Ka-da~
The shiny, polished, adorable little black leather shoe struck something hard.
At the utterly silent entrance to the third underground floor,
the next moment, a crisp sound rang out from the ground.
After entering this underground passage to the third floor, which felt so familiar to Su Qi, he had kept his attention fixed on that Statue carved into the wall.
But while walking along the path everyone else had taken, Su Qi accidentally kicked a hard object with his foot.
Using the dying glow from the torches, Su Qi instinctively looked down to see what he had just kicked.
But as soon as he caught sight of it, Su Qi instinctively covered his mouth to stop himself from making any sound.
Because the object lying on the floor, both in appearance and texture, looked just like a naturally dried-out human skull from a movie.
And if it were only one, that would have been fine.
But after noticing this skull, and glancing around in search of other parts, Su Qi discovered that in this third level, apart from the one he’d just kicked, there were also scattered corpses of unknown creatures some ten meters away, some with human skulls, some the remains of strange beasts.
There was even a complete humanoid corpse, its tattered clothing still clinging to it.
Judging by the style of the clothes, Su Qi figured it was most likely a failed adventurer.
Honestly, seeing all this, as a newbie, Su Qi was extremely nervous inside.
And combined with that moment before, when he wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but the ‘Statue’s eyes’ seemed to move, that uneasy feeling in his heart was instantly magnified.
Though there were still An Xiaoling and Lin Xue, the two girls in the party, it wouldn’t be good if, as the rookie support, he started second-guessing and wanted to turn back.
But after struggling inwardly, the uneasy Su Qi still spoke up in a soft voice.
“Uh… guys, I feel like it’s really gloomy here. And this scene is connected to the memory I triggered when I got the ‘Lingqi Shovel’. This Statue here is probably depicting a powerful monster leader. Also, I kept feeling like the Statue’s eyes just moved a little, as if it was watching me.”
Worried about attracting any monsters lurking in the passage, Su Qi’s voice was extremely quiet.
But in this utterly silent space, it was unnaturally clear.
Hearing Su Qi’s words, the members of the Cangyou Wildcat Team, used to the sight of bones on the ground, didn’t feel anything unusual.
After all, when exploring a labyrinth passage like this, all sorts of things could happen: getting lost, encountering monsters, getting injured or poisoned, or even starving due to lack of preparation.
Death, though terrifying to hear, was a normal occurrence in the Saint Ruins.
If it’s this way for humans, it’s even more so for greedy, dim-witted monsters.
So, for the seasoned adventurers of the original Cangyou Wildcat Team, corpses were a completely normal sight.
But as Su Qi finished his latter half of the sentence, the members of the Cangyou Wildcat Team grew serious.
There were many monsters in the Saint Ruins, but because they were naturally violent and preferred to act on instinct, there was a particular result.
Compared to humans, who had cognition and awareness of circumstances, monsters were harder to control, or perhaps naturally unwilling to submit.
Of course, if it was like the spirit snakes of the Purple Snake Forest, with everyone the same species and with a hierarchy, that would make sense.
But in this new passageway of the Saint Ruins, after walking through many tangled, complicated rooms, everyone knew there were all sorts of monsters in this mysterious underground corridor.
And as for their leader, or the one able to rally so many monsters—
there were only two possibilities.
One was that the monster had a brainwashing-type ability.
The other was a guess even more likely than the first.
Given the size and complexity of this underground passage, the leader here was probably the legendary Beast King Monster, a creature born with the power to gather monsters, with the rumored ability to make them submit, and even the potential to become a Demon King one day.
With that possibility in mind, Lin Xue, the captain, couldn’t care less about her earlier guilt over finishing Su Qi’s bento, and asked with utmost seriousness.
“Boss Su, you mean you saw this Statue creature in the Lingqi memory? And it could command other monsters—can you tell us more about—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
In an instant, she shot to the left side of the group like an arrow loosed from a bow, swinging her Blood-colored Blade.
Bang~
The Blood-colored Blade collided with a whistling arrow, sparking and ringing with a tooth-aching clang of metal.
“Everyone be alert! Slowly retreat—something’s coming!”
After batting down the incoming arrow, Lin Xue stared ahead with fierce focus at the corpse in adventurer gear, which now gripped a hand crossbow.
Seeing the corpse that had been lying on the ground moments before start to move,
Su Qi, clutching his little gray rabbit and carefully retreating with the rest of the Cangyou Wildcat Team, was overcome by an ominous premonition.
Because if one corpse had suddenly revived,
did that mean the other corpses he’d seen on this third level might come back too?
And as Su Qi was mulling over this, as if fate wanted to confirm his suspicion,
the darkness of the third floor was suddenly broken by the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of torches being lit.
Torches hanging on the walls were ignited one after another.
The once-dim hall now became brightly lit and spacious.
With a clear view, Su Qi saw, to his shock, that—he didn’t know when it had started—corpse after corpse began pouring out from the rooms on the third floor, all advancing toward him.
Some were humanoid, some beast-shaped, and others seemed hastily assembled—human legs, beast arms—so mismatched they couldn’t even walk, but instead crawled in a twisted way toward him.
Faced with a scene like a zombie resurrection night in a horror film—no, more like a ‘corpse resurrection night’—Su Qi’s scalp tingled with fear.
He instinctively followed the Cangyou Wildcat Team, trying to retreat to the stairs up to the second floor.
But as soon as they reached the stairway, everyone was struck with despair… the eight
Minotaur they’d just defeated,
were now blocking the stairs.
This time, they appeared in strange, lumpy combinations, firmly plugging the entrance to the stairwell in a wordless message: No way through.
Looking up silently at this scene, Su Qi’s little heart pounded furiously in his chest.
It’s over. This time, we really might not get out.
Just as Su Qi was staring at the stairway blocked by Minotaurs, wondering where to escape next,
“Little Qi, Little Qi, where are you?” Was it just Su Qi’s imagination,
but he seemed to hear a familiar, sultry woman’s voice echoing distantly from the second floor stairs.
Hearing that gentle voice, belonging to none other than his secret crush Wen Yin,
Su Qi felt a sudden surge of hope in his heart.
But soon, Su Qi shook his head again.
It had to be his imagination.
There was no way Wen Yin could have found this hidden passage.
Was this a dying hallucination?
If only he could see Wen Yin just once more.
Thanks for the chapter