I am the Demon King of the Dungeon!

The entrance to the fifteenth floor was a massive gate cast from black iron, with a dark red crystal plaque embedded in the lintel, displaying a line of pale text scrolling across it:

"Welcome to the Undead Prison. This floor has been fully upgraded. Have a pleasant death! Friendly reminder: The magic circle at the entrance is a resurrection binding point. Please touch it before entering. Those who do not bind their magic circle will bear the consequences!!"

Milo stood in the doorway, looking at the three lines of text over and over again. He turned to Kahn, his expression like that of a newbie leaving a starting area for the first time: "It says 'Die happily'? I didn't see that wrong, did I?"

"You're not mistaken." Kahn walked to the magic circle at the entrance. The circle was circular, about three steps in diameter, and inscribed with intricate ancient Elvish runes, emitting a soft, silvery-white light.

He pressed his palm against the activation stone in the center of the magic circle, and the light flowed around the runes, leaving a very faint silver mark on the back of his hand.

"What are the rules of the Goddess's protection?" Milo's voice was full of doubt. "It's that you're resurrected at the temple after you die, right? We bound our resurrection points at the Temple of the Sun in Holy Radiance City before we came in. Even if we die, we'll return to Holy Radiance City. Why go through all this trouble here?"

Arthas was also visiting the new fifteenth floor for the first time. He was looking forward to the thrill of the Souls-like games he had played before, so he knew nothing about the traps or the hidden monsters beforehand.

The main point is to have fun if you can play it.

"The resurrection mechanism is different on this floor." Liz placed her hand on the activation stone, and a flash of silver light appeared on the back of her hand. "The Silverwing Squad's intelligence clearly states that if you die on the fifteenth floor, you will not be sent back to the temple, but will be resurrected directly on this magic circle, and all equipment, items, and memories will be preserved."

"Interesting! I never expected dungeons to have something like this!" Groom placed his hand on the activation stone, his face beaming with excitement. "Let's go!"

Kahn was the last to bind to a resurrection point because the booklet in his hand didn't contain much information, which made the naturally cautious Kahn a little hesitant.

What he hates most is uncertainty, and it is this caution that allows him to become a legendary adventurer.

Level 601 is almost the pinnacle of human achievement.

The massive black iron gate slowly opened.

Behind the door was a straight prison corridor, completely different from the one I had visited before. The walls were inlaid with eerie green fluorite, making the entire corridor look like a shipwreck at the bottom of the sea. The air was filled with the smell of decay, and breathing it in felt like taking a mouthful of cold water.

At the end of the corridor stood a rusty iron gate, behind which lay endless darkness, with only occasional flickering eerie green lights suggesting that something was moving.

"Formation," Kahn hissed.

The five quickly formed a line.

Groom held up his shield at the forefront, with Kahn half a step to his right, Liz occupying the shooting position on the left rear, and Milo and Arthas bringing up the rear. The formation was tight and well-coordinated, forming a moving defensive line in the narrow corridor.

"Dick, you cover the rear."

"Received." Arthas smirked, finally able to experience the fun of "Souls-based" gameplay firsthand.

The iron gate sensed someone approaching and automatically slid open to both sides, emitting a piercing metallic scraping sound.

Groom raised his shield and stepped forward, but his first step missed the target entirely.

Steps!

Downward steps!

The height of each step is different. The first step is only half a palm's width high, the second step suddenly drops to knee-deep, and the third step is almost level with the ground.

Groom's center of gravity was repeatedly pulled in a completely irregular rhythm. His shield slammed against the wall with a dull thud, and he staggered several steps before barely regaining his balance. Then his helmet hit something.

A steel beam lay across the corridor, its height precisely positioned at the forehead of an adult man, blending seamlessly into the black interior.

Groom uttered an extremely vulgar curse.

"What kind of crazy design is this?!" Milo, at the back of the group, heard the commotion ahead. The orb of light at the tip of his staff illuminated the iron beam, and also the slowly swelling bump on Groom's forehead. "An iron beam across the middle of a corridor? Who would put an iron beam in the middle of a corridor?!"

