No. 9: "Have they gone far?"
Fifteen: "They're far away."
No. 9: "Then have you washed clean?"
Fifteen: "Washed clean."
Only then did No. 9 crawl out of the iron canister.
This place was already very far from where they had fought the dragon beasts earlier; the scene of corpses strewn everywhere could not be seen.
Even the wounds on Fifteen's body had been bandaged, and his bloodstained clothes had been washed clean.
No. 9 wasn't in a hurry to return to its throne. Instead, it skillfully fished out a mana potion from Fifteen's bag and poured it over its own slightly shriveled mushroom cap, replenishing its expenditure.
"I didn't expect there to actually be a second wave. I have absolutely nothing left."
Ever since realizing that it was a little bit squeamish about blood, No. 9 gave up the idea of fighting personally and instead focused all its efforts on cultivating Fifteen, its mount.
It took a lot of effort to find many auxiliary skills in the Fungal Lord's skill library that even Lin Jun himself wasn't very clear about. Most of these had been turned into various spores, and the effects were not bad.
On the other side, Fifteen leaned exhaustedly against a large tree, slowly digesting the side effects of the various enhancements.
He glanced at the entrance to Dragon Roar Valley not far away and nodded, saying, "Something must have happened inside, but a little while won't make a difference. Let's rest and regroup for a day first."
Fifteen's head movement tugged at the wound on his chest, making him bare his teeth in pain once again.
"You non-mushrooms are so troublesome. You can't even recover after so long. I really don't know why you aren't willing to form a symbiosis with the mycelium. It would be so much more convenient for us to chat that way!" Saying this, No. 9 swung the Telepathy Stone in its tentacles with slight dissatisfaction.
Fifteen smiled and didn't argue.
He couldn't exactly say that it was the Dukes who told him not to be parasitized by the mycelium, right?
Fifteen himself wasn't repulsed by it. In his view, the Puchis and the fungal mat had already deeply penetrated the Kingdom from top to bottom; it was impossible for the two sides to separate anymore.
The higher-ups were just making a final struggle because of the misgivings in their hearts.
Once they thoroughly recognized reality, they would naturally let nature take its course.
However, before that time came, Fifteen didn't plan to go against them, so he naturally wouldn't proactively choose to be parasitized.
At night, Fifteen fell asleep.
Puchis don't sleep, so No. 9 sat on his chest, taking charge of keeping watch.
In terms of reconnaissance capabilities, the Mush-kin's multi-layered stereoscopic reconnaissance was indeed unique. Fifteen slept very soundly.
When early morning arrived, Fifteen was about to wake up.
After confirming there was no danger nearby, No. 9 ran toward a nearby stream, planning to suck up some water to make mushroom soup for Fifteen's breakfast.
However, just as it sucked the stream water into its belly with its tentacles, Fifteen suddenly vanished from its perception on the spot.
No. 9 hurried back, only to see a completely empty camp.
In its perception, Fifteen hadn't run out of range; he had suddenly disappeared from where he was.
However, even after No. 9 searched around, it couldn't find any suspicious traces in the camp.
No. 9 plopped its bottom onto the ground, momentarily at a loss for what to do after losing Fifteen.
Something under its bottom felt uncomfortably hard. No. 9 dug around with its tentacle—Fifteen's two swords.
On the other side.
Fifteen rubbed his eyes, raising a hand to block the somewhat overly bright daylight.
He sighed inwardly that the fatigue brought by the side effects this time was actually exceptionally heavy, to the point that he slept straight through to noon.
He reached out to grab the sword at his side.
And grasped nothing but empty air.
In an instant, his drowsiness vanished completely, and Fifteen was alarmed to realize he actually wasn't sleeping in the camp.
Where is this?
"No. 9?"
No response.
Looking out, it was actually a boundless plain, with the figures of different types of dragon beasts in the distance.
And when Fifteen saw that towering cliff reaching into the clouds further away, a somewhat absurd guess emerged in his mind.
"Dragon Cliff Underground City?"
Subconsciously taking two steps forward, Fifteen stepped on a mutilated corpse. The corpse still gripped a longsword with two notches in its hand.
Picking up this ordinary-quality sword, Fifteen patted down the corpse and pulled out an identification tag issued by the Adventurer's Guild.
This was a corpse from the previous batch of adventurers; they had encountered the same situation!
There was no time to think too much; a dragon beast in the distance had already noticed him and was coming this way.
Soon, Fifteen was forced to engage in combat with the dragon beast.
However, even killing dragon beast after dragon beast was to no avail.
It was unknown how many dragon beasts were in this space, and killing more was completely useless for finding an exit.
Gradually, Fifteen—who hadn't yet recovered and lacked a handy weapon—fell into a disadvantage.
Right at this moment, a draconic aura pressed down upon the entire plain.
The originally menacing dragon beasts suddenly lost their fire, trembling as they lay prone on the ground.
And the weakened Fifteen, faced with the draconic aura, could only lean on his sword, barely managing not to collapse.
A black dragon descended from the sky. Its size far exceeded the white dragon Fifteen had seen before. Merely landing crushed several unlucky dragon beasts to death.
Yet even while being crushed to death, these dragon beasts didn't dare to move an inch from beginning to end.
Its dragon pupils turned. With just a single glance, Fifteen realized that the opponent was absolutely monster-level strong; he was definitely no match.
The black dragon had absolutely no interest in the battle between Fifteen and the dragon beasts. After a cursory glance, it strode forward.
After taking just a few steps forward, its figure suddenly blurred and vanished into thin air.
"Overlapping space?" This somewhat familiar scene finally made Fifteen understand exactly how he had appeared here.
Taking advantage of the fact that the dragon beasts hadn't recovered from the draconic aura yet, Fifteen immediately ran toward the location where the black dragon had disappeared.
However, this was ultimately not another Scarecrow Abyss. Although there were also multiple spaces, the rules seemed to be different.
Fifteen failed to get out, and the dragon beasts once again set their sights on him, the guy who had trespassed into their territory without permission.
Dragon beast after dragon beast pounced on him in succession. With old wounds unhealed and adding new ones, Fifteen's stamina gradually gave out. Even that longsword was only left with half a blade.
In the end, the blood-soaked Fifteen was practically just swinging his sword based on the remaining instincts in his body.
Death approached.
In a daze, Fifteen seemed to hear an auditory hallucination of someone speaking.
"Where did this unlucky child come from?"
"Lacking strength, you should restrain your curiosity. A life with a soul is precious; it shouldn't be wasted in a place like this."
"Let me take you out."
Fifteen, his eyes blurred with blood, couldn't clearly see the other's appearance. His only sensation was that the hand resting on his shoulder was very soft...
"Fifteen! Fifteen!"
At the entrance of Dragon Roar Valley, No. 9, curled around the Telepathy Stone, shook Fifteen's body. Its tentacles were stained with blood, yet it still couldn't get a response from Fifteen. No. 9 subconsciously wanted to parasitize him with spores, but remembering Fifteen's own wishes, it forcibly stopped itself.
Enduring its dizziness, No. 9 frantically poured all the high-tier healing potions from the luggage onto Fifteen in a flurry...
When Fifteen finally woke up again, he saw the familiar camp, and beside him, lying in bloody mud, the unconscious No. 9, as if it were the one severely injured.
(End of Chapter)
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