You promised to wreak havoc on the dungeon, but instead you've got Dragon Slime!

"The guild headquarters has issued a halt order, and someone will go to Black Language Cave to inspect it within three days at the latest."

Bacchus put down his glass, a faint smile playing on his lips.

“Great, when those inspectors come back, I’ll know what’s going on with Ron’s money.”

He didn't realize that Ron was already waiting for him.

The atmosphere outside Black Whisper Cave has become increasingly tense these past few days. The guild headquarters' inspection team is already on its way and should arrive by tomorrow at the latest.

Ron has almost completely disguised the killing formation, but someone is watching the line outside.

And that person just happened to be moving around more and more frequently in Lilith's social circle.

Vanessa.

She's been coming to see Lilith almost every day lately. At first, she brought some snacks and fruit, saying she was just dropping them off on her way. Later, she started coming over to help tidy up the yard, repair the magic lamps, and even offered to help Lilith organize the supply warehouse outside the Black Language Cave.

Lilith's impression of her improved day by day. After all, for a noble lady to squat down and sweep chores with her seemed quite sincere to her.

Amata had warned her that Vanessa's background was questionable, and Ron had also hinted that she shouldn't let her guard down. Although Lilith didn't directly reject her advances, she became more wary.

That morning, Vanessa knocked on the door carrying a small wooden box. The box was sealed with a golden magic lock and looked exquisite.

“I saw this at the market and thought you might need it, so I bought it.”

Lilith took it, opened it, and found several well-preserved magic stones and a finely crafted, intricately carved short bow. The bowstring was made of silver wire mixed with magical beast sinew, of excellent quality.

"Where did you buy this good stuff?" Lilith asked casually.

“An old businessman was having a clearance sale, and I just happened to stumble upon it,” Vanessa said with a light laugh.

Lilith didn't press the matter further and put the items away. However, she noticed that Vanessa's gaze kept drifting, intentionally or unintentionally, towards the pile of supplies from the Black Language Cave's perimeter that lay in the corner. Among them were several terrain scrolls, spare setup tools that Ron had specially prepared for her.

Vanessa didn't move directly, but while helping to wipe the table, she casually moved her feet closer to the scroll and touched its edge a couple of times.

Lilith made a mental note of it.

At noon, the two went to a restaurant in the town center. Vanessa ate slowly, occasionally asking Lilith if she had hosted any guild members recently, and whether Black Whisper Caves would be closed due to the inspection.

Lilith didn't tell the truth, only giving vague answers. Vanessa listened, hummed in agreement, and changed the subject, talking about the fun of monster hunting.

Under the dining table, she gently touched her bag, which was bulging and clearly contained more than just her personal belongings.

After returning to the house in the afternoon, Vanessa offered to help repair the teleportation marker at the entrance and brought over a set of tools.

She squatted down next to the teleportation array, removed the engraving cover, and her movements were so skillful that she didn't seem like an amateur.

Hidden within that area is a concealed runic line leading to the outer perimeter of the Black Language Cave.

Lilith watched her retreating figure from inside the house, her brows furrowing slightly.

In the evening, Vanessa packed up her tools, clapped her hands, and said that was about it for today. She would come back tomorrow to help organize the warehouse.

After she left, Lilith went to the door immediately, squatted down to check the engraving on the teleportation array—a thin scratch had appeared on the originally even runes, almost invisible.

However, the scratches extend outwards, clearly indicating that they were intentionally left as "guideposts".

Chapter 114

Ron's disguise was to fool the inspection team, while Vanessa's actions were likely to pave the way for Bacchus's people.

At night, Lilith lit a magic lamp, illuminating the scratches on the teleportation array clearly, and then added a "false mark" next to it with a piece of white chalk, leading to another dead end.

She didn't rush to tell Ron about it, but instead planned to see what Vanessa would do next.

Meanwhile, Vanessa returned to her residence and gently placed a spare terrain scroll she had brought back from Lilith's place that day on the table. She took out a fine pen, made an almost invisible rune on the edge of the scroll, and then put it into a black package.

She knew that this thing would soon be delivered to someone in the Carnival Maze.

