Chapter 666 Dire Corby

Darkness. Cold.

"Slurp..."

A warm, wet sensation on his face roused Xia Nan from his brief unconsciousness.

He opened his eyes to a pair of icy-blue wolf eyes, swirling with the unmistakable worry of an intelligent creature.

"Fanny..." Xia Nan murmured groggily, gently pushing away the Winter Wolf licking his cheek.

A second later, his final memories before blacking out rushed back to him.

The Phase Spider he had chased and eventually killed, the bizarre goblins and spider eggs inside the lair, and... that cluster of mushrooms growing in the corner! A violent surge of danger spiked within him, instantly clearing the residual fog of his unconsciousness.

He instinctively tried to push himself up, only for a heavy, crushing pressure—accompanied by a faint throb of pain—to bear down on his lower body.

He glanced down. From the waist down, he was completely buried beneath jagged rocks and stone slabs.

Only his upper half could move freely.

In his past life, let alone his out-of-shape, office-worker self, even an athlete at the absolute peak of human fitness would have had zero chance of freeing themselves from this. They would have had no choice but to lie there and wait for rescue. But things were different now; aside from his intelligence, his physical attributes had long since reached the realm of the superhuman.

Maintaining the calm composure that came with overwhelming strength, he scanned his surroundings. Once he confirmed that Fanny was the only other living thing nearby and that no enemies were present, Xia Nan began to free himself.

Pushing his exceptional Perception to its limits, he took only a few seconds to analyze the structural load of the rubble burying his legs. He identified which rocks were safe to move without triggering a chain reaction that would collapse the upper stones and bury his chest as well. Only then did he combine [Gravity Control] with his raw physical Strength, carefully shifting his body while Fanny, working in perfect sync with him, helped move the stones into the empty spaces nearby piece by piece.

The whole process took about twenty minutes.

Finally, planting his hands on the ground, Xia Nan channeled the combat technique [Fang Hunt] into his legs and surged upward, violently ripping himself free from the small mountain of rubble.

Only then did he finally have a chance to visually inspect his injuries.

It was exactly as he had sensed: nothing too serious. A sharp edge of rubble had sliced a gash just above his knee. It looked like he had bled a lot, but it was ultimately just a flesh wound that hadn't damaged anything underneath.

His lower calves, however, had suffered some crushing trauma from being pinned under the stones.

Beside him, Fanny hadn't escaped unscathed either.

She walked with a slight limp in her left hind leg, and faint traces of blood lingered between her claws. Fortunately, these were also just minor injuries. Considering the apocalyptic scene right before he passed out—where the world seemed to flip upside down and the very earth tore open—the fact that both man and wolf had escaped with only light wounds was partly due to the luck bonus provided by [Fate Glimmer].

But the main reason was the series of split-second countermeasures Xia Nan had taken the moment they fell. This included dragging the unarmored Winter Wolf Fanny into his arms and, right before the falling rocks struck, activating the Deflection Field of his [Deathline] ring to negate the vast majority of the damage. That, combined with the permanent halving of fall damage granted by his [Tidal Stabilization] Feat, ultimately allowed the two of them to emerge safe and sound.

Having promised Forgan he would take good care of Fanny, Xia Nan naturally wasn't going to break his word.

Suddenly, he felt that warm, wet sensation on his knee again. Seeing him free from the rocks, Fanny ignored the dust on her own coat and began licking the gash on his knee.

"It's alright, Little Snowflake. It's just a scratch," Xia Nan said with a smile, rubbing her fluffy head.

It was at times like this that the tremendous foundation he had built up truly showed its worth.

His Feat and defensive skill had already negated most of the damage during the fall.

Beyond that, his full set of enchanted gear—a mix of blue, green, and purple quality—had provided a substantial amount of damage reduction.

Now, faced with only minor injuries on himself and Fanny, Xia Nan had plenty of ways to handle them.

He didn't even need to use the Healing Potions in his pouch that cost a staggering fifty gold a pop. Instead, he simply activated [Lesser Healing], a spell attached to his [Tears of Spring Breath] necklace that could be used three times a day.

