Chapter 101: The Underground City

Chapter 101: The Underground City

After successfully luring out the Hundred-Armed Beast, Su Nan immediately released all his golems and ordered them to surround the monster.

Taking advantage of the Hundred-Armed Beast's confusion, Su Nan swiftly uttered a syllable, followed by a deep, resonant shout.

In an instant, a visible wave of sound materialized out of thin air, twisting and sweeping through the void like a cannonball, slamming into the Hundred-Armed Beast!

Bang!

One of the beast's arms exploded, sending blood and flesh flying!

"Ah!!!"

The dozens of heads on the Hundred-Armed Beast let out a chorus of agonized screams, the overlapping sounds echoing through the vast, empty basin, making one's chest feel heavy.

Realizing what was happening, the Hundred-Armed Beast abruptly turned, its numerous eyes glaring at Su Nan with venomous hatred. It let out a fierce howl and charged at him.

An Elite Stone Golem immediately stepped forward to intercept it.

Bang! Bang!

The Hundred-Armed Beast's numerous swords and hammers rained down on the Elite Stone Golem, the onslaught as relentless as a storm, forcing the golem to retreat step by step. Shards of stone fell from its body, and countless cracks appeared on its surface.

"This attack power is insane!"

Despite his words, Su Nan's hands didn't slow. He quickly cast more Crushing Sound Waves.

One after another, the distorted sound waves hit the Hundred-Armed Beast, striking its arms, heads, and torso.

Apart from the waves that were anticipated and deflected by the beast's weapons or blocked by the magic armor on its body, the rest shattered an arm or a head.

Su Nan keenly observed that when he shattered one of the beast's heads, the arms below it continued to attack without any disruption.

This meant that any head could control the arms, and destroying a single head had no effect.

Moreover, the magic armor on the Hundred-Armed Beast's body was incredibly resilient.

A Crushing Sound Wave hitting it only left a fist-sized dent, and the beast itself remained unharmed.

"A Luminous-grade enchanted armor?"

Su Nan was taken aback.

This item was rarer than Luminous-grade magical items—mainly because no wizard (or apprentice) would waste their efforts on such a thing.

He wondered where the Hundred-Armed Beast had found it.

"We need to take out those arms first!"

In just a few minutes, the Hundred-Armed Beast had brutally reduced an Elite Stone Golem to rubble.

Despite being surrounded by numerous golems, it seemed to have the upper hand.

The multitude of heads on its upper body left it with no blind spots.

With hundreds of arms, it had no weaknesses in attack or defense, able to easily parry attacks from any direction while counterattacking.

It was only because the Crushing Sound Waves were intangible and hard to defend against that it occasionally got hit.

"Indeed, it's a tough opponent!"

Though he had anticipated the challenge, the Hundred-Armed Beast's strength still made Su Nan frown.

Even a thousand-strong Blackrock Cavalry Regiment would struggle against this thing.

Taking a deep breath, Su Nan's expression hardened, and a High-Rune Gem appeared in his palm.

In the next second, the High-Rune Gem was released, exploding in mid-air and transforming into countless black rays that rained down on the Hundred-Armed Beast like a dark shower.

The beast wildly swung its weapons, trying to block the black rays, but the rays passed right through them.

The next moment, the dense black rays struck the beast's body.

Instantly, a dark hue covered the Hundred-Armed Beast, and its movements visibly slowed.

After weakening the beast with a Shadow High-Rune Gem, Su Nan immediately threw a Thunder High-Rune Gem, which transformed into a bolt of lightning nearly a meter wide and slammed down!

Boom!

The heads and arms directly hit by the lightning turned to charcoal almost instantly!

The lightning then dispersed, turning into countless serpents of electricity that enveloped the entire body of the Hundred-Armed Beast, crackling incessantly.

The massive, terrifying form of the beast stiffened for a moment.

Seizing this moment, the Hidden Dragon, which had been lying in wait since the start of the battle, suddenly appeared, its massive mouth wide open, sparks flickering between its teeth.

Whoosh!

A terrifying flame erupted from its mouth!

The roaring flames instantly engulfed a large part of the Hundred-Armed Beast's body!

A piercing, agonized howl echoed through the air.

At least a dozen arms and seven or eight heads were obliterated in this attack!

