Danmaku, my skills refresh weekly.

Finn frowned, his thumb clenching slightly: "We've been going through the caves, why are there goblins here?"

“Of course it’s from the wall… ah!” Barra answered matter-of-factly, but she paused halfway through her sentence.

"This is not an underground city!"

Yes, this is not a dungeon at all!

The tunnel that extends all the way here has some turns but no forks in the road. How did such a goblin manage to evade Finn and his men's detection?

The group stopped in their tracks, their gazes fixed on the rock face...

The moss-covered rocks were shrouded in damp moisture, like waterlogged bricks, and emitted a foul odor.

Ryu pressed her hand against the rock wall, feeling the warmth of her palm, but a sudden chill ran through her: "I... I feel like this wall... it's alive?!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the rock wall at the top of the sky suddenly cracked open, and more than a dozen goblin babies fell to the ground with cries. The foul-smelling amniotic fluid fell to the ground and slowly dried up.

"It's hatching, it's hatching a monster!" Liu's pupils contracted.

"They're just goblins! I'll clear the way!" The elderly swordsman Noal swung his longsword, and while the goblins were still in a daze, a few sword dances later, corpses littered the ground.

Finn quickly warned, "Quickly, get out of here!"

It's not that these goblins are so terrifying; they're just ordinary goblins.

What made Finn uneasy was the idea that monsters could hatch from walls!

this means……

"We're inside something far more terrifying! Get out of this tunnel now!"

The group quickened their pace. The goblins along the way were no match for Finn and his companions, but the Dark Faction's mastery of the technology to simulate 'dungeons' greatly surprised Finn.

This means that the man-made maze will become a completely new underground city, and it is even expanding!

This means that there may still exist enemies who can create artificial mazes and are comparable to 'gods'!

What horrified Finn even more was...

"If humans can build underground cities, then... who built the existing underground cities?"

As they ran, the hatched goblins followed Finn's squad all the way.

Finn ignored the goblins, and the group quickly passed through the tunnel and entered a huge cavern over 400 meters long.

This place resembles a vast plaza, with a dozen or so fluorite pillars supporting the ceiling, each inlaid with a massive fluorite stone, giving it the feel of an underground city. A fountain is sculpted in the center, and a statue of an elderly goblin stands prominently there.

In its hand, it held aloft a ram's head scepter resembling a totem, its expression one of maniacal laughter and ferocity.

Finn froze, slowing his pace.

"what is this?"

"A totem?"

The veteran Noah stood blocking the entrance to the cave, having cleared away the horde of goblins that had pursued him. Looking at the plaza, he murmured:

"How come this is exactly the same as the underground city? Is this Central Park?"

"No... this is a genuine dungeon!" Finn said solemnly, "Be on guard!"

The words fell.

Around the room, behind the pyramid-shaped guesthouse building, ugly green monsters crawled out, staring at their mortal brethren with twisted, angry expressions.

“wryyyyyyy——”

An unusual sound came from the goblins, and arrows were shot toward Finn and his companions.

Hundreds of arrows rained down simultaneously, like a curtain of rain.

Finn and the others raised their weapons and easily parried the attacks.

"Damn it... you mere trash, you start getting arrogant just because you found a weapon, huh? Let me teach you what a real strongman is!" Bert roared, his face full of madness as he broke away from the group and charged out.

“Wait! Bert!” Finn shouted, but it was too late.

"Monsters must all die!"

Ais also wanted to rush out, but Riveria grabbed her by the back of her collar.

Bert rushed out, dodging left and right to avoid the goblin's arrows, and then jumped 10 meters away from the goblin's fortress.

However, as he grinned maliciously and stomped on the floor, the floor tiles shattered with a loud crash.

"!"

Bert lost his balance and one foot was buried in a trap dug by the goblin; a sharp spear pierced through the sole of his foot.

Immediately following, a hail of arrows rained down.

Dangdangdang——

A giant axe blocked the rain of arrows, and Grace grabbed Bert by the back of his collar and pulled him out:

"Don't be impulsive, these goblins are strange..."

"Damn it! It hurts so much—" Bert sat on the ground, examining his right foot, which was covered in blood, with blood gushing out.

He poured the coconut milk he had bought onto the wound, but it had no effect whatsoever.

"Hey old man, is this thing a fake?!"

Grace's pupils contracted as he stared at the red-tinged spearhead in the trap, and shouted, "Finn! It's a cursed weapon!"

"Get Bert back first... Riveria! Use magic directly..."

"it is good!"

A magic circle activated, and a blizzard instantly froze the pyramid-shaped fortress. And within the room, there were three other such fortresses…

The raging magic quickly cleared all the monsters from the cave, and Finn stared blankly at the various weapons and arrows dropped by the goblins.

