Pupupu—

Pupupu—

On the spiral stairwell, seven Pujis were hopping up one step at a time.

These stairs were built for humans, and with their short legs, the half-man-tall Pujis had no choice but to bounce up each riser one by one.

They were Lin Jun’s scouts, sent to the first floor.

Thankfully, a kind adventurer had once dropped a Moonshadow Stone—a strange mineral that changed color every half-day.

With it, Lin Jun could now track the passage of days even inside the Dungeon.

After Dylan failed to return for seven days straight, and with adventurers gradually disappearing, Lin Jun became certain: something big had happened!

Could it be that the Dungeon had reached the end of its service life and was about to be demolished?

Whatever the truth, Lin Jun would not sit and wait to die.

To investigate, in addition to the squad he had already dispatched downward to probe the source of the mana fluctuations, he now sent another squad upward.

Since the first four floors contained only low-level monsters, he kept this unit small—just seven Pujis.

As expected, while the monsters on the way looked restless and eager to bite, one blast from an Artillery Puji was enough to silence them.

With Dylan’s stolen guides, the squad reached the first floor in a single day.

Half that time was spent just climbing stairs.

Lin Jun couldn’t help but notice—though every floor’s environment differed, the stairways between them were identical.

He strongly suspected the builders had just copied and pasted.

When the Pujis finally reached the first floor, Lin Jun felt a flicker of excitement.

This was the closest he had ever been to the outside world. In the past, he had avoided sending Pujis to other floors, so as not to draw attention.

The first floor, just as Dylan had described, was a ring-corridor labyrinth.

Ancient bluestone bricks gave it an architecture similar to the eighth floor.

But unlike the eighth floor’s hell-level labyrinth, the first had no teleport traps, no pitfalls, and no monster hordes.

The monsters were sparse and weak—perfect prey for novices.

Its corridor structure might be confusing, but years of detailed guides had long stripped it of challenge.

Lin Jun’s Pujis followed the shortest route toward the Dungeon’s gate. He was determined to see what was happening.

Pupupu—

Hm?

Around the corner, a familiar sound—then a familiar sight.

A wild Puji!

Lin Jun pulled open its status panel: LV1, all five stats at 1. Apart from its innate spore-release, it had no skills.

Its sole purpose was to wander until eaten, spreading spores in death.

A true, natural Puji.

Compared to Lin Jun’s own units, brimming with four or five advanced skills, this was nothing but a weed.

The wild Puji didn’t even notice its kin, just waddled on aimlessly.

One of Lin Jun’s Pujis brushed its cap, sprinkling spores onto the wild one.

In an instant, the Spore Network recognized a new member.

“Stop.”

The wild Puji froze mid-step, just as obedient as the other seven.

Lin Jun’s guess was confirmed: creatures as mindless as Pujis were laughably easy to control. Even if not of his own making, once linked to the Spore Network they were his to command.

Not that it meant much.

Bringing this new recruit, the squad advanced to the gate.

The architecture shifted suddenly, as if they had stepped into a different floor altogether.

Eight towering black stone pillars rose from the hall, each carved with dark-gold geometric lines.

Above, metal constructs linked the pillars in a ring. From this ring stretched sixteen chains, all binding a floating circular magic array at the center.

Through [Mana Perception], the array flickered weakly, like a broken lightbulb from Lin Jun’s past life.

Beyond this hall lay the Dungeon’s gate.

Lin Jun didn’t risk his whole squad—he sent the wild Puji ahead as a probe.

It shuffled to the gate and found it barricaded with traps and blockades.

The twelve-meter-wide entrance had been reduced to a single narrow slit.

Through that slit, Lin Jun saw pairs of terrified eyes—and a crossbow leveled straight at the Puji.

Swish—

The poor wild Puji was skewered, flung three meters back, dead in an instant. Spores burst everywhere.

But Lin Jun noticed the spores decayed unnaturally fast, suppressed by the strange magic of the hall.

So the humans had sealed the gate.

He didn’t yet know why. But he did sense something: outside the gate, faintly, was another Spore Network signal.

He shifted the seven Pujis along the wall, slipping into a blind spot near the gate.

Then he linked.

“Dylan?”

“Boss! You actually came up here? Are you going to break out of the Dungeon too?”

For a moment, Dylan’s heart wavered. Should he side with humans—or mushrooms?

“What nonsense. Tell me why the humans sealed the gate.”

“Ah? Oh—oh!”

Relieved, Dylan hurriedly relayed everything he had learned about the Demon Tide.

And Lin Jun was left stunned.

The monsters would surge en masse?

Even deep-floor beasts?

Which meant, before they reached the first floor, they would pass through his fifth floor first.

What kind of disaster was this?

Dylan added that the Adventurers’ Guild had even hired idle adventurers en masse to guard the gate in shifts.

Such preparation spoke volumes about the scale and ferocity of the oncoming horde.

Could his Pujis withstand it?

And with the gate sealed, there was no hiding outside anyway.

Still—he was a monster himself. If the Demon Tide’s monsters all rushed toward the gate instead of fighting one another, maybe he didn’t need to worry too much.

At least now he understood the situation.

He warned Dylan not to get involved—the man’s disguise wouldn’t survive a real battle.

Lin Jun also recalled his other squad, which had been skirmishing with seventh-floor monsters. Best to retreat for now.

He had to prepare before the Tide hit. More Pujis needed to be produced, even beyond normal limits.

There was one comfort: in his swamp lair, he had successfully embedded two of the S-rank magic crystals into his war machine.

The third, too large to fit, would be saved for other uses.

Though the bonus wasn’t as strong as if he had crafted them himself—the effect carried over from the old bat—it still boosted skill power by 200%.

That was more than enough to delight him.

It was time to give the war machine its true name.

He would call it… Knight.