Looking around, Silas found that the terrain around him had slowly started to change. The once vibrant landscape, filled with trees, was now gone, and he could see many dead trees around him—their trunks rotten and dark in color, devoid of any life.
“Even though the dungeons provide Nether stones and stuff like skill books, I sometimes hope these Nether dungeons don’t exist. Even when the dungeon is not yet breached, they still leak Nether energy, which contaminates the land and kills life. You can just imagine what would happen if a gate break occurs. This one can be considered practically a new one. I found it only a week ago… but within that week, it was able to alter the landscape to such an extent… if left uncleared, it only gets worse.”
Silas' eyes turned gloomy as he looked around. All he could be thankful for was that gates in his world did not act this way; otherwise, he couldn’t imagine the devastation it would cause.
Silas looked at the centipede and asked, “Miss, can you not clear it as soon as it pops out? Why did you wait until now?” Looking at the changes it had caused, Silas couldn’t help but ask the centipede about it.
The centipede shook her head, saying, “I too wish I could, but these dungeons have entry restrictions preventing someone like me from entering and clearing them in one fell swoop. These are low-ranking dungeons where only people below the Voyager level can enter.”
“Moreover, we use this as a training base. Even if people fail to clear this dungeon and a dungeon break happens, it doesn’t matter, as we can just wipe out the whole area immediately. Dungeon breaks can be considered bad, but once the dungeon break is cleared, the resources in that area will be significantly increased. It can be considered like a volcano— when it explodes, it destroys everything around it, but once it settles down and after many years, the land becomes much more fertile.”
“Similarly once that dungeon is cleared the world purifies the nether energy and makes it it’s own, ”
“For low and mid-level dungeons, we’re not bothered much, as the aftermath is easy to deal with. But the same can’t be said for high-level dungeons. If a high-level dungeon break occurs, we basically have to give up that region.”
As they were communicating, they soon reached a vortex. The vortex looked eerie, and Silas could even see wisps of dark smoke exiting it and dissipating into the atmosphere.
“Kid, be ready. Even though this dungeon shouldn’t pose a problem to you, things are never obsolete. There’s always a chance of one falling in unexpected places.” Silas, who didn’t have much experience hunting monsters in either world, was extra cautious. He decided to give his 120%, even if he was asked to kill a slug. Silas looked around the vortex, and even the soil had turned pitch black here due to the corrosion of Nether energy.
The vortex, a mixture of both blue and black, stood there like a black hole. Silas turned back to the centipede and gave her a slight nod before jumping in.
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The centipede, seeing Silas jump in, muttered to herself, “I should go and check if I could find any relevant information regarding this guy.” After standing there for a while in deep thought, she turned around and left. According to her calculations, clearing the dungeon was going to take some days, and she couldn’t wait that long without doing anything since she had other matters that required her attention. She could just ask one of her underlings to bring him to her once he cleared the dungeon.
Silas, who had jumped inside the dungeon, did not see the gloomy and dark atmosphere he had envisioned. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a lush green forest, and the only thing that made him uncomfortable was the Nether energy trying to seep through him. However, Silas felt that this couldn’t harm him. He figured out that the change in atmosphere outside the dungeon was mainly caused by the more potent Nether energy, which led to such a desolate scene.
Silas, who had just entered the dungeon, looked around both curious and cautious. This dungeon looked more like a world than a dungeon. He could even see a sun hanging above him, and he could smell the unique scent of the forest. He had expected to enter a dark and gloomy place, but this place felt more comfortable to him. The only thing that made him uncomfortable was the Nether energy trying to contaminate him.
After looking around for a while, Silas started to navigate through the forest vigilantly. As he was making his way through, Silas suddenly felt something stick to his face. Using his paw, he swiped in front of him…
“Is this a spider web?” He became cautious. The spider silk was almost invisible to his eye. Even though he easily tore it to pieces he felt that if he were weaker, he might have gotten stuck in this, as it seemed quite sturdy as well. As he thought of something, Silas suddenly looked up and could only curse his bad luck.
He saw more than a dozen spiders staring at him from their nest, ready to pounce. These spiders were quite big— about two to three meters in length— but compared to himself, they were still small. Silas felt a little uncomfortable seeing them, as they weren’t his favorite type of pest to deal with.
Shruu shruu shruu.
As if given a signal, the spiders all jumped down from the nest and landed surrounding him. Silas decided to be careful and not get bitten by them, as he had an inkling that these spiders might be venomous, and he wasn’t willing to test that.
One of the spiders suddenly shot its web toward him. Seeing this, Silas became speechless. “Damn bugs, are they trying to turn me into a mummy while I’m alive?” Silas immediately jumped from that place to a nearby tree trunk. As if he were a trained acrobat, he used one of his legs to bounce from that tree trunk to the next and swiftly pounced on the spider that had shot its web toward him. Silas used his front paw to smash the spider to the ground.
Splash.
The spider, which was hit, turned into a meat paste without any resistance. Silas, feeling grossed out, rubbed his paw on the ground, trying to get rid of the remains of the spider from his paws.
As soon as the spider was crushed, a notification popped up in front of him, but Silas ignored it and bounced sideways as the rest of the spiders launched their webs at him, trying to entangle him. Silas swiftly bounced back and forth, smashing his paws as only the sound of splattering echoed through the forest.
After a dozen seconds, a black lion could be seen rubbing its paws on the tree trunk while his face showed a look of disgust. Around him, more than a dozen meat patties could be seen.