Mushroom Lord in the Underground City

Chapter 753: Chapter 740: Mermaid Empress

The tailless lizardman has disappeared.

Lin Jun naturally saw the previous situation through the mycelium column.

However, after cleaning up the bugs nearby, Lin Jun discovered that the rock wall where Norris was pulled was indeed an ordinary rock wall.

There were no traces of magic on it, and it was not hollow behind it either.

Moreover, the fungal mat’s sensing of Norris disappeared as he was pulled inside.

Lin Jun first thought of a multi-dimensional space like the Scarecrow Abyss, but it didn’t feel quite right.

Lin Jun wasn’t too worried about Norris.

When those arms emerged, Lin Jun had already confirmed through the panel that they were mermaids.

Considering that Chis uses mermaids like inlaid gemstones, both sides must be enemies, so maybe they would consider the enemy of their enemy as a friend?

Besides, the Sword Saint is probably in that unknown area as well, just like Norris. Even if the living Norris couldn’t be brought back, his corpse could surely be retrieved!

At that time, giving Norris’ Puki the [Scale Armor] skill again to see if silver scales could grow again.

Of course, if rebirth is impossible, or Norris’s corpse is gone, Lin Jun has a backup plan.

The tombstone carved personally by Lin Jun, still unused, remains.

On the contrary, Chis, whose abilities are very strange!

It’s not referring to the chorus, but rather the method of embedding creatures onto tentacles.

Through the panel, Lin Jun can confirm that the tentacle comes from Chis’s main body.

And on the tentacle, those mermaids are still alive, the panels are still there, only their bodies are completely controlled.

They weren’t simply embedded onto the tentacles, but rather completely merged from the inside out.

The key is, where did this ability come from?

While Norris and the others were getting beaten up, Lin Jun researched Chis’s panel.

Indeed, the status bar had a new [Physical Enmeshment].

But he couldn’t find the skill that provides this status.

The description of [Gluttony] doesn’t quite match this either.

Could Chis have used means other than skills to embed the mermaids onto the tentacles?

How could it, an insect, accomplish that?

Moreover, since it can embed mermaids, could it also embed something else?

This means Chis will have more means, making Lin Jun feel Little Pig should be more cautious.

After all, if dealing with Chis results in heavy losses, wouldn’t that give the Demon King on the shore a chance?!

And to solve Chis with minimal loss, more force should be applied.

Considering both the Demon King and the Empire are in a rare weak state, Lin Jun feels he should throw more Puki into the sea, or perhaps one big enough?

...

Norris was revived by the urge to breathe.

[Underwater Adaptation] allowed his skin to extract some oxygen from seawater to supply his body, but he was ultimately not an aquatic creature; his activity time in seawater had limits.

Norris painfully grasped at his throat as the suffocation sensation began to envelop him bit by bit.

Suddenly, someone removed his frantically moving hands and placed something on his head.

In the next moment,

"Ha—ha—!"

Breathing air again, Norris finally stopped struggling and opened his eyes.

He found an air bubble on his head, and in front of him, a beautiful girl was looking at him.

No, not a human.

Fish scales on her cheeks, shark teeth beneath her lips, and...

Norris turned his eyes, and sure enough, he saw a fish tail beneath the girl.

A mermaid, not embedded in the tentacles, just a regular mermaid.

Norris wanted to ask something, but seeing him awake, the mermaid flicked her tail and swam away.

Norris sat up and observed his surroundings.

Around him, several members of the advance team were still knocked out on the ground, without the care of the mermaids.

But they were all Fishmen, Snake-men, or aquatic Half-demons and wouldn’t need to breathe with a magically created air bubble like Norris.

As for their current location...

Round from the sky, square on the ground, a giant membrane enveloped the entire area, and outside the membrane, the scenes blurred and constantly changed.

Curiously, Norris reached out to the membrane.

Pop—

The returning mermaid slapped Norris’s hand away, saying something angrily in a language he couldn’t understand.

Norris looked up, completely dumbfounded.

The mermaid girl apparently realized the problem too, rolled her eyes unhappily, and pulled him toward the center of the area.

As they approached the center, mermaid appearances grew more frequent.

Norris roughly estimated this area might house about a thousand mermaids.

At the center of the entire area, on a coral throne, Norris saw the Sword Saint Puki being held in the arms of a mermaid beauty.

Upon seeing the Puki carrying four swords, Norris’ worried heart suddenly became much more at ease. Facing the tentacle-waving Elvyn, he said delightedly, "Sword Saint, you’re here too? What’s going on here? What about these mermaids..."

Elvyn’s mushroom cap visibly tightened a bit, and at the same time, a mysterious female voice sounded in Norris’ mind.

"He called you... Sword Saint? What does this mean? Elvyn’s pet Puki, can you explain this?"

The mermaid beauty pressed her hand on the Sword Saint Puki’s mushroom cap, her beautiful eyes terrifyingly rounded as she stared at him.

"Well... I received Elvyn’s true inheritance, thus inheriting the title of Sword Saint!"

"Inherit? Is Elvyn dead? Then when you said I could see her, that was a lie?!" The mermaid beauty slammed the Sword Saint Puki onto the ground, her expression gradually becoming ferocious.

"No, no, Your Majesty, Elvyn isn’t dead, isn’t dead!" The Sword Saint hurriedly tried to explain.

But the Empress no longer trusted him.

She casually controlled the water to bind the Sword Saint Puki, then gracefully swam to Norris’s side, her fingers brushing against the silver scales on his face.

"Beautiful scales, with such beautiful scales, you must be a good child. Good child, can you tell me why you call this Puki Sword Saint? Do you know where Elvyn is?"

The Mermaid Empress’s voice in Norris’s mind was incredibly gentle, seemingly carrying some sort of power that made one want to comply.

However, Norris managed to endure Chis’s Control of Flesh Choir, though the Mermaid Empress’s [Charm Voice] was more skillfully used, its power couldn’t compare to the Control of Flesh Choir.

Norris realized he might have said the wrong thing, so he resolutely played dumb, only shaking his head.

Seeing the charm rejected, the Mermaid Empress’s face turned cold, and water wrapped around Norris’s neck, lifting and choking him.

"I saved you; if you won’t even answer a few questions, I won’t mind taking back your life."

The water tightened around him, forcing the otherwise peacemaking Norris to start amassing Magic Power within the mushroom cannon on his chest, as he didn’t intend to be dealt with so ambiguously.

Suddenly, a sword light flashed past.

The water strangling Norris was instantly shredded.

Somehow the Sword Saint Puki escaped the bindings and appeared between the Mermaid Empress and Norris.

Elvyn sheathed his sword, his mushroom cap tilted at a forty-five-degree angle upwards.

"Saphirea, stop troubling the child." He turned his round body facing the Mermaid Empress, calmly saying, "I... am Elvyn."

The Mermaid Empress Saphirea’s pale blue pupils trembled: "You... Elvyn?"

Sword Saint Puki extended a tentacle: "Nice to meet you again, Saphirea."

"You’re lying!"

In the next moment, the surrounding seawater surged toward the Sword Saint Puki and Norris in a violent press!