"They are all enhanced species, elite individuals approaching level 2..."

"Is it close to the level of the 12th floor? But... isn't it a bit too clever?" the group discussed.

Finn said, "The designers were too clever. They first used the weak goblin tunnels to give us a stereotype, then attacked with enhanced goblins to lure us into attacking the fortress. And they set traps in the surrounding paving stones..."

“A typical level 3 squad of 20 or fewer people can be easily wiped out by this tactic if they are careless.”

The group dispersed and carefully inspected the four fortresses, triggering the mechanisms they found. Only after confirming that there were no more monsters did they return to the central fountain.

Seeing Bert limping and struggling to tighten the bandage around his wound to stop the bleeding, Finn frowned: "Well, Bert, should we go back for now?"

"Are you kidding me, Palum? Going back with such a minor injury would only make you a laughingstock!"

"..." Finn paused for a moment, then said, "But I believe you need to go back for treatment."

"I told you I don't need to! The enemies are just goblins, I can kick them all to pieces with one kick!" Bert roared with a grin.

Finn felt a little uneasy, but he couldn't persuade Bert otherwise, so he could only let him follow behind the group and be taken care of by the veterans.

As they left the hall, the goblin statue in the center emitted a red glow from its eyes, and the scepter in its hand emitted a faint luster. The magic emanating from the atmosphere was swallowed up by the gems on the scepter.

The next moment, black mud overflowed from the floor of the room, swallowing the goblin that had turned to dust. After a slight tremor, a brand new goblin crawled out of the ground and stood up again.

They exchanged glances, huddled together and whispered amongst themselves, finally deciding to split up and disappear into the other tunnels.

Chapter 422 The Architect's Malice

A complex and quiet alleyway.

The surrounding environment resembled the corridors of an ancient castle, with many rooms carved out along one wall. Finn tried to push them open, but most were simply decorative props.

On the other side of the corridor, there are ancient paintings left every 50 meters or so, and every 10 paintings, or about 500 meters, there is a fork in the road.

Finn didn't choose to take a detour, but instead went straight ahead, wanting to see just how long it stretched to the end.

But after going around countless forks in the road, Finn seemed to have returned to where he started.

Finn's team stood at the crossroads once again, gazing at the marks they had made on the wall, lost in thought.

"Finn, haven't we come full circle again?" Grace said, leaning on his giant axe, his eyes filled with impatience.

Human veteran Noal pondered, "We shouldn't have turned, so why did we end up back where we started?"

“I don’t know,” Finn said, licking his thumb. “But there’s no doubt we’re lost.”

He raised the magic stone lamp at his waist, shining its light ten meters away, and frowned in thought: "An illusion? Or some kind of magic we don't know about?"

Finn's gaze fell on the identical door and painting on one side. Undeterred, he continued forward, trying to observe what each painting depicted and checking for any hidden rooms.

The paintings weren't much different, the only problem being that every ten paintings or so, a similar one would appear, but that didn't mean they had gone in circles. Finn continued onward and saw other similar paintings, but in a different order.

Reaching this point, Finn stopped in his tracks: "Damn it, were we led astray by the paintings on the wall?"

The impatient dwarf veteran Dain simply chopped up the paintings on the wall, revealing the bare labyrinthine rock walls.

"Since the problem lies with these paintings, if we cut them all up, we'll know where the problem is!"

Finn licked his thumb and agreed.

"The method is a bit clumsy, but we can give it a try..."

So the team quickly advanced, destroying all the paintings along the way.

But they didn't notice that after they left the spot, tiny, invisible creatures crawled in groups on the wall, corroding the debris on the ground and gradually forming a new painting on the wall.

【Mimicry】or, 【maze construction】.

This is a simple ability that Rimuru developed in the last few days after consuming the dungeon soil that Heretic brought back from "The Deepest Abyss".

That is the blueprint for the underground city; the land there is like the DNA sequence that forms the underground city.

Rock walls, forests, mountains, wastelands, glaciers, deserts—Rimuru can transform his body into other substances that he has recorded by consuming magical energy.

Rimuru used the mana-absorbing properties of the [Mana Dragon] to expand his body. Then, using the "tentacle" ability of the [Kraken], he split his body into countless microbial-sized pieces, which, together with the basic materials of the artificial labyrinth, constructed this labyrinth.

Add to that some fragments of the largest creature, the "Dungeon"...

Now, within Rimuru's stomach, the magic stones surrounding it have formed an environment similar to "The Deepest Abyss," recording the construction of the man-made labyrinth.

Based on these achievements...

Finn and his group hurried for half an hour but couldn't find the ancient painting they had damaged...