The environment of the deep area had changed significantly compared to the middle and shallow layers.
While the overall structure remained that of a subterranean cave, the space here had been vastly widened and heightened.
The ceiling was at least twenty to thirty meters above the ground, making it feel as if one were standing in a massive underground cavern hall. The vista was so expansive it made one feel insignificant.
The rock walls on either side were no longer narrow corridors but extended outward into vast spaces. In some places, they formed natural stone platforms and slopes, and there were even small forests of stalactites hanging from the ceiling, mirroring the stalagmites on the ground.
In this vast deep-layer labyrinth, three battered figures were stumbling and fleeing for their lives.
They wore the signature uniforms of Glory Cael Academy, but they were now tattered and torn, covered in mud, moss, dark stains that looked suspiciously like blood, and holes corroded by some kind of acid.
Two men and one woman, their faces were etched with extreme exhaustion, bone-deep terror, and a despair bordering on collapse.
"Quick! This way! Hide!"
A boy with short brown hair and several fresh scrapes on his face hissed in a low voice. His left arm hung unnaturally at his side, swinging limply as he ran, clearly suffering from a serious injury.
He led the way, charging toward an unusually thick patch of low, deep purple—almost black—bushes at the base of the rock wall.
The other man and woman behind him dove in with the last of their strength. The three of them scrambled to squeeze into the deepest part of the thicket, curling their bodies as tightly as possible against the cold, damp rock.
As soon as they were hidden, they immediately held their breath, their hearts seemingly stopping. Only their eyes moved in terror, staring through the gaps in the branches and leaves.
Heavy footsteps approached from a distance. With every step, the soft ground trembled slightly, causing the hands and feet they had buried under fallen leaves to go numb from the vibration.
A massive, twisted shadow radiating a nauseating, fishy stench slowly moved past the path, which was less than five meters wide, right next to their hiding spot.
By the faint light of a cluster of glowing blue fungi in the distance, one could barely make out a humanoid monster over three meters tall. Its skin was a rocky grayish-black, covered in lumpy protrusions and cracks.
The shadow paused next to the bushes.
Time seemed to freeze.
Cold sweat instantly soaked through their thin, tattered clothes. The icy sensation made them want to shiver uncontrollably, yet they dared not make the slightest sound.
The only girl in the group covered her mouth and nose tightly, her fingernails nearly digging into the flesh of her cheeks. Her blue eyes were filled with terrified tears.
The two boys were also pale as ghosts, gritting their teeth and not even daring to blink.
The monster lingered outside the bushes for about five or six seconds, but to the three hidden inside, it felt like several centuries.
Its crimson eyes seemed to stare toward the bushes for a moment, and its heavy, raspy breath nearly blew onto the outermost leaves.
Finally, it seemed to find no clear target. It let out a low growl and resumed its heavy pace, continuing into the dark depths at the other end of the passage.
Only after the footsteps had completely vanished into the depths of the cave, and after waiting a good while longer to ensure there was no other movement, did the three of them collapse completely into the rotting leaves and mud, as if their bones had been removed.
They began to greedily breathe in the cold, damp air, their chests heaving violently, like people who had just surfaced after being submerged for a long time.
"Ha... ha... We... we dodged another one..."
The brown-haired boy, Alvin, leaned back against the rock wall and wiped a mixture of cold sweat and mud from his face. His voice was hoarse, trembling with the relief of a survivor.
"Dodged? How much longer can we keep dodging?!"
The other boy, Leonard, who had curly blond hair and large patches of scrapes and bruises on his face, suddenly snapped his head around. In his bloodshot eyes, terror had been suppressed to its limit, only to explode into a twisted rage.
"It's all your fault, Alvin! If you hadn't been so damn confident, saying the reward was huge and the risk was manageable, and that we could turn our lives around after this one job, why the hell would we have been so obsessed with taking a shady commission where we couldn't even see the client and the contract terms were vague as hell?!"
"Blame me?! Leonard, your damn eyes were about to fall out of your head when you saw the number on that contract! Who was the one saying 'with this money, I can pay off most of the family debt and have enough for my sister's dowry'?!"
Alvin roared back, unwilling to back down. His injured arm twitched from the agitation, making him grimace in pain.
"Now that something's gone wrong, you're pushing all the responsibility onto me? You weren't so high and mighty when you nodded your head back then!"
"Enough! Stop fighting!!"
The only girl, Leah, shouted with a breaking, tearful voice. Her voice sounded sharp in her suppressed state.
Her pale blonde hair was wet and clung to her paper-white face. Her blue eyes were red and swollen, tears constantly rolling down to mix with the grime on her face.
"What's the use of fighting... Will fighting help us find our way back? Will it help us get away from those monsters?! The magic conduit is gone... the map is gone too... we don't even know where we are anymore... ugh..."
Her words were like a bucket of ice water poured over Alvin and Leonard's heads, instantly extinguishing the fire they had just ignited. It left only a colder despair, weighing heavily on everyone's heart.
Currently, they were not only being hunted through the vast deep area by at least three or four of those highly aggressive, terrifying monsters, but they had also completely lost their way. They were crashing through this massive and complex underground labyrinth like headless flies.
This deep cavern, filled with darkness and danger, had turned from an exploration site into a death trap they could not escape.
This also served as a side testament to the ridiculous, deceptive difficulty setting of the Academy Dungeon's first layer.
The official recommended entry level was Level 20, but any naive student who thought they could breeze through the first layer just because they reached Level 20 would mostly likely learn a bloody lesson about what it meant to "walk in on your own two feet, but leave carried out on your back."
The danger level of the deep area in the true first layer far exceeded what the paper data suggested.
Alvin, Leonard, and Leah all came from minor noble families that had long since declined, were financially strapped, and could barely hold their heads up in aristocratic circles.
If their families still had some strength left, or if they themselves could easily obtain cultivation resources or generous stipends, why would they have risked their lives for a reward large enough to change their family's plight, willing to sign a commission where even the client's true identity was a mystery?
Poverty and the desperate desire to change their situation had blinded their caution and pushed them into this abyss.
As third-year students, their average level was only around Level 21, which was already the limit of what they could achieve with their limited resources.
With such strength, they had no capital to confront the deep-area monsters, whose levels were generally around Level 25 or even higher and possessed various troublesome abilities.
In their previous encounters, they had only managed to escape by pure luck, overextending their physical strength and using their mana without restraint.
But now, whether it was physical strength, mana, or mental fortitude, they had long since approached or even surpassed their limits.
Despair was like a maggot in their bones, gnawing away at their remaining will.
"Are we... really going to... die here..."
Leah's crying gradually subsided into an intermittent sob, her eyes staring blankly at the cave ceiling swallowed by darkness.
Alvin and Leonard also fell silent.
Their previous mutual accusations seemed so pale, powerless, and even laughable in the face of this irrevocable dead end.
They leaned against the cold, slippery rock wall, slumped in the decaying leaves. Their eyes lost focus as they stared blankly at the endless darkness ahead.
It was as if they had already accepted the cruel end that was coming; even the strength to struggle had completely drained away.
However, the sounds of their heated argument and intermittent sobbing had already acted like flickering sparks in the night, clearly carrying outward into the dark.
Rate on N.U.
