The queen was beheaded by me.

There was a joy, like blood flowing in this shell, all over the body. It heats up, like a sip of old wine, which has already entered the throat, but the mellow aroma lingers in the mouth for a long time, and does not want to disperse.

This kind of joy is by no means the excitement after escaping death.

It's not the sense of luck that you face something impossible to defeat and end up killing it.

It all seemed to come as it should be, and I controlled the process with my hands, my body, and everything I had, and I got the ending.

The joy finally flowed to that golden heart.

It beats steadily, not an alarm, not a hunch, but it can be clearly captured by me. As the golden heart beats, I seem to see an illusory scene, with several strange insects with thick tentacles all the time, entwining and gnawing at the previous worms......

There is nothing left after eating.

Then, the monster worm became clearer and more powerful.

"Zoraku? You...... It worked? ”

Mina's voice came from behind me, very close, and the illusion in my eyes shattered and vanished at this moment. The head of the insect queen in his hand fell to the ground again, making a dull sound. I immediately came back to my senses and turned to Mina to stop me: "Wait, I'm not sure if it's dead, and I'm not sure if there are eggs in this worm's belly." Wait a minute. ”

"I know, I just think you've just gotten weirder."

"You can see it all in the back?" I laughed.

"I know you." Mina was also smiling, although I had killed the worm, she didn't look as surprised as she had imagined, and it wasn't even as surprised as when I heard me say that I had decided to kill the mother worm.

"No, you don't understand. It's like I don't know you either. ”

The smile on Mina's face froze, probably because of my words.

But he didn't seem to be angry, and spread his hands, "Whatever, it's okay." When will I be able to pass? ”

"Right now."

I cut through the corpse of the queen with a dagger, and sure enough, I found a large number of eggs inside, which were none other than demonic locusts, but these eggs did not seem to have reached the time of production, or perhaps related to the death of the mother, and soon after contact with the air, they dried up and turned into powder.

As the eggs disappeared, the flesh and blood of the worms that I had cut open before were also drying rapidly.

It becomes brittle, and with a slight pinch, it turns to ash.

And under the mother, there is a tunnel that spirals downward, the entrance is about two people wide, and it is unknown what it will be like if it continues downward. But judging from the eggs in its abdomen, my guess should be more than 90% accurate.

"Mina, come on." I greeted Mina.

But he shouted, but there was no movement behind him.

I waited for about three or five seconds for the entrance of the cave, and suddenly I had a strange feeling in my heart, "Mina? "I turned around, but there was no one in sight.

"Where?"

I stepped on the rocks beneath the mother, jumped up and grabbed a Mina's lighting device, took it, and began to explore in the direction behind me. After walking for about a dozen meters, if I'm not mistaken, the last place Mina stayed should be this. And the brightness of the light source, here, is enough for me to see the whole space clearly.

It's just me.

What about the Mina?

My doubts gradually turned into intense uneasiness.

I began to frantically search the ground for a place that resembled a dark passage, but halfway through the search, I stopped, there could be no such thing. If there was, Mina had no reason to leave by herself. She did escape once before, when I was arrested. But that's to lure me in.

What's the value of her escaping now?

I still need to explore the so-called Corridor of Bones.

"If it's not to escape, isn't there ...... reason for disappearing" Thinking of this, I suddenly looked up, and in the dark sky, a yellowed vertical eye was staring at me! At that moment, it made a sound similar to breathing, a powerful oppressive force that almost suffocated me!!

It's it!

That thing is here again!

"What exactly are you? What is it! I yelled in that direction.

It didn't give me a response, and all I could hear was the sound of breathing.

But that feeling disgusted me very much, especially when I thought that I was in the middle of a huge Gu Ding at the moment. It's as if he's a human being, and I'm just a worm in his ding.

I put my hand out to it, "Give the person back to me." ”

"Heh......"

It made a sudden noise.

It's like a mockery.

After a few moments, a staccato voice came from overhead, "I...... I'd love to know...... Dao, you ...... Why dare you ...... I...... Negotiate conditions? ”

"Why don't you dare?"

"You're not afraid...... I killed you? ”

"If you want to kill, chase me all the way, you will be killed a long time ago. Give her back to me. "That thing has been following us all the way, and the reason why it fell into this Gu Ding is also because of it.

It probably needs me for some reason.

I've been really sought-after lately.

As expected, it did make this sound: "Are you ...... Piece...... Good material...... It's a pity it's not enough...... Sheer. I'll take the worms in your body...... Pull them all out...... At that time, let you ...... Do...... My worm. ”

Be a bug for it.

That sounds a little strange......

