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

Liu Nian had just finished cleaning up the mess of loot dropped by the goblins at his feet and was casually picking up a piece of leather armor that looked like it had poor stats, preparing to use the [Disassemble] skill to turn it into basic material, when a familiar and noisy commotion faintly came from the depths of the cave passage.

A cacophony of squeaking and screeching filled the air, mixed with the harsh sounds of metal scraping against metal and the dull thuds of the modified beasts' hooves.

Having dealt with these little green dwarfs a lot, Liu Nian could almost distinguish their anger, impatience, and signature chaos from their unique, shrill, and utterly arrhythmic tones.

"Reinforcements have arrived? They came pretty quickly."

Liu Nian understood and wasn't too surprised.

After killing those goblins, they will definitely call for help. That's the difference between players and monsters.

In a flash, Liu Nian activated the skill attached to his new cloak without hesitation: his figure suddenly became blurry and ethereal, then disintegrated into countless fist-sized mayflies emitting red light, which scattered with a buzz and silently merged into the shadows of the stalactites hanging from the top of the cave.

The purpose of doing this was naturally to observe the strength of the arriving goblins.

If they're too strong, he'll just run away; if they're just average, he'll kill them all!

Through the dispersed view of the mayfly swarm, Liu Nian made out the newcomer and his heart skipped a beat.

At the corner of the passage, shadowy green figures flickered, and several players above level 50 emerged, followed by a continuous stream of more elite players, most of whom were riding modified beasts.

This team was clearly not a hastily assembled group; it was more like a regular armed squad on patrol or some kind of escort mission that changed its route to arrive after receiving a distress signal.

Although they were still noisy as they moved, they responded to each other and vaguely formed a formation. Moreover, he noticed that at least five or six goblins had a special net-like launcher hanging from their waists or held in their hands, the same kind they had used to deal with the frost giants.

"We can't handle this wave."

So after transforming, Liu Nian flew directly into a cave and then activated invisibility.

However, whether it was due to radar or the modified fire lizard, he was still detected even while in stealth mode. Liu Nian had no choice but to teleport to Yun Xiangrong's side before entering combat.

Yun Xiangrong and the others are fishing...

Liu Nian's sudden appearance startled Yun Xiangrong.

"What's wrong?"

"We've encountered a large group of goblins; they're not easy to deal with!"

"Do you need my help?"

"Not for now." Liu Nian looked at them curiously. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, fishing!" Yun Xiangrong said with a smile.

"Fishing?" Liu Nian looked at them curiously.

Indeed, everyone was holding a fishing rod, fishing in the dark pool.

"Where did you get this fishing rod?" Liu Nian asked curiously.

"Xiaobai made it for me," Yun Xiangrong said. "It's the one with the fishing gear on its back."

"Oh, it's him!" Although Liu Nian hadn't greeted him, he was one of the two people he noticed when he first joined the guild. The other was the blacksmith, Old Chen.

"What's the use of this fish?" Liu Nian asked.

"It's similar to potions. Some restore health, some enhance status effects, some can dispel negative status effects, and some have special abilities. For example, eating fish caught here can make you invisible, and this invisibility will prevent fire lizards from detecting you. So we plan to catch some now to use when we go to the nest to bomb eggs later."

"So that's how it is!"

Liu Nian asked Yun Xiangrong for some of these fish that can turn invisible. Yun Xiangrong told him to wait a while, as they had only just started fishing and hadn't caught many yet.

Liu Nian then found a place to sit down and dismantled all the unusable equipment in his hands.

They don't have a guild headquarters now, otherwise, to save trouble, he would have just put it in the guild warehouse to exchange for contribution points, just like last time.

Liu Nian had a lot of equipment in his backpack, and it took him a long time to disassemble it all.

Then, using the [Magical Goblin Hole-Maker], a hole was punched in the Unending Expedition Leggings, and the [Enemy of Magic] gem was inserted.

Just as Liu Nian finished sorting through his spoils and was about to ask Yun Xiangrong for a few more stealth fish, he heard a gasp from Yin Qianyu's side.

"Hey, I think my fishing hook has snagged something!"

Everyone looked over at the sound and saw Yin Qianyu gripping the fishing rod tightly with both hands, leaning back and pulling upwards with all his might.

The sturdy fishing rod was now bent into a breathtaking arc, emitting a creaking sound as it struggled under the weight, the fishing line taut and deeply embedded in the dark water.

"Hey! Be gentle! It's going to break!" Lin Ying, who was standing next to her, quickly reminded her.

Yin Qianyu's forehead was covered in sweat. He tried to use a clever trick to shake the tip of the rod, but the thing underwater didn't budge.

"No! I can't pull it at all! It doesn't feel like a living thing; it doesn't struggle at all. It's more like it's hooked onto something dead that's sunk to the bottom of the water, and it's stuck tight!"

He reluctantly loosened his grip; if he exerted any more force, the fishing rod would probably snap in two.

"What should we do? The water is as black as ink, we can't see what's down there at all." Yin Qianyu was at a loss. He couldn't just dive down for a fishhook, who knew what was down there? Maybe he should just cut the line.

Just then, Liu Nian patted the pet bag at his waist.

"I'll have my pet echo go down and check."

With a flash of light, a hermit crab with an increasingly thick and sturdy shell appeared on the shore.

It waved its pincers, and upon receiving Liu Nian's command, it plunged into the dark pool with a "plop" without hesitation, disappearing after creating a ripple.

A few people waited quietly on the shore, with only one or two bubbles occasionally rising to the surface of the water.

After a while, Liu Nian received the feedback it sent back, and a look of surprise appeared on his face.

"How is it? What's going on down there?" Yin Qianyu asked impatiently.

Liu Nian organized his thoughts and said, "Echo said it found your fishing hook, but it seems to be stuck in a gap in a metal door, so it can't pull it out."

"A metal door?" Everyone was taken aback.

There's actually a door at the bottom of this deep underground pool?

"Hmm," Liu Nian nodded, continuing to relay Echo's information, "It was a metal door that looked very old, perfectly fitted into the rocks at the bottom of the pool. Echo tried to push it, but couldn't; the gap was too narrow for it to fit through. However, it swam around the door a few times and reported that the water below was calm, and it didn't detect any signs of life or dangerous energy fluctuations."

A mysterious metal door, submerged at the bottom of a dark pool, leading to an unknown destination?

Everyone's curiosity was piqued.

"Guessing here won't help, I'll go take a look!" Jiang Yi volunteered.

He is a sorcerer from the Abyss and also has a certain affinity for water elements.

After speaking, he tapped his staff lightly and chanted a spell. A water shield emitting a pale blue light enveloped him, insulating him from the coldness of the pool.

Immediately afterwards, he summoned a [Water Element Guardian].

"I'll go down and check it out. You guys wait for me up here." Jiang Yi nodded to everyone, then plunged into the black pool with a splash.