The familiar vast cavern.
When Lin Jun’s fungal network finally spread downward, the dark was filled with sounds of gnawing and tearing—an unholy feast underway.
Giant spiders ripped apart mayfly carcasses with their fangs. Slimes oozed over shells, dissolving them. Beetles clicked as they chewed. Cave dwellers hacked off legs with scraps of flesh. Lizard-beasts darted tongues to snatch morsels. Countless monsters crowded the mound of corpses.
Lin Jun even spotted a human-sized turtle, calmly chewing on remains.
Turtles? In the deep zone?
And yet, none of the creatures fought. They all gorged side by side, focused entirely on devouring the mountain of mayfly bodies.
For Lin Jun, though, it was infuriating.
Those bastards were feasting on prey he had slain!
Even the giant mayfly wasn’t spared—the monsters couldn’t crack its thick carapace, but its head, already blown open by Lin Jun, was being picked apart.
Barely half a head remained.Thirty elite Puji dropped onto its back. A giant spider stretched a leg toward them, only to meet a blade-whip.
These were no fodder. Like special forces, elite Puji weren’t sent to soak hits in the giant battle. Against it, elite or fodder made no difference—they’d be crushed.
Now, though, they shone.
The spider shrieked as its leg was severed, and a volley of boosted fungal cannons erased its head.
The body toppled.
At once, the Puji turned on every scavenger stealing their kill.
Chaos erupted.
A lizard-beast lashed out—only to step into a slime and dissolve.
Beetles scuttled into hiding.
Two cave-dwellers tried to drag off a chunk of meat. One was blasted apart by cannon fire. The other abandoned both prize and crippled companion, fleeing.
The skirmish didn’t last. Though numerous, the monsters weren’t unified.
And the elite Puji were strong. Apart from two lost to a lizard-beast ambush, they swiftly cleared the cavern.
Armored melee Puji dispatched wounded stragglers. Only a crippled cave-dweller and the turtle remained.
The turtle—they simply couldn’t hurt it. When attacked, it retracted into its shell, sealing every gap.
Not even the giant mayfly’s carapace seemed tougher. Lin Jun left it alone.
The cave-dweller, however—Lin Jun’s curiosity lingered. A humanoid without eyes. None had ever appeared near his old mushroom garden.
The pair were weak, low twenties in level. Their skills pitiful. The crude spears they carried looked hardly usable.
No wonder they lurked at the fringes, chewing scraps instead of daring the center.
Judging by stats alone, even a fire mosquito would be hard for one to defeat.
And fire mosquitoes swarmed—did these creatures have such numbers?
Dragged aside, the cave-dwellers were set with the turtle.
Meanwhile, the Puji sprayed spores across the cavern.
It was bare of native monsters, only ferns of the deep zone.
Which made sense—the mayflies’ hunting grounds above likely stripped it clean.
Unlike his old isolated mushroom garden, this cave connected over a dozen tunnels. In the deep, that was about average.
Which direction had his old garden been? Back then, with so little strength, he hadn’t explored far.
By midday, the fungal carpet from above connected with the new spores below.
Knowing how unpredictable the deep was, Lin Jun accelerated decomposition, spending extra mana. What should’ve taken days was done in hours.
【Seven Sins of Greed Triggered】
【Looted Skill: Chitin Shell LV7 → LV8】
【Looted Skill: Silk LV3 → LV4】
【Looted Skill: Cocooning LV1】
…
After the work, the crippled cave-dweller was hauled out.
【Fusion Parasite】 had been applied, but its leg was blasted beyond repair.
Lin Jun strapped a bug-shell prosthetic to the stump so it could limp.
Then released it.
If its people lived nearby, he’d sense them through it.
If not—well, crippled and slow, it’d likely end up dinner for something.
The fungal network had already tested its intelligence—primitive, but not witless.
Lin Jun was intrigued.
Currently, he could directly command about 3,000 Puji.
Plenty for his seven layers, but clearly short for the unknown deep.
Before descending, he had considered recruiting humanoids, much as he’d left layer six to treants.
At first, his target was minotaurs—the only humanoids he’d encountered below.
But he wasn’t confident.
Minotaurs struck him as violent and strong.
【Fusion Parasite】 wasn’t mind control. If they resisted, he could only turn them into puppets.
And there weren’t many—he’d only ever seen lone stragglers.
The cave-dwellers, though—already a pair.
After releasing it, Lin Jun sent a Puji to shadow from afar.
But fate had other plans. Within minutes, the cave-dweller vanished in the tunnel.
When the Puji arrived, it found only a broken spear—and a manhole-sized crack in the ground.
Beyond it, no sound, no curse. Only pitch black…