If you ranked threats to Lin Jun by class, spies and assassins would sit dead last—basically harmless!
They traded raw combat power and stamina for slick disguises and burst damage.
Against Puffshrooms, they were like serving themselves up on a platter.
Lin Jun could peek at their stat panels, seeing every hidden card, slashing their threat level even more.
Mages, though? Way trickier.
He couldn’t tell what spells they had just from their magic rank on the panel.
So when assassin Milo realized countless invisible Puffshrooms had silently boxed him in, any struggle was too late.
The explosion roared, and in the duke’s mansion, steward Eric, mid-logistics in his study, dropped everything to check on Inanna’s safety.
Then he rushed to the scene with backup.
“Looks like the ‘Blast Array’ at the woods’ edge went off. Intruder died on the spot,” the estate’s guard captain reported grimly.
Milo’s gear was quickly collected: poisoned daggers, a shattered potion bottle, a stat-boosting amulet, a gem for instant fog, and… a few vibrant Dreambloom flowers.
His wanted assassin status was soon confirmed.
More worrying, scouts found footprints of another fleeing nearby.
But the tracks cut off weirdly at some point, all leads gone.
Eric’s face darkened. He beefed up the mansion’s defenses and personally checked the warehouse.
Half the Dreambloom stock had vanished without a trace!
Something stank.
No clue how they pulled it off, but “inside job” hit Eric’s mind.
Why Dreambloom?
He’d screen trusted hands to secure Inanna, then use mansion gear to check her for tampering.
To avoid her not even knowing she’d been hit!
Thinking of the worst—Lady St. Clair’s tragedy—Eric quietly prayed, “Lord of Light, Ixyon, please, don’t let that horror repeat on the young miss!”
A simple frame job, full of holes!
Didn’t matter—it muddied the waters enough.
The fleeing vampire viscount? Edin, prepped in ambush with Puffshrooms, nabbed him easy.
With time to set up, illusion master Edin had no trouble subduing a panicked vampire.
Another vampire caught—Lin Jun’s long-planned “Photosynthesis vampire in sunlight” experiment could finally kick off!
In the duke’s mansion.
Inanna leaned on the windowsill, watching guards bustle below, defenses visibly tighter, her small face tinged with worry. “Boss, does this mean sneaking Dreambloom from the warehouse gets trickier?”
“No need anymore!”
Right, no need!
[Mind Guidance LV7]
Proficiency maxed, hitting the key upgrade.
Lin Jun couldn’t wait for tonight’s “date” to smash that tough “turtle shell”!
If LV7 couldn’t crack it, LV8 was out of reach short-term—even eating all the leftover Dreambloom wouldn’t cut it.
So, the rest didn’t matter.
Hearing Boss muse about tonight’s grand plans, Inanna felt a warm, wordless safety wrap around her.
Since the secret mycelium network reached the mansion’s outskirts, that ever-present safety never left.
Even knowing pro assassins targeted her, not a ripple of fear stirred.
Puffshrooms were close, and Boss always watched her.
She wasn’t facing the world alone anymore.
Nothing to fear!
But more than the assassination attempt, something else gnawed at her.
The Puffshroom Masters—faces laced with glowing mycelium, deeply bonded with Puffshrooms and the network.
She envied them, even felt jealous!
That tight link, becoming part of the mycelium’s reach!
Deep down, she craved melting into that warm network, gaining that full belonging.
Sadly, when she floated the idea, Boss shot it down flat.
She got it—her duchess daughter status was too hot, risking big trouble.
Understanding didn’t ease the sting of being left out, the ache of seeing others have what she desperately wanted, quietly spreading in her heart.
Meanwhile, at Crimson Spire.
Evil mage Margas coughed hard, pale fingers shaking, pointing at two massive, dizzyingly complex magic arrays on the floor, oozing thick dark aura.
“Lord, this… cough… is the way… cough… I found,” he rasped, each word draining his fading life.
Sigmund’s icy gaze swept the arrays, voice flat. “Go on.”
“This one,” Margas choked down a cough, pointing to the fiercer array, its center like a vortex eating light, “it’ll tear a trap to the abyss’s depths on your dream’s outer wall. If that thing touches it, abyss power will wipe it out!”
“Cost?” Sigmund knew abyss magic always had a catch.
Sure enough, Margas, with a hint of fear, said, “The abyss… it’s unknown, terrifying. The trap hits you and the enemy together. We’ll use slaves as proxies to take most of the backlash, but it’s in your mind… leaking abyss aura is still deadly…”
“Bottom line,” Sigmund cut in, impatient.
“Thirty percent chance… you both go down…”
“And the seventy?”
“You’ll take mental damage, recoverable with time. Their mind? Shredded, gone forever!”
Sigmund nodded, expressionless, eyeing the other, “calmer” but still eerie array. “This one?”
“Safer option. It rips your soul, sacrificing part to cut the ‘Strange Dream’ link.”
Sigmund snorted, unimpressed.
Not a soul mage, but as a high-tier vampire, he knew plenty.
Rip his soul? Easy to say!
The fallout wasn’t just a permanent power drop.
His mind could crack—paranoia, mania, or worse, becoming an empty husk. There were precedents.
A duke went mad that way…
Plus, it was a coward’s dodge.
The bastard who pushed him this low wouldn’t take a hit.
Such a weak, self-mutilating survival tactic? Unacceptable to Sigmund!
The first option, risky as hell, near a death bet, could actually kill the enemy—more his style.
“Prep the captives,” Sigmund decided.
After Margas left, he called his aide, whispering, “If tonight… anything goes wrong, kill Margas.”
Then he tweaked Crimson Spire’s defenses, wary of Duke Alama’s recent moves.
All set, he stood alone, staring at the doom-laden abyss array set to decide his fate.
Crimson light danced in his eyes.
“Forcing me to bet my life…” his low mutter echoed in the empty hall. “Shame I still don’t know who you are… and after this, I might never.”
(End of Chapter)
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