Full health is the kill threshold, no matter if you're a god or a demon!

Liu Nian gave the order, and the spider servants immediately sprang into action.

This passageway is very long, winding downwards.

There were no crystal lamps or runic lighting on the walls, only metal rods embedded in them at intervals. These metal rods were "cold light rods," unique to the Ascalons, which emitted light without magic, relying on internal chemical substances. However, most of them had already failed, with only a few still emitting a faint, pale light.

After walking for about ten minutes, the space in front of us suddenly opened up.

This is a huge circular hall with walls made of solid anti-magic rock, the surface of which is covered with reliefs depicting the history of the Ascalonians—war, construction, sacrifice, and death.

The relief is bold and powerful, with sharp, angular figures and no soft lines.

Scattered on the floor of the hall were countless skeletons that were almost weathered into powder. Besides humans, there were obviously the remains of other species. These skeletons alone showed that a rather fierce close-quarters combat had taken place here.

In the center of the hall, there was a deep, circular pit, with rings of metal embedded in its walls, resembling some kind of enormous mechanical device.

At the bottom of the pit, something could be vaguely seen emitting a dark red light.

Liu Nian walked to the edge of the pit and looked down. It was bottomless, and a dark red light seeped from the deepest part, illuminating the metal rings on the pit walls. The surfaces of the metal rings were engraved with precise markings, like some kind of measuring device.

From within the deep pit, a rustling mechanical sound echoed—

"Intruder... detected... activated..."

The sound didn't seem to come from a living being; it was more like some ancient recording that had been strangely cut into fragments, issuing warnings in a chaotic manner, with each word trailing off with a series of crackling electrical noises.

On the walls of the deep pit, the metal rings embedded in the rock began to slowly rotate.

Something was wriggling in the gaps between the rings. Soon, Liu Nian saw grayish-white rotting flesh squeeze out from the gaps, rapidly growing and "fermenting." Dark purple blood vessels quickly covered the surface, expanding and contracting in a certain rhythm, as if breathing.

Then, countless slender mechanical arms ripped through flesh and pierced through, but were quickly covered and wrapped by rotting flesh, forming monsters composed of rotting flesh and metal. They then broke free from the wall and became individual monsters.

These monsters come in all sorts of bizarre and grotesque shapes, neither humanoid nor animalistic nor insectoid; each one is abnormally twisted and lacks any geometric symmetry…

Their movements were clumsy and eerie—sometimes stiff as zombies, sometimes so fast they were dazzling.

Liu Nian smelled a strong stench of disease and decay.

Then, as these monsters climbed upwards, they intertwined, bit, and merged with each other... Dark purple energy seeped from their veins, leaping between the mechanical arms and making a faint crackling sound, like some kind of unclean current flowing, with a purplish-black color like stagnant blood.

A few seconds later, a strange and ugly mechanical guard was assembled in Liu Nian's eyes and jumped out of the pit.

Its body has no straight lines. Where the mechanical skeleton is exposed, rotting flesh flows down like melted wax, solidifying into irregular lumps. Dark purple putrid energy seeps from every crack in its body, leaving faint bruise-like marks in the air.

Its head was tilted to one side, and where its eyes were, there was a horizontal slit from which a cluster of trembling, grayish-white fleshy buds grew, probing like whiplashes...

[Level 150 Parasitic Mechanical Guardian]

"That's disgusting?"

Liu Nian frowned.

If this were a boss, it wouldn't be so bad; he could just put up with it and fight it. But the problem is that this thing is way too low-level!

Killing it won't stack its attributes...

After thinking about it, he decided to let the spider servant beside him take action.

The spider servant was level 350, and the ray easily pierced its head after hitting it.

However, this thing's weakness is not in its head. To be precise, this thing is like a collection of many monsters. It can only be killed by destroying all the cores scattered throughout its body!

Liu Nian then had several spiders crawl on its body, almost tearing it apart before its body stiffened, it fell to the ground, and slowly turned into purple dust and dissipated.

At this moment, even more bizarre and grotesque parasitic guardians crawled out of the deep pit, their numbers increasing rapidly until they covered the floor of the hall in the blink of an eye. The dark red corrupting energy formed a strange, dark red blood mist, highly corrosive.

Liu Nian didn't care much about the damage caused by the blood mist, but the smell... was really unpleasant!

He ordered his spider servants to clear the area.

The spider servants, who had been waiting in ambush, moved at the same time.

They climbed down the walls, hung down from the ceiling, and emerged from cracks in the ground—nearly a thousand spider servants, like a black tide, surged toward the corrupted guards.

Spider servants are much smaller than guards, but they are level 350, which is enough to easily crush these level 150 minions.

Although the Spider Servant's primary attack method is rays, this does not mean that they lack melee combat capabilities.

Some spider minions that got too close to the Corruption Guardian simply pounced on its face, their eight sharp claws piercing its flesh, tearing open its skull, and burrowing down its neck into its body...

Some even tear open the abdomen and crawl inside the body to find the core.

The spider servants didn't feel disgusted at all, and since they were made of magic-resistant metal, they were perfectly at ease moving around here!

Although the Corruption Guards are numerous, they are as fragile as paper in front of the Spider Servants.

The slain Corrupted Guardian turned into purple dust and slowly dissipated.

The terrain here is not complicated. Liu Nian had already had his spider servants scout the surroundings when he came here, and there were no other roads.

It seems they are heading into the deep pit.

But just as Liu Nian was about to act, the metal rings around the pit began to slowly rotate again, and then... the second wave of corrupted guards appeared...

It was no different from before; the grotesque mechanical form was still enveloped in disgusting rotting flesh, and it was still shrouded in blood mist...

The spider servants once again destroyed the corrupted guards.

Then came the third wave...

"What the hell? Are they trying to wage a war of attrition?" Liu Nian frowned.

It's fortunate that I brought so many spider servants with me. If I had to kill them all by myself using normal attacks, when would it ever end?

No, there must be a way to break this. It's impossible for monsters to keep spawning indefinitely, right?

This isn't the outside map where the system spawns a wave of monsters every now and then. This is a single-player quest instance, so there must be some kind of mechanism involved.

Therefore, generating these monsters must require some kind of energy...

After thinking it over, the only one that comes to mind is the Heart of Terra!