Mushroom Lord in the Underground City

Although the first exploration team failed, when Ern truly mobilized the personnel from the two camps of the Demon Race, the situation underground was quickly grasped generally, and the existence of the Puki was discovered.

"Puki?" Visarius leaned back on his seat and asked, "Are you sure it’s those mushrooms?"

"Absolutely, Your Highness." Ern knelt on one knee, "They are digging tunnels extensively under the battlefield, stealing corpses and decomposing them into magic power and nutrients. I suspect..."

"You’re worried there’s a human controlling them from behind, right?"

"Smart as always, my lord."

"Not hard to guess, you are aware of the Puki Master situation in Golden Valley City, however..."

He suddenly raised his hand, a blood line shot out from his fingers, pulling out a confidential report from the scroll rack behind him, gently landing it before Ern.

"You probably aren’t clear about the details of the Battle of Dragon Roar Valley, take a look, this is the explanation sent by Sigmund."

Ern unfurled the sheepskin scroll, his eyes rapidly scanning the content, his expression turned peculiar: "These Puki... really can be this powerful?"

Endlessly abundant, skillful in many ways, fearless of death and injury, the earlier part is fine, but upon seeing the last section, how they can’t be slain, can instantly blow up and collapse the entire valley, the giant beast Puki...

Ern’s first reaction upon seeing this intelligence was disbelief!

"To be honest, I am skeptical as well." Visarius controlled the blood to put away the scroll, having to take this back to report to His Majesty, "Sigmund’s description of the Puki differs greatly from the threat level those Puki in Golden Valley City displayed. Whether there’s truly something strange about these mushrooms, or someone is making excuses for their own disastrous defeat..."

Ern lifted his head: "My lord, truth or falsehood, just one test will tell!"

Visarius nodded: "Yes, I think the same. The task is yours now, but don’t underestimate them, I don’t wish to see any more surprises."

"Understood!"

...

Ern quickly experienced the true meaning of the phrase "endlessly abundant, skillful in many ways, fearless of death and injury" from the war report.

He never expected there would be a day when he would hand out Antitoxic Potions in such luxury, even allotting three bottles per Goblin.

No other choice, after several rounds of fierce confrontation, the entire underground network was completely filled with deadly Hallucinogenic Spores.

Even those dug-out tunnel entrances continually emitted purple poisonous mist, if potions weren’t distributed, those Goblins going down there would merely die for nothing.

A minority of magic pets and twenty Blood Race elites also entered the underground alongside the Goblins.

Ern repeatedly urged these Blood Race commanders that if the battle situation were unfavorable, immediately use Goblins as cover to retreat first.

However, the situation turned far worse than expected.

Out of the twenty Blood Race elites that entered, only six managed to survive by luck, whereas the accompanying Goblins nearly suffered total casualties.

According to their accounts, Goblins weren’t a match for the Puki at all.

In the initial clash, they could still maintain a casualty ratio of one-for-two or one-for-three.

But as the battle continued, facing heavy losses and an unknown remaining number of Puki, Goblins, already of timid disposition, were quick to collapse in morale, even with Blood Race executing deserters on the spot, it couldn’t turn the tide.

And without the aid of cannon fodder, the safety of the Blood Race themselves became problematic.

The narrow terrain meant they could only maintain bat form, aside from [Blood Manipulation], many other abilities couldn’t be deployed, their combat power sharply reduced.

Puki would even drill out from side paths, attempting to block retreat routes, even directly self-destructing to blow up.

Those who failed to see the situation in time and retreat promptly stayed inside.

The initial fierce assault resulted in severe losses with little effect, Ern immediately changed strategy.

He recalled the information from Sigmund’s war report, the fungal mat feared non-magical fire.

Upon dispatching a team to risk verifying the authenticity of this intelligence, Ern immediately mobilized all fire oil within the camp, even specifically sought approval from the Prince for emergency dispatch from backup supplies.

Vast amounts of fire oil were poured into the underground tunnels, with a single command, roaring flames instantly engulfed the entrances.

Thick black smoke soared from various entrances, even the Three Mountains City garrison was alerted by this commotion, on high alert for half a day.

And when the fire oil finally burned out, upon sending people down to check, Ern found the underground tunnel terrain had somehow been reshaped again.

All the fire oil leaked into specially prepared pits, wasted entirely!

However, the thick smoke produced from this blaze unexpectedly replaced the toxic spores originally filling the tunnels, temporarily cleansing the underground air pollution.

But not much better, now to enter the underground network required mages to apply "Breathing Technique" to soldiers to enable action.

What truly frustrated Ern was that the subsequent dispatched reconnaissance team encountered a retaliatory strike from the Puki.

Although the losses weren’t major, this clearly meant his fire attack strategy failed completely.

Deploying large forces for comprehensive sweeping of these underground Puki was clearly impractical; the army’s primary goal remained to breach Three Mountains City.

Expending excessive effort underground would exactly fit human intentions.

Unable to eradicate them, Ern had to switch to defensive tactics, fully destroying underground passages near the Demon Race camp.

He personally led mage troops, employing "Earthquake" to collapse shallow tunnels, "Mud Swamp Technique" to cause sinkholes at key nodes, then "Fossils to Sand" to disintegrate reinforced tunnel walls.

Meanwhile, he set up numerous simple yet effective sensory arrays around the camp. Upon detecting Puki attempts at tunneling, immediately pinpoint clearance.

Truthfully, Ern so far has only encountered Puki combat strength at Golden Valley City level, already finding it extremely thorny.

He sincerely hoped Sigmund’s war report was indeed exaggerated to evade responsibility, otherwise, he couldn’t imagine how problematic following events would be.

Fortunately, after all surface-nearing passages were destroyed, the Puki seemed to finally quiet down.

Although still stealing corpses from the battlefield, at least they weren’t active near the Demon Race camp.

Only, unbeknownst to him.

Deep underground, several obese Drilling Puki were growing, even inviting some numerical Puki for guest appearances.

Lin Jun didn’t expect these little creatures to make significant contributions in this oversized battle, mainly it was a rare big scene, bringing them out to see the world.

Prevent them from being pursued by Xiao Hai daily, not improving much in combat ability, merely learning how to play hide-and-seek.

And hearing that Mushroom Lord needed them, the Mushroom Race Puki were each extremely excited, eager to rush out now to fight for the Mushroom Lord!

Especially Number One Puki and Number Two Puki, though neither spoke, both Puki were holding onto a determination, seemingly wanting to compete.

...

On the surface, the Demon Race continued assaulting the second wall of Three Mountains City.

The almost completely recovered Sword Saint however didn’t join the defense.

He and Archbishop were waiting, waiting for an opportunity.

Originally according to plan, they would exploit a flaw when the second city wall was half-breached to lure Visarius.

However, the appearance of the Pink Puki team hastened this opportunity to arrive! (A bit lag today, three updates tomorrow)