Gwen fell to her knees and collapsed on the broken ground of the peat bog, the churning mud immediately climbing up her waist. Jira twisted again, trying to pull the body back from the other direction.

"Shield of Faith!"

"Water Shield!"

"Stone Shield!"

"Crystal Barrier!"

In front, above, and next to Gwen, a glowing shield, a reciprocating film of water, and a massive umbrella-like stone barrier appeared. The assembled defensive force bore the brunt of it, and when Gila retreated, it physically replaced it. As it landed on its abdomen, a stream of black blood erupted from its pale abdomen, in the space between its two front legs.

Kaliban let out a gushing throat from Gila's chest and roared triumphantly.

"Shah, Shah!" it cried, filled with blood and the vitality taken away.

As the life energy from Caliban swelled, Gwen gasped and forced herself out of the sloppy swamp.

The axolotl's shrunken eyes stared at its attacker one last time, and then the flickering fire within its beaded orb extinguished, revealing a milky white emptiness. Its massive body twitched, its limbs clutching the air weakly. Then, as its shaking flesh gurgled and trembled, it ceased to exist. The mages felt a pulse of psionic energy flee from the salamander, and then the shrill sound of battle suddenly stopped.

Hit by the death of their mother's patriarch, the descendants of Old Gila began to flee to the swamps. It's all for yourself.

Petra was the first to land beside Gwen and gave her a shoulder to lean on. Like Gwen, Petra is pale. Richard, Tao, Mina, and others quickly join the girls to make sure they are good.

With an eloquent gasp, the salamander's massive corpse began to crumble, its cartilage snapping one by one, and the magic that supported it flowed into the ether. Accompanied by a disgusting stench, its anus relaxes, releasing a dark substance that is more deadly than the cavity itself.

A mysterious energy infused Gwen's Kirin amulet.

As the body continues to excrete excess fluid, these aggregates flee discretely.

"Caliban!" Gwen let her acquaintances slide toward them. When the mages first saw Caliban's flesh, they were overwhelmed and disgusted when they saw this bloody worm covered in internal organs, because the worm's face would appear in their nightmares.

"Heck, Heck, alright!" said Caliban, like a cat, trying to cough up the ball.

The creature's core first appeared with its head pointed, the size of a human torso. Caliban's body swelled, and the carapace was elongated until a milky purple scale flowed out. Then, with one last thorough movement, it spat out the blood-stained crystal to the ground, part of which was still attached to what looked like a part of the creature's spine.

"Fuck me!" someone blurted out loudly. "That's a fucking huge core. ”

The partygoers looked at their booty with appreciation. Richard lifted the core into the air and cleaned it up with Leah's help, polishing the stone to a sparkling finish. A heart of this size, from a creature with magical resistance, is undoubtedly of inestimable value.

"Gwen?"

"Really?"

"Please store. ”

Gwen nodded, moving towards the core, allowing her ring's spatial field to completely envelop the thing.

When the air displaces and the core disappears, their new members are in awe all over again.

Who is this girl?Light and air, and a large storage ring?Is she a secret descendant of Maggie or Meister?What a chance to fight alongside Gwen if so!

"Eggs!" Petra turned to Richard. "Should we destroy them?"

Richard rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"The place is already a plane inhabited by the Gila people," he said. "Maybe we should leave them? If Gila disappears from this place, the dungeon will be reduced in many ways. How will this affect the amount of magic materials on the plane, and what will the squires grow in the future?"

"Just one?" Mina suggested. "It could be that someone is desperately looking for eggs, you never know. ”

"Alright, just one," Richard ordered Leah to retrieve an egg from the bubbling corpse. "The worst-case scenario is that we can have a suspicious omelette for breakfast. ”

The gathered party members turned around and looked at the Roshan in front of them, bathed in the afterglow. A level 6 beast!A person with magic resistance, its toughness increased to layer 8!However, they slaughtered it!

