Abium got stunned as he saw the goblin and instantly threw a Fire orb at it.
A second later, the humanoid green monster uttered a shrill cry as the 'Red Orb' spell exploded on its face and fell to the ground.
"Well, we are in little trouble now," Abium said while cursing his luck and turning his attention towards the chaos mark. He didn't think that Goblin Zack would bring him trouble even after his death.
Without delay, he activated his spiritual scan and saw multiple red dots coming in their direction.
'Tsk, annoying pests!' Abium frowned a little and signaled everyone to get ready for battle. He wasn't afraid of being surrounded by an army of goblins. He and his new team members were powerful enough to kill first-tier shamans without difficulty. But they would be thrown into a tough position if they met another second-tier goblin shaman.
'Moreover, getting surrounded by an army of goblins will expose our location to the enemies.' Abium thought to himself and spoke,
"Don't hold back and kill all the monsters. These goblins will only sense this chaos mark when we move near them."
Everyone nodded their heads and got ready for the battle.
Within a few seconds, 20 more elite goblins swarmed through the nearby bushes and appeared in front of them with an aggressive looks in their eyes.
But before those goblins could take a step forward, Umi pointed her snowy finger at them and cast her Crystal Ice needle spell. A piece of small needle-like ice appeared from her finger and moved towards the goblins, leaving afterimages behind. Within a second, the crystal ice needle entered the goblins' heads one by one and started killing them.
Twenty goblins' heads exploded in unison a second later and splattered everywhere.
Abium was stunned inside and soon led the group away from there.
'Umi is learning quickly. If not for that shackle, she would be pretty much unbeatable.' Abium nodded in amazement and began teaching her a few fighting tricks. While teaching Umi, Abium didn't forget to search for the exit to the fifth layer. He also discovered that the fourth layer had other monsters lurking in the woods and started exploring more cautiously.
On the third day, their group met a large Red Ant type monster around 100cm tall. Even Abium hadn't heard of any of these giant Red Ant-like monsters and became confused. After a short discussion with Azolla, he discovered this Ant was not a chaotic monster but a normal, living mutated insect from another plane. After following the Ant for some time, Abium soon found a group of Red Ants.
As Abium's group moved near the Red Ants to gather more information, its' antennas began to glow, and all of the Red Ants moved toward them aggressively.
Although Abium and others managed to kill all the Ants without difficulty, he wasn't happy.
At that moment, he knew a Red ant colony must be nearby, and the chance of them bumping into the Ant queen was high.
'But I don't think hundreds of ants will pose a threat to us.' He thought and soon saw a few 'Mind worms' attached to some of the ants' foreheads!
'Mind worm is scarier than I thought. Wait!... Did those goblins also have Mind worms attached to their bodies?'
Suddenly, a horrifying thought appeared in his mind.
"What if these mind worms had long parasitized all the living creatures in this dungeon?" He blurted out.
"How is that possible-?!" Upon hearing his question, Edith retorted instantly, but soon her eyes widened in shock.
"Could it be?" Rizz and Fennelis stared at each other and asked in unison.
"Why not? We already saw these parasites appearing everywhere, right?" Abium frowned.
"Then, we must move with extra caution," Fennelis said and soon turned her head towards Cedric.
'Did he hide some information from us?' A suspicion appeared in her mind. But soon, she dismissed that thought.
Even if Cedric hid some information from others, she didn't think he would outsmart the elven kid.
The group didn't dare to stay near the Ant group and began to search for the exit cave in the fourth layer.
But to their worst luck, the path they chose to search was where the Red Ant colony was.
'But why are there no worker ants nearby?' Abium stood there with a concerned expression and looked at the entrance to an ant nest. It looked almost similar to the exit tunnel, but only a few Ant soldiers stood guarding it.
'Is this the path to the next layer?' Abium pondered and soon thought of finding out with his own eyes.
He didn't think much and quickly conjured a few red balls of fire. After a slight hesitation, he threw those at all those ant soldiers and killed them instantly.
"Let's go." Abium signaled others to follow him and stealthily crept toward the Red ant nest that appeared a few meters away. Afterward, the group entered a narrow tunnel, which moved downwards, and soon met a few worker ants. Although they attacked them recklessly, Abium and others faced no difficulty.
After silently killing the ants, they continued their walking.
But soon after that, their group saw the tunnel split into two and faced a dilemma about choosing the right path.
At that moment, Abium used his 'Seer's intuition' spell and chose the path on his right side. After another hour of the journey, they met another group of worker ants. It was easy for them to kill the ants, but Abium felt something was wrong.
His guess was right on as they moved further into the dark tunnel. Unlike the last time, their group noticed hundreds of ants swarming from inside while screeching aggressively.
Everyone's complexion began to go pale. Upon facing the hundreds of monsters, Abium knew they had no choice but to face them head-on.
"Get ready," Abium spoke grimly and soon threw a ball of fire into the tunnel.
A massacre began, and six-legged red monstrous ants started to fall one by one. Abium's group didn't hold anything back and brutally killed all those hundreds of ants.
