Wizarding Age: I can analyze everything

Chapter 93 The Mouth on the Wall

The Throat-Locking Monster is a vicious, small predator.

They like to lurk near ceilings, archways, wells, or decaying stairwells, ambushing any prey that happens to pass by.

Their hands and feet have spiky pads that allow them to grip the surface of almost any object. They are silent when lurking and incredibly fast when attacking, making them natural assassins.

Despite their small size, the Throat-Locking Monsters possess combat power comparable to that of a top-tier knight.

Even a great knight would suffer greatly if caught off guard by a chokehold monster's sneak attack.

"They actually placed a chokehold monster in the maze."

Pei Ze clicked his tongue.

However, he understood the maze designer's intentions in doing so.

The complex environment of a maze is perfect for assassin-type predators like the Throat-Locking Monster to excel.

More importantly, the reason why they are called chokehold monsters is because they like to strangle their prey by the neck, preventing them from speaking and, naturally, from casting spells that require incantations.

It could be said that the chokehold monster is, to some extent, a perfect counter to wizard apprentices.

Unfortunately, Pei Ze was not among them.

Not to mention that he has mastered the technique of silently casting super magic spells, he can cast spells without any hindrance even if he cannot make a sound.

His peak Grand Knight level physique alone meant that the Chokehold Monster had no chance of sneaking up on him and hurting him.

"Squeak!"

The chokescreaming monster screamed in agony as a long, narrow wound slanted across its chest and abdomen, from which blood gushed forth like a fountain.

Clearly, Pei Ze's sword strike had caused it considerable damage.

Seemingly realizing the power of the person before him, the choke-lock monster turned and fled without hesitation. It nimbly leaped onto the ceiling, gliding across the smooth stone surface as if walking on flat ground, and quickly escaped into the distance.

Want to escape?

Pei Ze sneered and suddenly flashed out, his long sword instantly transforming into a bolt of lightning.

Extreme Flash!

After the Azure Breathing Technique was upgraded to the Omniscient Breathing Technique, the Storm Slash and Extreme Flash were still retained, and their power was even greater.

This attack was as swift as lightning, covering a distance of over a hundred meters in the blink of an eye, and piercing the throat-locking monster's back like a meteor.

The chokehold monster only had time to let out a short scream before it was blasted into a cloud of blood mist by the explosive burst of fighting spirit.

Pei Ze swung his sword again, creating a gust of wind that dispersed the pervasive blood mist. Looking up, he saw several throat-locking monsters scattering along the ceiling three or four hundred meters away.

The gruesome death of their companion terrified the predators.

Pei Ze smiled wryly, not giving chase, and continued walking along the corridor. Whenever he encountered a fork in the road, he used his mist crows to scout the way and clear out the monsters in the rooms.

Almost every room encountered along the way was teeming with various monsters.

From Knight-level enhanced skeleton soldiers, goblins, zombies, and dinosaurs, to Grand Knight-level three-armed giants, Boda zombies, and skeleton knights.

Pei Ze even encountered a shapeshifting spider and a spirit beast.

The former is a medium-sized magical creature that can freely switch between spider and humanoid forms. In addition to possessing the venom and web-like abilities of spider creatures, it can also cast spells such as illusion, light, silent illusion, and sleep.

A single shapeshifting spider possesses combat power comparable to a mid-level Grand Knight.

If someone unknowingly enters its territory and gets caught in its web, even a high-ranking knight could easily lose their life.

Especially for wizard apprentices, the shapeshifting spiders with a certain degree of spell resistance are very troublesome monsters.

As for the Spirit Beasts, they are magical creatures that live in the Aetheric plane.

Their body color is between bright blue and dark purple. When standing upright, they are only 1.2 to 1.3 meters tall, but their total body length can reach over 2 meters.

They usually lurk in the ethereal plane in spirit form, but once they spot their prey, they immediately switch to the material plane to launch an attack and kill their prey. They are assassins even more terrifying than the chokehold monsters.

Even Pei Ze couldn't react in time when the Spirit-Stripping Beast appeared and launched a sneak attack. Only after blocking the Spirit-Stripping Beast's attack with the defense of his magic heavy armor was he able to turn the tables and kill it.

In addition to a large number of monsters, the maze also hides many traps.

The floorboards soften and turn into mud when stepped on.

The gemstone, inlaid on the stone gate, emits a rainbow of light when approached, creating an illusion.

And a room that looks empty, but once you go inside, the stone door will suddenly close, and then raging flames will burst out from all directions.

