anything as rare as limb regeneration potions.
Shou's left hand was mangled beyond recognition, and his right was even more gruesome—the entire palm had completely vanished in the collision, leaving only a grotesque severed wrist and protruding arm bone.
This meant that even if he survived, he would forever lose the strength to wield a spear, becoming a... cripple.
Shou himself didn't seem as concerned: "Don't think so far ahead... we might not even make it out alive."
*Thud—*
The Gida, covered in wounds and looking quite battered itself, stood beside the two.
Norris had only realized halfway through that these two were somewhat different from the Chess. Looking at the patterns on their skin and the pointed horns on their foreheads, speaking words he couldn't understand.
Could they be demons...
Norris couldn't help but shudder—demons who devour people without spitting out bones!
Though he'd already met Louise the vampire, Louise drank blood all day and occasionally looked at Norris with special eyes. Her behavior perfectly matched the impression of devouring people without spitting out bones.
These seemed to be two more demons. Long-held stereotypes made Norris wonder if he should just kill them to eliminate future trouble, completely forgetting that he currently looked even less human than they did.
However, this thought only lasted an instant before Norris remembered the rule of reporting everything to the boss.
Just as Norris was calculating how to bring the two back to the creep carpet range, a dense, scalp-tingling sound of crawling suddenly came from nearby!
It was Chess reinforcements arriving late!
Above a group of six-claws floated a massive, heart-palpitating Evil Eye!
Though the castle corridor was spacious enough for the four-meter-tall Gida to pass through, it was still too narrow for this colossal Evil Eye. Its enormous body nearly filled the entire passage—it could only be described as barely squeezed in.
"What is this? An Evil Eye?" Norris was seeing an Evil Eye for the first time. He'd only heard the boss mention them before, so he wasn't certain.
But when the grayish-white ray struck Gida, he was sure!
The legs were first to suffer. The hard shell rapidly turned to grayish-white stone, the petrification power spreading upward like a plague, ruthlessly solidifying the leg puffshrooms completely into stone!
The immobilized Gida instantly became a sitting duck. Norris controlled the shoulder cannons to fight back, mushroom rounds firing continuously, but they were all blocked by the Evil Eye's surrounding magical shield.
If it were just Norris alone, he'd have no choice but to jump out of Gida and flee. But this time he wasn't alone!
"Little Black-senpai, help me out! I'll give you two... no, three scales!"
Little Black, who had been hesitating between her warm treasures and taking action, heard the promise of "three scales" and her eyes flashed with golden light!
She carefully placed the two heated puffshrooms in a clean spot against the wall.
The next moment!
A black light that tore through the air flashed through the corridor!
The Evil Eye tried to petrify her, but only managed to slightly petrify the edges of her scales before she charged right up close.
Accompanied by a deafening explosion, the Evil Eye's solid magical shield shattered with a crash, along with its nauseating giant eyeball body, bursting into a sky full of purple sticky fluid!
The black light's momentum didn't stop, sweeping past the panicked six-claws swarm. Wherever it passed, limbs flew!
A few minutes later, the dragonkin, now dyed little-purple, stepped through the viscous purple blood covering the ground and bounced cheerfully to the petrified Gida, her tail swaying with joy.
"So this is... the power of dragonkin..." Shou leaned against the wall, witnessing everything, murmuring in a low voice, his eyes filled with shock.
On the ground, the discarded flesh mass had somehow quietly extended hidden tiny appendages and was trying to slip away in the chaos. This subtle movement was caught by Shou!
*Splat!*
But before he could warn anyone, Little Black casually stepped on it like squashing a cockroach, crushing it flat.
Norris and Little Black just treated it as stepping on an ordinary Chess minion.
After several pained cries came from within Gida, Little Black had three more shiny new trinkets!
—
Deep beneath the castle, looking at the two demon descendants brought before him, Lin Jun still hadn't figured out what was happening—wasn't this reconnaissance trip yielding rather large gains?
A puffshroom kicked the Shou who had fallen unconscious halfway through the journey.
Ah... this one's about to die...
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