[Level Up! LV50→LV51]
After more than half a day of continuous battle, Lin Jun leveled up.
It hadn't been long since his last level increase either.
As expected of a magic tide—the experience was abundant.
Inside the stairwell, a single Puffball cannon shot could affect six or seven magical beasts at once. Where else could he find such an ideal output environment?
However, as time passed, the strength of the magical beasts gradually increased as well.
Besides the dragon beasts, Lin Jun also spotted flesh monsters from the ninth layer.
These things were even more troublesome than dragon beasts—their vitality and recovery power were too strong.
So strong it made him nauseous.
Even if he blew them to pieces, as long as their core remained alive, they could absorb the surrounding flesh scraps and reassemble a deformed body.
And now, the stairwell was littered with chunks of meat everywhere...
Fortunately, each flesh monster could only control a limited amount of body mass, otherwise if they assembled into acolossal giant, Lin Jun really would have no solution.
The current situation was that while the flesh monsters were difficult to kill, they were also suppressed to the point where they couldn't climb up.
The situation at the fissure was much more difficult.
There wasn't the special terrain advantage of the stairwell where thousands of troops had to pass through a single bottleneck.
Their firepower gradually couldn't keep up with the speed of magical beasts pouring out, turning from an encirclement and annihilation into a chaotic melee.
The Puffballs had no reinforcements, and they probably wouldn't be able to hold the position much longer. This was expected.
What was unexpected was the situation with the dragon-man.
The giant rat that had been fighting the dragon-man had already become chunks of meat on the ground.
As the battle progressed, the dragon-man had worked itself into a rage. Not only did it crush the giant rat's throat, but even after it fell, it continued tearing it to shreds before finally stopping.
This battle had obviously consumed considerable energy from the dragon-man, to the point where it no longer intended to guard all the Puffballs.
Just moments ago, as if it had suddenly figured something out, it directly grabbed six Puffballs and flew toward the forest.
Without the dragon-man, the magical beasts had an unobstructed path.
After entering the fifth layer, they began running around everywhere like headless flies.
Large swaths of fungal carpet were trampled, mushrooms crushed underfoot.
His fears had come true.
Although the magical beasts had received the command to rush out of the dungeon, this command clearly didn't include navigation.
The only fungal carpet that could be completely preserved on the fifth layer would probably be the portions hanging from the dome ceiling.
Fortunately, by now they had killed enough magical beasts.
If he couldn't prevent the mushroom garden from being destroyed, he could at least minimize the time and cost needed for reconstruction.
Nothing could accelerate reconstruction better than a large number of corpses.
Right now all the magical beasts were single-mindedly focused on rushing upward, and wouldn't steal the corpses on the ground.
Only that dragon-man was the exception, with its entire attention focused on gnawing Puffballs.
The fissure could no longer be held. If he continued guarding the stairwell, they would soon be surrounded.
Lin Jun commanded his two Puffball squadrons to begin a fighting retreat toward the swamp area—that terrain was most suitable for the Puffballs' final counterattack.
To maximize firepower even during the retreat, Lin Jun even developed a backward-jumping volley tactic.
After the front row Puffballs fired in unison, they would jump to the back row during the gap while recharging their magical power.
Fighting while jumping like this, the magical beasts left behind quite a few more corpses.
When the Puffballs entered the swamp area, the battle also entered its final stage.
Small magical beasts had their mobility greatly reduced after entering the swamp and posed no threat.
The real threats were those that could fly and the gigantic ones.
The remaining fewer than five hundred Puffballs engaged in a final chaotic battle with magical beasts surging from all directions...
* * *
The plan had been executed to this point, and creatures were already starting to wander near the cave.
Lin Jun decisively detonated several suicide Puffballs at the cave entrance, sealing the opening.
He also had the tubby Puffball being held and gnawed by the dragon-man in the forest self-destruct as well.
Did it really think this was a buffet?
The chubby Puffball had been hiding in a mountain cave at the forest's edge, yet it still found it.
The self-destruction definitely couldn't kill it—even injuring it would be difficult.
Lin Jun currently had no way to deal with it.
His previous poisoning plan had also failed. He didn't know if it could distinguish between different types, but it only picked cannon mushrooms or suicide Puffballs to eat.
He could only hope it would leave the fifth layer quickly along with the other dragon beasts.
But speaking of which, wouldn't each layer be left with large numbers of high-level magical beasts after the magic tide?
He wondered if they would automatically return to the lower layers, or if the dungeon itself would handle them.
He increasingly felt that this dungeon had more and more problems, including that suspicious voice that triggered the magic tide.
However, he was currently just a weak mushroom and shouldn't be thinking about so many things.
When he reached LV99 someday, then he'd investigate thoroughly!
No longer dwelling on dungeon matters, Lin Jun crouched in the cave and began watching the live broadcast outside.
Although the fungal carpet and mushrooms on the ground had been trampled to pieces, those on the dome ceiling hadn't suffered too much damage.
Thanks to them, Lin Jun could still observe the outside—though the underground signal was a bit weak.
The things surging up from the lower regions were becoming increasingly outrageous.
Snake monsters with three heads, leaving a trail of venom wherever they crawled—he wondered if mushrooms could still be grown on those spots in the future.
Beetles wreathed in flames successfully set Delan's loving little wooden house ablaze.
There was even an oversized golem—with such a massive body, it was impressive that it could even climb up here.
These magical beasts emerged one after another. Those that found the stairway continued rushing upward, while those that didn't wandered around aimlessly.
Fortunately, none of them were interested in the collapsed cave... except for a certain dragon-man...
Lin Jun watched as that dragon-man emerged from the forest, advancing directly toward the cave.
What was it trying to do?
Had it discovered the Puffballs in the cave?
Dead Puffballs were scattered all over the fifth layer—surely it didn't insist on eating fresh ones?
However, even if it had sensed them, it shouldn't be able to dig its way in.
But... just in case, preparations still needed to be made...
---
"We... we can't hold them back anymore!"
At the dungeon's main gate, from a certain moment onward, the strength of the magical beasts had suddenly jumped up a major tier.
Flesh monsters, high-level dragon beasts...
Caught off guard, the adventurers suffered heavy casualties.
Even two Gold-rank adventurers had perished.
And it wasn't just this batch that was strong—the later they came, the more powerful beasts appeared!
By now, casualties had reached the critical point that adventurers could tolerate.
Many were already contemplating retreat, planning to find an opportunity to flee.
"No retreat allowed! If you retreat, are you going to let Mute Wind Town suffer? Anyone who dares flee will have their adventurer status revoked by the guild! Reinforcements will arrive soon—hold the line! After this crisis passes, everyone's reward will be tripled!"
Oberon had actually come to the front lines personally.
In reality, he had no choice but to come.
By standing up now and making a gesture of fighting to the death, even if they were overrun, he could use "fought to the end, broke through while severely wounded" as an excuse to gain some sympathy.
When the guild investigated afterward, they might show him leniency.
As Oberon shouted his rallying cries, the ornate and exquisite magic staff in his hands burst with brilliant light.
Seventh-tier Light Magic—Arrows of the Firmament.
Several arrows formed of light shot forth with precision, accurately striking several small dragon beasts flying in the air.
Under Oberon's inspiration, the adventurers' morale was finally somewhat restored.
However, he knew that collapse was only a matter of time.
After all, the so-called "reinforcements arriving soon" were actually still a full day's journey away.
And after one day had passed, who knew how many of these adventurers would escape with their lives.
As for himself?
At level 55, while he couldn't stop the magic tide, escaping in the chaos after morale collapsed would be quite simple.
Comments