As the dancing lights and daytime spells faded away, the clearing was once again dark, illuminated only by a ray of moonlight from a sick moon. The giant corpse of Jira attracted a large group of carrion reptiles, so after some deliberation, they decided to open a gap and throw Jira back under the still swamp. Although some have questioned whether this Jira is edible, it takes a trained chef to prepare magical creatures in order to safely cook the necrotic flesh of a chaotically born beast, which is indeed a rare talent.

After the battle, Gwen retreated to her room, the master bedroom, as she was the owner of this habitat, while the other men slept in the living room. At her request, the girls could choose where to stay, as the king size bed was large and there were only two other empty bedrooms with single beds.

Felicity felt too uncomfortable sleeping with a stranger. Mina never shared a bed with anyone, so Gwen and Petra became the sleeper companions in the master suite.

Petra seemed to fully accept the offer, wearing a bra and panties, and comfortably donning the sheets. Gwen wore a silk pajama kimono, another dress she bought from Singapore, and she focused her eyes on Petra's gentle breathing. But as Gwen let her long eyelashes against her face, she watched once more delicately as the braids gently floated to the ground.

Gwen's eyes opened suddenly, and she was breathing heavily.

Bad luck!" she muttered. As a result, Gwen could no longer sleep.

This world is not like her old world. Why should she grieve over the death of an insignificant mage, a nobody? It's the mage's fault! She's defending herself! Gwen felt her mind turn dangerously toward a dark axiom, and she stopped.

She closed her eyes again.

Her nostrils were filled with the smell of hot iron.

God!, Gwen bit her lip. Damn, stupid, calm down!

"Hey. Dark-contoured fingers moved through the night, parting Gwen's wrinkled hair to reveal her face. "Are you alright?"

"I hope so. Gwen turned to the ceiling, wondering if the dark downlights provided some sort of epiphany solution to her insomnia.

Petra moved on the bed until the outline of her face lingered at the edge of Gwen's line of sight. In the dim darkness, Gwen could make out her clear orb, catching the pocket-sized blur of light peeking through the translucent panes.

"Want to hear a story?" Petra pleaded, if you can't sleep, that's it. ”

"Of course," Gwen said to the ceiling.

Petra lay beside Gwen, sorting out her thoughts. For the next minute, the shared darkness was filled with only the soft breathing sounds that were exchanged from time to time.

"I'm fourteen," Petra began.

"I woke up a little earlier than the other girls in the military school. Because I came from a public school, the Moscow Tower took me over, and I was assigned to a mage there, a magician, Mage Popov. Master Popov is a weirdo, a bohemian man, and he is not a rule-abiding person, if you will. His personality and his profession are a terrible combination, and Popov is a recognized psychic mage, a spy profession. He uses his talents generously and doesn't have much respect for morality, but the leadership turns a blind eye to any unauthorized use of his magic because he's also the best they've ever had. ”

"I was young and ambitious, and I thought of the world of Master Popov. He is suave and skilled, and drinks like a fish in water. I thought he would teach me material magic because I was a mineral mage. But then I was informed that Master Popov had other arrangements for me. ”

"Other plans?" Gwen moved slightly to capture Petra's silhouette. In the moonlight, a well-defined silver sheet. Other plans, she thought. Petra was by her side and had no trouble discerning where things were going.

"He convinced me that I should train a psychic mage like him. "He told me I was made for it," Petra said nostalgically.

Gwen waited quietly for Petra to continue telling the story.

"Popov told me that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of mineral mages, and that if they needed to do this kind of work, the tower could use them, but only one wizard he knew, who could do my job. ”

"What job?"

"Espionage. A red ghost. ”

"We've prepared a face to meet the faces we meet," Gwen whispered as they wanted to turn you into a fat woman?

"You know very well. Petra laughed self-deprecatingly. "He's not interested in my mineral talents, Gwen. He thinks that with my external talents, I can be more successful than anyone else. I could be his apprentice and one day take over his role in the tower. I was hooked. I'm a magician!"

