Different from Scaly and Verdell who found themselves getting visibly closer to the dungeon core with the change in environment, the group of adventurers following behind them were far from the same, as they found themselves encountering one deadly situation after the other once they successfully managed to escape from the borders of the undead kingdom. An action that was far harder to accomplish than they had originally predicted, as while passing by the relatively small undead city that Scaly and Verdell had passed by without any issues, they ended up drawing the attention of a local garrison of undead soldiers.
Strong as they were compared to the undead that had been chasing them so far, the undead soldiers from the city were different compared to the small road guards they had found themselves facing off against so far. The main reason being that these official city soldiers could utilize a far larger battle formation that even they had no way to forcibly break. Forcing them to give up on any kind of resistance and instead focus all their strength on escaping, something that was easier said than done with how the movement of the official city soldiers had directly drawn the attention of all the surrounding undead. Resulting in them being swarmed by undead from all sides.
And weak as most of the undead swarming towards them were, they were more than enough to slow them down and forced them to tap into their reserve of potions to forcibly blast their way through the encirclement and successfully escape from the undead kingdom before even stronger undead had the chance to show up and join the official city guards in surrounding and slowly grinding them down.
But this was of course only the beginning of their journey towards the dungeon core, as they soon enough found themselves personally experiencing the sneaky nature of the monsters on the ninth floor of the dungeon, as every single step they ended up taking in the direction of the dungeon core since leaving the undead kingdom ended up with them being ambushed by a powerful monster.
Even worse, though they attempted to make use of their skills and experience to find these monsters lurking around all around them before they had the chance to launch an ambush, it didn’t take them long to realize just how useless their attempts on finding the monsters native to the ninth floor of the dungeon truly was.
In the end, all they could do was prepare themselves to the best of their abilities and handle the different unique monsters of this floor of the dungeon once they inevitably got close enough to attack them, something that had them weaving through countless deadly situation that made them seriously reconsider whether or not it had been a good idea to come in the first place. After all, though the necromancers of the Eternal Life Sanctum was targeting the swirling sands dungeon, they hadn’t exactly been of much use when it came to stopping the Eternal Life Sanctum and everything that had happened so far had been the dungeon core resisting the necromancers of the Eternal Life Sanctum all on its own.
Still, the existence of an undead kingdom on the ninth floor of the dungeon was a worrying development, as those necromancers of the Eternal Life Sanctum would undoubtedly go crazy once they found out. At which point, they wouldn’t have to worry about the necromancers destroying the dungeon core but would instead have to worry about the necromancers taking control of the dungeon. After all, the value of an undead kingdom to the necromancers of the Eternal life Sanctum was well known and at the same time also one of the few instances where those liches in control of the Eternal Life Sanctum might move together to claim the dungeon with such a precious resource inside of it.
In fact, the few places that were considered the territory of the Eternal Life Sanctum and at the same time also forbidden zones in the eyes of the guild and the rest of the world were centered on dungeons that had given birth to undead kingdoms in the past.
Problem was, to prevent the swirling sands dungeon from becoming territory of the Eternal Life Sanctum, it wasn’t just important to deal with the necromancers still left alive inside the dungeon, but also make sure the rest of the guild learnt about the actual state of the dungeon in time to make preparations in case those terrifying liches of the Eternal Life Sanctum found out in the future and decided to make a move and try to seize control of the swirling sands dungeon.
The only positive in this regard was the fact that Temple Guard City, the free city that the dungeon entrance was located inside was already an important city under the guild connected to the dreamscape. Meaning it did have some basic infrastructure and defenses in place that would be able to hold on for some time even if a lich appeared to attack the city.
Still, it was far from enough to resist the undead scourge under the control of the Eternal Life Sanctum if they truly set their mind towards toppling the city and taking control of the swirling sands dungeon.
To stop something like that, the defenses of Temple Guard City had to be upgraded even further...
"Hahaha! An undead kingdom really did end up emerging! Haha~ This is great!" And while the group of adventurers were feeling troubled thinking about the future of Temple Guad City and the Swirling Sands Dungeon, in another corner of the ninth floor, the leading necromancer riding on top the terrifying bone construct in the shape of a giant lizard exclaimed loudly in joy upon spotting the first stray undead wandering around within the seemingly endless wheat field.
After all, different from the group of adventurers and the dragon and dwarf pair, she was far more knowledgeable about undead kingdoms and how they appeared inside dungeon. Having visited several vast and prosperous undead kingdoms under the direct control of the liches sitting at the pinnacle of the Eternal life Sanctum in the past.
The main thing she focused on wasn’t the undead themselves, but instead the miasma that seemingly covered the wheat field and made it impossible to fully comprehend just how large an area the wheat field covered.
"Hehe, this is great~ From the development of the miasma, it seems like this undead kingdom isn’t a smaller scale one and might even be one that has given birth to an undead lich! Still... With my current strength, it’s impossible to try and contend with an undead lich for control. If anything, I might end up losing my bone construct the second I get anywhere close to the capital of this undead kingdom..." Smiling as she voiced her thoughts out loud for no one, but herself to hear, the leading necromancer soon enough calmed down from her initial excitement. Her words made it clear that she was far from confident in being able to handle this kind of undead kingdom with her current strength.
If anything, the mention of the undead lich even caused a small bit of fear to flash past her eyes before quickly being replaced by greed. Knowing that even if she might not have the ability to contend with the undead lich in control of this undead kingdom, as a necromancer already close to reaching the rank of lich herself, she would be more than capable of carving out her own sphere of influence within this undead kingdom without being noticed by the undead lich.
Not for nothing, she felt confident that she would be able to make use of her experience to slowly seize control and maybe even use the undead kingdom itself as an opportunity for her to become a lich in a single step. Directly gaining the ability to contend with the undead lich and potentially even turning it into the strongest undead under her control in the future.
The only problem with this was the simple fact that it was clear the undead kingdom was still far from complete and still under the direct influence of the dungeon core and doing anything major within the undead kingdom was bound to be noticed almost immediately.
For this reason, though reluctant, she ultimately still decided to continue moving forward towards the dungeon core after the initial excitement over what she had found died down.
Of course, one major difference between her journey through the undead kingdom and that of the group of adventurers, was the simple fact that exerting her influence as a necromancer essentially made the local undead view her as one of their own, causing her no problems as she passed through and if anything allowed her to replenish her still rapidly draining death energy by absorbing the death energy stored within an undead city she passed through along the way. No longer having to worry about running out of death energy to control the bone construct in the short term.