Night fell quickly, and the streets surrounding Emerald Town went dark one by one, with only the patrol lanterns on the city walls still flashing faintly.

Deep within the carnival maze, a ghostly blue magic lamp lit up. Bacchus pushed open a heavy iron door and entered the stone chamber containing the Faraday cage.

Perkins was already waiting, holding a rough map of the Black Language Caves with a thin line drawn on it leading to a certain coordinate on the outer perimeter.

That line was delivered to the Carnival Maze by Vanessa just today.

Bacchus didn't waste any words. He tossed the map onto the console, pointed to the cage, and said, "Go in, follow this route, and don't make too much of a commotion. First, complete the two tasks I assigned you."

Perkins looked up, a glint in his eyes, but without asking what it was about, he silently walked into the cage.

Bacchus placed the spare terrain scroll that Vanessa had brought into the magic stone slot on the control panel. The runes on the scroll and the engravings on the outer wall of the cage instantly matched, and a piercing electric shock rang out in the air.

With a push of the joystick, blue arcs of electricity outside the cage instantly enveloped Perkins, like a giant net swallowing him up.

The next second, his feet lost their footing, and he felt as if he had fallen into a bottomless abyss, with the whistling wind and a long, drawn-out hum in his ears.

When he stepped back onto solid ground, the familiar yet strange atmosphere of the Black Language Cave was all around him.

It feels familiar because the rock walls and passageway layout of the grottoes haven't changed.

The entrance felt unfamiliar because Ron had altered the monster arrangement, placing slimes and the old blind-eyed merman at the start, making the entire passage feel oppressively heavy, as if it were submerged underwater.

Perkins didn't rush forward rashly, but instead followed a side path to the left. It was a route that Vanessa had specifically marked out; according to her, this path would avoid most of the killing formations at the entrance and lead directly to a fork in the road in the middle.

As he walked along, the soles of his boots occasionally slid against the wet, slippery stone surfaces, and sometimes left behind sticky residue that stretched into threads, indicating that the slime had just been in the vicinity.

At the fork in the road, a barely visible mark was etched into the wall—Vanessa's "guidepost." Following it, Perkins squeezed into a narrow crevice, barely wide enough for him to squeeze through sideways, where the air was damp and chilly.

A few minutes later, he arrived at a spacious stone hall. This was the exact location of the spare terrain scroll in the middle of the Blackwhisper Caves—Vanessa had seen it at Lilith's house, in the exact same spot.

Perkins walked over, took out the replacement scroll that Bacchus had given him from his pocket, and replaced the original one.

The new scroll rune has a subtle distortion effect, and when unfolded, it can create false terrain within a radius of tens of meters—to outsiders, it will appear as a wide, safe path, but in reality, it is a slope that leads directly to the entrance of the Sand Serpent's Nest.

The first thing is done.

He didn't stop, and continued walking up a slope behind the stone hall. The second thing he did was to tamper with the control nodes on the periphery of the core area.

Ronbu's killing arrays and monster spawns are all maintained through these nodes. Simply lowering the energy level of one of these nodes will temporarily disable the killing array. For Bakus, this is paving the way for future infiltration.

Perkins took out a black metal ring, attached it to the rune slot on the node, and muttered a few incantations. The red dot on the metal ring lit up little by little, and the rune light on the node dimmed slightly.

Just then, a soft rustling sound came from afar, like something dragging itself along the rocks.

Perkins looked up sharply, following the sound, and saw a dark shadow slowly emerging from the other side of the canyon, accompanied by a chilling aura—a sand snake.

Its body slid down the stone wall little by little, its tongue flicking out gently, facing the direction he was in.

Without a second thought, Perkins immediately packed up his tools and retreated along the same path. He knew that once entangled with this thing, escaping without alerting the entire group of monsters in the middle section would be virtually impossible.

By the time he circled back into the narrow crevice, his back was completely soaked with sweat, and cold sweat trickled down his spine.

He didn't dare to delay any longer and rushed back to the teleportation coordinates.

Meanwhile, Ron sat on the high observation platform, his fingertips gently caressing a small blue runestone—with a faint red dot flashing on it, the "tracking rune" he had left on Perkins.

