Chapter 119: Viscount Squad (Part 1)

"What a pity, a pair of twins!"

The lewd voice beside him made Huck turn and glance back at the three figures almost disappearing at the end of the corridor.

Of course, he knew what the so-called "pity" meant.

The speaker was called Short Axe, an ugly man with a centipede-shaped scar running horizontally across his cheek, torn open by an iron hook during a caravan raid in his early days.

Years of heavy drinking had darkened his complexion; when he grinned, revealing missing front teeth, the two short axes slung over his leather armor trembled along with his belly.

Yet even with his figure ruined, in battle he remained a desperate man daring to use 【Rampage】, swinging his dual axes into a whirlwind.

His brain just wasn't right, always thinking about his two ounces of flesh, not even looking at the current situation, still acting as if they were bandits back in the old days...

Huck secretly glanced at Viscountess Louisa walking in the middle of the group; this tall vampire seemed not to have heard Short Axe's complaint, or perhaps she heard it but didn't care?

Cursing Short Axe silently in his heart, after all, if Short Axe and a few others hadn't been driven by lust and played the Baron's daughter to death, they wouldn't have been forced by a huge bounty to flee to the Empire of Hermits, let alone participate in an operation that looked dangerous at a glance; did he really crave that so-called immortality?

Living to an old age is true immortality; having a long lifespan only to be slaughtered immediately counts for what kind of immortality!

Unfortunately, circumstances are stronger than men; since they pledged allegiance to the vampires, they had no choice left.

Short Axe beside him took a small box from his chest, poured out a gray-white pill emitting a stench of decay, and swallowed it in one gulp.

Huck recognized what it was; it was a Still Undead Pill refined from Lilies of Mourning, and he had one in his chest too.

Long-term consumption can make the flesh closer to that of the dead, considered a necessary step before being transformed into a half-vampire.

This fellow Short Axe was obviously very serious about the Viscount's promise to transform them into half-vampires upon successfully completing the mission, truly...

Huck himself took out a Still Undead Pill and swallowed it...

An axe suddenly whirled past in front of him, making Huck stop in his tracks.

"Short Axe?" Huck's voice suppressed irritability.

The axe passed through Pooji and a Slime fighting not far away, achieved a perfect double kill, and then flew back into Short Axe's hand.

"Why have you been silent all the way, pretending to be a master? Haha—"

Short Axe's unrestrained laughter made everyone turn to glance at him, including the Viscountess.

Huck didn't find it funny at all; he just wanted to slice that ugly face apart with a wind blade!

He quickly increased the distance from Short Axe, while his muttering still came from behind: "Tch, a guy who can't take a joke."

Putting aside this guy with a hole in his brain, the others were relatively reliable, currently discussing the unusual nature of this dungeon.

"Didn't they say each layer of the Amethyst Dungeon has a different ecosystem? Why are there Poojis all the way, and they are mutated varieties."

"I came here six years ago; it wasn't like this back then."

"I heard this place experienced a Demon Tide before; it's probably the influence of the Demon Tide."

"It's... so dark..."

Huck looked around; indeed.

All along the way were mycelial mats, glowing mushrooms, and mutated Poojis; no matter what the layer's ecosystem was, they could be seen, and the proportion was not small.

This situation reached its peak when they stepped onto the fifth layer.

Plop—

A strange sensation came from beneath their feet.

Light spell!

"What is this?"

Under the orange-yellow light, everyone saw the thick mycelial mat beneath their feet; every step they took brought up a patch of stickiness.

"So disgusting!"

Someone disdainfully scraped their shoe sole, but the more they scraped, the more there was.

"Look, what is this?" Short Axe suddenly called out to everyone.

Huck turned to look and saw Short Axe hooking away the mycelial mat beneath his feet, revealing an inconspicuous... disc-shaped stone?

Huck felt something was wrong; if it were a stone, this one was too regular...

"Look, it's soft!"

Short Axe kicked the disc twice, feeling it bounce; it felt good to kick. Then he stepped down hard—

Huck watched with his own eyes as the disc beneath Short Axe's foot suddenly exploded, blasting away a layer of dirt.

"Ah—"

Amidst Short Axe's heart-rending scream, several black shadows actually jumped out from the surroundings and rushed at him.

Although Short Axe was a disgusting and annoying fellow, letting him die for nothing like this was not good.

Third-tier magic—Wind Surge!

A gust of hurricane blew the rushing figures away; only then could Huck barely distinguish what these things were.

"Pooji!?"

They were still mimicked Poojis!

The blown-away Poojis exploded one by one before hitting the ground; fortunately, no one else was hurt.

"Be careful! These Poojis are hiding underground!" someone warned.

Huck looked at the holes left on the ground after the Poojis left, then looked at the endless mycelial mat ahead—could it be that the whole way is like this?

"Ah! My leg!"

Short Axe's wailing drew Huck's attention back; he then realized that this rotten man had actually fallen this time; his right leg below the knee was blown off!

Thinking about it, this Bai Chi had stepped his whole foot directly into the explosion source; rather, the fact that he didn't lose further arms or legs was already due to his thick skin and tough bones.

Huck hesitated whether to give him the healing potion he carried with him, but looking at his condition, it seemed difficult for him to be of use in the battles ahead.

"What is that in the sky?" someone pointed to the air and asked.

Under the reflection of the dome's fluorescence, one black dot after another was approaching in mid-air; they seemed to be some kind of flying demon beast, and the M-shaped wings on their backs seemed familiar...

"Bats?" Huck thought they indeed resembled the bats commonly seen in vampire territory.

But why are these bats so fat?

Getting closer, he finally saw their true form.

"Poo-ji again!"

Having learned from the previous lesson, no one dared let Poo-ji approach anymore.

Magic arrows were all flung out; these flying Poo-jis weren't fast and were easy to hit, falling down one by one after being attacked...

Boom—

"Damn! Don't let them fly overhead! Huck, blow them away!"

Teammates cursed and gave orders; Huck simply stopped using Wind Blades and focused on using Wind Surge to blow the falling Poo-jis far away, so the group was no longer caught in the explosions.

But—

"How many Poo-jis are there, damn it?"

Tiny black dots flew up and down across the sky, making Huck's scalp tingle.

Even if they exhausted everyone's mana and arrows, they couldn't possibly take down this many Poo-jis, right?

"Let's... let's retreat first!"

Huck loudly suggested; after all, they weren't far from the stairs yet. He wanted to return first, regroup, and then figure out how to deal with these strange Poo-jis.

"No need."

Viscountess Louisa, who had been coldly observing the situation, suddenly spoke!

She simply waved her hand; the cries of the short-axe on the ground suddenly grew more miserable, and blood gushed from his severed limb, gathering in Louisa's hand to form a blood sphere.

Then the blood exploded outward into countless fine threads shooting toward the sky, piercing one Poo-ji after another with perfect accuracy.

The damage of each blood-thread attack wasn't high, but the Poo-jis happened to have very little health; perhaps she had seen through that...

After one strike, the blood sphere in Louisa's hand was completely consumed, and the Poo-jis fell from the sky like dumplings in a pot; only a few stragglers were picked off one by one by the archers.

It seemed their crisis was temporarily averted?

Huck glanced at the short-axe, now a dried corpse—seems he didn't need to agonize over whether to waste a healing potion.

(End of this chapter)