A thought came to me: Is this thing a witch?

Although I didn't see the whole picture, no matter how I thought about it, I didn't think that the other party would be a person. But then again, who said that a witch master has to be human? If it was, what was the relationship with the shamans who had died in the Church of the Dark Covenant?

If it was, then the previous Demon Locust, as well as the Bone Dissolving Worm, were most likely its Gu worms.

However, the vibration that caused the demonic locusts to flee frantically before seemed to be caused by it. There are also bone-dissolving insects, which also gather at the exit of the demonic locusts to escape, and are probably also migrating. All the bugs here are avoiding it...... This seems to go against the premise that it's a witcher.

Did I guess wrong?

No, I found a problem that might be a reasonable explanation for all this.

It has been one hundred and fifty years since the Covenant of Darkness was built, but this is the first plague of insects. Looking at the shape of the female worm just now, as well as the structure of this underground palace, it is obvious that it has been many years. During this time, there was nothing to fear the insects, but the Sorcerer had to live with them for a long time.

So, the reason for the current fear may be that this thing has only recently become what it is now!

Trap Map!

My mind flashed images of worms breaking eggs on the map.

That's the time!

"I remember. That smell...... Maybe it's the smell of king bugs. "I've only seen the Seven King Worms, and I don't know what the other King Worms taste like. So the smell just makes me feel familiar.

But there were still things I couldn't understand, for example, why the smell didn't stay with the monster all the time, it appeared and disappeared at times, giving me a very unstable feeling.

"Since I'm the target, why are you arresting her? Let her go, and I can go anywhere with you. "I want to see Mina first.

But its answer surprised me, "Who said...... My goal...... Only...... Yes...... You? Her play...... I'm done reading it...... Yours...... Would like to see again. ”

The vertical eyes disappeared, and the sound grew farther and farther away.

The thing seemed to leave, taking Mina with it.

The previous joy vanished in an instant.

But judging from the monster's words, Mina's life probably won't be in danger, at least until we meet again. So for now, I have to get out of here as soon as possible. As for where to go, I thought of the Bone Corridor that Mina had mentioned. I never believed everything she said. I also wanted to see what was at the end of the hallway that had made Mina go to great lengths to get here.

So, I slipped into the spawning tunnel, and slid down the tunnel into the demon locust egg room that had been before.

I walked all the way back, climbed up the sand pit, and got into the original stone door secret room, in fact, the secret room was not spoken, there was no ceiling on it, and I didn't know what it was. But Mina said that the place she was going to, was on it.

But the question is......

"There are no steps, no ladders, and the walls are very smooth, how do you go up here?"

I walked around the space, and all I could do was the statues around me, "Move these, stack them?" But it doesn't seem to be stacked that high. ”

There was a dim light in the stone chamber, but it couldn't penetrate the darkness overhead.

And listening to Mina, it's not like no one has been here before, and if they all climbed up by piling up the statues, I'm afraid this statue would have rotted a long time ago. So, I walked to the same place where Mina had originally saved me, looked at the quicksand area, and suddenly it occurred to me that under this layer, there was a hollow, so in addition to the space where we had taken refuge before, there might be more caves under this layer.

If there is space, there may be some mechanism.

Mina felt the vertical eye and ducked underground, if the reason why she saw that there was an underground cavern here was also due to her knowledge of the mechanism?

Case......

I looked back at the statues, which looked like things that could manipulate the mechanism, and they seemed to be them.

I walked over to one of them, checked it out, and tried to turn it.

Luck was not bad.

As soon as I first turned around, I heard a sound similar to gears colliding below. Initially twisted a statue and nothing happened. But every statue here, can be turned. Twisting it all around, the center of the chamber was followed by the sound of stone bricks rubbing.

The middle fenced area, at a rate visible to the naked eye, rises slowly and is getting faster and faster.

That's it!

I quickly rushed to the fence and jumped into it.

As the position rises, the dark area overhead becomes clearer and clearer, gradually reaching the top, and the fence is perfectly spliced with the ground above. Here, again, is a stone chamber similar to the lower level. There were statues all around, but they were all facing away from me, and I could see that turning them was probably the way to go down.

I walked around the space and came to the location corresponding to the lower stone door.

But unlike the next floor, the stone door is wide open, and the passage beyond the stone gate is extremely wide, and the glowing rock walls illuminate everything. I walked forward, and the empty space echoed with the sound of my footsteps, crisp and steady frequency, but at a certain moment, the sound stopped abruptly.

I suddenly smelled a strong smell.

At the end of the wide passage in front of him was the smell similar to that of the Seven King Worms.

……