"At first, I agreed. Like I said, I'm young and ambitious. Think about it, Gwen, a mage who has just told a junior mage that they can be as great as they are. Who should I turn down? I agreed, and we trained. He taught me everything he knew. He was impatient. Then, when I was fifteen years old, Popov decided that I needed to see the blood. He volunteered for me to conduct an operation in the center of Moscow to deal with the illegal trade in the trafficking of young mages from the countries of the old Soviet Union, Ukraine, Romania, Belarus?"

Gwen only vaguely knew, but she tilted her head so as not to interrupt Petra's story. She had witnessed first-hand the trade in the flesh of illegal mages, even in a frontier city like Sydney, where crime was low. The Russian frontier, with its vast hostile landscapes and endless tundra, is full of magical beasts and half-humans, notorious for its troubles with human traffickers.

"Sure enough, I acted as bait. I charmed a merchant and asked them to take me to the underground market. The mages in the tower are waiting for my signal, for my job is to identify the bosses. Everything went smoothly until I caught the attention of a customer who asked my informant to buy and transfer money immediately. When I asked my informant to refuse, he was there to kill him. ”

"Oh my God. Gwen let out an uneasy breath.

"That was the first time I saw someone killed. Petra's voice was calm and restrained.

After that, the client's men took me away and dragged me to a room in the study. I played the role of the hapless homeless man and begged him to spare me. Satisfied with my helplessness, he dismissed the guards. It was an unexpected situation, but I was sure I had the situation under control. This man was hit deeply, which made him more susceptible to my psychic magic. But when we entered the room

Gwen swallowed, and Petra took a moment to adjust herself.

"It was a windowless room, all decorated like a sick love cave, though you may have been a little younger to know what it was. Anyway, when we entered the room, the first thing I saw was a child. ”

"A child!" Gwen hissed in fear and disgust.

"I can't tell if a child is alive or dead. At first I thought it was a girl, but no, just a skinny boy, a street urchin. There are a lot of mischievous people in Moscow and the surrounding border cities, in fact, we are famous for it. The boy was unclothed from the waist down. ”

“...“

"The man must have thought I was frightened. That's how he walked towards me......"

Petra brought her head close to Gwen, close enough that she could feel Petra breathing on her face.

"Oh, Petra......" Gwen's voice was filled with trembling sympathy.

"When I saw him reach out with his dirty hands, all the training, the training that the instructor did to me, all the training, flew out the window. I slammed him with a man who was waiting for the rabbit, and then I pulled out a crystal dagger and placed it under his throat. ”

The man whimpered. His face was so pitiful, so frightened. I think if it weren't for that man, he would have died himself. ”

"What did you do?"

Then, as Master taught me, give it a gentle push

Gwen felt Petra poke a thin finger under her chin, and the sudden synesthesia covered her skin with a cold sweat sheen.

"Then I made an unexpected discovery. ”

"What's that?" Gwen choked up, moving a hand to gently caress her neck as she tried to adjust the speed of her heartbeat.

"You should be clear. Petra smiled. "Blood. ”

"Who would have thought that the old man would have so much blood on his body......" Gwen whispered.

"Yes. Petra walked away. "It's too much. It was like a fountain that sprayed all over my hands, my clothes, my face. I thought it was clean, quick, and easy. Reality is obscene. It's disgusting. It makes me sick to my stomach. ”

"So?"

"Then the mages in the tower had to move in. I exposed my cover. After the death of the VIP, the whole place was thrown into chaos. For me, there is no other purpose. ”

"Surgery?"

"Small success, don't thank me. Master said that this was an exam, and I failed the exam. ”

"I'm sorry. Gwen reached out and touched Petra's face. Petra brushed her fuzzy fingers away.

"I'm glad it happened this way," Petra said calmly. "Then I left the tower. Master canceled my apprenticeship. My parents both served in the army and heard that I had failed. Of course, the father was disappointed, but the mother was okay. They asked me what my plans were, and I said I wanted to be a craftsman. They contacted my aunt – our Papuya – and I was sent to Shanghai, where I would not be a thorn in the side. ”

"But you're amazing!" Gwen grabbed Petra's hand. "Your cube skills! They're incredible!"

