“Ugh—!”
Louisa curled up in a corner, her body convulsing violently as if trying to vomit up every drop of purple blood she had just swallowed.
She couldn’t understand it. The blood hadn’t smelled foul, but the instant it slid down her throat, it was like swallowing rotting sludge mixed with bile. The taste was pure torture!
Lin Jun watched with great interest.
It was his first time witnessing a vampire actually throw up, and he studied her for a while with great amusement. Pity that aside from dry heaving sounds and twisted expressions, nothing actually came out.
Now that he thought about it—did vampires even produce bile?
Tsk… he really wanted to find out. But not now.
He was a mushroom that followed rules. He only punished his little piglet when she made mistakes, never out of sheer curiosity.
On the other side, Gray was squeezing the Book of Yellowhide mercilessly while it begged frantically for mercy.
[Boss! Boss! I just licked them! They slipped in by accident, really! I won’t dare again! Please forgive me this once!][Please, remember how I bravely shielded Norris just now—give me another chance!]
Lin Jun hadn’t noticed right away, but once the two Troglodyte corpses were broken down, their insides were completely empty. Aside from some mana and a scrap of skill proficiency, their souls were gone.
And the only culprit could be the Book.
Riiip—
By Lin Jun’s order, a page was torn out without mercy.
[Dead dead dead dead I’m so dead!]
The Book spammed its messages desperately, but Gray still had no idea it was self-aware. To her, it was just another strange thing Boss occasionally told her to rip pages from—pages that vanished as soon as they were torn.
This time the Book had been utterly useless, and yet it dared to sneak a snack?
Lin Jun couldn’t even tell if it had noticed the anomaly earlier and deliberately failed to warn Norris. Unlikely, but still…
In contrast, Gray’s performance had been flawless. She had sensed the threat and rushed over before Lin Jun could even warn her.
If not for her, Norris might already be in the middle of a very painful arm-regrowth procedure.
As a reward, one of the Pujis handed her a beautiful pair of gemstone earrings, sparkling with dazzling colors in the dim glow.
If Aedin had been present, he would have instantly recognized them—they had adorned his own ears just a few days ago.
The timing of the monster attack had really been the worst. At the time, Lin Jun had been fully focused on controlling the Knight Puji for a fair duel against Fifteen. He had no attention to spare for anything else.
Afterward, all he could do was throw a quick warning signal through the fungal network to his little pig and Gray.
But the problem was—Lin Jun had never had a chance to check those monsters’ panels. Now that they were corpses, there was no panel to read. He had no idea what they were.
All he knew was this: they could go invisible, they acted in groups, and according to Norris, there had also been a floating, eerie eyeball watching from afar before vanishing.
But was the eyeball observing them? Or cooperating with them?
Either way, the deep levels of the dungeon were changing too quickly.
Back when Lin Jun spent two and a half years in the Old Mushroom Garden, the ecology hardly shifted at all.
If invisible predators like these had existed back then, his survival difficulty would have skyrocketed.
The real culprit had to be the rift.
But where had they come from?
Lin Jun swept his territory with multiple detection skills but found no trace of similar monsters.
So maybe this was just a small pack that had wandered in?
If their nest was nearby, he’d raze it immediately—or at least post Pujis to block the passage.
But if it was far away, then he didn’t have time to chase side plots.
For now, he would simply tighten surveillance in the deep levels and watch for signs of recurrence.
He guided his mycelium to completely devour, break down, and absorb the three carcasses.
【Seven Sins: Greed Triggered】
【Skill Plundered: Refraction Invisibility LV2】
【Resistance Upgraded: Cold Resistance LV3 → LV4】
【Skill Plundered: Claw Strike LV8 → LV9】
Claw Strike was nothing special. Almost any creature with sharp claws had it, and leveling it was easy. It was just a flat boost to normal attacks, nothing exciting.
Invisibility, though—that had promise. His Mimicry already allowed some concealment, but only when motionless. This new one seemed to be optical stealth.
Lin Jun immediately bred a batch of Pujis to test it.
Once they activated 【Refraction Invisibility LV2】, they did indeed vanish from sight.
But the effect wasn’t perfect.
While stationary, they blended in quite well.
But as soon as they moved, the air rippled unnaturally. Their outlines warped the space around them like looking through a sheet of disturbed water.
Probably just because of the low level.
But if higher levels still had this flaw, then those three-meter monsters must have looked like massive patches of twisting distortion when they moved. There was no way Norris wouldn’t notice!
Lin Jun also wanted to test another human-derived ability: 【Holy Barrier】.
He produced several Pujis with the skill, since he had seen Church warriors combine theirs into stronger formations. Naturally, he wanted to copy that trick.
【Holy Barrier LV2】
With a thought, one Puji responded. Golden light surged forth, condensing into a translucent shield of liquid radiance before it.
Immediately Lin Jun felt something unusual—the shield’s shape could be subtly altered with willpower!
He focused, and the flat wall curled inward, transforming into a solid half-dome shield.
No wonder humans could stack them together. With a little teamwork, it was easy.
And for Pujis, perfect coordination was as natural as breathing.
Four of them clustered together, and in the next instant, a seamless golden sphere bloomed into existence.
It glowed softly, a miniature sun in the endless dark of the deep dungeon.
Naturally, it caught Gray’s attention.
Through the translucent barrier, the Pujis inside looked like they were edged with divine halos, radiating holiness—and in Gray’s eyes, irresistible.
She reached out a claw, hesitant for once. Her experience with treasures told her the shinier the object, the more fragile it usually was.
She touched it lightly, scraping just the surface.
Crack—
The barrier shattered instantly, dissolving into golden motes that drifted away like a popped soap bubble.
Gray: QAQ
Lin Jun: What kind of cheap bubble was that?