How had the rift already grown so large?
If it widened much further, it would rival the ones seen during the Demon Tide.
The slime-sealed fissure was expanding too. What had once been fist-sized was now nearly half again as wide. Thankfully, the two-colored slime plugging it was massive enough to hold for quite some time.
But Lin Jun worried about one disaster piling onto another until the entire Deep Zone turned into some battle royale where no one emerged the winner.
The Chiss rift was located only three caverns away from the old Serpent Den—now the Puji Fortress. Not too close, not too far. Just within a tense watch-distance.
After the Chiss suffered losses in the Serpent Den, their activity paths had clearly shifted, steering around the spread of fungal carpets. Almost as though they feared the Pujis.
Still, Lin Jun probed the area with scout Pujis.
It was easier than expected. The caverns the Chiss had “cleansed” were unnervingly empty.
Their foraging was absolute—nothing survived, not even moss or lichen. Bare, lifeless stone was all that remained.
Following this barren trail, Lin Jun found the rift within days.The first scout Puji had been slain instantly, but he dispatched a second and third to circle the area.
The reports were grim: the Chiss were conducting a vast, bloody hunt across the Deep Zone.
Relentless butchers.
They gathered flesh, plants, even magic crystals, carting them back to their nest.
And he saw their “baggage wagons”—a new subspecies:
Chiss – Clodbeasts
These creatures had eight short, thick, callused legs supporting a massive, stable body.
Most grotesque was their enormous stomach-sacs, dragging the ground and swelling with a slow, gurgling rhythm.
Their heads resembled giant vacuum cleaners. With a resonant whumm, they devoured anything—shredded meat, cracked carapaces, even dirt and stones tainted with nutrients—sucking it all into their sacs.
Once full, they lumbered back toward the rift.
They were always escorted, since the Clodbeasts themselves had no means of defense.
Lin Jun’s expansion was a kind of cultivation—spreading life and order through each cavern. Where he conquered, fungal carpets bloomed, mushrooms sprouted, Pujis darted, and stable ecosystems thrived.
The Chiss were the opposite. A race of locusts, stripping and defiling everything.
They didn’t even seem to relocate their nest, only to loot everything within reach of the rift.
They avoided dangerous caverns—those with strong monsters, magma flows, or fungal carpets.
Ironically, thanks to their cleansing, the pressure of wild monster incursions on Lin Jun’s frontier had dropped significantly.
Had the rift been seven or eight caverns away, he might have ignored it. Their supply lines would have limited their reach.
But three caverns was far too close. A raid could come at any time.
Still, bottling them up would not be easy.
The cold near the rift was deadly. Even his LV5 Cold Resistance, gained from beetle-feast evolutions, only allowed barely functioning near it. True resilience would take LV6 or LV7.
That meant only one thing—feeding off Chiss themselves to evolve further.
The fungal carpet began to creep in two ways: aboveground spread, and underground burrowing Pujis seeding spores in tunnel-webs.
But it wasn’t time for a decisive battle. He couldn’t stall the Expedition just for this threat. He had only about six hundred Pujis to work with.
With limited forces, his eyes fell on the weakest link—the Chiss baggage train.
In a cavern strung with webs, reptilian Chiss warriors hacked down anchor-points, collapsing webbing and the corpses tangled within. Below, a dozen Clodbeasts sucked it all up with hideous gurgles.
Their web-weaving owners had been slaughtered yesterday.
Overhead floated a football-sized Eye-beast, scanning in restless circles.
Suddenly its eye snapped wide. A silent signal rippled through the cavern—and beyond.
The Pujis were here!
The Clodbeasts froze, then began their ponderous retreat toward the rift.
Their escorts rushed the other way, toward the tunnels, to seize choke-points.
Last time had taught them well—Pujis were lethal at range. They had to force close combat around corners and cover.
Too slow.
Scaled, ball-rolling Pujis barreled into their ranks and exploded in flawless succession.
Shrapnel-scales shredded dozens of Chiss like grenades, crippling them even if not killing outright.
The charge faltered, the formation tightening too much. Fatal against enemies with suicide troops.
Lin Jun struck at once.
Pujis rolled into firing positions. Mushroom cannons thundered.
Within three volleys, few Chiss guards still stood.
The Clodbeasts were barely into the tunnel—helpless, lumbering prey.
The Eye-beast tried to flee, its body rippling into invisibility.
But Lin Jun’s Mana Sense and Sonic Detection pinned it clearly.
Bat-Pujis launched upward, trailing vapor bursts.
Half spiraled out of control, but four reached their mark.
Four explosions tore it apart.
For all its Level 30+ rating, the creature had pitiful health. Two Pujis could have downed it. Four left nothing but drifting fungus ash.
With their guardian gone, the Clodbeasts huddled together, trembling, while the Pujis advanced.
But then—
Sonic pulses revealed something massive lumbering from the Chiss nest toward the cavern.