The red dot is now slowly moving from the middle section towards the entrance.

Ron's lips curled up slightly for a moment: "Here we go again."

Just as Perkins' red dot disappeared outside the entrance, the teleportation array in the Black Language Cave lit up again.

This time, it wasn't some ragtag squad coming to their deaths, but a well-equipped and imposing elite team. The team consisted of eight people, all elites level 20 or above. The front row had two heavily armored warriors, the middle row had three mages and one archer, and the back row had a priest and an assassin.

Just by looking at their positions and equipment, you can tell that the guild spent a lot of money to send them.

Ron sat on the high stone platform, holding the rune stone in his hand without moving, his gaze following them as they stepped into the entrance area.

The slime and the old blind-eyed merman were still waiting in the first wave.

The warriors charged forward with their shields raised, directly withstanding the slime's first wave of slime attacks. The acid hit the shields with a hissing sound, but the heavily armored warriors withstood it, their feet firmly planted.

The mages in the back row immediately pressed forward, casting Ice Spike and Fireball spells alternately on the slime. The slime trembled violently from the blasts, its surface slime evaporating into white mist.

Seeing this, the old blind merman rushed out, unleashing a cloud of foul-smelling water mist in an attempt to disrupt their rhythm. But the group was prepared; the priest raised his purification staff, and a golden light enveloped the entire group, instantly dissipating the water mist.

Ron raised an eyebrow—this group had withstood the first wave without losing formation, making them more troublesome than the previous teams.

The slime was blasted into several pieces, and the fishman was riddled with bullets by concentrated fire. They actually passed the entrance smoothly.

But Ron wasn't in a hurry at all.

The initial stage is just a trial; the real harvest comes in the middle.

Chapter 115

The elite team jogged along, clearly trying to rush over before the monsters respawned.

But just as they turned into the fork in the middle of the canyon, Ron's blue runestone suddenly lit up.

That was the signal that the "fake terrain scroll" that Perkins had manipulated was taking effect.

What should have been a flat passage suddenly turned into a wide, gentle slope that seemed to lead directly to the other side of the canyon. The elite team rushed in without hesitation.

However, the rock wall at the end of the gentle slope suddenly collapsed, and a huge sand snake shot out from it!

Its body was as thick as three people could hug, and its scales gleamed coldly in the stone light. With a sweep of its tail, it sent the foremost warrior flying, crashing into the canyon wall and spitting out a mouthful of blood.

Before anyone could react, a second sand snake emerged from the side, biting another soldier's shoulder guard. Venom seeped in through the gap, and the man froze instantly.

From the crevices in the rocks on both sides of the canyon, the low growls of the old blind fishman rang out simultaneously.

Three foul-smelling mists rushed in from different directions. The priest's purification aura failed to cover the entire team, and the archer in the back row stumbled on the spot, almost dropping his bow.

Ron could see it clearly from his vantage point—this was Perkins's trump card: luring the team into a position where the Sand Snakes and Murlocs could attack simultaneously. Once caught in the trap, they would be attacked from both sides, with no way to retreat.

The elite group's mages unleashed several rounds of fire blasts, forcing one sand snake back half a step, but another had already coiled around the priest.

The sand serpent's tail tightened, and the priest's face turned bright red, unable to even cast Purify.

The assassin in the back row tried to rush over to save the person, but the fishman threw a barbed harpoon that struck him squarely in the back of the knee. The assassin fell to the ground, gasping in pain.

Within half a minute, the line was in complete chaos.

Ron silently counted down the seconds in his mind—give the monster another fifteen seconds, and this team will be finished.

Sure enough, the first sand snake shook off its forced retreat and pounced into the middle of the group, its tail whipping through the crowd like a steel whip. The murlocs seized the opportunity to slip in and finish them off, each one a clean and efficient spear strike.

The first person vanished in a particle of light, followed by the second, the third… The moment the priest breathed his last, the entire team's chances of survival were severed. The remaining few were surrounded in the center of the canyon and were wiped out in no time.

The canyon fell silent, with only the sand snakes and fishmen slowly retreating into the depths of the rock crevices.

Ron leaned against the stone platform and tapped the runestone with his fingertips.