Preview: Damn it! Why did we have to come here! The elders didn’t mention anything about this!

Sunirae felt the thick mana in the surroundings moving and drilling into her body. Her absorption speed allowed her to absorb the mana and store them in her roots. It was quite different from borrowing the power of the Underworld. Because once she absorbs the mana, she would refine it to be her own. Now, the only problem left to solve was to use the refined mana to temper and augment her body, permanently strengthening her cells with magic.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t do it. She felt that she was so close but always failed at the last step. She thought she would be able to complete the transformation here but who knew that the difficulty was this high?

Her confidence wavered for a moment before it stabilized. She knew she couldn’t rush things like how she did things before and stopped. The mana floating in the air stopped drilling crazily into her body as she finally had the chance to look around and appreciate the place.

The place is dark, pitch-black dark. It was unlike its previous floor that despite the darkness, there was still crimson light to illuminate the surroundings. Now, they were like pigs with their eyesights taken away. They couldn’t see their surroundings and could only rely on their senses to feel the movement around.

Thankfully, none of them was amateur nor relied heavily on eyesight to battle, thus they quickly gathered together once they finished eating and looked around vigilantly.

“I love this peace and quiet dark place but total darkness isn’t my type.” Yhaele’s voice echoed as he appears in the corner out of nowhere. Carrying the Soleis Spear, he looked at the surrounding darkness.

“Looks like we’ve been surrounded.” he muttered softly while staring warily at the darkness that occupied everything.

The demons under their command immediately tensed up and became nervous. After all, they did not possess the extraordinary combat ability and potential that Lords have. They have just arrived and although they were very powerful in the upper floor, the power they currently possess is equivalent to bottom-tier here.

“It must have been because of the smell of blood! But this is also good! I want to test my ability here!” Sunirae did not feel any fear at the fact that they were surrounded. Instead, she felt excited and wanted to try out the strength of the demons in this strata.

Pendra kept his silence as he calculated about the upcoming battle and results. He felt that the odds were greatly disadvantageous for them but chose to believe in his master nonetheless.

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“Hehehe, your senses are sharp. Based on your words just now, you must have come from the higher floors.”

“No wonder they look special but are actually weak.”

“Can’t say that, they just arrived. And what’s with the huge group of them descending together?”

They sneered at the weak demons who just experienced a descent. They knew how it's usually felt as it was recorded in the city’s books about history. They knew that the demons in front had more or less suffered some injuries and thus they mocked them.

However, what confused and surprised them was the large number of people. They never heard nor expected that such a big group of people could actually come over together. Although the casualties were great, the remaining numbers were still large enough to threaten them. Thus, they did not move rashly and seek reinforcements.

At least ten demons were watching the dark and observing the party. If Sunirae and the others let their guards down and exposed some flaws, they would most likely be struck by others. The most terrifying one among them were those of the Shadow Demon race. From the name alone, one could infer that this race was related to the Shadow Hounds.

The Shadow Demons do not possess the ability to wield Shadow magic like Shadow Hounds do. But their bloodline and physique has the innate affinity with darkness, thus allowing them to move between shadows and darkness quickly.

They also had a very powerful ability that allows them to turn their bodies into shadows for an instant, avoiding a fatal attack. Therefore, most physical attacks are useless against Shadow demons. Another annoying thing about them is their concealment ability. Their natural disposition and affinity allows them to blend perfectly with darkness and it’s especially terrifying in a place like the Third Level of Hell.

Therefore, none of them rested easily and faced each opponent seriously, both in the open and in the dark. They knew that there were definitely more demons lying waiting once they separated and rushed out of the encirclement.

Roots emerged from the ground silently as the attackers didn’t notice them. Due to the dark color on the roots, they unknowingly disguised very well in this dark place just like Shadow demons. And Sunirae also combined the power it had obtained long ago with this move, the ability to change colors!

Such an ability was something she gained way back but never used as she never had time to nor needed to.Changing colors was an ability to disguise and blend with environment, why would she need to use it? Why would she need to hide and wait for death when she could just fight the enemy head-on and suppress them.

None of the ten demons surrounding them were from the Shadow Demon clan. But they still possessed extraordinary bodies and certain affinities with elements. Once Low-Rank demons become Level 3, they would come into contact with the thick mana concentration in the air and gain the qualifications to form a mana circuit that allows them to establish a connection with certain elements.

One of the ten demons had a frost magic circuit, another had flame, and another had darkness. It was different from Shadow Demon as it couldn’t use the darkness as shadows and travel rapidly. Instead, it uses the omnipresent Dark attribute mana in the atmosphere as a special steroid to stimulate and augment its body just like the sunflower.

The other demons basically had same or similar attributes as they charged towards the group, no longer caring about how strong they would be. After all, how strong could newbies possibly be?

Yhaele frowned as he realized that things were a little bit troublesome. The most troublesome thing that he noticed is that the demons in this strata were basically intelligent. Most likely as intelligent as the human race. This meant a lot of troubles for Yhaele as he knew how terrifying wisdom could be if wielded properly.

The enemy managed to come up with a proper plan and ambush them when they were the least prepared and they seem to have access to much more systematic knowledge than they are.

This gave him a headache as he was used to fighting reckless and aggressive demons who would charge mindlessly at him with a single provocative word.