Chapter 1058 - 505: Underground World

Soon, the Red Dragon Team’s expedition group returned to Lavender Manor. Gauss watched everyone head back to their respective rooms. He himself didn’t feel very sleepy.

After obtaining intelligence about the tomb ruins earlier, he hadn’t headed there immediately. His main reason was that it would be inconvenient to move with so many people, and leaving his teammates in the wilderness would be irresponsible. Even though, in hindsight, leaving after killing the Four-armed Giant Gargoyle wouldn’t have caused much trouble, who could have predicted things that far ahead? His Future Sight could, at best, only predict a few seconds into the future.

"Gauss, are you going to explore that tomb?" Aaliyah and the others approached at some point.

"Yes. Do you want to come along?" Gauss nodded in admission, having no intention of hiding it.

"We do." Aaliyah and the rest were also very interested in the tomb guarded by gargoyles.

"Then let’s go together." Gauss didn’t hesitate.

"You’re the best."

"..."

Although the members of the Red Dragon Team had returned to Lavender Manor to rest, Gauss informed a few members before preparing to leave. Still feeling uneasy, he left behind a powerful combatant.

"Eden, I’ll leave the protection of everyone in the Red Dragon Team to you," Gauss reminded the small blob of blue jelly on his shoulder.

"Alright, don’t worry and just go." Slime Eden let out a yawn. It didn’t have a strong desire to explore the tomb with Gauss, and it naturally had a rather lazy personality. Otherwise, being trapped in the Maze for so many years would have driven it mad long ago. Therefore, Gauss’s command suited it perfectly. The only irony was that it, a theoretical Demon, had to protect a group of humans from the potential lethal threats posed by other Demons.

With all arrangements settled, Gauss and the others set off traveling light. The agile Magic Power riding the wind enveloped them, propelling them swiftly through the air.

After a while, Gauss gradually slowed his flight speed. He scanned the surrounding terrain before nodding in satisfaction. "This is the place."

The surrounding environment and topography were exactly the same as the intelligence he had extracted through interrogation in the Spiritual Prison. His gaze locked onto an abrupt rift valley on the ground. The rift was incredibly deep; even under the moonlight, the bottom couldn’t be seen. It looked like an entrance gate leading straight to the abyss.

"Something doesn’t seem quite right," Ying murmured. "Do you need me to go down and scout it out first?" Her shadow ability served as the ultimate immunity mechanism, capable of nullifying the vast majority of physical damage.

"I’ll take the lead," Gauss waved his hand. He had already interrogated his captive about almost everything regarding the situation below in the Spiritual Prison. Although such an interrogation wasn’t completely foolproof and there was a possibility of the subject lying, considering the gap in Spiritual Power between the Four-armed Giant Gargoyle and himself, the chance of the creature deceiving him was extremely slim.

That was enough. Nothing in life was one hundred percent certain; even walking down the street carried a minuscule chance of being crushed by a falling meteorite, but one couldn’t stop eating for fear of choking. Judging from the situation tonight, monsters would continue to pour out of this breached ruin entrance. It would be better to thoroughly investigate the inside tonight.

As soon as Gauss finished speaking, before the others could say anything, he activated his body’s Elementalization. Aaliyah and the others now knew the powerful effects of his Elementalization, so they swallowed the words that were on the tip of their tongues.

Gauss’s body slowly descended into the rift. Behind him, Aaliyah and the others were a beat slower, controlling their bodies to follow him down.

THUD THUD THUD!

During their descent, they perhaps disturbed the bats on both sides, causing a massive swarm of the small, winged creatures to frantically pour outward. The few unlucky ones that bumped into Gauss quickly acted as if they had been tainted by a highly toxic substance, dropping with soft thuds like falling rain.

Passing through the bat habitat, the space below abruptly widened. Standing on the surface, it was hard to imagine that such a massive vertical underground space existed beneath the rift valley.

Upon perceiving the arrival of Gauss and the others, the statues originally resting on the stone pillars slowly emanated red light from the depths of their eyes, rapidly awakening. The statues were quickly animating into gargoyles.

SWISH!

SWISH!

Without waiting for them to complete their transformation, Gauss, completely disregarding martial etiquette, shoved Magic down their throats. He quickly pinned them to the stone pillars one by one. Simultaneously, the burst of Magic Power accompanying the Magic instantly destroyed the statues’ cores, thoroughly obliterating their lives.

