“What the hell is going on?”
At the stairway between the fifth and sixth floors, a party of adventurers was forced to halt. The stairs were jam-packed…
Pujis swarmed the passage, marching down in batches and blocking the way entirely. The adventurers couldn’t squeeze through at all.
Humans’ tolerance for the bizarre kept getting stretched. Once, they’d been astonished just to see Big Black trundle down the stairs. Now, even at the sight of Pujis en masse descending, they barely blinked.
Still…
One adventurer glanced at the endless Puji line and grumbled:
“How long’s it gonna take for them all to finish?”
…
On the sixth floor, the mushroom cannons in the southwest corner had been firing nonstop for half a day. Many turret Pujis had burned out their mycelium from overuse.
The lowest row of cannons along the cliff wall had been overrun—giant slimes had surged up, dissolving them or leaving them dead and half-digested in stone shells.The slimes had even tried climbing to higher cannons, but the slope turned steep, almost inverted. Clambering up was too hard. Under the barrage of surviving cannons, they were eventually blasted back down.
But the cannons still standing were too far from the ground—their bombardment was little more than blind shelling, with limited effect.
Lin Jun was orchestrating the desperate battle against the sudden slime flood.
The pit had been breached. He’d ordered the Pujis to retreat and regroup with reinforcements from the fifth floor, drawing a defensive perimeter.
Over two hundred cannon Pujis ringed the hill, trying to contain the massive slimes within.
At one corner of the defense line, twenty-odd Pujis were being pressed hard by three slimes, retreating as they fired.
The nearest slime, hammered the most, had shrunk until barely human-sized.
Another volley struck—it had no more mucus left to shield its core. The hidden nucleus was destroyed, and it collapsed into a puddle.
But things weren’t good. The other two, both twice human height, only shrank slightly under several hits. Their HP bars were still long.
One leapt forward, engulfing a lagging Puji and forcing direct combat.
Lin Jun had no choice but to order the Pujis to scatter—at least prevent double kills from single leaps.
Even so, their numbers dwindled fast, while the two slimes lost only bits of mass. Soon, the Pujis there would be wiped out.
Thump-thump—thump-thump—
Heavier footsteps than any Puji’s thundered. From the woods burst Big Black.
Her massive fists slammed one slime, bursting it like a water balloon!
Four Pujis spilled free, but none survived.
The other slime lasted only seconds more before Gray leapt and stomped it flat.
The splash of digestive mucus splattered a nearby Puji, who writhed before dissolving.
Gray licked the slime from her hands—rich with mana, tasty enough.
But she couldn’t linger. Lin Jun directed her elsewhere; other fronts needed saving.
Of the original squad, only five Pujis lived. Not enough to form a line—but fresh troops had just arrived. This time, four hundred.
With reinforcements and the overpowered Gray, the encirclement pushed back step by step.
Thankfully, the hill’s slimes weren’t infinite. Judging from the pressure, once the pit burst, a wave of giant slimes had poured out, but then tapered off.
That made sense. They couldn’t really spawn endlessly.
Still, the fact that the water-source hill had held so many was outrageous already.
The tide was finally stemmed, but the slime rampage had ravaged the southwest sector’s ecosystem.
Where giant slimes sat, whether flower spirits or vines, everything was dissolved.
Coupled with Lin Jun’s cannon bombardment, the double devastation cleared swaths of land.
Luckily, it was just one corner—the broader sixth floor remained intact.
Half a day later, they forced the line back to the pit. Dozens of mushroom shots obliterated the last visible slime.
Gray hadn’t followed. She’d grown tired midway, grabbed a Puji, and sat down to feast on slime-soaked flesh. She was probably just finishing her meal now.
Lin Jun, controlling his Pujis, examined the fissure they’d opened. Ignoring the corrosive slime fluids, he sent a few tunneling Pujis inside.
The hill was nearly hollow, explaining how so many slimes had fit.
Soon, he spotted an underground water stream. Following it upward, he found a peculiar slime at the source.
It was human-sized—not small, but stunted compared to the giants outside.
Its body was half-red, half-green, as if two slimes fused.
As Lin Jun watched, it strained to split another slime from within itself.
When it did, its body shrank further.
The newborn was pure red, unlike its bicolor parent, and was killed instantly by the Pujis.
【Core Division LV9】
This was no ordinary skill.
Normally, slimes condensed directly from environment and mana—they didn’t reproduce.
No wonder the hill had such an unnatural slime population—it was artificially breeding.
But that still didn’t explain why they grew so massive.
Another oddity—the bicolor slime kept… spraying water.
From both sides of its body, clear streams flowed, as if it were the source itself.
You kidding me?
Lin Jun checked its skill bar. No infinite-water ability.
Was it the ground beneath it?
Two Pujis tried prying it aside with a thin stone slab.
The slime, which hadn’t shown aggression, now resisted fiercely, refusing to move.
The Pujis weren’t strong enough alone, but with more help, they shoved it aside anyway.
Sure enough—a fissure gushed water beneath.
And in that water… traces of mana!
Mana-rich water!
He had seen such only once before—in a treasure room chest, and even that had higher concentration but far less volume.
Here, the sheer quantity was greater.
No wonder the slime wouldn’t budge, hogging all the filtered mana for itself. That was how it and its kin grew so huge.
If the slime could filter mana, so could Lin Jun.
Though not desperate for mana now, there was no such thing as too much.
He could weave mycelial filters here, turn the hollowed hill into a hidden mana reservoir. With the entrance resealed…
【Corrosion Curse: Continuous Corrosion Damage】
Huh?
Every Puji present suddenly had the status effect—HP ticking down.
Lin Jun reacted fast. Before they lost half their health, he shoved the bicolor slime back over the fissure.
Settled again, it burbled happily.
And the curse vanished.
So—the water carried the curse.
But why?
He wasn’t leaving it at that.
While restraining the bicolor slime, Lin Jun ordered tougher, corrosion-resistant Pujis into production.
Once ready, he pried the slime aside again. The diggers hammered open the fissure.
Even with precautions, he had to replace the slime once mid-operation, or risk losing too many.
After half a day, they exposed the truth—
A rift.
A small one, but just like during the mana tide—
a space fissure connecting to another dungeon!
What, was this dungeon falling apart with age?
Did the other side even know their “pipe” was leaking sewage into here?