A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

"That's unreliable." Chen Lang was blunt. "Reinforcements will take at least an hour, while those low-level monsters we killed can resurrect in half an hour. Staying here to wait for reinforcements won't bring us reinforcements, it will bring us a bunch of resurrected monsters."

"Then we can only move forward," Zhou Lang said.

The others looked at each other and did not object.

The nine people continued forward.

Less than two hundred meters ahead, the third squad encountered the second Stitched Corpse Demon.

Unlike the first one, this one is much larger. It's four meters tall, has eight arms, and four heads.

"An evolved individual." For the first time, a hint of wavering appeared in Chen Lang's voice. "Approaching four stars."

"If you can't beat them, run away," Zhou Lang said.

"Run? Where to run? The path behind us has been blocked by the resurrected monsters."

Zhou Lang glanced back at the way he had come. Sure enough, the sticky, wriggling sound came from the darkness in the distance. The white mud figures were rising again.

A pincer attack from both sides.

"Damn it," Zhao Qiang cursed.

The atmosphere in the group suddenly became extremely tense. There were nine people, with a near four-star stitched corpse demon in front of them, a group of resurrected low-level monsters behind them, and sealed cement walls on both sides.

Dead end.

Zhou Lang's mind raced. A direct assault was definitely out of the question; they'd almost been wiped out by the first three-star monster, let alone this one, which was even stronger. But if they didn't clear the path ahead, being caught up by the lower-level monsters behind them would also mean certain death.

"Su Nian," he called out.

The girl walked over from the back of the line.

"Are your skills useful against something close to four stars?"

Su Nian glanced at the giant stitched-together corpse demon and shook her head: "Too smart, you can't fool it."

"Then what about your strangeness? You said you took in a one-star creature."

"It... isn't very good at fighting," Su Nian said, her tone a little strange.

"Who cares if it can fight or not, let's release it and see." Zhao Qiang said anxiously.

Su Nian hesitated for a moment, then tossed the black die to the ground. The die bounced twice upon landing, and all six sides simultaneously lit up with a dark red light. Then the light spread, and one of them rose from the ground—

Zhou Lang rubbed his eyes.

Rising from the ground was a cat. A black cat. Ordinary size, with glossy fur, it was surveying its surroundings with an extremely impatient expression.

One star is eerie. A cat.

"...That's it?" Zhao Qiang voiced what everyone was thinking.

The black cat turned its head and glared at Zhao Qiang, its disdainful look carrying a truly eerie quality.

"What's it called?" Zhou Lang asked.

"It doesn't have a name," Su Nian said. "I call it Little Black."

"Xiao Hei." Zhou Lang repeated, feeling that it was absurd to be discussing a cat's name while facing a life-or-death crisis in an A-level dungeon.

"Alright, Xiao Hei can't help," Chen Lang concluded. "I have a solution, but it comes at a high price."

"explain"

Chen Lang pulled something out of his pocket—a black bead the size of a fist, with fine cracks on its surface, through which a dark red light shone.

"What is this?"

"Detonation Bead," Chen Lang said. "A three-star ghost weapon, disposable. The blast radius is fifteen meters, and the power is enough to severely injure a near-four-star monster."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Zhao Qiang asked anxiously.

"The problem is fifteen meters," Chen Lang said. "We're less than thirty meters away from it. If it charges at us—"

Before the words were even finished, the stitched-up corpse demon moved.

It charged at us.

The four-meter-tall body charged forward at an incredible speed, all eight arms outstretched, like a runaway tank.

"spread!"

Everyone dodged to the sides. But the passage was only so wide, and the nine people couldn't spread out at all. Three people were swept by the arm, one of whom was slammed directly into the wall, his human-shaped dent embedded in the cement.

Chen Lang didn't dodge. He grabbed the detonation bead and, in the instant the stitched corpse demon rushed in front of him, shoved the bead into its largest mouth.

Then he turned and ran.

"Get down, everyone!"

explosion.

It wasn't the kind of fiery explosion you see in movies and TV shows. It was a silent diffusion—a dark red light expanded outwards from the stitched-together corpse demon's body, like an inflating balloon. The balloon expanded to its limit, and then—

boom.

It wasn't a sound, it was an impact. A pure physical shockwave knocked Zhou Lang to the ground, his mind buzzing for several seconds. He lay on the ground, feeling warm liquid dripping onto his back.

When he looked up, the Stitched Corpse Demon was gone. To be precise, it had been blown to pieces. Chunks of flesh, bones, and those black stitches—scattered all over the ground.

"Are you all still alive?" Chen Lang's voice came from the front. He himself crawled out of a pile of mangled flesh, covered in dust and with a piece of his glasses broken.

"I'm not dead." Zhou Lang got up and checked his body. Apart from a headache from the shockwave, he was fine.

Zhao Qiang also stood up, cursing as he wiped the unidentified liquid from his face. Han Yingying treated the wounded in the back.

But Zhou Lang counted the number of people.

Eight.

One is missing.

The person who had been slammed into the wall—did not move. Chen Lang went to check on him, and shook his head when he returned.

Nine became eight, now it's seven. Including the two wounded who retreated earlier, the third squad of eleven has already lost four. The first phase of the A-level dungeon isn't even over yet.

"Should we keep going or wait here?" Zhao Qiang asked, his voice lacking the enthusiasm he had shown earlier.

Chen Lang looked ahead. The fragments of the stitched-together corpse demon were still writhing on the ground, but resurrection would take time. The lower-level monsters behind them had caught up, and at the end of the passage, a white-flowered humanoid figure could be seen approaching.

"Let's go," Chen Lang said.

The seven continued onward. Zhou Lang noticed that Su Nian was walking in the middle of the group, with the black cat perched on her shoulder, its tail swishing idly. The girl's expression remained calm throughout, not like she was afraid, but rather like she was indifferent.

This calm made Zhou Lang very uncomfortable. Shouldn't a normal person be nervous in this situation?

He didn't have time to think. The passage ahead forked, one leading left to the ground exit, and the other downwards to the underground level.

"Which way?" someone asked.

"Down," Chen Lang said.

"Why? We can get out by going to the left!" a bald man cried out anxiously. "Didn't we say we were waiting for reinforcements? Let's get out first and let the reinforcements handle it—"

"Go out and try it," Chen Lang said, pointing to the passage on the left.

The bald man peeked out, then withdrew. The left passage was densely packed with white mud figures, at least a hundred of them.

"A group came chasing us from behind, and another group blocked our way on the left. The only way down was open," Chen Lang said. "We had no choice."

The bald man's face turned bright red, but he couldn't utter a rebuttal.

The seven people began to descend. The stairs were steep, and each step was narrow, allowing only one person to pass at a time. The air grew colder, and the smell of blood grew stronger.

Halfway there, Zhou Lang heard the bandaged man's voice coming from his pocket.

"There's something down there," the bandaged man said. "A lot of things. More than one."

Samsung?

"It's hard to say. It could be Samsung, or it could be... higher."