Inanna's Magic Crystal above her head lit up, and she used the Mud Swamp Technique with a hint of panic.
The solid ground beneath the Earthworm instantly turned into a mud pit, and the excavated gravel became muddy water.
However, the thickness of the muddy ground was limited. In the deeper underground, at the end of the giant worm's body, the land was still solid.
Relying on that small section underground, the Earthworm was still slowly shrinking back into the ground.
Linden certainly wouldn't just watch it run away.
"Inanna, keep using the Mud Swamp Technique, don't stop!"
"Okay."
At the same time, the Puff that had been taking damage all around finally started to fight back. The "Puff" sound of the Mushroom Cannons firing was incessant.
Linden controlled the firepower to concentrate on the cracked parts of the Earthworm's rock armor.
The Earthworm's health on the panel was constantly draining. At the speed it was drilling down, it wouldn't be able to escape!
It was going to succeed!
His hope of rushing out of the dungeon!
After that, as long as he temporarily moved over and ate the Earthworm to gain skills, he would be able to dig his way up and see the light of day again!
It had been a long time since he had seen the sun.
But... why was the ground shaking again?
The direction the shaking was coming from was...
"Inanna, run back!"
"Huh?"
Inanna, who was still concentrating on maintaining the Mud Swamp Technique, didn't react at all, only subconsciously taking two steps back.
The next second, another giant worm broke out of the rock in front of her!
The protruding rock armor swept past, and Inanna was sent flying into the passage as if she had been hit by an uppercut.
"Inanna? Inanna!"
There was no response. Linden quickly pulled up the panel – she had lost 400 health.
Fortunately, she had over three thousand health, far from being defeated, but she was clearly unconscious.
The four nearby Puff each picked up the unconscious Inanna and the A-Grade Magic Crystal that had fallen to the ground, and retreated into the depths of the tunnel.
Inanna was temporarily safe, but the situation on the battlefield was not optimistic.
The second Earthworm that had suddenly burst in was scurrying around the cave, crushing a large number of Puff.
The mud pit trapping the injured Earthworm was also gradually hardening without Inanna's maintenance, and the Earthworm's speed of drilling down was clearly starting to increase.
Why was there a second Earthworm?
Was it because he used too many Magic Crystals, making the attraction too strong?
Or did these worms have a sense of companionship and help each other?
There was no time to think carefully. The second Earthworm definitely couldn't be dealt with. Linden could only concentrate his firepower on the injured one.
Ignoring the constant casualties of the Puff, Linden unleashed his full firepower.
As long as he could reduce its health to 0 before it escaped...
"What? You mean I was knocked away by another Earthworm?"
23 Puff, 1 Inanna who had woken up but was still confused and even a little excited.
This was the entire force that had retreated back to the Mushroom Garden.
The injured Earthworm ultimately escaped with its last sliver of health. The remaining Puff suffered heavy losses under the harassment of the other Earthworm.
Even worse, many areas had collapsed, and many Puff couldn't return through the tunnel they came from, ultimately having to be abandoned.
The only thing worth celebrating was probably that the magic fluctuations from the battle here had scared away all the small monsters in the vicinity.
They didn't encounter any more attacks on the way back.
Otherwise, it was likely none of them would have returned.
Linden was now like a stock investor who had gone all in on the A-shares and came out butt naked.
All his savings were gone.
Fortunately, there was no mortgage lending in the dungeon, and he still had a Mushroom Garden left...
The joys and sorrows of mushrooms were not interconnected.
Linden was still feeling down about his losses, but Inanna was in a good mood.
She didn't know that Linden was hunting the Earthworm to escape the dungeon, nor did she know how much he had gambled on this hunt.
In her opinion, they could just organize another hunt later. It wasn't possible to have two Earthworms every time, right?
She only knew that Linden kept his promise, and the A-Grade Magic Crystal, which was now re-tied to her mushroom cap, finally officially belonged to her.
Inanna decided to start calling Linden "Boss" from now on!
As for almost being bitten by an Earthworm?
She had no real feeling of it.
She suddenly fainted, and relying on her LV4 Life Recovery, her health was full when she woke up.
She had no impression of being injured at all, feeling like she had earned the Magic Crystal just by lying down...
She even thought that maybe she could get a new A-Grade Magic Crystal in the next hunt?
In a corner of the Mushroom Garden, under a large mushroom, at the end of a 10-meter long passage made of mycelium extending downwards, there was a 3x3 underground space.
Linden's main body, an unremarkable green mushroom, was right here.
Also in the same room was a special Puff radiating a powerful aura.
Unlike the other cannon fodder Puffs, this one had been nurtured since the establishment of the Mushroom Garden, with all its skills and levels raised to Linden's limit, making it the strongest Puff.
It was the exclusive mount Linden had prepared for himself.
The question now before Linden was:
Should he honestly spend a large amount of time accumulating strength again and hunt Earthworms anew?
Or should he return to the original plan, wait for the Flame Demon to go out next time, and risk using the Super Puff to smuggle Linden's main body up?
Meanwhile, at the passage between the deep layer and the 10th layer, at the Flame Demon's lair.
"It's so hot! Is this the deep area of the Amethyst Dungeon? It's not all lava areas, is it? Are you sure that Duchess will be in a place like this?"
Night Owl pulled uncomfortably at the collar of her tight suit.
She had no High Temperature Resistance at all and could barely stand here after drinking a bottle of Flame Protection Potion.
Even so, it was very uncomfortable, and she just wanted to leave quickly.
A Cooling Spell landed on the few people, and Night Owl's expression finally relaxed.
"You really saved my life."
The light on the staff faded, and Ivan smiled and nodded.
When he wasn't suffering from magic addiction, the halfling archmage was quite reliable.
Captain Nova held the positioning crystal in his hand and sensed it.
"That's right, the direction of the guidance is almost horizontal, it should be in the upper part of the deep area."
"But this is the deep area! I might not even survive for nearly a month."
Unlike the clearly stratified first ten layers.
Each previous layer had its own characteristics, including the range of monster levels, usable rules, and so on.
Night Owl believed that as long as she had a guide, she could easily survive alone.
But the deep area was different; it was characterized by chaos, with monsters of all levels present.
More importantly, the monsters inside would roam, and each time adventurers came down, they might encounter completely different situations.
Just like the information they had from three years ago, it said there would be a LV59 Flame Demon coming out of the passage here.
But now, besides a patch of lava, there were no monsters at all.
Of course, this was a good thing.
However, it also meant that the deep area had undergone changes again, and that information had expired and lost its reference value.
"Alright, once we find her, we'll know how she survived."
Gael the Half-Dragon's tone was no longer as dejected as it had been before they set off.
The two worst possibilities—the Parasitic Tree and the Tentacle Nest—had been ruled out.
In his opinion, the Duchess's chances of surviving with her mind intact were much higher than he had previously estimated.
Hmm, probably increased from 2% to 20%.
The overall tone of the work is still lighthearted, and it won't truly make the protagonist suffer everywhere. This minor defeat here is simply a logical requirement for the subsequent plot.