The vanguard of Astralis Requiem was plunging deeper and deeper into the bowels of that cave, and the atmosphere of the place changed drastically with every step.
The rhythmic sound of the twelve players’ boots on the ground, which had previously been mostly stone, but as they walked further, traces of wood began to appear, no longer conveyed the immense confidence they had initially felt; instead, they now seemed to be swallowed up by an oppressive and absolute silence.
There was no longer the buzzing of small insects, nor the distant crackling of branches, nor the dripping of acid they’d heard echoing when they first entered.
The air became thick with a density of Mana that weighed on everyone’s shoulders the deeper they went, making the oxygen seem thinner and harder to breathe.
The players in the group, who had previously been smiling and discussing their previous victories, gradually set their excitement aside.
Lohan, clinging to Lisa’s back, sensed this change through his sensory network.
Through Collective Synaptic Synchrony, he could perceive Alice’s racing heartbeat and the irregular fluctuation in Palana’s Mana. He didn’t need to mention their names to know that the group’s morale was being tested by the sheer, eerie silence of the dungeon.
His race allowed him to see beyond the darkness, but even for Lohan, that silence was making him feel a little nervous.
’Man, it feels like I’m stepping into a monster’s lair from a horror movie...’ he thought.
Suddenly, the corridor opened into a fork that led to a large circular entrance.
What caught everyone’s attention wasn’t the size of the opening, but the fact that it was completely covered by an intricate web of thick roots and dry leaves.
The leaves, though they looked dead and brittle, subtly pulsed with a purple glow.
Lisa stopped abruptly, her ears twitching to pick up any vibrations, but the silence remained as it always had.
She looked at the wall of roots with her silver eyes half-closed. "Be careful with this, everyone... considering that the monsters we dealt with earlier were also wood-related, this could very well be a trap to surround us the moment we try to break through." Lisa warned through the mental link, her voice sounding cold and cautious.
Lohan vibrated his gelatin in agreement.
He didn’t want to risk the main group’s safety on a barrier that might be just the tip of a greater danger, so he made a decision. "I’ll send out a scout to test its integrity," Lohan transmitted, as he shed a considerable mass of his blue biomass.
Lohan’s clone rolled silently toward the wall of roots.
Upon touching the wood, which appeared dry, Lohan activated his digestion through the fragment, and the very millisecond the acidic membrane touched the surface, the Slime was shocked.
Despite the appearance of dead wood and dried-out bark, the interior of those roots was incredibly rich in high-density biomass!
However, Lohan’s discovery was interrupted by a violent reaction from the environment.
As soon as the Slime began to corrode the wood’s surface layer, a furious, inhuman scream erupted from inside the room, a sound that came from the creaking of colossal logs snapping apart, similar to that of the Elite monsters they had faced, but much deeper and more oppressive.
The roots Lohan was digesting began to shake frantically, as if they were alive.
Before the clone could retreat, several smaller, thorny vines sprang from the wall and seized the blue mass with brute force.
The clone was violently pulled into the chamber through a crack that opened and closed instantly, leaving the group outside on high alert.
"Halon, are you okay?!" Lisa was the first to ask, worried.
Lohan, however, didn’t panic.
"Don’t worry, it’s just a clone, I’m fine," he replied, reassuring his friend.
He mentally commanded the clone not to resist as it was pulled in.
Taking advantage of his fragment’s 360-degree view, Lohan surveyed the surroundings, and what he saw left him in shock.
The room was macabre!
The ceiling was high and covered by a dome of black roots dripping a dark fluid.
All over the floor, the corpses of monsters that had been previously digested and the bones of creatures Lohan couldn’t identify were scattered like trash.
But what impressed him most was the fauna inhabiting that place.
Powerful-looking insects, beetles with shells resembling petrified wood, and praying mantises with arms that looked like obsidian blades were integrated into the side trunks.
At the center of it all, a colossal creature rose from the shadows.
It looked like the remains of a millennia-old tree that had been twisted by eternal agony.
On the main trunk, a distorted, aged humanoid face glared at Lohan’s clone with fury.
Its features were pale, with deep wrinkles made of bark, eye sockets that were empty holes of Mana, and a mouth that looked like an open crater.
Despite its imposing appearance, Lohan quickly realized, through his parallel processing working at high intensity, analyzing all available information in that place, that the creature, fortunately, did not seem to possess much intelligence.
Its reactions were slow and ponderous, but every movement it made carried a physical mass capable of crushing a Common Level 15 Player with a single blow.
"Holy shit..." Lohan cursed inwardly as she took full control of the clone to initiate forced reconnaissance.
The insects embedded in the walls sensed the Tree Master’s signal and leaped toward the small blue prey without hesitation.
There were three Level 15 beetles, with serrated mandibles snapping with a thirst for blood, staring at that small, energy-filled blue ball with their mouths practically drooling.
Lohan realized he needed to use his own individual power now, testing these enemies’ resistance to devise a strategy for the main group!
Seeing how focused Lohan was, the group said nothing more; they simply remained on high alert, completely shielding his main body while Lohan focused entirely on controlling that clone.
’Well, now is my turn to have some fun...’