Danmaku, my skills refresh weekly.

• Activated when protecting your own side or your own faction.

• Break through the defense limit and reduce the damage received by our side.

• Enhance durability with Hyperdomain.

……

With the combined defensive capabilities of four supermodels, plus the incredibly tough Black Dragon Shield, Xia Er felt confident that he could withstand a direct hit from the Black Dragon without any problem.

The key is……

"Armor stacking! Pass! X3!"

While Kaguya was in a daze, Ciel's shield flashed with gray light once again.

The number of shields has increased to 3!

Although based on Xia Er's previous tests, the strength of each layer of shield could only withstand a level 3 critical hit, but when the number of shields was stacked up...

when!when!when!

Whenever Kaguya's katana landed on the Black Dragon Shield, a layer of opaque black light sphere would appear before her eyes.

Kaguya stared at the slightly worn katana in her hand, her face full of frustration: "Damn it! What kind of turtle shell are you!"

Just then, a dragon's roar echoed in the sky, and the blue dragon roared as it spewed out dazzling "autumn light" towards the ground.

Kaguya rolled away to dodge, and the aurora breath swept across the ground, corroding a layer of grooves, before landing on the motionless black sphere with a crackling sound.

"You can't even break this?" Kaguya asked in astonishment.

The beautiful aurora that the dragon unleashed was a magical breath containing poison and paralysis—these "abnormal statuses"!

This is the kind of "light erosion" that did not break through the bandaged person's barrier.

As the layers of barriers on Ciel crumbled, white light also shone from his shield.

Just as the blue dragon's breath was about to end...

"It's my turn!"

With a powerful swing of his arms, Ciel hurled his shield out!

Duang————

Ouch——

The blue dragon was struck hard in the abdomen by the shield, let out a wail and fell from the sky. With quick reflexes, Sharl took out the collar and bound the blue dragon's body.

"Mission accomplished! Retreat!"

Charles retrieved his shield and glanced at Jarrow, who was fighting Niz.

"Damn it, let's go!"

With a shout, countless faction members looked around, abandoned their companions' corpses, and disappeared into the cave.

"Damn it, don't run away!"

Kaguya, along with Arisaka and Ryu, caught up with them.

A fiery slash arrived first, followed by two cannonballs of lightning and fire, tearing through the air.

Charles slammed his shield down, causing it to unfold and reveal the greatsword inside.

As it blocked the slash, the giant blade expanded and rotated, extending into a giant axe, tearing through the thunder and fire cannon fire with the force of splitting a mountain.

Boom————

A shallow trench opened in the ground, blocking the pursuit of the Astrea Familia.

Reverting to his shield, Charles glanced at the Astrea Familia who remained stationary, then turned and followed Jarrow into the cave.

Kaguya watched Ciel's departing figure and cursed under her breath, "Damn it, when did the Rudra Familia acquire such a troublesome enemy?"

"My beloved sword is shattered, and I can't even look at his shield."

Lyra sighed, "Never mind that, let's capture the survivors first, interrogate them, and ask them what they did in the maze."

"By the way, Kaguya. Did you bring any 'Veritable Essence'?"

“I brought it…” Kaguya remained silent, then tossed out a vial of medicine.

"As expected of you."

Lyra searched for prisoners with the potion, while the others quickly cleaned up the battlefield.

Ryu stared at the entrance where Charles had disappeared, frowned and pondered for a moment, wondering if he should change into the prisoners' clothes and blend into the group of these people.

A moment later...

"No, I've already told you everything! No, don't kill me! I didn't do anything wrong! Ugh..."

Inside the destroyed cave, Kaguya slit the throat of the last prisoner, wiped the blood splattered on her face, and slowly rose to her feet.

“Actually, there was no need to kill him… they were just hunting monsters.” Ryu said with some reluctance, “Didn’t he say he wouldn’t do it again?”

“We don’t have time to push these prisoners back to the ground. Killing them is the most efficient method.” Kaguya sneered, “You fool, at this point, you don’t still think these dark faction members will tell you the truth, do you? Not long ago, these people used monsters to kill so many of our people. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

"..." Liu lowered her head.

She was just worried about Charles.

What if someone accidentally catches him and chokes him like this?

"Did you get any information?" Although Alexie was also frowning, the situation didn't seem very optimistic, so she changed the subject for the time being.

"Ah," Kaguya replied, "They're capturing all sorts of monsters, seemingly trying to breed something big to crush us in one fell swoop."

"Is this another monster gift?" Lyra crossed her arms. "Can't you come up with something new?"

Kaguya shook her head: "This time seems different. The mastermind is that Joker, and he seems to be connected to the Fallen Fairy. The man-made labyrinths of today may be different from what we know."

