This dungeon has mushrooms growing on it.

Chapter 345, Section 344: Picking up something nobody wanted...

"Your Majesty the Duke? Your Majesty the Duke?"

The emaciated Margas knelt anxiously at the edge of the magic circle, gently shaking the Duke Sigismund at the center of the circle, whose eyes were vacant and whose mouth was even drooling. He prayed frantically that this great man would not completely break down.

"That shouldn't be the case!"

Looking around, the magic circle was littered with corpses, crimson blood and grayish-white brain matter almost soaking into every rune. But three sacrifices had survived.

It wasn't a sudden pang of conscience, but rather that the offerings were being consumed too quickly. To be on the safe side, Margas abruptly ended the ritual a little earlier than planned, lest Sigismund accidentally face the abyss.

But now it seems...

"Could it be... that we all perished together?"

Just when Margas thought he had encountered the worst possible situation, the dazed Sigismund suddenly raised his head and roared with all his might:
"1+1=3!"

Oh no! He's really lost his mind! Margas's heart sank into an abyss.

However, the next moment, a painful clarity flashed in Sigismund's crimson eyes.

He first clutched his head tightly with both hands, letting out a beast-like wail of pain, then shook his head violently and stood up unsteadily.

"That's...that's great, sir! Are you...are you alright?" Margas asked tentatively, his voice filled with doubt and uncertainty.

Sigismund suddenly stepped forward, pressing his hands firmly against Margas's thin shoulders. His speech was still somewhat slurred, seemingly affected by the injury, but his tone was unusually urgent: "Quick! Quick! Cut the soul! Do it now!"

"Why is this? My lord, you are still not sober. Calm down!" Margas assumed that the duke was still not sober and tried to comfort him.

Sigismund, however, seemed to have finally weathered the chaos and exclaimed urgently, "There's no time! The trap failed! He's still inside my head! I can't hold on much longer, hurry!"

His tone was hurried yet clear, and Margas was now truly convinced that this was not the Duke's incoherent ramblings.

But now, we must immediately activate another abyssal magic circle...

Leaving aside whether Sigismund's soul, which had just suffered severe damage, could withstand it, even Margas himself was already exhausted and probably couldn't withstand the backlash of the ritual!

"Hurry up! What are you waiting for?"

Margas steeled his heart, pulled out two bottles of thick, black, pungent-smelling potions from his pocket, and downed them without even looking at them!
He then practically dragged Sigismund and placed him in the center of another magic circle.

The moment the magic circle lit up with black light, Margas let out an extremely shrill scream.

His left eyeball and half of his liver seemed to be instantly erased from both the physical and spiritual levels by an invisible force, turning into two wisps of black smoke and disappearing without a trace.

Even if organs are regenerated using regeneration drugs in the future, the permanent loss of this part of the soul cannot be made up for.

Meanwhile, Sigismund, who was in the center of the magic circle, screamed in agony as his soul was being torn apart!

……

Paji——!
In this increasingly broken and crumbling dreamscape, Sigismund was mercilessly smashed into a pool of indistinct flesh by the enormous puffy tentacles.

However, not long afterward, the filth struggled to coalesce back into the shape of the vampire duke, only now its outline was even more ethereal than before.
"You won't get away with this so easily..."

Snapped--

This isn't a battle; Lin Jun is just playing whack-a-mole.

The opponent's willpower was indeed stronger than expected; they were still struggling to hold on, but their recovery speed and the clarity of their solidified form were clearly weakening. Lin Jun, on the other hand, wasn't in a hurry at all. A few more pats wouldn't do him any harm, and it was a good way to vent her frustration at being startled by that black void earlier.

Although it wasn't particularly dangerous, Lin Jun hated traps the most because this guy dared to set her up!
With a stomp, he flattened the vampire once again.

Just then, Lin Jun suddenly realized something. After fighting for so long, all she knew was that her opponent was a vampire, but she didn't even know his name or his identity.

With so many tricks up his sleeve, and the ability to create such bizarre traps, he couldn't possibly be an unknown nobody, could he?
If I just wipe him out like that, and don't even know what the result was, wouldn't that be too unsatisfactory?
Or... should we pause for a moment and ask?
At that moment, the dream suddenly began to shake.

"What is this? You have a trap?"

Lin Jun wasn't too afraid; she believed that any good methods should be used as soon as they were encountered.

The measures being used now are mostly self-defense tactics.

Click——

With a cracking sound, behind Puji, the connection channel representing "Different Dreams" began to peel away and collapse in large chunks, like a shattered mirror.

Taking advantage of Lin Jun's distraction while observing the sudden change, Sigismund, who had just regained his form, leaned weakly against a cracked stone wall, panting heavily: "Ha...ha...this time...you won! Mysterious fellow! But I'll find you sooner or later! Sooner or later..."

"Huh?" Lin Jun was taken aback. "What do you mean? It sounds like the story is coming to an end?"

"What?" Sigismund gasped, a hint of mockery flashing in his eyes. "Do you still want to stay in my head and die with me? You don't even want your own body anymore?"

"Ah! So that's what it means!" Looking at the constantly crumbling escape route that was clearly about to be completely disconnected, Lin Jun finally understood the other party's idea.

He seems to regard this part as all of Lin Jun's soul power!
It's really... it's quite difficult to think from the perspective of an ant from time to time.

Lin Jun immediately stopped patting him. Judging from his appearance, she knew she couldn't kill him completely in a short time.

Instead, Puji took two steps forward and sat down abruptly beside him, even leisurely swinging her huge short legs.

"You...you're insane?!" The composure and sarcasm that Sigismund had been maintaining on his face collapsed instantly, replaced by incredulous astonishment, and his voice changed.

……

The black light of the magic circle gradually dimmed. The dying Margas struggled to raise his heavy head, his remaining single eye nervously looking at the Duke standing silently in the center of the magic circle. He prayed frantically, begging that the Duke would not turn into a bloodthirsty, completely insane monster and kill him without a second thought.

Time seems to have frozen.

Several minutes passed before Sigismund's body suddenly trembled, and like a puppet on strings, he stood up very stiffly and slowly.

He first looked around blankly, as if he didn't recognize this secret chamber that he knew so well.

Then, he lowered his head and stared intently at his slightly trembling hands, as if confirming something.

Then, under Margas's horrified gaze—

"Ah! 123456789!" Sigismund suddenly rattled off a string of numbers in a strange tone, as if he were a beginner learning a language!
Then, he suddenly raised his head, his face beaming with an almost manic joy: "This is... ha... ha... hahahahaha! Clear vocal cords! Fresh... not-so-fresh flesh! This feeling... hehehehe!"

Sigismund seemed to have gone completely mad, laughing maniacally with incomprehensible meaning, his arms outstretched as if to embrace the whole world.

However, the next moment, his voice switched to a different tone, filled with exasperation, anger, and fear: "You madman! Get out! Get out of my head!"

Then, that ecstatic tone suddenly returned: "What do you mean, 'your brain'! It's mine now! You're the one who should get out!"

(End of this chapter)