More heads and arms were scorched to varying degrees.

The intense pain instantly broke the beast's stiffness and sent it into a frenzy of rage.

The remaining heads of the Hundred-Armed Beast roared in furious unison, and countless weapons swung wildly toward the Hidden Dragon.

However, the Hidden Dragon had already phased out, vanishing into the void.

The swords and hammers struck empty air, smashing into the ground and creating large cracks.

Losing its target, the Hundred-Armed Beast immediately redirected its rage toward Su Nan, roaring as it charged at him.

Bang! Bang!

Two Iron Golems stepped forward, one after the other, to block the beast's path.

In a fit of anger, the Hundred-Armed Beast hurled its long swords.

The sharp blades tore through the air, accompanied by a piercing whistle, and streaked toward Su Nan at blinding speed!

It was so fast that even Su Nan, whose physical strength had reached the level of a Grand Knight, couldn't dodge in time.

Thud!

A dull, heavy sound echoed as the blade pierced through his shield and energy particle barrier, only to be stopped by an invisible force field. The blade fell to the ground with a clatter, having lost its momentum.

Glancing at his Supreme Guard Ring, which had lost over 300 defense points in an instant, Su Nan felt a sharp pain in his teeth.

Even after breaking through two layers of defense, the beast's attack still managed to drain over 300 defense points from the ring. What kind of strength is this?

If he hadn't been prepared, a single hit like that would have torn him to pieces, leaving no trace of his body behind!

Seeing the Hundred-Armed Beast about to throw more weapons, Su Nan immediately cast the Mirror Image spell, splitting himself into five identical figures that scattered in different directions.

The beast was momentarily stunned, hesitating for a moment before hurling its weapon at the Su Nan on the right.

The weapon passed through the chest of the image, which then distorted and vanished into thin air.

"Roar!"

The Hundred-Armed Beast was furious but dared not throw any more weapons.

After all, it had a limited number of weapons. If any of its arms lost its weapon, it would have to fight the golems with bare hands.

With the clones distracting the beast, Su Nan could finally focus on attacking from behind.

In an instant, he threw two more High-Rune Gems, one transforming into lightning and the other into flames, striking the beast!

Piercing screams echoed through the basin.

By now, the Hundred-Armed Beast had lost about half of its arms and more than a third of its heads, its body riddled with wounds.

It desperately wanted to kill Su Nan, but the golems surrounding it made it impossible to get close.

With its weapon-throwing tactic also countered, it could no longer pose any real threat to Su Nan, who continued to attack from a safe distance.

It also had to constantly watch out for the Hidden Dragon, which would suddenly appear to strike.

Even in the perilous underground world, it had never fought such a humiliating battle!

Crack!

The Hundred-Armed Beast smashed another Elite Stone Golem to pieces.

With the number of its arms decreasing, its combat power had significantly weakened.

Previously, it could destroy a golem with just three or four coordinated attacks from all its arms. Now, it took a long time to take down a single golem.

By this point, Su Nan had already thrown his seventh High-Rune Gem.

Under the blinding lightning, the beast lost another seven or eight arms.

Seizing the moment when the beast was stunned, the Hidden Dragon reappeared and bit off three of the beast's arms.

Before the beast could retaliate, the Hidden Dragon vanished back into the void.

Feeling the threat of death, the severely injured Hundred-Armed Beast finally regained its senses and tried to flee.

Seeing this, Su Nan immediately ordered the golems to abandon their defensive positions and block the beast. The Hidden Dragon also emerged and charged directly at the Hundred-Armed Beast.

At the same time, Su Nan pulled out his eighth High-Rune Gem.

Under the combined assault of the wizard apprentice, the familiars, and the golems, the Hundred-Armed Beast's arms were quickly destroyed.

Without any means of attack, it had no chance of turning the tide or escaping. One by one, its heads were obliterated.

With a final, abrupt scream, the massive body of the Hundred-Armed Beast crashed to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.

Su Nan didn't relax until he bombarded the beast's torso with several more Crushing Sound Waves, ensuring that every head and arm was completely destroyed. Only then did he let out a sigh of relief.

"Finally got rid of that thing!"

Su Nan surveyed the battlefield.

The four Elite Stone Golems were all destroyed, and one of the Iron Golems was also ruined.

