Volume 3 Chapter 25: Skeleton Labyrinth

As Qin Lun stepped into the time-space vortex, he felt his body squeezing into a murky, green paste. A slight pressure pressed all over his skin, but the resistance was not too strong. With a gentle push, he slid quite far.

This feeling did not last long. Soon, Qin Lun saw a burst of light and broke free from the time-space vortex.

As soon as he saw what was in front of him, Qin Lun raised his eyebrows. Before him was a red-and-white passageway, about three meters high and three meters wide.

The ceiling of the passage was made of strange flesh and blood. From some bulging fleshy lumps, dirty, foul blood dripped downward. The passage floor was covered with scattered human bones. These bones were stained by the blood dripping from the ceiling, resembling a damp sewer from hell, making anyone who saw it feel sick.

The walls of this passage were not ordinary building materials; they were entirely built from human skeletons. Among the dense bone walls, many skulls protruded. Most of these skulls were decayed and yellowish, though a few still had a fresh, pale color.

A very small number of skulls still had bits of flesh and hair not fully removed. From their appearance, they seemed to be some fair-haired foreigners. Thinking about what Lü Kuang had said about the Oni Warrior storyline, it was possible that some of these were innocent citizens of Paris.

Qin Lun looked back. Behind him was a skeleton arch. The arch pillars were two large thigh bones from unknown creatures. Above each thigh bone was a skeleton lantern made of human ribs. The bone lanterns emitted a bright, orange-yellow light. The lamp oil inside was a white paste-like substance that smelled foul.

In the middle of the skeleton arch was the murky green time-space vortex, but it was much smaller than the one in Notre-Dame de Paris—less than a quarter of the latter’s size.

After his Law Body was strengthened, Qin Lun’s Perception had greatly improved. He faintly sensed that beyond this skeleton passage was not solid matter, but another space.

This place seemed to be a huge labyrinth divided by skeleton walls. Moreover, judging from the enormous number of bones making up the maze, this was definitely not a temporary base built by the Phantom Demons of Paris. It was likely a pre-established location.

“Buzzzz…” Just as Qin Lun was looking around, a strange sound came from the passage.

Qin Lun focused his gaze and saw that on the ceiling far down the skeleton passage, two huge, bloody fleshy lumps split open a crack, like gaping bloody mouths. From the cracks swarmed clusters of “black wasps,” rushing toward him like a dark cloud.

It was a defensive trap in the passage. Qin Lun’s face changed slightly. Countless thoughts raced through his mind. In an instant, he simulated several response plans, but rejected them one by one. Finally, the doctor sighed lightly, took out three seed-like objects from his chest, and threw them in front of himself.

As soon as the three seeds hit the ground, they grew wildly in the wind. In the blink of an eye, they became three tall vine tree-men. Perhaps because the passage floor was covered with foul blood and flesh, the vine tree-men that absorbed this flesh had blood-red patterns on their bodies, covered with red and green intertwined vines.

The three vine tree-men stood side by side in front of Qin Lun, almost completely blocking the passage. They waved the vines on their bodies, fiercely swatting at the clusters of attacking “black wasps.”

Soon, a pile of “wasp” corpses accumulated at the feet of the vine tree-men. Only a very few “wasps” gave up attacking the vine tree-men and purposely slipped through the vines to attack Qin Lun.

Qin Lun swung his blade and killed one that got through. He bent down to pick up one of these “black wasps” to examine. In fact, these little creatures that looked like wasps were not real insects, but extremely tiny Phantom Demons.

The “wasp” Phantom Demons had insect-like shells on their bodies, four pairs of limbs on their sides, two pairs of transparent wings on their backs, compound eyes on their heads, and their main attack weapon was the dark poison stinger on their tails.

As expected, after these “wasp” Phantom Demons turned to ash, they left no Phantom Demon Pearls. It seemed their Phantom Demon Pearls only existed inside those two huge fleshy “beehives.”

The vine tree-men could exist independently for one hour. But with the nourishment of human flesh and blood, their staying time seemed to extend a bit longer. Qin Lun did not just wait for the vine tree-men to wipe out all the “wasps.” This Skeleton Labyrinth was confusing and was enemy territory. The sensible thing was to quickly deal with this trouble.

Qin Lun thought for a moment, then took out a small bottle containing low-concentration Holy Water from his Storage Space. He tilted his head back and poured it directly into his mouth. Holding the Holy Water in his mouth, he strode to the middle of the vine tree-men, puffed his cheeks, and fiercely sprayed it at the swarm of wasps.

“Sizzle!” As soon as the Holy Water touched the wasp Phantom Demons, wisps of green smoke rose. The wasp Phantom Demons fell from the air as if splashed with acid.

After spraying two or three times like this, Qin Lun had completely used up this bottle of low-concentration Holy Water. However, the wasp Phantom Demons in the passage were also cleared out. The few remaining wasp Phantom Demons were no longer a threat to him.

After clearing out these little things, Qin Lun did not stay put. He immediately passed the three vine tree-men, hurried forward along the passage, took out his FN-500, and blasted it at the two beehive-like fleshy lumps.

Two minutes later, Qin Lun retrieved two blood-colored Phantom Demon Pearls from the “beehives.” These two Phantom Demon Pearls were of very high quality, each containing 15 Remnant Souls, indicating they had killed many humans in the past.