After acquiring a minuscule trait of Natural Magic, Gauss’s own Magic Power had become even more terrifying, especially when it surged into another creature’s body. This was also why a 0th Ring Trick or a 1st-level Spell in his hands often unleashed effects far exceeding the 3rd or 4th Ring Magic of other Casters. Magic was fundamentally just a tool; its power depended on how the user wielded it.

Gauss continued his descent, unsure of how many meters he had flown. It could have been hundreds or thousands of meters. Finally, after enduring the harassment of multiple waves of gargoyles, he reached the bottom. Planting his feet on solid ground, he narrowed his eyes slightly. There wasn’t a single light source underground, but he could still see a massive stone door standing tall in the distance.

Flanking the giant door were two symmetrical stone platforms. Gauss subconsciously frowned. One of them was completely empty, while the other held a crouching gargoyle beast statue with a ghostly visage, an asymmetrical sight enough to drive anyone with OCD crazy. Judging from the form of the sole remaining statue, it was practically carved from the same mold as the Four-armed Giant Gargoyle he had killed just a few hours ago.

Clearly, there were supposed to be two giant gargoyles guarding the door. However, one of them was a bit too "playful." After nightfall, it had taken some gargoyles up to the surface for an excursion, only to be unfortunately caught red-handed by Gauss, who was sweeping the wilderness, inadvertently exposing its entire lair in the process.

CRACK CRACK CRACK!

The ghost-faced statue on the left, likely sensing Gauss’s arrival underground, quickly began to move. It had been far too long since any other living creature had appeared here, making the aura of Gauss’s group exceptionally prominent. Even though the ruins had recently seen the light of day due to the ground splitting open, any ordinary creature that fell down would have been smashed into meat paste long ago. Even if one possessed the ability to fly, it would be difficult to bypass the ambushes of the gargoyles along the way.

"Human intrusion! Executing command: slaughter!"

The Four-armed Giant Gargoyle’s voice echoed through the cavernous underground space. Its behavior pattern seemed much more rigid than the previous one. As it spoke, its four arms and twin wings spread wide, exuding an overwhelming sense of oppression.

Two minutes later, the battle came to an end.

Gauss looked at the symmetrical empty stone platforms on both sides and revealed a satisfied expression. That felt much better. This gargoyle had lasted a bit longer than its companion. Because Gauss was worried that a massive commotion would trigger the collapse of the underground space, he restrained his movements. However, due to the sheer disparity in strength, even with his suppressed attacks, he still managed to kill the opponent swiftly—it just took a bit more effort.

"Commander Level Four-armed Giant Gargoyle killed x1."

"Commander Points acquired x5."

"Current Commander Points: 46 -> 51."

Since this was his second kill of the same species, it provided fewer Commander Points. However, breaking past the 50-point mark meant he was getting closer to advancing his next blue-quality Racial Talent. He still had a blue-quality Talent, [Death Outline], waiting to be evolved. Last time, he had prioritized evolving [Group Link] into [Heartstrings].

"Let’s go inside and take a look." Gauss was also very curious about what lay within this tomb ruin.

He pressed his palm against the giant door, and Aaliyah and the others helped push it as well. The stone door was much heavier than Gauss had imagined. Fortunately, his 19 points of strength weren’t just for show. As the muscles on his arms bulged, dragon scales surfaced.

The heavy, massive door was slowly pushed open a crack, but soon, a forceful resistance pushing back to close the door transmitted to his hands. Gauss could only grit his teeth and push the door open completely.

BOOM!

Only when the door slammed against the wall did the closing force vanish.

"This door is really heavy," Albena, who possessed a Giant Bloodline, said, completely exhausted. The main force pushing the door had been her and Gauss; the others had merely lent a hand.

"Thanks for the hard work," Ying expressed her gratitude helplessly. Strength certainly wasn’t her forte. She had helped, but it also felt like she hadn’t.

Gauss blinked as he looked at the scene behind the door. What appeared before him wasn’t a large underground tomb space, but a dead end. Stepping forward a few paces, he reached the end of the passage.

He could vaguely sense a strong spatial fluctuation emanating from the rock wall at the end of the passage. Out of caution, he controlled a stone to levitate and touch the rock face. The next moment, the entirely solid rock wall began to squirm like mud. Clearly, there was more to this than met the eye—the rock wall concealed the entrance to another mysterious space.