"We need to quickly notify the Loki Familia and the Freya Familia to conquer the artificial labyrinth as soon as possible."

“That’s probably difficult. We haven’t recovered from the incident with the [Hero] and the [Freya Familia] yet. Organizing our forces will take a lot of time,” Lyra added. “We need to stop them from continuing to expand. Let’s chase them down and kill all the monsters they’re hunting. That should slow down their pace of setting up their positions.”

"To buy time for negotiations."

Alexie nodded: "Iska, please go back to the ground and relay the information to Shakti."

"Hi hi!!" Iska walked away quickly.

Kaguya turned to look at Ryu, who was still staring blankly at the corpse: "What? You blockhead, still thinking about the question from before?"

"No..." Liu snapped out of her daze and blinked, "I was thinking, could I change into the Dark Faction's clothes and infiltrate their ranks? That way I could find out their specific plans and strategies?"

Kaguya paused for a moment, then chuckled, "Hey, there's a limit to how much you lack common sense. Gods can detect lies, so what makes you think you can sneak in?"

Ryu retorted, "Then why do the Dark Faction have so many spies among us? Don't we have enough gods?"

“This…” Kaguya was stunned, and she subconsciously looked at Lyra.

"Hey, you're not going to say that the [Hero] is a mole, are you?" Layla rolled her eyes and shrugged. "It's not that it's impossible to infiltrate. The Dark Faction has so many henchmen and followers. Getting in would be easy, but getting out would be difficult. Once exposed, you'd be trapped like a turtle in a jar, with no way to escape."

"No one would be willing to do such a dangerous job. Even for us, it would be too much of a loss to venture deep into enemy territory just to bring out a little bit of intelligence."

“Yes… it was a near-death experience…” Liu’s brows furrowed even more.

We can't let Charles continue. The current situation in the man-made maze is too complicated. We can't let him continue to take risks.

So she picked up a blood-stained cloak from the ground, put it on, and ran out.

"Hey, Leon, where are you going?!"

"I'll go follow them and see, don't worry about me!"

"Wait...wait! Leon! It's too dangerous!"

Chapter 406: 10 Consecutive Losses!

Dungeon, 30th floor, Twisted Jungle.

Amidst towering rock formations and a pitch-black forest, ancient trees stand tall in this desolate landscape, their bark as ancient and weathered as a dragon from the deep sea. Each piece of bark resembles a set of undulating scales, seemingly telling tales of the trials and tribulations of time.

Jaluo punched the tree, shaking off the dark leaves.

"Damn it... those damned righteous bitches, they're ruining my plans again!"

“The monsters are all dead, we can just catch more… what’s there to be angry about?” Black slime seeped from Xia’s arm, forming a giant net that preyed on the tree dragon lying on the ground, which had lost a wing.

“We don’t have many collars left. If we keep wasting them like this, Barka will cause me trouble again,” Jaluo said, pursing his lips.

“Then give him the money. There’s nothing that Farley can’t solve. If there is, then you haven’t given him enough,” Charles joked.

He wasn't concerned about the financial situation of Barka and Jalho; he was more interested in the rare Paru he had just captured.

The Blue Dragon truly lives up to its reputation as an extremely rare monster worthy of being called a masterpiece. Its streamlined body, wings that resemble ribbons of light, and colorful magical spots emanating from its body are dazzling and beautiful, making it far superior to all other creatures in the dungeon.

"This is my Tamashi!"

Xia Er tried to command the blue dragon, which circled around him, and the colorful light bands drifted slowly as if under his control.

Crash.

At that moment, a pig effect appeared behind Xia Er, swallowing the scattered gold coins.

Number of defeats: 4

The number of consecutive defeats increased by two. Shortly after the defeat in the first encounter, Charles received a notification of a fourth defeat. It was likely that the survivors were killed after disengaging from the battle.

Satisfied with the results of this battle, Ciel decided to put his underlings through a tougher time.

"Let's go, capture some new monsters to replenish our fighting strength, then leave a few to cover the rear, and we'll return to the artificial maze through the passage on the 37th floor."

Without making a sound, Charles divided the battlefield into several parts, increasing the number of defeats.

Jaluo nodded.

It must be admitted that the Astrea Familia is currently stronger, but everything will be different once he captures his dream beast.

"Next time, I'm definitely going to give them a big one!" Jaluo thought viciously.

……

The monsters below level 30 are led by the most famous "Blood Dragon," whose potential is at level 4; weaker are the "Twisted Treants" disguised as withered trees, followed by the "Giants," a lower-level species of the "Bloody Trolls" encountered earlier.