With a flash of white light, Yu Xian and Little Nora appeared in a somberly lit labyrinth.
As they entered the labyrinth, deep within its inner recesses, a young girl slowly opened her eyes. Its eyes were pitch-black, devoid of sclera or pupils, reflecting only a faint glimmer of light.
"At last, more intruders have come to play with me."
The girl broke into a wicked smile as the petals across its back unfurled completely, releasing a dense swarm of sprites.
"Go. Let the foolish intruders know... fear!"
With a thought from the girl, the sprites all grinned maliciously, flew toward various pupils, and vanished in an instant.
Ever since its birth, it had known its mission: it was a child of this space, tasked with guarding it for ten thousand years until the birth of its next younger sister. Only then could it leave this space and venture into a freer, more beautiful world.
To protect "Mother" from invaders, it had used the intruders it defeated to construct an enormous labyrinth. This maze alone was enough to drain over half of any invader's stamina and energy. And once intruders reached the core of this space, they would still have to face it—fully prepared.
It was, without question, completely foolproof. It had slain countless intruders over the years, leaving throngs of them broken and defeated before its feet.
And now, slaughter time was about to begin again.
***
Meanwhile, once Yu Xian arrived, he immediately utilized the bond with his summoned beasts to trigger Chaos Divine Summon. The Chaos Evil Beast and Xielina stepped out from magic circles. A faint golden glow emanated from Xielina's eyes, and skeleton soldiers began manifesting one after another around them. In the blink of an eye, the entire corridor was filled with skeleton soldiers.
It wasn't that Yu Xian didn't want to summon his mount inside; the problem was that the Cannon Fodder Crocodile was far too massive. This labyrinth was exceedingly narrow, barely wide enough for five people to walk abreast. The Cannon Fodder Crocodile couldn't fit at all, whether sideways or lengthwise, so Yu Xian had no choice but to give up on summoning it.
"Scout ahead!" Yu Xian commanded Xielina.
The surrounding skeleton soldiers immediately advanced down every passage forward, backward, left, and right.
Although according to the information Yu Xian had checked, secret realms normally only held a boss without any extra mobs, nothing was absolute in this world. What if the secret realm he entered happened to be an exception?
Safety came first anyway. Risking his own neck when he had cannon fodder at his disposal would just be pure stupidity, and Yu Xian wasn't that masochistic.
"Big Bro, should we start the livestream?" Little Nora asked.
Yu Xian thought about it and nodded. "Start it. But make it a private stream—just invite Big Sis and the others."
"Okay," Little Nora answered, starting the broadcast immediately.
Once the stream was running, it began munching on snacks. After all, it was merely Yu Xian's accessory and had no need to fight; at most, when Yu Xian got hungry or thirsty, it would provide him with some food.
Just then, the scouting skeleton soldiers began suffering casualties.
One skeleton soldier entered a dead end. Just as it turned to head back, sprites behind the walls on either side triggered a trap. In an instant, the walls snapped shut toward the center at astonishing speed.
In the blink of an eye, the skeleton soldier was crushed to pieces. Then, the walls on both sides slowly receded, returning to their original positions.
In the adjoining corridor, another skeleton soldier fell into a pit trap. A dense thicket of spikes pierced its body. Although a skeleton was mostly empty gaps, a spike still impaled the back of its skull. The burning soul fire flickered violently before guttering out, and the skeleton collapsed into a heap of loose bones in the next instant.
Further away, other skeleton soldiers were flattened by square boulders dropping from above, smashed by swinging logs, or crushed to powder by giant iron balls hurtling toward them.
Through Xielina, Yu Xian was able to confirm one thing: this labyrinth truly didn't seem to have any other mobs, only traps.
In that case, as long as he cleared out the traps and found a safe, correct route, he might easily reach the secret realm's boss.
He glanced at the Dimwitted Puppy in Fang Qinghao's arms, but in the end dismissed the idea of sending it to scout. Even though the Dimwitted Puppy wouldn't die, if it fell into a spike trap, the dumb thing really wouldn't be able to climb out anytime soon.
Though each lost skeleton soldier meant one fewer, at least every death served a purpose. The Dimwitted Puppy had no consumable cost, but it could easily get stuck somewhere, which was a pure waste of time.
Currently, at Level 50, he possessed ten summon slots.
The Chaos Evil Beast, Xielina, the Mengmeng Fortune Cat, the Dimwitted Puppy, and the Cannon Fodder Crocodile mount already occupied five slots, leaving him free to summon five more beasts.
Originally, he thought the skeleton soldiers could wear down the boss, so he hadn't bothered summoning more. But now it seemed he needed to play it safe.
He had Xielina command the skeleton soldiers to make room, then cast Chaos Divine Summon. A magic circle immediately appeared on the ground ahead.
A moment later, a slime slowly emerged from the magic circle.
[Grass Slime]
[Level: 5]
[Skills:]
[Graze: By eating grass, the Grass Slime gains life energy and slowly recovers its HP.]
[Note: A green slime that might look good worn on your head like a hat. Do you catch my drift?]
Yu Xian wasn't particularly surprised. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried summoning during this time. Normally, it just yielded garbage; only with good luck would he strike gold on a single pull. With bad luck, even ten thousand Chaos Divine Summons would produce nothing but cannon fodder.
Furthermore, Chaos Divine Summon was actually an ability that had a cost: it consumed his Angel's Name.
At first, Yu Xian had assumed this "Angel's Name" was just meaningless flavor text—wasn't it just invoking his title? But the more he used it, the more he noticed a problem.
The Angel's Name consumed his reputation among summonable monsters.
Put simply, when he used summoned monsters as cannon fodder without treating or employing them properly, his reputation would worsen.
This was an issue he had only discovered recently.
For instance, if he personally ordered the Chaos Evil Beast or Xielina to execute his own summoned beasts, his Angel's Name would become increasingly tarnished. Conversely, allowing a summoned beast to die naturally in battle wouldn't deplete much of his Angel's Name.
The worse his Angel's Name became, the harder it was to summon top-tier beasts.
This was the real reason he had managed to summon the Chaos Evil Beast on his very first try—back then, his reputation was in the positive. But now, because he had abused his Angel's Name to summon monsters and then slaughtered them himself, his reputation was practically negative.
Consequently, it became harder and harder to summon good beasts. The Dimwitted Puppy was already the absolute pinnacle of what he could pull, and he had only managed to summon it purely because the Dimwitted Puppy was an idiot.
Most of the summons he pulled nowadays were on the dimmer side, if not outright moronic. All because he had previously butchered quite a few of his own summons just to reroll for top-tier ones.
Chapter 493