A vibrant green light, brimming with life energy, gently swept over his calves and Fanny's hind leg a few times.

The miraculous magic of this fantasy world completely healed injuries that would have taken half a month of bed rest in the real world to recover from, leaving behind not even the faintest scar.

He adjusted his gear slightly and stood up.

Turning around, Xia Nan cast his gaze toward the pile of rocks behind him.

He could faintly make out the corpses of the goblins and the Phase Spider, crushed into a bloody paste between the stone crevices.

He felt a tinge of regret.

After all, the body parts of "mechanic monsters" like the Phase Spider always fetched high prices on the market.

Now, however, there was no chance of salvaging them.

At the same time, deep down, he couldn't help but feel a welling sense of unease.

The source of this unease... came from that small cluster of mushrooms he had seen right before the fall.

Truthfully, finding fungus growing in a damp environment like an underground cave couldn't be more normal. And based purely on appearances, that particular cluster hadn't looked special at all.

But...

The moment he laid eyes on it, his body's survival instincts had screamed with a sense of lethal danger, and that feeling wasn't fake.

That familiar sensation brought Xia Nan's thoughts back to over a year ago, when he was just a bottom-tier adventurer who had barely entered the trade. He remembered seeing a similar cluster of mushrooms next to the gravedigger's hut in Kalanfor.

Yeah... not long after that, the small town of Kalanfor had been half-destroyed in a clash between two powerhouses whose strength bordered on the "Legendary" rank.

"Fanny, was that mushroom cluster we saw right before we fell related to the target Forgan is tracking?" Xia Nan asked the Winter Wolf beside him, who was also fully healed.

The Winter Wolf bobbed her head, confirming his suspicion once again.

They had... discovered the traces left behind by that Swamp Druid!

'Damn it,' Xia Nan cursed inwardly.

Even though his strength far exceeded that of Class Holders at his level, allowing him to fight above his tier to some extent, it didn't mean he could face off against a formidable entity who had reached the "Transcendent" Tier and was bordering on the "Legendary" rank. Even if he activated Stage 2, it would only buy him an extra second or two; it wouldn't change his inevitable death. He had to leave immediately and return to Bloodcast Keep to report this to Forgan!

High-level conflicts like this should be left to figures with comparable combat power. He had no business recklessly interfering. As he pondered, his mind was already made up.

But back in reality, returning to Bloodcast Keep was no easy task for him right now. He swept his gaze across his surroundings.

What entered his vision was an incredibly dim environment, barely visible thanks only to the faint light provided by the luminescent moss clinging to the rock walls. Gloomy tunnels—some narrow, some wide—stretched out, leading who knew where...

The distinct, rotten stench of the underground flooded his nose with every breath, and the terrifying, bizarre roars of unknown creatures echoed from far away. Without a doubt, Xia Nan had plummeted deep underground, straight into the perilous territory known as the graveyard of adventurers:

The Underdark!

It was like an entirely different world beneath the surface, a massive subterranean kingdom forged from endless tunnels and caverns of all sizes. It was home to the wicked and cruel Drow Elves, the terrifying mind flayers who enslaved other races for horrific experiments, the appalling aberrations from ancient ruins, the powerful constructs whose sole duty was to purge all life in sight, and the countless hideous, bloodthirsty, and hyper-aggressive monsters bred by this subterranean environment.

They were what made the Underdark a living nightmare for nearly all surface dwellers.

For adventurers, the oceans of resources and wealth hidden within were like bait on a razor-sharp hook. Every year, batches of greedy prospectors were lured down to explore, only to end up as plump corpses nourishing the underground ecosystem.

During his free time, Xia Nan would listen to adventurers bragging in the tavern hall. Whenever someone brought up how so-and-so from the next town over had accidentally stumbled into the Underdark, found the gear of an elite squad wiped out decades ago, struck it rich, and immediately retired...

...Xia Nan would often see a burning, envious look in the eyes of the listeners—a gaze so feverish they seemed ready to find a cave entrance and dive in right that second, even if they had just been discussing yet another party vanishing down there.

