After a battle concluded, the water still lingering with undissolved murk and pale blue strands of blood.
Norris and Ming each grasped a tendril of oxygen-supplying Puki, replenishing their half-depleted oxygen, the oxygen-supplying Puki visibly becoming thinner.
Ming’s clothes, attacked in a battle without defense, were almost reduced to rags, yet there were no marks on his exposed skin.
Norris had acquired a few small cuts, but thanks to his powerful self-healing ability, he had already recovered most of it.
Although he didn’t have Ming’s absurd [Physical Immunity], he was also equipped with [Physical Resistance Level 10], making it difficult for ordinary attacks to cause substantial harm.
The Fishman guide was hurt the most.
While Norris was fully occupied rescuing Ming earlier, the Fishman fell into the siege of three enemies.
By the ti Norris remotely directed Jida to assist, one arm of the Fishman had already been severed. Now it was firmly pressing a dark green ointnt, with an intense seaweed and mineral scent, onto the wound to stop the bleeding.
Norris swam over and picked up the floating severed arm under the Fishman’s puzzled gaze.
He thought of taking it back, perhaps trying to help the Fishman reattach it with Fungal Network symbiosis.
But the Fishman’s eyes at this mont probably thought this human wanted to collect its limb, or... worse.
The language barrier remained an obstacle.
The Mushroom Garden was truly better—Norris couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.
There, even different races could communicate seamlessly through the Fungal Network.
The Fishman hastily treated its wound and imdiately struggled to the base of the religious icon. It used its remaining hand to tremble as it caressed the monster-damaged, pit-ridden stone base, emitting a low and sorrowful gurgle from its throat, as if mourning or confessing to its ineffective protection.
Ming looked up at the towering, over twenty ters tall, tentacle-haired female statue and curiously asked, "Who is this sculpted to be?"
"Death God, probably Nevrilla," Norris also looked up, his tone a bit uncertain, "Isn’t it said these Fishn believe in her? But... it’s the first ti I’ve seen Death God’s statue, so this is what she looks like."
"What are these gods even for?" Ming frowned slightly, "In the Death Arena, I’ve occasionally encountered those who prayed to so God of Light before dying. The God of Light never rescued anyone, probably the sa with this Death God, right?"
Norris shrugged; he shared a similar view.
Before he t his boss, he was barely a general believer of the God of Light, but that deity clearly never paid attention to small figures like him.
"You shouldn’t say such things in front of the Fishn," Norris reminded, "Before we ca, the boss specifically advised not to provoke them over religious beliefs."
Ming imdiately nodded seriously, looking solemn.
They must strictly adhere to the boss’s instructions!
Norris and Ming were unaware that the oxygen supply they received was from a specially crafted Puki with knight-level combat capability.
Faced with enemies of unknown strength, how could Lin Jun truly let Ming go without any intervention?
He had only confird the threat level via the panel beforehand, ensuring it was within controllable bounds, and hence refrained from direct involvent, treating it as an actual combat exercise for them.
At this mont, Lin Jun’s attention was also focused on that Death God statue, but his perspective was entirely different from Norris and Ming’s.
[Inspiration Level 8]
The statue... flickers!
This is the first ti.
It’s not only the first ti encountering such a presence and absence of a soul, but also the first ti seeing traces of a soul within a purely lifeless object like a statue!
Appearing in the Death God’s statue... could this be the soul of Death God herself?
Yet Lin Jun had also observed statues in the human God of Light’s chapel before, and besides being exquisitely and solemnly carved, the statues were rely stone, without any special signs inside.
Lin Jun tried to touch the statue with a tentacle, but unfortunately, nothing happened.
Below, Norris and Ming hadn’t forgotten Lin Jun’s mission.
Jida was currently hugging to trap the last living seafood monster.
It’s very fresh, struggling vigorously, yet unfortunately with Jida’s absolute power suppression, all resistance proved fruitless.
The trio cautiously returned along the original path, bringing the captive to the rift entry room leading to Pujie Dungeon.
By now, this space had completely transford.
In the water, clusters of wide and elastic fungal kelp swayed like an underwater forest. Along its edges grew clusters of Glowing Mushrooms, emitting dim blue, pale green, and light purple glows.
Above, near the previously empty water surface, floated a layer of stretched fungal seaweed, like an inverted glowing adow, similarly dotted with little spots of fluorescence.
None of the points of light were bright, but a hundred or thousand of them converged, as if bringing the entire starry sky into the water, the starry river hanging inverted, creating an extraordinary and exceptionally enchanting surreal scene in the deep waters.
If the seafood monster—being dragged into the depths of this "star sea" by the tightly coiled fungal kelp—had not emitted such agonizing, pained screams, Norris might have had more leisure to appreciate the view.
Beneath the monster’s blue-gray carapace, fungal tendrils wriggled, and clusters of plump Glowing Mushrooms tore open flesh, forcefully erging from the cracks in the shell.
The pale blue blood and shattered muscle fibers were callously squeezed out by the erging fungal mass, rging with the water.
Despite the monster’s cries of agony, the fungal tendrils did not pause.
Its originally blue-glowing compound eyes were also gradually replaced, the expanding mushroom bodies bursting through its crystalline lens from within, eventually allowing four brightly colored Glowing Mushrooms to bloom gently in its hollowed eye sockets.
When the monster’s last distorted and modulated wail finally cut off, transforming into a string of powerless rising bubbles, a dead silent mushroom puppet floated quietly within the beautiful "starry river."
Norris silently left the room, his stomach feeling queasy.
Ming, however, viewed the scene with keen interest, his eyes filled with pure curiosity, as if watching a unique magic show.
Lin Jun paid no heed to the two’s reactions.
Since the assassin, he was completely absorbed in a strange scene that suddenly erged.
...
As soon as the fungal tendrils successfully parasitized the monster, establishing a connection, this scene crashed into Lin Jun’s consciousness.
On a vast, barren, level ground, nurous coffins were neatly lined up.
Row after row, column after column, in tidy order, stretching toward the horizon, fading into distant blurred darkness.
In the extrely far distance, where the land seems to blend with deeper darkness, looms an imnse and towering shadow, resembling an oddly shaped mountain.
Lin Jun instinctively raised his head, looking at the sky in this space.
There was nothing there, no sun, moon, stars, only pure and utter darkness.
What on earth is this?
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