Chapter 72: The Third Layer of the Labyrinth!

The Land of Nightmares is brewing a new scheme. With the Demon King himself participating this time, it is surely only a matter of time before the humans on the surface are trembling in fear.

Meanwhile, in the Demon King's territory above the labyrinth, two little skeletons who had just logged on were huddled together, whispering.

Hearing her friend finish recounting her encounter from last night, 【Little Rabbit Juice】 opened her jaw wide in surprise, her skeleton frame leaning forward.

"Favorability?! Are you sure??? Is there really such a system?!"

【Little Xiao Xiao Yu Gao Zhi】 nodded vigorously.

"Really, really! After I completed that cooking quest, the system prompted that I had gained 10 points of favorability... favorability with the Demon King!"

That said, she was still completely confused about where this value had been added, as it couldn't be found anywhere in the player's system interface.

Little Rabbit Juice stroked her chin, her faint soul fire looking her friend up and down. After a long while, she muttered neurotically.

"Not simple... you woman are not simple."

"No, not simple?" Little Xiao Xiao Yu Gao Zhi froze for a second, then said with a wry smile, "What are you talking about! I just wanted to ask, is it possible to unlock hidden quests or something?"

This bad friend of hers was in the first batch of players to enter the game and was already a Level 4 Black Iron-tier big shot, as well as the highest-level player she knew in the game.

In fact, the link she had clicked to access the reservation page had been sent to her by this Black Iron big shot.

But now it seemed that this person was also completely in the dark about the game's various mechanics and wasn't as reliable as she had imagined.

Of course.

She still gave her own advice.

"Stupid! You already have favorability, why are you still worrying about hidden quests?! You have to fiercely take down the Demon King, make him crown you as a princess, and then fiercely explode his Nether Coins, and by the way, fiercely pull me, your good sister, in to explode his Nether Coins together."

Little Xiao Xiao Yu Gao Zhi was stunned for a moment.

"Wait, is that how this game is played?"

Little Rabbit Juice: "? Didn't say it couldn't be played like that, right?"

Little Xiao Xiao Yu Gao Zhi said with a wry smile.

"I'll just play normally... but come to think of it, the cooking system in this game is unexpectedly realistic. To be honest, I'm a bit surprised."

Little Rabbit Juice scratched the back of her head.

"It's just that dream technology thing, whatever, as long as it's fun."

With that, she stroked her chin again and muttered.

"But I didn't expect this game could be played like this... it's got something."

Looking at her friend who seemed tempted, Little Xiao Xiao Yu Gao Zhi showed an expression of not knowing what to say, and in the end, could only smile to resolve the awkwardness.

She couldn't imagine being a skeleton at all.

At least reincarnate as something better-looking first?

Like a succubus or something...

After the great battle in the Silver Pine Forest came to an end, the Necropolis players who had finished their conscription status returned to their daily gameplay.

The three little players at the Necropolis's first leather factory were still improving their weaving craftsmanship and squeezing the potential of the Shadow-Weaving clan, and this time, they were also assisted by a carpenter skilled in making traps.

"Gulping Down a Chemical Pool" continued to tinker with explosives, attempting to come up with a new formula with more stable output and stronger damage effects.

Besides the players who wanted to be capitalists and those who wanted to be Nobels, a batch of new talent had gradually emerged in the Necropolis recently.

Especially among the new batch of players who joined the game, there were not only little chefs with maxed-out cooking skills, but also blacksmith masters who could beat pots and pans, gardening masters who could grow flowers and plants, and civil engineering dogs skilled in bricklaying.

Luo Yan arranged for Hearing You You to issue them some targeted tasks, such as preparing three meals a day and boxed lunches for the Demon King and his pets, designing and building the Necropolis's steel-making furnace, planting the medicinal herb seeds he bought from the Demon Capital, and directing the cave spiders in construction, etc...

However, the areas that tasks could cover were ultimately limited, and they mostly played a role in "macro-control," guiding players to exert their own creativity.

As for how to exert creativity and how to go about it, it still depended on the players themselves to explore.

Perhaps because the game was too realistic, most players were still quite keen on exploring the limits of the game engine.

At the same time, it was also convenient for them to do some things here that they only dared to think about in reality but didn't dare to actually do.

Just as the life-profession players were exploring the limits of "Catastrophe OL," the combat-profession players were not idle either, either going down into the labyrinth to grind monsters and level up, or venturing deep into the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain north of Beifeng to search for more powerful wild monsters to hunt.

