Chapter 109: Escape from the Underground City!

In the ice cavern, Li Mei asked Zhao Tianhe with excitement about the status of his system talents.

As teammates who had braved life and death together, Zhao Tianhe did not hold back and gave her a general overview. In truth, after spending this much time together, Li Mei and the others were well aware of Zhao Tianhe’s weaknesses, making concealment entirely unnecessary. Everyone knew about his random spellcasting; without Artoria and Ereshkigal, he was essentially a dead weight. As for Unlimited Blade Works, that had already become a thing of the past.

The only known way to obtain Saint Quartz was by defeating bosses, and they had to be Rank B or higher.

"A pity. We just killed a Rank A boss, but couldn't loot anything," Zhao Tianhe thought with a touch of regret.

Just then, Li Mei froze. Frowning, she said, "Strange. Has someone entered the dungeon?"

The "Eye of Scouting" she had set up had just triggered an alarm, indicating that a living entity had entered the Silent Ice Sea. However, when she projected the image from the Eye of Scouting, both of them were terrified. On the screen, a mass of blood-red mist with a giant mouth drifted slowly, followed by wave after wave of pitch-black mist.

"A Rank A boss, Wind Demon?!" Zhao Tianhe was stunned. Having killed one before, he knew exactly what this meant.

"How is this possible? How could monsters know the location of a dungeon?!" Li Mei stood up, her expression turning grim.

For monsters, the best breeding grounds—aside from their original dungeons—were other dungeons. Compared to a dungeon, the life energy in the normal world was too sparse. Powerful boss-class creatures that left their dungeons often had to hunt and devour heroes of a certain strength just to survive in the outside world. Thus, even though the climate of the Silent Ice Sea was not particularly hospitable to Wind Demons, they still preferred to settle and breed in dungeons.

But the question remained: how could they possibly know the location? The dungeon’s sealing system was not just for show; it evolved with the strength of the dungeon itself, effectively transforming the entire space into another world where no energy could leak out. Li Mei had only known the location because she had filled in for a shift here previously; otherwise, no scouting spell could have detected the dungeon’s position.

"It must have been Wei Luan, right?" Zhao Tianhe appeared calm. For some reason, he suddenly recalled the incident at the Royal Capital, the demon insects in Saint Rose Port, and even the dungeon mutation in Rogge Town.

'Hmm... though these events all feel sinister, I can't find a common thread,' Zhao Tianhe pondered with a frown. 'Besides, I couldn't possibly be unlucky enough to be the protagonist of a detective story, experiencing a series of events orchestrated by some mysterious organization, could I? Hahaha...'

"Wei Luan leaked the dungeon location?! Doesn't that mean..." Li Mei swallowed hard. "This demon disaster might far exceed anything in the past!"

As mentioned before, previous Wind Demons were usually just outcasts driven out by internal strife within the Wind Demon Kingdom. But this time, it was likely different. Once they obtained the locations of numerous dungeons, the Wind Demon Kingdom might move out in full force. As for the level of the Wind Demon King? Judging by the scale of countless previous disasters, it was at least a Rank S boss.

It was precisely because they had to sustain such a peerless powerhouse that the Wind Demon Kingdom was forced to purge a batch of failures every decade or so.

"This is troublesome. We'll probably need to call in Rank S+ heroes to handle this, right?" Zhao Tianhe sighed. "Should we continue to the lower levels?"

At that moment, in the image from the Eye of Scouting, the Wind Demon boss had begun leading its subordinates to purge the indigenous inhabitants of the ice plain. As a dungeon that was regularly cleared out, the Cyclopes were merely newly spawned Rank B common monsters. The Wind Demon army, even its common foot soldiers, were Rank A monsters that had lived for who knows how long and possessed the potential to advance to elites. Furthermore, the number of Wind Demons far exceeded the monsters on the first floor, and they held the advantage of tactical command.

Groups of five or six Wind Demons began to encircle the plain. The Cyclopes were surrounded and slaughtered in an instant, their life energy sucked dry until they crumbled into black dust. Although they shared similar alien life energy, the collision between the ecosystems of different dungeons was equally brutal; they were incompatible. Even if the Holy Council Federation were to collapse and no one managed them, these monsters would still occupy the land and wage constant war against one another.

The problem now was that once the Cyclopes on the plain were wiped out, it would be the turn of Zhao Tianhe and Li Mei.

"No, we have to find a chance to escape... If we just keep fleeing downward, we'll be trapped in the lower levels," Li Mei shook her head. "Let’s gamble. I’ll use 'Frost Tomb' to seal our presence; it will dissipate on its own in half an hour."