It's truly impossible to guard against.

Wizard apprentices without sufficient defenses would likely fall victim to the endless traps before even reaching the center of the labyrinth.

As you delve deeper into the maze, the strength of the monsters and the intensity of the traps you encounter along the way gradually increase.

After exploring another three-way intersection, Pei Ze stopped and pondered.

Using fog crows to scout ahead has proven very effective; so far, he hasn't encountered a dead end.

But problems also arise.

One is that the further you go, the more branches there are at the intersections, and each path often leads to more than one room, and sometimes it also leads to another branch.

Pei Ze had to explore all possible paths before he could finally determine the correct one, which was very time-consuming and laborious.

The other was the casualties among the fog crows.

In just over an hour of scouting, Pei Ze had already lost more than 300 fog crows.

Moreover, it is foreseeable that as the number and strength of monsters increase along the way, the rate at which the Mist Ravens are lost will further accelerate.

Pei Ze couldn't guarantee that the number of fog crows would last until they reached the center of the maze.

"We still need to think of other solutions."

Pei Ze's eyes scanned the surrounding walls, and suddenly an idea flashed in his mind. He stepped forward and knocked on the wall.

blah blah blah!

"Judging from the sound, the wall shouldn't be very thick, so it shouldn't be difficult to break it down."

Pei Ze seemed to be deep in thought.

If we could break through the walls and pass directly through the corridor, we could save a lot of time exploring and taking detours, and reach the center of the maze much faster.

But is it really that easy and simple?

Would the maze designer leave such an obvious loophole for participants to exploit?

Pei Ze had some doubts.

Despite his doubts, he still decided to give it a try.

Just in case, Pei Ze abandoned the use of fireball and spell missile spells, which would create a huge commotion and attract a large number of monsters, and instead used acid corrosion.

After silently reciting the incantation, Pei Ze pointed his finger, and a ball of acid the size of a basketball instantly appeared, striking the corridor wall like a cannonball.

Immediately, a hissing sound was heard, and a large amount of blue smoke rose from the wall, visibly corroding a pit.

However, at that moment, the wall suddenly began to tremble violently, as if someone were shaking a thick blanket. The surface of the wall abruptly appeared with violent distortions, and then with pale lips.

The next instant, these mouths suddenly opened, emitting sharp, piercing, and agonizing screams.

The piercing sound waves instantly swept through the entire corridor and echoed far and wide.

Caught off guard, Pei Ze felt a sharp pain in his eardrums and quickly covered his ears.

The sound lasted for more than ten seconds before gradually weakening, turning from screams into low sobs and groans.

Pei Ze frowned and looked around, discovering that, centered on the spot where the acid had hit, a wall stretching for about a hundred meters had appeared with countless mouths opening and closing, which looked extremely frightening.

However, he quickly forgot about it.

From the corner at the end of the corridor, a series of hurried and chaotic footsteps could be heard.

A few seconds later, a large group of monsters suddenly surged out from around the corner.

The goblins, zombies, skeleton warriors, and bots—monsters of different races who would never normally coexist peacefully—were now huddled together, charging menacingly towards Pei Ze.

Pei Ze's gaze fell on one of the bear goblins.

The other party's condition was clearly unusual; his eyes were bloodshot, and saliva was constantly dripping from the corners of his mouth, as if he had fallen into some kind of berserk state.

Clearly, the sounds those mouths made just now contained some kind of ability to lure monsters together and drive them into a frenzy.

"I knew it wouldn't be that easy."

Pei Ze sighed, his fingers swiftly tracing patterns in the air, and in the blink of an eye, a mysterious and complex blue rune formed in the air.

He then reached out and grabbed the rune, slapping it onto the sword. Instantly, a crackling sound was heard, and countless tiny arcs of electricity appeared on the surface of the sword.

Immediately afterward, Pei Ze quickly drew an earth-yellow rune and a cyan rune, and slapped them onto his body one after another.

Under the interplay of blue and yellow light, his aura suddenly surged dramatically.

After doing all this, Pei Ze's gaze sharpened, and he shot out like an arrow, charging headlong into the monster horde.

boom!

The two met in the middle of the corridor in the blink of an eye and collided violently!

Despite having more monsters, the collision resulted in them being thrown to the ground.

The dozen or so monsters that charged forward were instantly blasted into charred remains by the spreading arcs of electricity, falling straight to the ground lifeless.

Pei Ze was like a tiger among sheep, ruthlessly reaping the lives of one monster after another.