After the battle of the Silver Pine Forest, the Demon King's posture of summoning wind and rain ignited the ambition to become stronger in the hearts of many.

As the saying goes, a skeleton soldier who doesn't want to be a Skeleton King is not a good skeleton soldier.

No one was willing to be cannon fodder forever, not even able to scrape a layer of skin off a dragon's toenails.

Just as the high-level players in the server were striving to catch up with the Demon King as their goal, the respected Demon King himself was not idle.

The battle with the Earth Dragon clan made him deeply realize the insufficiency of his own strength.

Although players could rely on the ability of continuous resurrection to form a skeleton sea, no one could guarantee that every battle would take place near the Demon King's territory.

Just like the previous battle, there were always times when he had to take the initiative to attack. And once away from the resurrection point, the players' resurrection advantage was hard to manifest in the same battle.

In order to maximize the players' advantages and gain more chips for self-preservation, he had to level up as soon as possible! At the very least, he needed to be a peak Steel-tier or even Silver-tier Necromancer to have the conditions to cast collective enhancement spells on a thousand-man skeleton regiment!

Only then could the terrifying power of the skeleton sea be truly unleashed! A skeleton sea composed of white-board skeleton soldiers was nothing to fear, but a skeleton sea topped with a dozen necromantic buff spells was enough to make the most elite human legions tremble with fear.

Although the attribute panels of undead units would be weaker than other units, their plasticity was incomparable to other units of the same tier! In the second layer of the labyrinth, deep in the Nightmare Cave, in the wild area outside the sphere of influence of the Land of Nightmares, a giant centipede was eyeing the intruder who had broken into its territory, emitting dangerous insect chirps.

Usually, it was harassed by some small bats, but this time, several guys with more meat seemed to have come. Thinking that there would be a big meal to eat in a while, it couldn't help but excitedly move the pincers in front of its mouth, and countless arthropods swayed up and down with joy.

Luo Yan didn't waste time communicating with this guy about the ownership of the labyrinth, waved the magic wand in his hand, and directly shot out a burst of scorching flames.

"Flame Bullet!"

The centipede hit by the flames let out a cry of pain, twisted its huge body, and charged towards Luo Yan.

That mighty posture was like a derailed train! Just as the giant centipede was about to hit Luo Yan, a gust of wind suddenly attacked its side from the flank.

And arriving with that figure was a wide-bladed greatsword!

Clang—! A crisp sound echoed in the cave, and the giant centipede's body twisted in pain, actually being knocked to the side by that ant-like figure.

The internal organs wrapped in insect fluid were stirred together, and the giant centipede that fell to the ground twisted its body in pain, emitting a harsh insect chirp.

"Qi-qi-qi—"

Standing in a cloud of dust, Bangde looked silently at the giant centipede screaming on the ground, and put away the greatsword in his hand as if finishing.

And at the same time, another figure rushed into the dust like a whirlwind!

That speed was simply so fast that it was hard to see clearly. Within a few breaths, it cut off the thousand feet swaying under the centipede like a meat grinder, and slashed deeply into the soft abdomen.

The giant centipede, cleaved in two from the middle, could no longer move; acidic fluid spilled all over the ground, making a hissing sound upon the rocks.

Aokeduo waved the scimitar in his hand, cast his gaze towards Bangde on the side, and nodded. In silence, the communication seemed to have been completed. It is worth mentioning that not only Aokeduo, but Bangde had also been "promoted" by Luo Yan into a ghoul with self-awareness.

And after being upgraded to a ghoul, Bangde seemed to be even more reticent than he was before he died.

The two were currently on a similar starting line, both starting from zero with the combat experience from before the promotion, at most with buffs added by the Necromancer.

Now it seemed that they had already become familiar with their new identities.

"Well done."

Walking over the dust, Luo Yan looked at his two little brothers and nodded approvingly, then confirmed the changes in the attribute panel.

Experience points increased by 2310 points.

Remembering not long ago, he had also killed a giant centipede of similar size, but the experience points gained were 3000.

Luo Yan couldn't help but fall into deep thought, stroking his chin and pondering.

"Feels like less than before."

Hearing You You floated beside him.

"Could it be because of the upgrade?"

There were indeed players on the forum discussing that not only output proportion and the final blow would affect experience gains, but level differences would also cause gains or losses in experience value.

