Beating Instances through Words Left by the Dead

Chapter 619 291: Hunter and Prey

The three minstrels never saw the full appearance of the monster emerging from the crack before they died, but Lin Jiang and the others watching from the side saw it clearly.

It was a monster with a pitch-black body, a long slender torso divided into seven segments, each segment bearing a pair of human hands and feet, resembling a headless human centipede when seen from afar.

At the forefront of its body was a gigantic five-meter-diameter doll's head, its face innocent and charming, with a sweet smile.

If one ignored its enormous size and the eerie body connected to its neck, it would look extremely cute, and if sold as a doll, it would definitely be a best-seller.

The doll's eyes were filled with curiosity, instinctively sizing up every stranger around.

If it set its sights on you and you happened to make eye contact, you would start to laugh foolishly like the three minstrels, falling into madness in your smile until you perished.

The Cursed Dungeon, deemed by the Four Major Organizations to be no less than an S-level dungeon, certainly did not earn its reputation in vain.

The traffic accidents triggered by the Curse Mark, the pursuit from Sigef City's police and underground forces, were merely appetizers.

It was these bizarre creatures active at night whose attacks were the real crisis in the dungeon.

If players encountered it without intelligence, they would die inexplicably like the three minstrels.

The information shared by Lin Jiang mentioned various intelligence about surviving a hundred days, but regarding the strange attacks that came at night, he merely glossed over it with a sentence, "may be subjected to various attacks," without further elaboration.

The reason was simple, he did it deliberately.

He invested heavily in sharing the passageway not truly for opening up the Reward Dungeon for Independent Players, presenting them with an opportunity.

The Independent Players sought opportunities; he was eyeing the lives of the Independent Players. Without these fools paving the way and drawing out the monstrous creatures, relying on their hands personally was too dangerous.

As for the Four Major Organizations' pursuers speculating that he used the Independent Players as cover and numbers to confront the Four Major Organizations, seizing the opportunity to fish in troubled waters.

Heh, a bunch of hot-headed fools daring to break into unknown dungeons, they were hardly competent enough to serve as Lin Jiang's bastion?

Seeing the centipede doll consuming the three players below, Lin Jiang asked a tall, sturdy man beside him:

"Well, can you handle it?"

The tall and sturdy man replied indifferently, "No problem at all."

Lin Jiang nodded, then said, "Go ahead."

Around Lin Jiang, a man dressed in a black Mage Robe, holding a wooden long Magic Wand in one hand and a Knight's Sword in the other, raised the wand and sword, crossing them over his head.

"Towering Waves!"

As the mage cast the skill, the river not far away surged, and the towering waves, which could typically create 20 to 30 meter tall waves in a normal dungeon, at this moment only raised splashes about two and a half meters high, rushing straight to the shore.

The attribute suppression effect in the Cursed Dungeon treated all existences within the dungeon equally.

The mysterious methods of the centipede doll, once falling into its trap, left players no time to resist and they would die on the spot, qualifying it as at least an elite monster in other dungeons. However, in the Cursed Dungeon, its physical form was just as frail.

The approximately two and a half meter wave crashed onto it, causing it to roll on the ground, spinning three or four times before stabilizing itself.

The mage promptly employed another skill: "Forbidden Swamp!"

The stagnant water around the centipede puppet, including the water traces on its body, became exceptionally sticky under the mage's skill, as if coated in a layer of malt sugar, making the monster difficult to break free, trapped on the spot.

Lin Jiang praised, "As expected of the former president of the Deep Water Society, even the monsters in an A-level almost out-of-control dungeon can't easily break free under your skills."

The mage named Deep Sea resisted the urge to gasp for air, a fawning expression appearing on his face, saying:

"Master, from here on, it's up to you."

The Deep Water Society mentioned by Lin Jiang was precisely the organization initially discovering the Peaceful Town Dungeon, sending a raiding team only to be completely wiped out.

Thanks to the Deep Water Society's contribution, Wu Chang had such an easy time clearing the Peaceful Town Dungeon.

With Wu Chang making the breakthrough in Peaceful Town, the days of the Deep Water Society soured.

Because the nature of the Deep Water Society resembled the Iron Armor Corps, both sought out by the Bright Society, obeying the Bright Society's Desolate Realm organization, though their status was lower compared to the Iron Armor Corps.

That the Peaceful Town Dungeon was discovered by the Deep Water Society, its intelligence source actually stemmed from Lin Jiang.

Lin Jiang was incessantly searching for a dungeon suitable to act as the Pillar of the Present World; the Peaceful Town, which could connect deep into the Abyss through the Great Saint Mother, seemed impeccably suitable to him, so he arranged for the Deep Water Society to secretly raid and carefully cultivate the Peaceful Town Dungeon.

If they could excel at their task, they could receive support from the Bright Society, advancing from a third-rate organization to a second-rate upper-level entity like the Iron Armor Corps, enabling them to do even more work for the Bright Society.

But not only did the Deep Water Society fail to fulfill their duty, they also attracted the Management Bureau's attention, and without the Evolution Sect's subsequent assistance, the follow-up in the Peaceful Town would not have ended easily.

Customarily, to conceal the Bright Society's activities in the Desolate Realm, such failure-tasked small organizations would be cleansed.

But Lin Jiang valued the water control abilities of the Deep Water Society members, so he justified their presence by intervening as a mysterious newcomer, sparing Deep Sea, considering that it might be useful in the future.

And now, it indeed came in handy.

Seeing the centipede puppet trapped, the tall and sturdy man, who spoke with Lin Jiang earlier, strode rapidly towards it.

As he ran, his body enlarged, growing from a height of 1.9 meters to over four meters in the blink of an eye.

When the centipede puppet saw the tall and sturdy man rushing toward it, its doll head, full of cute and innocent childlike features, looked at the man, uttering a crisp, child-like laugh from its rosy mouth.