The fourth-tier spell "Frost Tomb" was somewhat like a mage's ice block, but its defensive capability was far inferior; it was a protective spell that combined illusions to focus on concealment. Compared to two heroes, the Wind Demons would definitely care more about seizing the entire dungeon, so as long as they waited for the monsters to move to the next floor, the two could break out and escape.

The slaughter on the ice plain was nearing its end. Under the siege of thousands of Wind Demons, the first-floor Cyclopes hadn't even lasted ten minutes. The air on the entire floor was thick with pitch-black particles. Large groups of Wind Demons scattered, beginning to search for the entrance to the second floor. A Wind Demon discovered the ice cave Zhao Tianhe and Li Mei had chiseled and flew inside. However, at the end of the cave, it only found a tiny, empty ice chamber. It circled the twenty-square-meter area, found nothing, and returned the way it came.

But had it bothered to chisel through the ice wall in front of it, it would have discovered the man and woman hidden within the two-meter-thick ice. Zhao Tianhe and Li Mei kept their eyes closed, their heart and lung activity slowed to near-nothingness. Even with the most precise life-detection magic, it would be impossible to detect their plant-like life signs through two meters of ice.

After confirming the entrance to the second floor, the Wind Demon boss led all its elite units and the majority of its army into the next level. The Wind Demons left behind on the first floor weren't there to guard it; they were just meant to live there from now on. Since the first floor had the lowest life energy, only the confidants and elites were allowed to descend to enjoy the higher energy concentrations.

Half an hour later, inside the empty ice chamber, an ice wall slowly cracked open.

"Puh-hah!" "Haaah..."

Zhao Tianhe and Li Mei broke through the ice, lying on the ground, gasping for air. It took about a minute for the magic ice to dissipate, during which their physiological functions slowly recovered. Coupled with the oxygen slowly consumed over the previous half-hour, they naturally felt a strong sense of suffocation. As they cast warming magic, they finally regained their breath and began to move their bodies. This was only possible because they possessed the Hero System; for an ordinary person, this would have been a severe injury requiring a long recovery.

"We're fine for now; the ones on the ice plain should all be common Wind Demons," Li Mei said, smiling as she looked at the scouting image. "As for Rank A monsters, we should..."

"We should be fine, right?" Li Mei looked at Zhao Tianhe.

"That... probably," Zhao Tianhe nodded, beginning to cast protective and auxiliary spells on himself.

Li Mei sighed and began preparing her own spells. Just then, two Wind Demons nearby sensed their life aura and began to creep in through the sub-ice tunnels. Zhao Tianhe sensed the two monsters and asked Li Mei, "How is the resistance of a Wind Demon?"

"Weak to light, then fire," Li Mei had studied them for a time out of interest after seeing a Wind Demon disaster in her childhood.

Hearing this, Zhao Tianhe stepped forward and fired twenty first-tier "Ignite" spells into the tunnel. Thanks to the "Echo of the Nether" effect, twenty-two spells were cast. Simultaneously, he triggered "Super-Magic Premonition" three times, resulting in two second-tier spells and one third-tier spell. The second and third-tier spells were effective against Rank A monsters, but they could only injure, not kill. However, one monster hit by the third-tier spell was severely wounded and began to retreat, wailing.

Coincidentally, the mana recovery of the "Book of Boiling" reached its peak of ten points per second, so Zhao Tianhe immediately fired another twenty "Ignite" spells. This time, he was lucky enough to trigger a fourth-tier "Explosive Flame" spell; a massive ball of fire engulfed the entire tunnel, burning the two common monsters to ash.

"I'll be the main attacker, you provide cover," Zhao Tianhe said with a smile. "After all, my abilities aren't very stable. You’d better conserve your mana."

"Okay," Li Mei nodded.

However, due to the commotion, nearby monsters had already sensed their presence, and a massive black mist began to gather. A Wind Demon was just about to enter the ice cave when two figures suddenly burst out, accompanied by dozens of "Ignite," "Fireball," and "Fire Spear" spells slamming into it!

Zhao Tianhe and Li Mei used "Fly" to dash out. Because the monitoring range of the Eye of Scouting was limited, they were less than a kilometer from the exit in a straight line. The surrounding Wind Demons caught up; these monsters were too fast, and the "Fly" spell Li Mei cast was no match for their pursuit. Contrary to the original plan, the two were quickly surrounded. Zhao Tianhe’s random spellcasting wasn't strong enough to break through!

Li Mei took a deep breath and cast the fifth-tier spell, "Holy Radiance Bomb"! A massive ball of light, several meters in diameter, instantly destroyed several common monsters and exploded, clearing a path for them to escape! The surrounding Wind Demons recoiled in terror, sensing the intense light-element energy.

But one larger Wind Demon stood its ground, and the black particles in the surrounding air began to converge upon it. This common monster had actually leveled up into an Elite Monster in the heat of battle!