Chapter 145: 143 Advance

"Come on, Seeing Xiao Hei, eat a bit more."

One by one, the Pujis filled with strong acid gathered around Seeing Xiao Hei, pressing right up to her, almost ready to jump straight into her mouth.

Seeing Xiao Hei opened her mouth, and half-chewed Pujis fell out, landing on the ground.

After quite a while, Seeing Xiao Hei suddenly dropped the Puji in her hand and scrambled up a mushroom tree on all fours, hiding under the mushroom cap.

The Pujis couldn't reach Seeing Xiao Hei, so they just wandered around beneath the mushroom tree.

Seeing this, Lin Jun could only have these Pujis disperse.

It seems Seeing Xiao Hei's stomach isn't infinitely large; usually watching her eat nonstop, but actually feeding her, she only ate... hmm, 16 of them.

Of course, for a humanoid creature only 1.5 meters tall, being able to continuously swallow 16 half-human-tall Pujis means her digestive ability is quite impressive.

Only after most of the day did Seeing Xiao Hei jump down from the mushroom tree, refusing to eat strong-acid Pujis anymore, eating only plain-flavored normal Mana Pujis.

The induction plan failed; we can only collect normally once every two days.

Unfortunately, most of it was gaseous breath; only a little over half a bottle of concentrated acid liquid could be collected.

After a week, just over one bottle was collected; Lin Jun divided this acid liquid into ten portions.

At the edge of the rift, Bat Pujis flew down one by one.

On the bare rock wall, several nutrient supply tubes woven from mycelium pushed the mycelial mat to the edge of the mayfly habitat.

And at this location, they wove a platform with several levels of rise and fall, like a bird perch, where Bat Pujis hung upside down one by one.

Seeing that the first batch of Pujis was mostly in position, three faster Pujis flew out.

Although they were all Bat Pujis, actually multiple varieties came this time; it was a composite unit.

These three were speed-specialized Pujis serving as bait.

The three bait Pujis flew down a certain distance and quickly reached the edge of the mayflies' territory.

Below the rift were all mayflies, either swarming or high-level individuals.

After checking them one by one, Lin Jun chose this area, where mayfly density was lower, levels did not exceed LV50, and the overall situation was relatively "simple," to begin the assault.

As soon as the three bait Pujis appeared in the Thousand-Axis Mayfly territory, seven mayflies immediately flapped their wings, dragging their segmented bodies and flying over from far away.

The mayflies possessed 【Vibration Perception】, and their detection range was quite large.

This allowed the bait Pujis to lure the mayflies from a sufficiently far distance before retreating.

Pujis' bodies were truly unsuited for flight; even with 【Acceleration LV6】 added, they couldn't match natural flying monsters like the Thousand-Axis Mayfly.

Since they hadn't flown too far away to begin with, the three Pujis quickly fluttered back to the mycelium platform.

When those seven mayflies caught up, what greeted them was a dense array of mushroom cannons hanging upside down on the mycelium framework.

The seven ordinary mayflies, all under LV30, were almost instantly killed by the mushroom cannons; their broken bodies fell straight down into the bottomless abyss below.

Lin Jun felt terrible watching this.

So why didn't we plan to go through the rift from the start!

Putting aside the difficulty of the assault and the difficulty of supplies, after killing them, we can't even retrieve the monster corpses; there's no gain at all, just pure effort for nothing.

After finishing, the three bait Pujis set out again.

A few minutes later, they brought six more mayflies into the trap.

However, this time, there was a big guy at LV41.

Its body was larger than its peers, with more body segments.

After one round of mushroom cannons, the other mayflies fell down, but only it remained flying in the air, charging toward the position.

【Spit Arrow LV5】

A blob of black liquid shot onto its head; its sturdy shell was instantly corroded like brittle paper, and the poison liquid fell directly into its brain.

Not even two seconds later, this large mayfly fell down just like its companions.

