Sensing that Inanna and Aedin had finally moved far beyond the range of the Chiss rift, Lin Jun directed the Puji army to quietly circle back.
This time, they marched into the cavern battlefield that had once been nearly impassable—without meeting a shred of resistance.
After all… what could a pile of corpses do to stop them?
The cavern was steeped in purple. By the time the Pujis arrived, the low temperatures had already frozen the violet blood.
Unlike when Fifteen had cut his way through the Puji forces, leaving heaps of shredded mushroom fragments, the Chiss here were all slain with a single blow each.
Heads severed, bodies split in two—no corpse bore a second strike. Not even the Evil Eye was spared.
That massive eyeball had been cleaved neatly in half and came crashing down from the heights, splattering foul fluids everywhere.
Damn—how ridiculously strong was that Sword Saint?!
Because the Chiss had burned away the fungal mats, Lin Jun couldn’t directly see the battle. But from afar, through his link, he felt Inanna and Aedin only pause briefly before passing through the cavern.
Which meant… that even a thousand-strong Chiss host had only been able to make the Sword Saint pause for a moment.So what chance would Lin Jun’s Puji army have?
Despite his deep wariness of this Sword Saint, Lin Jun still sent a scout Puji to follow from a distance, hoping to discover the core’s location.
As for now?
Since the humans might double back along the same path, occupying the battlefield was meaningless. Lin Jun decisively began harvesting the corpses instead.
The Chiss, it seemed, had been beaten into hiding. They now huddled behind the rift and refused to emerge.
Maybe they had been slaughtered down to the last…
But whenever Lin Jun sent Pujis to probe, they were immediately killed—so the Chiss weren’t completely helpless yet.
Still, once the humans repaired the core, wouldn’t the rifts vanish anyway?
That thought left Lin Jun with a faint sense of regret.
Unlike random monsters with jumbled skills, the Chiss were… consistent.
The same amount of corpses might yield ten different level-3 skills from normal monsters, but from Chiss he could harvest two solid level-5s.
How could he not love them?
After weeks of this push and pull, both [Refractive Invisibility] and [Cold Resistance] had climbed to LV7. On top of that, he’d gained the Evil Eye’s [Petrification Ray] and [Magic Shield].
The shield was simple enough. Pujis had already adapted it for combat. Even a second-tier barrier bought them five extra seconds under an Evil Eye’s gaze.
Level issues were expected. With practice, they’d grow stronger.
But the [Petrification Ray]… that was awkward.
Pujis didn’t have eyes.
He’d run into this before. Breaking down other monsters had given him things like [Far Sight], but when grafted onto Pujis, nothing happened.
The Petrification Ray wasn’t completely useless, though. It had some effect…
Their natural glow now carried a faint petrifying aura.
No direction, no range, no control—just a weak area-of-effect haze, like constantly venting poison.
But unlike with hallucination spores, this aura affected allies.
So when a Petrification Puji activated, the first thing to turn to stone was the fungal mats and surrounding Pujis. And at a pitiful pace, too—an hour to petrify just a layer of hyphae.
Too clumsy for combat.
Still, turning biomass into stone… maybe it had niche applications. Just not against enemies.
Suddenly—
His scout Puji… was destroyed.
…
Silver light flickered underfoot as Sword Saint Elvien rejoined the group after straying briefly.
“So that’s what was trailing us,” he said, casually twirling his sword. A winged Puji hung skewered on the tip. “Another one of these little pests.”
Fifteen frowned at the limp body. “Come to think of it, weren’t there Puji corpses scattered among the Chiss back there? That means they’re not just in the upper levels—they’re active down here too. Just… not sure if it’s the same clan as the ones above.”
The interruption was brief. Elvien tossed the body aside, and the group continued.
But though its wound was small, that scout Puji never revived…
Two full days of trekking later, guided by the locator crystal, they finally drew near their true destination—the core.
In the latter half of their journey, monsters swarmed thick.
Cunning cave spiders, flocks of shadow bats, venomous worms slithering through cracks… it finally felt like the treacherous ecology a deep dungeon was supposed to have.
They even faced a colossal earthworm, level sixty-plus.
Its vast body was like a moving fortress, armored in stone plates, maw gaping with jagged teeth.
It was the only
monster that forced Sword Saint Elvien to swing a second time.At last, the party reached a platform starkly unlike the surrounding caverns.
It was paved with smooth, cold black stone, edges too clean to be natural, as if carved by a master.
No monster dared approach—just as none dared near the stairways above. Here, they stood in an island of silence.
At the platform’s entrance sat a dust-choked machine, its metallic casing dull, faint traces of runes barely visible.
A frail pulse of magic flickered within—the last breath of an ancient mana-wave collector.
At the far end loomed a massive black gate, seamless and imposing. On either side stood two towering statues, ten meters tall, bizarre in design yet radiating grim majesty.
None of the humans dared draw near.
“Here.” Gug gestured. The mages quickly unpacked heavy crates carried with great care.
Inside lay mithril-glinting components, rune-etched crystal prisms, and energy conduits.
Beside the old relic, they began assembling.
By midday, a strange, futuristic magical device stood ready.
Gug himself, assisted by the other mages, guided surging currents of magic through his bony hands into the machine.
The energy output warped the very air at the platform’s edges.
Time passed. Gug’s face, once stern and focused, twisted into disbelief. His brows furrowed deeper and deeper, complexion darkening.
“What’s wrong?” Elvien asked bluntly, the only one unafraid to break the silence.
Gug finally lifted his head, wrinkles etched deep, Adam’s apple bobbing as he rasped, “We… may lose the Amethyst Dungeon.”
“Why?”
“Because…” His voice was heavy, like a man watching disaster unfold. “This isn’t just mana turbulence anymore. The core itself… is slowing. Like a heart about to stop beating. Trying to mend it now is like forcing medicine into a corpse. No matter how we channel the flows, it’s useless…”
He rambled through jargon that left most bewildered, but the meaning was stark: their expertise was useless. The core could not be repaired.
Elvien’s grip tightened on his sword. His sharp gaze swept past the platform to the silent statues beyond. “If you entered the core itself, would there be hope?”
Gug shook his head. “It would change nothing. We know only how to maintain the outer layers. The true foundation of the core… has always been beyond us.”
At that, even the Sword Saint was left without an answer. He looked once more at the black gate, then sighed. “Then… we can only prepare to return.”
Aedin froze for a moment, lost in thought.
Inanna covered her mouth, eyes darting rapidly, her mind clearly racing.