The place where the beehives were located was already the end of this passage. It was a passage intersection, with a skeleton passage to the left and right, no different from the passage behind Qin Lun, confirming it was indeed a Skeleton Labyrinth.

“Labyrinth, trap Phantom Demons, time-space node…” Qin Lun rubbed his temples, lost in thought.

Based on the information collected, the clues in Qin Lun’s mind gradually became clear. This Skeleton Labyrinth must hold some secret of the Phantom Demons, and it was heavily defended. However, the labyrinth’s defense did not rely on combat-type Phantom Demons, but more on defensive traps like the wasp Phantom Demons.

It might seem Qin Lun easily dealt with the wasp Phantom Demons just now, but in fact, this kind of defensive trap was very hard to handle. If not for the vine tree-men being tough-skinned and thick-bodied, blocking the entire passage, and him still having more than half a bottle of Holy Water… if other Apostles faced these wasp Phantom Demons, they would be lucky to escape with their lives.

In a way, Qin Lun had used a bottle of low-concentration Holy Water worth 3500 Shattered Crystals, plus three vine tree seeds, in exchange for two Phantom Demon Pearls with 15 Remnant Souls. From a certain perspective, he actually incurred a loss.

“The time-space node in this passage is different in size from the one in Notre-Dame de Paris. Could there be some difference here?”

Qin Lun suddenly turned to look at the time-space vortex he had entered from, his eyes gleaming brightly…

“Apostle 70053, you have collected one inferior Time-Space Core. You can request to return via your Apostle Soul Mark. When returning, you must be in a non-combat state, and monitoring must indicate a safe state.”

“Hint: The Time-Space Core task has been completed at the minimum requirement. Current total task progress is 7/100. Apostle 70053 contribution is 1/7. Destroyed one time-space node in the Skeleton Labyrinth, obtained 0.212% World Exploration Degree. Has not yet severed the time-space connection between this Phantom Demon base and modern Paris. Conditions for improving task evaluation not met. No other additional rewards.”

“So that’s how it is!” Qin Lun lowered his head and murmured to himself.

He used the Time-Space Energy Collector to gather this Time-Space Core, taking less than two minutes. The time-space node in Notre-Dame de Paris, however, required a full ten minutes.

Time-space transmission energy between two points should be constant. The only explanation for this phenomenon was that this Skeleton Labyrinth had multiple small time-space nodes connecting to Notre-Dame de Paris.

These two minutes of waiting also allowed Qin Lun to confirm another guess: aside from the passive trap Phantom Demons, there were no other live Phantom Demons responsible for patrolling in this Skeleton Labyrinth. Otherwise, they should have come by now. The Skeleton Labyrinth was most likely just the outer defenses concealing this Phantom Demon base.

In fact, Qin Lun’s ability to obtain this Time-Space Core involved both wisdom and luck. Although the Skeleton Labyrinth was the periphery of the Phantom Demon base, it was not easy to enter.

The Phantom Demons considered Île de la Cité and Notre-Dame de Paris the core of their Paris strategy. If not for most of Paris’s Phantom Demons attacking key areas like Place de la Concorde and City Hall; if not for the lack of aquatic Phantom Demons defending Seine River; if not for Xiao Dao helping him draw away the Phantom Demons from Notre-Dame de Paris…

Qin Lun alone could not even have entered the gate of Notre-Dame de Paris!

Qin Lun looked at the Time-Space Energy Collector in his hand. He could not see the true appearance of the Time-Space Core. Once collected, it seemed to go directly into the collector’s Dimensional Space. The Apostle himself could not take it out from the collector.

The Time-Space Core task progress of 7/100 clearly meant that all Apostles currently in the Phantom Demon World had collected 7 Time-Space Cores. As for what would happen after reaching 100 Time-Space Cores, Qin Lun did not care.

In his view, this was like a fantasy. Even though it was only the first day of the task time, the difficulty of the task later would only increase. As the Phantom Demons occupied Paris, some of their current weaknesses would gradually be fixed.

After putting away the Time-Space Core, a faint smile appeared on Qin Lun’s lips. Since it was confirmed that there were no large numbers of active Phantom Demons in the Skeleton Labyrinth, he was in no hurry to return. After all, the vine tree-men would exist for an hour; he could search around for other time-space nodes.

Even if he encountered other Phantom Demons, he could return here and team up with the thick-skinned vine tree-men to grind them down.

Qin Lun put away the Time-Space Energy Collector. After observing for a moment, he stepped on the skulls on the passage’s bone wall, climbed up the wall, and used his Dagger of Sin to cut a piece of Phantom Demon flesh from the ceiling.

After climbing down, Qin Lun smeared this flesh on his own body. He wasn’t sure if Phantom Demons could distinguish humans by scent, but it was always good to be prepared.

After preparing, Qin Lun ran toward the left passage at the intersection. After running some distance, he suddenly crouched down, held onto the passage corner, and watched ahead warily.

Not far ahead, two bizarrely shaped Phantom Demons lay on the ground, barely alive, apparently injured and not yet dead.

“Huh, could it be…” Seeing this scene, a strange light flickered in Qin Lun’s eyes.