This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

The rutted road was being forced over by a demonic convoy of twelve transport wagons.

Each wagon was drawn by four evil-horned rhinoceroses, the wagons piled high with demon crystals and all sorts of potions the front line needed.

“Damn! This road is worse than a swamp full of snot-slugs!” a lizardman soldier kicked a wheel hard; the splashed mud soaked his leather boots.

He pointed at the countless ruts and complained, “Those idiots at the front—if they want to fight then fight, but why wreck the whole road? Don’t they know how important supply lines are?”

A nearby demon soldier glanced at his companion. “What’s the rush? Getting there slower might not be bad. They’re besieging a city over there; who knows how brutal it is? With the kind of contribution we can make, whether we get any credit is iffy — but the chance of dying for nothing is pretty high!”

“Afraid of battle? You want to be fed to the war-horn rhinos?” a voice from behind suddenly snapped, making the two demons jump.

“L-Lord Beimon, I didn’t mean—”

“Hmph.” Clad in dark red plate, Beimon swept them both with a look; the pressure from a diamond-ranked bloodkin made the two low-rank demons tremble.

After scolding his subordinates, Beimon turned his gaze back to the winding road.

Unwilling to admit it, he still agreed with those two cowardly lizardmen: the front’s disregard for the logistics route was infuriating.

The convoy slogged over the pitted road at a speed thirty percent below plan.

At that rate they wouldn’t reach the front within the allotted time.

Just thinking about the quartermaster’s sour face and the possible punishment made Beimon broody.

“Looks like I’ll have to compress rest times…” he thought, quietly recalculating the itinerary.

At that moment, a commotion erupted from the rear of the convoy.

Beimon’s expression darkened; a hard edge flashed in his crimson eyes.

The march was delayed already — if any blind subordinate stirred trouble now, he wouldn’t hesitate to make an example of them.

But when Beimon hurried to the convoy’s tail, the scene before him left him slightly taken aback.

A woman who looked fragile, with black hair, stood in the middle of the road; two demon soldiers lay dead at her feet.

Her thin dress had been soaked through with blood; her pale face splattered with gore. She stamped down again and again on the already-mangled bodies of the demon soldiers.

Beimon’s first reaction wasn’t anger but puzzlement—how was it done?

One could tell if a person had been long tempered in battle from their movements, yet this woman wore no armor, carried no weapon, and her gestures bore an awkward stiffness, clearly an ordinary person who had never been trained for combat.

Beimon couldn’t figure out how she had killed those two men.

Since he couldn’t read it, he would probe.

“You others, what are you standing there for?” His cold gaze passed over several hesitant soldiers. “Kill her.”

“Lord Beimon, but—”

“Attack!” It was an order both icy and impossible to refuse.

Four soldiers were forced to obey. They exchanged looks and quickly split to encircle.

On the left, a demon born raised a curved blade; on the right a lizardman whipped his tail; the other two closed from the front with spears.

They attacked at once, blades, tail, and spear forming a wall that cut off every escape.

The woman’s counterattack had no technique. She fought like a berserker animal, unblinking against the four soldiers.

She simply swung her fists in a primitive way and smashed them down one by one.

Those seemingly frail fists possessed astonishing speed and strength; in moments all four demons were collapsed in pools of blood.

However, a spear had plunged deeply into her abdomen.

When the woman ripped the spear free, blood gushed out, staining her tattered dress even redder.

“Demon…kind…destroy…you…” she roared.

Her ferocity, nearly to the point of self-harm, made the surrounding demon soldiers, accustomed as they were to gore, take an involuntary half step back.

Beimon, however, relaxed his brow.

“So it is.” A glint of understanding crossed his crimson eyes.

The woman indeed possessed terrifying power, but her fighting relied purely on instinct.

His initial assessment was correct: she was an ordinary human who had never received formal training.

What truly interested Beimon was what force could cause an ordinary human woman to transform so drastically.

Was it some forbidden magic, or the effect of a new alchemical drug?

Even if the power seemed to erode the mind, its potential was tempting.

If he could find a clue, he wouldn’t have to worry about the convoy delay — he might even reap considerable credit.

“Pity you look like this; I doubt you’ll be able to give useful intelligence.” Beimon stepped forward, the soldiers automatically making way. “Then I’ll have to find clues on your corpse…”

He raised his right hand with elegance; ruby-black beads of blood seeped from his fingertips.

The beads didn’t fall but hovered, swiftly swelling into a flowing cloud of blood-mist.

“Blood Manipulation · Toxic Blood Armor.”

Blood wrapped across his body, forming a constantly shifting red-black armor that gave off a acrid, rotten smell; where it passed, plants withered.

Beimon’s blood contained corrosive toxins; the armor condensed from his blood was both an impenetrable shield and a deadly weapon.

The berserk woman, just as he expected, hadn’t noticed the danger and charged straight at him.

The first punch struck Beimon’s forearms; he even heard the sound of his bones cracking.

“Great strength, but—”

The second punch caved his breastbone; the toxic blood at his skin was blasted aside by the enormous impact.

“Strength and speed increased? Wait…wait!” Beimon’s exclamation was cut off by the third punch. His jaw shattered, his neck snapped several turns, and he was slammed into a supply wagon loaded with potions; many fragile vials broke, their contents running down the side of the wagon.

The woman’s right hand sizzled from corrosion; bone showed through in places.

But she seemed not to feel it, howling as she lunged at the other demons.

…

The commotion of this demonic transport convoy caught Lin Jun’s attention.

What’s that? A monster crawling out from the mist?

He had planned to wait until the battle at Tri-Mountain City eased before researching the mist that had appeared on the west bank; he hadn’t expected such things could crawl out of it.

Lin Jun, distracted while commanding the battle, took a moment to open the panel of the creature that continued moving east after wiping out the supply wagons.

On the battlefield, for a split second some of the Pujis’ movements froze; after the opposing demons seized that chance and killed a few, they snapped back to normal.

But Lin Jun had no mood to fuss over those losses.

[Status: Guidance, Rage]

[Wrath of the Seven Sins: Meteor-like Strength (Illegal Possession)]

One of the Seven Sins was Wrath?

Lin Jun hadn’t expected to encounter another Great Sin besides himself.

But judging from this thing’s state, was it insane?

Lin Jun watched as this thing called Lucia’s three-dimensional attributes rose at an astonishing speed, climbing like there was no ceiling.

Yet that wasn’t what worried him most.

What the hell was “Illegal Possession”? Did this thing have divided statuses of legal and illegal possession?

And what was “Guidance”?

Also — the direction it was moving… could it possibly be heading for Tri-Mountain City?