"This is thanks to my new master, Venerable Wen," Petra said in a reverent voice. "It's a magic for me. I owe her my life, Gwen. She gave me hope. ”

"I hope she'll be happy with the vitanuts," Gwen said.

"I hope so, too. Petra smiled.

The two girls lie side by side until their breath enters a comfortable iambic rhythm.

"I don't know if that helps. Petra felt Gwen gently take her hand. "I just wanted to share. I'm not good at these things. I'm sorry if it didn't make you feel better. ”

"It's helpful," Gwen said seriously. "Thanks for sharing, Petra. I'm grateful. ”

"It's good to tell someone," Petra replied. "And I didn't expect me to be so willing to pay, it's all between you and me. ”

"Okay. ”

"Sleepy?"

"Yes. ”

"Good. I'm sleeping. ”

Gwen closed her eyes.

Following Petra's words, she felt a slow sleep, no matter how troublesome and uncertain it was.

When she woke up the next morning, Petra was gone. The whole house was empty, except for Fei Fei waiting for her breakfast.

"Everybody's out there," Fei said. "We need to hurry, the dungeon is about to end. ”

"Really?" Gwen quickly finished her porridge and left with Fei. Outside, the assembled crew waited impatiently for the final countdown.

"So fast?" Gwen asked Petra, who looked so beautiful in a chalk chiffon jumpsuit and white running shoes. Despite being loosely dressed, her well-trained figure is very noticeable under the multiple folds of the fabric.

"Expected volatility," Petra speculated. "We got a good 40-plus, max 72, but it's not bad. In particular, the Rhine line around Shanghai mainly serves Shanghai. ”

They waited another half hour, and then their information equipment began to vibrate.

"Guys, you still have 30 minutes before the dungeon collapses. When reappearing in the material plane, there may be a slight loss of orientation. Once you're safe, go to the staging ground. If you need help, signal the adjudicator once you're outside. Once you leave the dungeon, you will not be punished for asking for help. ”

"Is there anything to be aware of?" Gwen asked. "I mean, when we jump out. ”

Richard showed his palm, which was also his first diving.

"We're going to be busy, just like we were when we came in. Mina advised, "Be careful, no one tries to steal our loot or take revenge with a sneak attack.

"Is it possible?" Richard raised his eyebrows. "I think we did annoy a lot of people. ”

"Of course, why not. If an attacker is caught, it will be a huge punishment, paid in cash. Mina smiled sweetly. "Do you think anyone wants to give it a try?"

"They can try!" Richard grinned. "I'm glad to accept a few forgiveness and forgetting, ha!"

The two of them smiled kindly.

The countdown came to the last minute, and all the members packed their bags and prepared to leave. Gwen retrieved her portable accommodation, but soon changed into an off-white civilian dress that hung from the shoulder straps of two fetter's spaghetti and snuggly draped comfortably over her sharp shoulder blades. To be modest and to facilitate her activities, she wore a pair of cut-out hunting shorts underneath her dress, as the unworn dress could easily float in the wind. Her old boots complete the outfit and give her a sophisticated, urban vibe.

Petra's eyes were fixed on Gwen's clothes. For a girl who works in the army and in a magical laboratory, she never seriously considered the potential of a garment whose impact was inversely proportional to exposure.

"See you over there!" Mina waved at the crowd, who waved back.

"Senior Brother Huang, I'm honored!" Julian announced. "I look forward to seeing you again in Shanghai!"

"Thank you, Ms. Wong, Ms. Gwen, Mina, and Petra!"

"Julian, I'm glad," Richard replied.

"Thank you!" Gwen bowed with her upper body and bowed, and everyone else bowed as well. "I hope to see you in Shanghai soon. ”

"We look forward to seeing you, Ms. Gwen!"

Their information equipment began to vibrate.

"All participants, the dungeon is now collapsing. You will soon be teleported to Hengsha Island. Keep your arms and hands close to your body, and if you are transferred to the ocean, immediately notify the air mage to help. ”

Gwen held her breath as the twist began.

Her first dungeon dive was over.