The loss of just these four golems amounted to over 9,000 gold coins.

Add to that the eight High-Rune Gems he had used, and this battle had cost him nearly 13,000 gold coins.

For a moment, he winced at the financial pain.

But remembering the silver and gold mines in the cave, his mood improved considerably.

As long as he could develop these silver and gold mines, he would quickly earn back the more than ten thousand gold coins he had spent.

Taking a deep breath, Su Nan stepped forward to examine the corpse of the Hundred-Armed Beast, his gaze fixed on the magic armor.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the magic armor did not fit the beast well.

Compared to the massive body of the Hundred-Armed Beast, the magic armor appeared a bit small, and it had been stretched out of shape.

"It seems this magic armor was something the beast found by chance and forced onto itself."

Su Nan's "Biological Modification" skill had reached level 3, and he was quite skilled in this area. After a moment of observation, he determined that the beast's bizarre appearance was not the result of modification but rather natural growth or mutation.

Combined with the ill-fitting magic armor, it was clear that the Hundred-Armed Beast was not a creation of some wizard or apprentice.

Su Nan then used Mage Hand to remove the magic armor from the beast's body.

Although he had no use for the armor himself, it was made of expensive materials, and decomposing it might yield some rare metals.

As for the corpse of the Hundred-Armed Beast, it was of no use to Su Nan, so he burned it to ashes.

Having done that, Su Nan turned his attention to the cave entrance from which the beast had emerged.

After a moment's thought, he decided to explore it.

Storing his golems in the Synthesis Cube, Su Nan, as usual, had the Hidden Dragon's ethereal form lead the way, followed by himself and the dragon as they entered the cave.

To his surprise, the tunnel beyond the entrance was surprisingly spacious, about twice as wide as the one they had come through.

It made sense; the Hundred-Armed Beast's size required a large space to move around.

After walking about two to three hundred meters, Su Nan arrived at a vast cavern.

Scattered on the ground were numerous bones with bite marks, and a foul odor hung in the air.

It was clear that this was the Hundred-Armed Beast's lair.

At the back of the cavern, there was another dark, ominous opening, leading who knew where.

Having come this far, Su Nan was not about to stop and decided to explore further.

This tunnel was also wide and long.

Estimating that he had walked several hundred meters, he still saw no end in sight.

Finally, after walking about seven or eight hundred meters, the tunnel suddenly turned downward.

Su Nan frowned and did not let the Hidden Dragon proceed. Instead, he cast Levitation on himself and slowly floated down.

After descending about twenty meters, a narrow opening appeared before him, faintly illuminated by a distant light.

Hesitating for a moment, Su Nan continued to float downward, but the space became increasingly narrow, eventually becoming impassable for a human.

Using a Light-enchanted stone to illuminate the area, he found that the tunnel below was sealed with no exit.

Realizing this, Su Nan returned to the previous opening and passed through it.

The view suddenly opened up.

Before him was a vast, bell-shaped cavern, with numerous stalactites hanging from the ceiling like sharp swords.

Su Nan surveyed his surroundings and realized he was in a huge, inverted bell-shaped cavern, with the stalactites hanging down from the ceiling.

The tunnel he had just emerged from was an empty stalactite.

The stalactites were adorned with countless sparkling crystals, casting a soft, ethereal glow over the entire cavern.

Looking down, he saw a large, deep lake at the bottom of the cavern, like a gemstone embedded in the center.

In the middle of the lake was an island.

On the island, there were several stone buildings, and he could see figures moving in and out of them.

"This is... an underground city!"

Su Nan's eyes widened.

The intelligent beings of the underground world often lived in city-states to protect themselves from external threats.

The vast underground world was dotted with countless city-states of varying sizes.

Small city-states might have only a few thousand inhabitants, while large ones could have over a hundred thousand.

The island before him was clearly a small city-state.

Su Nan never imagined that just beneath the forest near Flashing City, there would be a city-state of the underground world.

He was at a loss for words.

The existence of this underground city was not a good thing for Flashing City.

The inhabitants of the underground world were often hostile to their surface neighbors and could invade at any time, bringing war and disaster.

However, for Su Nan, it might not be such a bad thing.

If he was lucky, he might find many rare materials in this city that were hard to come by on the surface.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end