Much like red-eyed gamblers at a card table, they all believed they would be the lucky ones who could walk away unscathed and win big, completely ignoring the horrifying mountains of bones piled up along the path. Knowing his own limits, Xia Nan had firmly classified this place as a forbidden zone ever since he read up on the dangers of the Underdark on the Association Second Floor.

Unless absolutely necessary, he had sworn never to enter it willingly before reaching level 5 and completing his dual-classing.

And even after crossing the level 5 threshold, he would only operate in its shallowest layers. If he had a choice of surface missions at the guild, he would always push Underdark commissions to the absolute bottom of his priority list.

He hadn't planned on including the Underdark in his itinerary until his Class Level surpassed level 10 and he became a true "Transcendent" powerhouse.

Now, based on his observation of his surroundings, Xia Nan was certain.

After suffering an earthquake in the Goblin Lair and plunging downward, he had well and truly arrived in the perilous subterranean world known as the Underdark.

Fortunately, the depth seemed manageable. He was likely in the upper-mid layers of the Underdark, so he wouldn't run into the terrifying monsters from evil outer planes that slipped into the Material Plane through the thinner spatial barriers deep underground.

Even so, finding an exit back to the surface wouldn't be easy.

As he stared at the myriad of differently sized tunnels leading off to unknown destinations, a temporary numbness crept into Xia Nan's mind. He even considered using [Fate Glimmer]'s special ability right here, despite its massive one-month cooldown.

After hesitating for a long while, he ultimately shelved the idea due to that extreme cooldown.

Instead, he simply raised his hand and gave the [Fate Glimmer] die hanging from his necklace a gentle, ritualistic squeeze.

Then, out of all the tunnels before him, he picked one of moderate width that sloped faintly upward and showed no obvious traces of danger to his Perception. With Fanny in tow, he stepped inside. As it turned out, squeezing the die for luck didn't seem to bring him any.

Groping through the darkness, he had only been advancing down the tunnel for about half an hour when he encountered his first enemy in the Underdark.

It was a bizarre, humanoid monster that looked like a bipedal crow.

Tough, matte feathers as coarse and black as coal covered its head, which sported a raven-like beak. The ends of its muscular humanoid limbs terminated in sharp, hooked claws, perfectly adapted for scaling the treacherous, craggy terrain of the Underdark.

The moment it spotted Xia Nan, the monster launched a near-rabid attack against the black-haired adventurer.

Like a mangled, mad dog, it lunged straight down from the tunnel ceiling without any attempt at stealth, scrambling on all fours.

It only slammed on the brakes when it sensed the perilous aura radiating from the Winter Wolf snarling and baring its fangs beside the adventurer.

Stopping in its tracks, it opened its sharp beak toward the man and wolf standing a short distance away.

Bulging veins could faintly be seen throbbing beneath the thinning feathers on the creature's neck.

It seemed to be charging up for something.

Xia Nan had absolutely no intention of waiting for the enemy to strike first; a split second later, a small pebble wreathed in thick crimson light howled through the air, landing dead on the monster's head.

"Boom!" The crimson force field energy flared and vanished in a flash.

A chunk of its body blown away by the force field damage, the crow-man wobbled and collapsed, its limbs twitching before it completely lost all signs of life. Truthfully, its Challenge Rating was only "1/2", and it wasn't a type that specialized in defense or possessed the absurd resistances of a banshee.

For Xia Nan, a single sword strike in close quarters would have easily taken care of it.

Meanwhile, [Gravity Etching] could only be used five times in quick succession, and each charge required a four-hour cooldown. After heavily injuring the Phase Spider back at the Sheep Pen, he only had four uses left.

Normally, he shouldn't have wasted a critical combat technique—one capable of deciding a battle between equals—on such a weak opponent. Yet right now, Xia Nan felt no regret.

Because the moment the crow monster laid eyes on him, Xia Nan had cross-referenced his memory of the Monster Compendium and identified it:

A dire corby!