Simply put, killing monsters across levels yielded the most experience. A cave spider killed by a Level 4 player would only yield half the experience of one killed by a Level 1 player.

If one wanted to level up by bullying the weak, one could only make up for it with quantity.

"Should be like that."

Luo Yan pondered for a while, looked at Aokeduo and Bangde, and said.

"The giant centipede should be the limit of this layer, and the little demons are our allies... Let's go further down to the lower layers of the labyrinth."

"Obey!"

"At your command."

The two ghouls took orders in unison, walking in the team one after the other, consciously protecting their "father" in the middle.

Alakeduo was still at the Shadow-Weaving nest comforting the disaster, and Zelike was replacing the Demon King in the Palace clan to spread the Demon King's fear. This time, Luo Yan only brought two little brothers down for leveling, partly because he didn't need too many people, and partly to share less experience.

The group followed the map and soon arrived at the entrance of the third layer of the labyrinth.

According to the information provided by the little demons, this was the territory of "Golems" and golem makers, and it was in a state of partition more chaotic than the first layer.

Following the hundred-meter-deep stairwell downwards, the moment Luo Yan passed through the stone gate, what came into view was a space spacious enough to be unbelievable.

Huge gears were slowly turning on the distant walls, which seemed to be the huge power source driving some kind of machine.

In the distance, one could hear high-pitched steam hissing from time to time, and the milky white steam obscured the outline of the gears, also preventing Luo Yan from looking further into the distance.

As far as his eyes could see, dense pipelines covered the cloud-entangled walls, while the remaining space was filled with precise gears, chains, and levers.

The power source driving them seemed to come from underground deeper than the deepest layer of the labyrinth.

Complex art was vividly displayed here, but it was hard to say clearly which of these parts were useful and which were decoys.

And what surprised Luo Yan even more was not the scenery in the labyrinth, but the layout of the entire labyrinth layer—

What divided the entire space was not narrow corridors like the first and second layers, but rock stairs connected by machinery and bottomless cliffs on both sides!

The space here was exceptionally spacious, yet the areas available for adventurers to move around were few and far between.

Stepping onto the rock platform filled with steam, Luo Yan walked to the edge of the platform and took a look down, unable to see the end of the abyss at all.

One hundred meters?

Two hundred meters? In short—

The depth of this layer was simply unbelievably large.

And in contrast, the complexity of this labyrinth would likely exceed the imagination of all intruders. After all, the previous labyrinth was at least flat, while this one was three-dimensional.

Judging from the information from the Adventurers' Guild, it was clear that the adventurers outside also thought the situation here was quite tricky. So much so that most people preferred to skip directly to the fourth layer from the nearest passage, giving up on deep exploration of the third layer.

Especially since Lei Ji Delagong died not long ago and the old labyrinth core went out, the mechanisms of the third layer might collapse before long.

They could completely wait until this place became a metal ruin before coming in to hunt for treasure.

Just as Luo Yan was looking around, strange-looking metal machines had already waved their bizarre hands and climbed onto the stone platform under his feet from the edge of the abyss.

They had no fixed shape, as if four soft water pipes were inserted into a trash can to act as hands and feet, and their lightbulb-like eyes flickered with eerie red light.

"Intruder, annihilate."

Repeating the cold metallic sound, several robots had already discovered Luo Yan's existence and were surrounding him with clumsy steps.

Aokeduo revealed the two scimitars in his hand, his legs tensed and about to step forward, but was stopped by Luo Yan standing on the side.

"Retreat!"

While saying this, he waved the magic wand in his hand, a vortex-like airflow gathered at the tip of the wand, and then suddenly sprayed forward.

"Hurricane Hammer!"

The raging wind hit the chests of those robots like a hammer, knocking them away like playing golf.

Sure enough.

At the same time those robots were knocked into the air, the roar of an explosion sounded at the same time, and the splashing metal fragments scraped shocking scratches on the ground.

Aokeduo's expressionless face was slightly stunned.

"This is..."

"Rare mechanical magic," Luo Yan's eyebrows arched with a hint of surprise, as he didn't smell the scent of gunpowder in the wind blowing towards him. "It seems there are quite a few heretics in this layer."

And—

It might be even trickier than the Earth Dragon clan!

In the darkness, several pairs of eyes were eyeing this group of intruders, and the panicked look seemed not just stunned by the failure of the sneak attack.

"Human?! Undead!? How could they be here?!"

"Damn it—"

"That guy... could it be the new Demon King?!"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 73 =====