The flashing arcs of electricity illuminated the entire corridor as if it were daytime.

With the blessing of the Gale Rune, Pei Ze's speed was extraordinary. He moved like a ghost among the dense monsters, and most of the monsters' attacks couldn't even touch the hem of his clothes.

Occasionally, the attacks would strike Pei Ze, but they were blocked by the yellow aura surrounding his body, and not even his fur was damaged.

The high-pitched roars of beasts and the crisp crackling of lightning echoed endlessly in the corridor.

This one-sided battle lasted less than five minutes.

Then the roar of the beast gradually weakened and eventually disappeared.

As the last monster fell, the entire corridor fell silent.

Standing amidst the corpses, Pei Ze brandished his longsword, shaking off the blood that stained it.

He glanced at the sword; the electric arcs on it were now almost gone.

Looking at the yellow and blue halos around its body, they had dimmed considerably and were almost gone.

Clearly, the three elemental runes are nearing their limit.

However, Pei Ze was already very satisfied.

There were at least two or three hundred monsters just now, and more than half of them were Grand Knights.

With just three elemental runes, he was able to annihilate so many monsters; the actual combat effectiveness of elemental runes was even greater than he had anticipated.

"These are still normal elemental runes. After being improved with the Eye of Omniscience, their effects can be significantly enhanced!"

A hint of anticipation flashed in Pei Ze's eyes.

Coming to his senses, he turned back to look at the wall he had just been standing on.

The countless strange mouths have disappeared, leaving only an ugly dent in the wall.

"It seems that breaking down the wall won't work."

Pei Ze sighed with some regret.

Sure enough, the maze designer wouldn't leave such an obvious loophole.

Destroying the wall will attract a large number of monsters to attack.

Once or twice is fine, but if it happens too often, even Pei Ze can't handle it.

Even if you manage to reach the center of the maze quickly using this method, you'll likely be exhausted by the time you get there.

If there are other dangers at the location of the rainbow gem, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Thinking further, even before reaching the depths of the maze, monsters of mid-to-high-level Grand Knight rank have already appeared.

Once you reach the depths of the labyrinth, you'll most likely encounter magical creatures of legendary knight caliber.

If they were to be besieged by a large number of legendary knight-level magical creatures due to the destruction of the wall, probably no wizard apprentice would dare to say that they could break through.

Including Pei Ze himself.

"We'll have to use the Fog Ravens to scout ahead."

Pei Ze turned his gaze away from the wall and hurried towards the end of the corridor.

On the rest of the journey, he continued to summon mist ravens to scout ahead as usual.

As the number of Fog Raven casualties continued to rise, he ventured deeper and deeper into the labyrinth.

Until one moment, Pei Ze suddenly noticed that the color of the surrounding walls had changed from bluish-gray to bluish-white.

He vaguely realized that he must have entered the depths of the maze from its outer perimeter.

The monsters he encountered next confirmed his guess.

From this point onward, every monster encountered transformed into a magical creature of the Great Knight level.

"Weak" monsters such as goblins and zombies have disappeared.

Facing numerous high-level knight monsters, Pei Ze was already struggling with his swordsmanship and elemental runes alone.

He simply used a level one summoning spell to summon a ferocious boar-man to act as a pathfinder and clear away monsters for him.

The first-level Summon Monster spell can summon an external creature (usually an otherworldly creature, elemental creature, or magical creature, or other creature belonging to another dimension).

Summoned creatures will obey the caster's commands, fighting or defending.

Its power level and duration depend on the caster's mental strength and magical skill.

Pei Ze had conducted tests and found that with his current mental attributes, he could summon a powerful monster approaching the level of a first-tier legendary knight using the improved version of the first-level monster summoning technique.

"A ferocious boar-man?"

Looking at the giant in front of him, who was over five meters tall, with a robust and imposing physique, Pei Ze nodded in satisfaction.

The Ferocious Boarman is a subspecies of the Hill Giant, a naturally bestial being with immense strength who enjoys smashing the heads of any enemy with a giant wooden club.

Adult ferocious boars are no less physically powerful than first-tier legendary knights; they simply lack any magical abilities, which is why they cannot match true legendary knights.

However, compared to ordinary peak-level Great Knights, they are undoubtedly overwhelmingly powerful.

"It's a pity that only one level 1 summoned monster can exist at a time, otherwise this spell could be used to create a small monster army."

Pei Ze thought with some regret, then led the ferocious boarman to continue exploring the maze.

(End of this chapter)