Seeing Xiao Hei's poison is limited, so it's suitable only for specifically taking out high-level units.

Actually, the simplest method would be to bring Seeing Xiao Hei down; Seeing Xiao Hei can fly too, and taking out these Thousand-Axis Mayflies shouldn't be too hard. But the problem is, down there isn't some fixed layer with limited scope, but a deep zone whose exact size is still unknown.

Without the mycelial net, if Seeing Xiao Hei got carried away and disappeared, Lin Jun wouldn't be confident in retrieving her.

For safety's sake, let's just make the Pujis suffer for now.

As the outermost mayflies were lured away, the work of the bait Pujis gradually became more dangerous.

Due to the increased distance, even though the Pujis struggled hard to fly back, the Thousand-Axis Mayflies began to barely catch up to the bait Pujis.

Seeing they were getting close, the bait Pujis could only activate their backup skill.

【Jet Propulsion LV4】

Gas sprayed out from beneath the Pujis; two Pujis shot upward instantly, shaking off the mayflies by a bit.

But another Puji lost control due to the jet propulsion, spinning wildly in the air like a deflating balloon, until finally a mayfly pierced it dead-on, sacrificing it immediately.

This was unavoidable; the Pujis' self-control was just like that. This skill, used for emergencies, having a sixty percent survival rate was enough; anyway, there were plenty more bait Pujis...

As the mayflies below were cleared, the mycelium also spread downward; after spreading about a hundred meters or so, it began generating new mycelium platforms, advancing bit by bit.

Along the way, they also had to clear all the silk nets set up by the Thousand-Axis Mayflies.

For this, Lin Jun specially created a Magic Puji to come over, specifically to cast Fireball spells to burn the mayfly silk.

On the second day, after advancing one thousand meters, Lin Jun encountered a fork.

The branching direction seemed to lead to another mayfly gathering; Lin Jun didn't choose to assault both simultaneously, but instead stationed a batch of Pujis here to guard the opening.

To prevent mayflies wandering over from cutting off the mycelial mat behind.

By the fourth day, after advancing more than two thousand meters from the starting position, Lin Jun finally saw something different—a nest.

Attached beneath an inverted peak, a giant cocoon house woven from silk spit by the Thousand-Axis Mayflies.

Some mayflies could be seen carrying prey in and out through several openings from below.

Leaving the nest aside for now, seeing the mayflies carrying prey suggested they were not far from the ground, which cheered Lin Jun up considerably.

The battles over these past few days, yielding no gains, had nearly made it vomit; occasionally, it even encountered swarms of mayflies charging at once, causing significant losses for Pooji.

Fortunately, there were plenty of spare Poojis, so these losses did not hinder the advance.

Looking down at the nest, Lin Jun controlled the winged magic Pooji to fly upward and hand-crafted a large fireball.

Previously, the silk threads were burned one by one, but this time, gathering the silk into a nest would surely make burning it far more satisfying.

The fireball smashed down, igniting a patch of insect silk, which then spread rapidly.

In less than a few minutes, the entire nest had turned into a blazing fireball.

Many Thousand-Axis Mayflies shrieked as they burst out from within; those flying upward were immediately blasted down by the mushroom-cannon array Lin Jun had prepared in advance.

In that case, this passage could be considered roughly cleared, right?

Afterward, only a bit of cleanup work remained and...

The nest's insect silk burned away quickly, revealing a massive insect body coiled at the base of the inverted peak.

【Race: Thousand-Axis Mayfly】

【Level: lv65】

【Fixed Status: Cocooned, Stunned】

Not long after Lin Jun pulled up the panel, the last fixed status vanished right before his eyes.

The giant insect began to move its body, which had not shifted in a long time, its semi-circular insect eyes reflecting red light.

Although the Thousand-Axis Mayfly had no pupils, Lin Jun felt its gaze fixed upon the Poojis.

So... what the hell kind of ecosystem is this?

(End of Chapter)