This dungeon has mushrooms growing on it.

Chapter 179 Encounter

Chapter 179, Section 178: Encounter
In the cave where old wood and rotten mud overlapped, the thick, ink-like mud completely swallowed the light emitted by the firefly above.

A group of mud monsters are indulging in it, enjoying the comfort of a warm bed.

Compared to other monsters that live in the same cave, such as beetles, swamp pythons, or mist frogs, the number of mud monsters has grown wildly like weeds.

Just a few days ago, their population numbered less than twenty.

This explosive proliferation was all thanks to a "feast"—the dead Puji were full of magic, and decomposing just one of them could cause the Mud Monster to split three times.

They can reproduce so quickly simply because resources are so abundant.

A mud monster lazily floated on the surface of the mud pit, quietly dissolving the last third of its remaining body.

Suddenly, its body trembled, and several bubbles rose quietly with a soft "pop".

Along with it, a newborn individual, twice the size of its predecessor, emerged.

The bewildered newborn mud monster grabbed a dry twig and stuffed it into its body. The older ones had already divided it up, so the newborn could only find some branches to eat.

The sudden split made the original mud monster a little smaller. It sank to the bottom of the mud pit and rolled around, replenishing its body with some mud and water.

There was a faint commotion coming from above the mud pit.

When it floated up again, the newborn little mud monster was nowhere to be seen, only a piece of withered branch broken into three pieces was floating beside it.

Before its simple consciousness could even piece together the changes before it, a magic cannon accurately struck its body.

Snapped--

The mud monster's body exploded, but it did not die immediately.

The mud monster has no vital points; being attacked only causes it to lose health, while the remaining parts struggle to try and reassemble themselves...

A foot, imbued with immense force, slammed down!

The remaining body exploded with a sound, and the mud monster died completely.

Louisa, with half her body submerged in the mud, pressed on with a gloomy expression.

Not long after Cave 8 was occupied, there weren't many monsters of various kinds besides the Mud Monster.

The environment here was so smelly and dirty, it was disgusting, so she had to step in herself to make sure all the mud monsters were eliminated.

Even the blood of the monsters living here smells terrible, making her lose all appetite.

I was disgusted the first time I attacked Cave 8, and I never thought I'd have to do it a second time.

The little creatures adapted well to this environment; if they moved their legs quickly, they could even run on the surface of the mud.

Although there are many mud monsters, most of them are newly split individuals that have not yet grown up.

Just half a day later, the entire cave was cleaned up and made suitable for the Puji to live in.

Thanks to the fact that the monsters did not completely destroy the creep, Louisa did not need to wait for the creep to spread as she did the first time. She could go directly to the next cave—the basilisk cave that she had failed to conquer last time.

It was another grueling place, and Louisa was prepared to waste several days there.

However, when she actually stepped into the entrance of the snake pit, she immediately noticed something strange—the hissing sound and the rustling sound of scales rubbing together, which should have been ubiquitous and chilling, had disappeared from the depths of the snake pit.

The snake holes, large and small, still cling to the rock face, but no living creatures wriggle or crawl through them anymore.

Louisa frowned as she ventured deeper into the area, surrounded by a throng of people.

The entire serpent cave was shrouded in a suffocating silence, as if all the serpent monsters had evaporated overnight.

At the deepest part of the snake cave was a huge pit, with layers upon layers of dried, grayish-white snake skins piled up at the bottom.

Using her night vision, Louisa discovered some broken snake eggs among the many grayish-white snakeskins.

It wasn't that the baby snake broke open naturally after it was born, but rather that it was directly crushed on the ground.

Then, some scattered drag marks were captured on the ground—not the meandering S-shape of a snake, but rough straight scrapes, as if something heavy had been forcibly dragged away.

The air nearby also carried the faint scent of snake blood, so faint that she probably wouldn't have been able to tell if she wasn't a vampire.

“Was wiped out by… something?” Louisa murmured to herself.

prey?

But what kind of monster could have done this?
These invaders left not a single bone of the basilisk, except for the useless shed snake skins and the almost dissipated stench of blood in the air; they had eaten it all up.

Even the largest creep will leave behind some hard, difficult-to-decompose bones. Ordinary monsters, after a full meal, will always leave some scraps and debris, never so thoroughly.

But if it were a monster like a slime, then there would be no reason for these snake skins to be left behind.

Louisa couldn't think of any known monster whose habits matched the situation at hand.

Look at this snake pit. I wonder how many years the snake monsters have been drilling in it to reach this size. The fact that the snake monsters have been able to exist here for so long is enough to prove that there were originally no natural enemies around that could completely exterminate them.

Louisa thought it was probably something that had crawled out of the crack.

Looking around, Louisa suddenly curled the corners of her mouth: "Did I just pick up a free lunch?"

Is it good news that we don't have to wipe out the snake monster bit by bit ourselves?

Sniff--

Just as Louisa was about to greet Puji as it began spreading spores, her nose twitched slightly.

She smelled a familiar scent...

Louisa raised a finger, and a tiny blood cell gathered at her fingertip.

Instead of weaving blood threads as usual, she flicked her finger, and the spot of scarlet blood fell to the ground.

A crescent-shaped, scarlet blade suddenly extended from the ground and swept forward like lightning!
Suddenly, a series of teeth-grinding "crack" sounds rang out in the otherwise empty air!
The light twisted and shattered strangely, revealing countless beetle corpses whose disguises had been broken!
Purple fluid gushed violently from their bodies, which were less than ten centimeters long, carving out a dazzling purple blood corridor wherever the blood blade passed.

The deathly silence lasted only a moment.

The next moment, a terrifying, dense crawling sound surged in from all directions like a tidal wave!

The outermost beetle had its two short legs severed instantly by the ferocious pincers on the beetle's head, and was then completely swallowed up by the surging swarm of beetles.

Then it initiated a self-destruct...

Many insects were blown away, but even more swarmed in from all around.

Louisa decisively transformed into a bat and flew away at high speed; she had a severe psychological trauma related to fighting multiple opponents at once.

At the same time, with a thought, the few puffy creatures that couldn't outrun the beetles all turned around and plunged into the swarm of insects, turning into dazzling fireworks.

"Boss! The guy you're looking for!"

The guy I'm looking for?

Lin Jun, who was applying skills to Norris, diverted some of her attention back to the front line.

【Magic Perception LV7】

[Sound Wave Detection LV6]

The enemy Louisa encountered quickly came into Lin Jun's perception.

[Race: Qis - Pincer Beetle]

[Level: LV9]

[Racial Trait: Heartless]

[Fixed Effect: Mental Control]

[Skills: Cold Resistance LV5, Refraction Stealth LV4, Giant Claw Attack LV3, Chitinous Shell LV3...]

Besides the enormous number of beetles, Lin Jun also spotted a creature that Louisa hadn't noticed.