Chapter 723 - 712: Mutation in Dragon’s Roar Valley
Chapter 723: Chapter 712: Mutation in Dragon’s Roar Valley
No. 9: "Have they gone far?"
Shi Wu: "They’ve gone far."
No. 9: "Then have you cleaned yourself?"
Shi Wu: "All clean."
Only then did No. 9 crawl out of the metal container.
They were now far from where they had battled the Dragon Beast, and the scene with corpses strewn everywhere was no longer visible.
Even the wounds on Shi Wu’s body had been bandaged, and his bloodstained clothes were cleaned.
No. 9 didn’t hurry back to his throne but skillfully fished out a bottle of Magic Potion from Shi Wu’s pack and poured it on his slightly shriveled mushroom cap to replenish his energy.
"I didn’t expect there’d be a second wave; I have nothing left."
Since realizing he had a bit of hemophobia, No. 9 abandoned any thoughts of fighting personally and instead focused entirely on training Shi Wu, his mount.
He spent a lot of effort searching in the Mushroom Lord’s Skill Library and found many auxiliary skills that even Lin Jun was not very familiar with. Most of these turned into various spores, with quite effective results.
On the other side, Shi Wu leaned wearily against a large tree, slowly digesting the side effects of various enhancements.
He glanced at the entrance of Dragon’s Roar Valley in the distance and nodded, saying, "Something must have happened inside, but we can afford to wait a bit. Let’s rest for a day first."
The movement of Shi Wu turning his head tugged at the wound on his chest, causing him to grimace in pain.
"You non-mushrooms are really troublesome; you take so long to recover. I can’t understand why you won’t accept Symbiotic Mycelium; it would make our communication much easier!" No. 9 said, a bit displeased, while shaking the Telepathy Stone in his tendrils.
Shi Wu just smiled and didn’t argue.
He couldn’t possibly say that the Dukes had told him not to be parasitized by mycelium, right?
Shi Wu himself didn’t mind; as far as he was concerned, Puki and the Fungal Mat had already integrated into the Kingdom entirely, and they couldn’t be separated anymore.
The higher-ups were merely making their last stand due to their concerns.
When they finally recognized reality, they’d naturally let things happen.
However, until that day came, Shi Wu didn’t plan on going against it, so he naturally wouldn’t choose to be parasitized.
...
At night, Shi Wu slept.
Puki doesn’t sleep, so No. 9 sat on his chest, responsible for keeping watch.
In terms of reconnaissance abilities, the Mushroom Race’s multi-dimensional scouting was indeed unmatched, allowing Shi Wu to sleep soundly.
When morning came, and Shi Wu was about to wake up.
No. 9 confirmed there was no danger nearby and rushed to a nearby stream, intending to absorb water to make some mushroom soup for Shi Wu’s breakfast.
But as he used his tendrils to absorb the stream water into his body, Shi Wu suddenly vanished from his perception!
In a hurry, No. 9 rushed back, only to find the campsite empty.
In his perception, Shi Wu hadn’t run out of range; he had just disappeared on the spot.
Even after searching the campsite, No. 9 didn’t find any suspicious traces.
No. 9 plopped down on the ground, momentarily clueless about what to do now that he had lost Shi Wu.
Something uncomfortable was underneath him, and No. 9 used a tendril to sweep it away—it was Shi Wu’s two swords.
...
Elsewhere.
Shi Wu rubbed his eyes and raised his hand to shield himself from the overly bright sunlight.
He marveled internally at how unusually tired he felt because of the side effects, and how he had slept until midday before waking up.
He reached out for the sword by his side.
And found it missing.
In an instant, the drowsiness vanished entirely, and Shi Wu realized he wasn’t sleeping in the camp.
Where am I?
"No. 9?"
No response.
Looking around, he saw an endless plain, with various types of Dragon Beasts in the distance.
And when Shi Wu saw the towering cliff further away, a ridiculous conjecture popped into his mind.
"Dragon Cliff Dungeon?"
Subconsciously, he took two steps forward and stepped on a mutilated corpse, whose hand still clutched a longsword with two chips in its blade.
Picking up the ordinary sword, Shi Wu also found an Adventurer’s Guild identification badge on the corpse.
This was the body of the previous group of adventurers; they had encountered the same situation!
No time for much thought, as Dragon Beasts in the distance had already noticed him and started moving towards him.
Very quickly, Shi Wu was forced into battle with the Dragon Beasts.
However, no matter how many Dragon Beasts he killed, it was useless.
The number of Dragon Beasts in this area seemed endless, and killing them offered no way to find an exit.
Gradually, with his previous injuries not yet recovered and without a suitable weapon, Shi Wu began to fall into a disadvantageous position.
At this moment, a wave of Dragon Mighty pressure enveloped the entire plain.
The initially fierce Dragon Beasts suddenly cooled their aggression and trembled on the ground.
The weakened Shi Wu could only prop himself up with his sword in the face of the Dragon Mighty, barely keeping from collapsing.
The Black Dragon descended from the sky, its size far exceeding that of the White Dragon Shi Wu had seen before. Simply by landing, it crushed a few unlucky Dragon Beasts.
Even crushed to death, these Dragon Beasts didn’t dare to move an inch.
The Dragon Eyes rotated, and with just a glance, Shi Wu realized that this was an absolute monster-level power that he couldn’t possibly match.
The Black Dragon had no interest in Shi Wu’s battle with the Dragon Beasts, and after a glance, it strode forward, walking on.
After only a few steps, its figure suddenly blurred and vanished into the air.
"Overlapping space?" This somewhat familiar scene finally helped Shi Wu understand how he had ended up here.
Seizing the moment while the Dragon Beasts were still subdued by the Dragon Mighty, Shi Wu immediately ran towards the spot where the Black Dragon disappeared.
However, this place wasn’t another Scarecrow Abyss. Although it also had multiple spaces, the rules seemed different.
Shi Wu couldn’t get out, and the Dragon Beasts once again locked onto him, the intruder.
One after another, the Dragon Beasts pounced on him; his old wounds were exacerbated by new ones, and his Physical Strength was gradually depleting, even the longsword was now only half-intact.
In the end, covered in blood, Shi Wu was almost swinging his sword on sheer instinct alone.
Death was imminent.
In a daze, Shi Wu seemed to hear the voice of someone speaking, like an illusion.
"Where did this unlucky child come from?"
"If you lack the strength, you should reign in your curiosity. Life with a soul is precious and shouldn’t be wasted in a place like this."
"Let me take you out of here."
With eyes covered in blood, Shi Wu couldn’t see the person’s appearance, feeling only that the hand on his shoulder was very soft...
...
"Shi Wu! Shi Wu!"
At the entrance of Dragon’s Roar Valley, No. 9 clutched the Telepathy Stone, shaking Shi Wu’s body, his tendrils stained with blood, yet still received no response from Shi Wu.
Fighting off dizziness, No. 9 frantically dumped all the Healing Potions in the luggage onto Shi Wu.
When Shi Wu finally woke up again, he saw it was the familiar campsite, and No. 9, covered in blood and unconscious, lay beside him.