"Designer." Liz followed, crouching low as she crawled under the iron beam, her movements as nimble as a real cat.

The corridor splits into three paths at the end.

On the left is a narrow crack that can only be passed sideways, in the middle is a half-open iron gate, and on the right is a passage that looks normal, but the ground is covered with loose stone slabs.

Milo took out the strategy map and glanced at it. All three forks in the road were marked "feasible," but each route had different warning words circled in red.

The sign on the left reads "Caution for Fat People," the sign next to the passage in the middle reads "Kill the Door," and the sign next to the stone path on the right reads "Don't Step on the Third Piece."

"Which one should we choose?" Milo asked.

"Watch your step on the right," Kahn replied.

The five people proceeded along the stone path, carefully avoiding the third stone slab and stepping onto the fourth. As a result, the fourth stone slab suddenly flipped downwards, and Groom fell down.

The trap wasn't fixed at the third one, but rotated randomly. At the critical moment, he used the handle of his axe to block the edge of the trap opening, leaving him suspended in mid-air, with the bottom of the pit, studded with rusty iron spikes, just three inches below his feet.

Liz and Kahn worked together to pull him up, and Groom's face looked even worse than when he had been hit by the skeleton.

"A random trap! The person who designed this layer—"

"He's a genius," Arthas replied, his tone filled with undisguised admiration. "He changes the position of the fake stone slabs every day to prevent players from using walkthroughs."

"So you're having some fun now?" Groom snorted coldly, choosing not to argue with Arthas.

The group continued walking for less than twenty steps when Milo stepped on a slightly darker-colored paving stone.

The floor tile sank less than half an inch, making a very slight cracking sound. He reacted quickly, immediately stopping and looking down at the gap between the tiles.

Nothing happened.

The group waited for several breaths, and the surroundings remained so quiet that the only sound was the crackling of the burning torches.

"It might just be a normal loosening..."

Before he could finish speaking, a hidden compartment suddenly opened in the ceiling above his head, and a huge iron hammer popped out of the compartment, swinging horizontally at an extremely fast speed. The hammerhead was densely studded with blunt iron spikes.

The hammer struck Milo in the chest, sending him flying like a fly. His body traced a short arc in the air before crashing into the wall and sliding to the ground, his limbs twisted at an abnormal angle.

One blow kills.

"Milo!" Grum turned and rushed over, but it was too late. Milo's body turned into silver specks in his arms and slowly dissipated into the air.

At the same time, the resurrection array at the entrance lit up with a dazzling silver light, and Milo stumbled out of the light, his face ashen, his hands frantically clutching his chest.

There were no visible injuries, but the excruciating pain from being smashed by the hammer still lingered in his nerve endings, like an indelible brand.

"I...I'm dead?"

"Take a deep breath first," Liz's voice came from ahead, calm as ever. "You'll retain all your memories upon resurrection, including the pain of death. You'll get used to it."

"How could I possibly get used to being smashed to death with a hammer?!"

"You'll get used to dying a few times," Groom said, offering a rare word of comfort, though it sounded like a sarcastic remark.

Milo grabbed his staff with trembling hands and ran back to the group from the respawn point along the same path.

He crouched down and crawled under the iron beam, and carefully followed the footprints ahead as he passed the stone slabs, before returning to the hammer trap.

The hammer had been retracted into the hidden compartment in the ceiling, and the floor tiles had been returned to their original positions, as if nothing had happened.

"Will it hit again?" Milo stared at the slightly darker floor tiles as if they were snakes ready to bite. "The same trap won't be triggered twice, will it?"

“Normally not,” Arthas said, “but this feeling is very abnormal.”

Milo swallowed hard, took out a piece of dry food from his backpack, and threw it at the paving stone. The food landed on the paving stone, bounced once, and rolled to the corner of the wall.

Nothing happened.

He threw another piece, but there was still no reaction.

"What's there to be afraid of!"

Groom stepped over it, and suddenly a skeleton poked its head out from around the corner of the corridor.

"Hello there."

"What?!" Grum's voice rose a half-tone in fright, and he instinctively swung his axe, killing the skeleton as a burst of poisonous mist sprayed all over his face.

"Dry……"