Outer Gods invade, stuff them all into your equipment inventory.

Unlike the open plaza we just saw, the space here suddenly narrows, and the walls on both sides create a feeling of being squeezed inwards.

The walls are no longer neat metal panels.

Instead, it consisted of vast stretches of pipes and crisscrossing gear sets, layered upon each other, as dense as a spider web.

There was no light source deep inside the passage.

Only occasionally, a dark green fluorescent light seeped from the cracks in the wall, like the reflection of engine oil.

Fortunately, Sean has night vision, so this dark environment doesn't have a significant impact on him.

The air was filled with the smell of rust and grease, and the temperature in the room had risen noticeably by a few degrees.

The monster that appeared in the passage was a Rust Sentinel.

This is a type of inverted mechanical structure that is typically suspended from the ceiling of a cave, its body made up of multiple layers of rusted iron plates.

When it is stationary, it can almost blend into the cave.

It only unfolds its body and sprays a corrosive poisonous mist toward the target after sensing a vibration.

Even experienced warriors would find it difficult to locate immediately.

So at the beginning, Sean was caught off guard and suffered a great loss.

Fortunately, this poisonous fog no longer has much effect on him.

"But... I was all sticky and disgusting."

Sean kicked away the rusted corpse of a sentry.

Few of the monsters in this monster's lair are normal; they are all creatures from the underworld.

Sean couldn't help but mutter a curse under his breath.

From the arrow-rain traps in the Gear Corridor to the coordinated actions of the Gear Engineers, and then to these rusted sentinels hanging upside down from the ceiling, sprayed with sticky poisonous mist...

This nest seems to be designed to be as disgusting as possible to intruders.

The sticky smell, a mixture of rust and machine oil, still lingered on his armor, making him feel uncomfortable all over.

"It's yellowish, just like poop..."

"It stinks."

Could it really be poop?

He felt a little better after a cleansing spell removed the stains from his body.

This zero-ring spell proved to be a great help during his time in the wilderness.

Although it has no combat value, it is a god-tier skill in improving the quality of survival in the wild.

"Luckily, it was me who came in."

Sean sighed again as he walked down the corridor.

Every step along this road is a trap, and every stretch of road may conceal a deadly danger.

It can be said that every step was fraught with danger.

"If Uncle Cheng and the others were to enter this monster's lair, they would have died countless times along the way."

"Uncle Cheng is really weak..."

Sean couldn't help but make a comment.

Although he knew that with Cheng Jiyuan's newly broken through to B-level strength, plus the batch of newly tamed silver knight beasts, he wouldn't have any trouble moving around in this nest.

But to say that he could easily and effortlessly sweep through the enemy lines like that is definitely impossible.

Of course, he also knew in his heart that Cheng Jiyuan was by no means weak now—

Even though he had just broken through to B-rank, with those dozen or so silver knights as his tamers and that ancient armored BOSS as his core combat force, he could be considered a top-tier powerhouse in the entire Thirteenth Gathering Ground.

But that didn't stop him from complaining in his mind, since Uncle Cheng couldn't hear him anyway.

What disgusted him even more was that this thing provided a very low amount of experience points.

Nothing has fallen yet.

He spent a lot of time dodging the poisonous fog and clearing away the rusty sentinels hanging upside down from the ceiling one by one.

Upon checking the experience bar, the increase was almost negligible.

Compared to the millions of experience points gained from the previous group of gear engineers, the "value" of these rusted sentinels is shockingly low.

"A complete garbage monster."

"Disgusting guy."

Sean gave his final evaluation.

They are not strong, not dangerous, and not even worthy of his serious attention, but their very existence is a torment.

It's as if the designers of this lair deliberately intended to wear down the invaders' patience with such low-level, disgusting encounters.

Unfortunately, these rusty sentinels were hiding in this passage, making it impossible for him to avoid them.

There is only one passage, with thick metal walls on both sides, and no side passages.

There were no gaps to pass through, not even a recess that allowed one to squeeze through sideways.

He had no choice but to grit his teeth and push forward relentlessly.

With a dark expression, Sean raised his hand again and pinned one of the rusted sentinels that had just attacked him to the top.

He didn't even glance at the corpse and continued striding forward.

He's too lazy to count how many there are now.

........................

"Tsk."

Sean clicked his tongue impatiently, raised his hand again, and a lightning-fast bone spear condensed in his palm. He then hurled it precisely at a shadow about ten meters ahead of the passage.

The bone spear pierced through the rusted sentinel that was preparing to unfold its body, pinning it to the top of the passage. With a flash of lightning, the creature twitched a few times before turning into a pile of fragments that fell to the ground.

After encountering them many times, Sean finally learned how to find the Rust Sentinels.

These skills do not come from any profound sensory techniques, but are purely instinctive reactions formed from accumulated experience.

He can make the correct judgment seven out of ten times.

Although it's not 100% accurate, it's enough for him.

He felt much more relaxed now.

The Rust Sentinels aren't actually that strong, at least not for Sean.

If he can detect it in advance, he doesn't need to wait until he enters the Rust Sentinel's sensing range; a single Lightning Bone Spear can take him down.

Their threat is based entirely on the two points of "concealment" and "surprise attack".

Once they lose their concealment, they become sitting ducks for Sean.

As Sean walked, he also spotted a rusted sentinel hidden around a corner more than ten meters away, and took it out with a bone spear.

"When will this tunnel ever end?!"

Sean had reached his limit. He wasn't an impatient person, but everything has its limits.

After walking in the dark for nearly twenty minutes and clearing out no less than fifty rusted sentinels, yet still unable to see the end of the passage, his patience was nearing its limit.

Most importantly, these rusted sentinels give very little experience points; even if you add up all fifty of them, it's less than five thousand.

It made me look utterly humiliated, and the result was—

"You won't even give me a hundred bucks!"

Sean's mentality collapsed.

He decided to ignore the rusty sentinels hiding in the shadows and led the remaining mechanical blade demons to rush forward in one go.

"Anyway, these rusty sentinels are just disgusting, they're not very lethal."

At most, you'll just be a little dirty and smell a bit bad...

He didn't even bother using the Cleanse spell—he figured he could just clean it all up after he flushed it out.

He really, really had enough.

All he wanted now was to get out of this damn passage as soon as possible and see what other "surprises" awaited him at the end.

However, just as he had finished mentally preparing and was ready to implement the plan...

A light appeared ahead.

The passage finally came to an end, and he emerged.