The Queen of Scrolls never admits defeat

The nearest entrance to the Underworld to Everglory City is in the Rift Throat, deep within Twilight Hills.

Squeak traveled at full speed and it took three days to find the outside of the Rift Throat.

Before them lay a massive, downward-sloping fissure in the earth, its edges riddled with eerie holes. In the bottomless darkness, only a faint breeze carried the unique scent of the earth, a mixture of mold and rock.

Squeak looked at the map and said, "Master, this is it, the Rift Throat, one of the seven main paths leading to the Dark Corridor of the third level of the Underworld!"

Moran gestured for Sentai to put him down:

"You all go back to the mirror space first! I'll go to the underground world by myself."

Her current strength is considered top-tier in the world of Seran, and there are very few beings who can threaten her.

But Zizi, Sentai, and Kaba are not.

The underworld of Thran is a paradise for dark races, and Moran dares not say that he can take care of them all.

Zizi had also studied the map Viola had given her and knew how dangerous this place was. She obediently nodded and gave a warning:

"Master, be careful on the road!"

Moran nodded.

The Rift Throat is the most challenging of the many entrances to the Underworld.

The passage was not only pitch black, but also riddled with rock crevices that would spew poisonous gas and flow acid from time to time, and home to a huge number of petrified lizards that would be startled by any light or sound.

If it weren't for her vampire darkvision, which allowed her to ignore the darkness and avoid danger, and her ability to maintain silencing at all times, she wouldn't dare say she could have passed through easily.

Once Zizi and the others had entered the mirror space, Moran changed into a set of black leather armor that allowed for easy movement, put on a cufflink with a silencing spell, grabbed the vines hanging from the edge of the rift, and glided lightly into the darkness.

The descent lasted for nearly half an hour.

The fissures are not vertical, but rather spiral downwards, with the rock face covered with protrusions and narrow platforms for climbing.

The vampire's darkvision allows her to clearly distinguish between fragments of old skin shed by petrified lizards and petrified lizards disguised as rocks. It also helps her avoid rock crevices that ooze yellowish-green liquid and are prone to spewing poisonous gas.

The further down you go, the more humid and stuffy the air becomes.

Moran dared not relax for a moment until his feet touched a relatively flat surface covered with fine gravel, at which point he finally relaxed.

Here, we have officially entered the third level of the underground world.

Compared to the pitch-black Rift Throat, the visibility here is much better.

Various mosses, fungi, and lichens that emit a faint fluorescence grow on the rock face.

Some luminous spores suspended in mid-air drifted slowly, emitting a blue-white light.

In the distance, the muffled sound of an underground river flowing could be faintly heard, along with the soft rustling of some kind of arthropod crawling over the rocks.

Following the map's directions, Moran chose the second fork in the road on the left.

The road is narrow, sometimes requiring you to squeeze through sideways, and sometimes requiring you to climb or jump.

She had silent cufflinks, so she didn't make a sound.

After traveling for about two hours, the path ahead was blocked by a vast stone forest filled with stalagmites and stalactites of varying heights.

Deep within the stone forest, a low, rhythmic breathing sound drifted through the air. A cloyingly sweet fragrance permeated the atmosphere.

Moran immediately recognized it as the spore scent emitted by the Heart-Stirring Mushroom when it matures, which can disrupt a creature's sense of direction and judgment.

According to the underground world map given by Viola, this is a naturally formed field of mental interference. In the central area, there is a pair of adult Shadow Stranglers. They are huge, born blind, and rely entirely on vibration and smell to sense movement.

The Shadowcrawler possesses the ability to regenerate flesh and blood; it can quickly recover unless all of its flesh and blood are burned to ashes.

Most people who get here will choose to take a detour.

However, Moran's mental strength was so great that the spores of the Bewitching Heart Mushroom couldn't even make her lose her senses for a moment.

With two agility-oriented extraordinary classes, Level 18 Ranger and Level 18 Shadow Assassin, she could easily pass through here without alerting the Shadow Staggers, even without the Silent Cufflinks.

Moran adjusted his breathing to the faintest possible level, and like a true shadow, he glided into the stone forest, each step landing precisely on the thickest part of the fungal carpet or the most stable part of the rock, avoiding any unnecessary vibrations.

Mental strength firmly guards the sea of ​​the mind, maintaining a clear mind.

Everything went smoothly until she arrived at the central area of ​​the Stone Forest.

There was a relatively open space, in the center of which was a small, murky pool of water that was bubbling.

By the pool, two enormous creatures were curled up together, resting.

Their appearance is like a magnified version of a hybrid of an eyeless lizard and a beetle, covered with an obsidian-like shell, and with a bony hammer at the tip of their thick tail.

It looks exactly like the shadowy stagger depicted in the ancient texts.

Moran held his breath, preparing to slip through the narrowest gap at the edge of the clearing.

Just then, without warning, a strange fish with a completely transparent body and clearly visible internal organs leaped out of the pool!

It seemed to be startled by some kind of underground tremor, and after leaping out of the water, it frantically slapped the surface, making a loud "slap slap" sound.

The two Shadow Staggers awoke instantly, a low, threatening growl emanating from their throats.

One of its massive bodies was already half-standing, its bone hammer-like tail wagging dangerously.

Moran didn't linger. He transformed into a blurry afterimage and rushed toward the exit at the other end of the stone forest.

The slapping sound of the strange fish behind me stopped abruptly, followed by a chilling creaking sound.

The strange fish was eaten.

Fortunately, they did not discover Moran's presence.

She had successfully turned into a narrow crevice in the rocks, only wide enough for one person to pass through.

The underground world is full of places like this, with their treacherous environments.

In the days that followed, Moran encountered a colony of spiny fungi that would actively spray paralyzing stingers. She went in and collected some whole spiny fungi to use as materials for the Book of Cards. She avoided a fungal swamp where the ground appeared solid but was actually full of deadly acid traps. She also encountered a large-scale migration of shadow bats. Although the individual creatures, which were about the size of fists and had sharp teeth, were not a great threat, when thousands of them swept by like a black storm, she had to hide in a narrow crevice and hold out for several hours with a protective shield until they all passed.

However, Moran believes that the harsh environment is just an appetizer for the underground world, where the intelligent beings living are far more dangerous than the environment itself.

Along the way, she encountered many skeletons of intelligent beings. Judging from the marks, some had died from the claws of ferocious beasts and the deadly poison of magical plants, but most were clearly the result of cannibalism among their own kind. (End of Chapter)