As Abium killed the last one, he heard Azolla's concerned voice inside his head,
'Kid, go back. Otherwise, you all might get killed by these ants.' Hearing her words, Abium got startled a bit and quickly asked,
'What do you mean by that?... Why didn't you mention..? You! You forgot to warm me, didn't you?' Abium's face went pale as he thought of Azolla's unique weakness and almost shouted at her. But quickly, he stopped himself and waited for Azolla's answer.
"Cough' I apologize, kid. Let me explain about these ants' nature a bit.' Azolla let out a cough awkwardly and began to change the topic. Abium rolled his eyes at this artificial spirit's behavior and sighed helplessly. He had learned much about ordinary artificial spirits in the past few months and knew Azolla was special.
'Damn it! If someone from Arcane Empire heard her making excuses, those mages would die from head explosion.' Abium shook his head and began to ask,
'Can you explain about these Red Ants?'
'Oops! I forgot once again. From the records, I learned that these Ants always live in colonies and rely heavily on chemical communication in the form of pheromones. They use some magical sensory energy from their antennas when communicating. Communication between individuals is necessary for any species, and for ants- whose colonies have been known to contain as many as a million worker ants- this is no different.
Ants use pheromones in many ways, such as 'danger' pheromones upon death by alerting nearby ants or creating chemical trails from their nest to promising food sources. Other ants in the colony use their antennas to detect these pheromones and respond accordingly. So, you just entered one of these nests and killed hundreds of ants.' Azolla stopped for a moment and added casually,
'If my guess is not wrong, thousands of ants are on their way to this place. They mostly act instinctively to protect the queen, so these ants wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice for the colony.'
Upon hearing those words, Abium got stunned and soon went white. At first, he thought these ants were not worthy of his attention and neglected the core issue. But now, he understood their might. Every colony had a massive number and could even destroy a kingdom if this mutated colony appeared out of this dungeon. But what worried him more was the Mind worms attached to those ants. He could tell these worms didn't devour these ants' original souls and appeared to be merely manipulating these creatures.
'What should we do? Should we have to go back after coming all this way down?' Abium began to feel a headache as he pondered the issue and soon made up his mind.
'I will use 'Seer's intuition' spell to find an easy way.' Abium thought for a bit and began to move deeper into the tunnel. The tunnel split into two or three ways from time to time and moved like an endless loop. But with Abium's Seer's intuition spell, their group managed to evade the worst possible outcome and finally found the exit after 24 hours of constant fighting.
Everyone, including Abium, became excited upon seeing the exit and sprinted toward the bright light.
As Abium was about to move towards the exit, he felt uneasy. He halted his footstep and signaled everyone to stop. Abium's sudden action made others' excitement disappear instantly and replaced it with wariness.
Without giving any explanation, Abium closed his eyes as if he was in meditation and let his consciousness enter the mysterious throne hall. A second later, he appeared inside his other soul form.
After that, he controlled his soul form and moved toward the mysterious fountain to see the near future.
Within a second, Abium opened his amber eyes to the physical world and let out a cold breath.
'Shadow!' He muttered in shock, quickly taking out his new Scarlet short sword and putting it on his waist. After that, he signaled everyone to be more careful and stepped cautiously towards the exit.
The group soon walked out of the endless tunnel, entered the fifth layer, and stood there with stunned faces. They couldn't hide their emotion even after hearing Abium's warning.
The fifth layer was filled with endless beautiful forest, which could captivate one's eyes with one glance.
Pleasant blue joy birds' singing sounds echoed everywhere, along with howls of wolves formed into a strange melody. The song of Nature gave warm feelings to those who listened to it and let their minds walk into their imaginary world. Various plants, trees, and vines covered the dense woods and looked beautiful. Branches and leaves moved due to the strange winds, almost like they were dancing to the Nature song.
Pink and yellow-colored beautiful flowers bloomed in many areas, suddenly shredded their petals, and greeted the unexpected visitors to their land. But what made those guests relax their guard was the strange red fruits hanging in those trees, giving off a delicious aroma to the surroundings. The only one who stood with a calm expression was Abium. His eyes were cold and ruthless. He didn't dare to relax even a bit and silently waited.
In a second, a dark humanoid creature around 2 meters tall appeared in front of them and gave a sinister look with creepy red eyes. It had four shadow-like arms and two legs. Abium also saw a unique silver-lined worm attached to that shadow's forehead, and its unique white eye stared deep into his eyes.
Abium didn't hesitate to activate the scan function, and soon a blue screen appeared in front of him.
[Name: ????
Age: ????
Race: Shadow Fiend
Health: Parasitized
Class: 2nd Tier Warlock
Affiliation: Lawful Evil
Attributes
Strength: 8.9
Agility: 9.9
Vitality: 9.0
Mana: 864.0
Spirit: 432.0
Spells
Bloodline spells: Shadow teleport, Nightmare curse, ????,?????,?????,?????.]
Abium made a grim face and stared cautiously at the humanoid creature that appeared in front of him. Its skin was black, with two red horns on its forehead. Its eyes were deep endless void-like black, and those two voids could even devour one's memory just by the look.
But what made Abium take a step back in caution was that strange threads appeared from its claw-like hands, and those threads seemed to be connected to everyone's shadows.