After eating and drinking his fill, Wu Yu casually inscribed several Talisman Seals on different machetes, then got up and set off.
A short walk brought him to the fork.
Night had fallen, and this part of the cave was silent.
The faint light outside could not reach this far. The deeper the cave went, the darker it became.
"Someone's been here."
Wu Yu crouched down and examined the stones around him.
"Probably more than one person. They went into the middle passage."
"Not sure about the right one."
He stood and looked toward the middle passage.
Unlike the passages on either side, the middle one was wider and sloped downward.
He opened his eyes wide, peering through the darkness into its depths.
"No footprints... do Tiger Wraiths deliberately erase those traces?"
Wu Yu frowned slightly, silently raising his guard.
"From what I learned earlier, there's a dungeon in Lostway Cave."
While traveling through the left passage, he had also paid attention to what was inside.
There had been various everyday items belonging to the bandits along the way and near the Silver Chest.
That meant the left passage was most likely a temporary bandit hideout!
"Then the bandit Chief's records weren't exaggerating!"
"The bandits don't dare stay in Lostway Cave for too long. Deep in the left passage, there's not just a route outside, but also a ritual site for the Mountain Lord Rite!"
"The dungeon and the Mountain Lord are probably at the ends of the other two passages."
Wu Yu gazed into the middle passage, lost in thought.
There was certainly more than one Silver Chest in the left passage.
But Wu Yu had already decided against going that way, and he had no regrets.
He prepared a few things where he stood, then cautiously entered the middle passage and headed down.
A little while later!
After walking through the long passage, Wu Yu suddenly stopped and narrowed his eyes.
Deep in the darkness, two bandits stood side by side at the passage entrance without making a sound.
"Living Tiger Wraiths..."
He approached cautiously.
Neither bandit had lit a torch. They stood like wooden posts in the path, their eyes vacant.
They were unlike any of the bandits Wu Yu had seen before, but he would not let his guard down.
He visualized the Heaven-Earth Copper Coin, and a weapon appeared in each hand.
They were the [Omen Blood Blade] and the [Fine Dagger]!
Blood-red energy coiled around the weapons. Wu Yu crept closer, then hurled the blades!
Whoosh-!
The sound of slicing air rang through the cave. The two bandits turned their heads woodenly, and the two blades flashed across their necks.
Splat!
Their heads parted from their bodies, and blood sprayed out.
With a thought from Wu Yu, the two blades flew back and landed nearby.
"Too bad they aren't real flying swords. Once the blood energy attached to them runs out..."
Wu Yu put away the two blades and walked over.
By then, the two bandits had dissolved into light, but not a single Card remained where they had stood.
"Well, my luck's taking a turn for the worse."
He shook his head.
After killing so many bandits, he had come to understand their "drop rate."
With good luck, a single bandit could drop three Cards.
With bad luck, he would not see even one!
Still, having two bandits both drop nothing was rare. That was downright rotten luck.
After traveling a little farther, Wu Yu began encountering bandits more frequently.
To avoid alerting anyone, he kept using his blades to kill them instantly, without using even one [Bi Fang Sigil].
Fortunately, they were all ordinary bandits. A thrown blade could essentially kill them instantly, and nothing unexpected happened.
But even after killing more than a dozen bandits, Wu Yu had not obtained a single Card!
That was certainly astonishing...
Unless his luck was abysmally bad, the most likely explanation was that something was wrong with these bandits!
"Could they have just undergone the Mountain Lord Rite? Or are they being controlled by the Mountain Lord?"
Puzzled, Wu Yu proceeded even more cautiously.
Ahead, light and shadows flickered.
The underground passage finally leveled out, and Wu Yu spotted torches mounted on the walls.
Their light illuminated the passage entrance, revealing piles of wood, straw beds, and a battered wooden cage ahead.
Inside the cage lay an incomplete skeleton.
"So it really is a dungeon."
Watching from a distance, Wu Yu immediately understood.
Four bandits had guarded this area, and Wu Yu had instantly killed them all with thrown blades.
"Are all the captured merchants inside? And Captain Lu, too?"
"Looks like I won't need my [Dungeon Key]."
He surveyed the area.
The dungeon had no door at all, so the key most likely belonged to a particular room.
Judging by the games he had played, dungeons generally had hidden rooms, wardens' rooms, or something similar.
Soon, he reached the illuminated area and cautiously ventured farther into the dungeon.
"Guwa?"
"Guwa! Puwa!"
"Kana!"
Several bandits sat drinking at a table, their faces flushed as they spoke.
Near the table, several more bandits with vacant eyes stood together, as motionless as statues.
Around the corner,
Wu Yu watched them and knew he could not remain hidden.
"Kill them all, and it still counts as a successful infiltration!"
He smiled, and two pebbles appeared in his palm.
Then,
he sprang out and hurled the pebbles with all his strength.
One flew straight toward the table, while the other flew toward the dazed bandits.
At the whistling sound, the drinking bandits startled, drew their blades, and rose to their feet.
But before they could turn, the pebble landed in a bowl of wine on the table!
With a plop, wine splashed everywhere.
The bandits instinctively looked over.
A golden divine bird flashed across the pebble.
Boom-!!!
Two thunderous explosions erupted simultaneously. The flames merged into a sea of fire, devouring everything around them.
The bandits died on the spot. The worst-hit one did not even leave a mangled corpse behind.
Moments later, the flames dissipated.
Wu Yu walked over and found that the drinking bandits had dropped several Cards, while the vacant-eyed ones had dropped nothing.
"Two different kinds of bandits..."
Understanding dawned on Wu Yu, and he collected the Cards.
They were all ordinary bandits, so their drops were naturally things like [Beast Meat] Cards. He could not be bothered to examine them closely and simply discarded the ones he did not want.
Then he looked deeper into the dungeon. Rather than recklessly charging in, he placed several stones around the area and retreated.
Less than three minutes later, a clamor reached him.
A large group of furious bandits rushed out from within, carrying machetes and bows.
But when they reached the site of the explosions, they found no bodies.
"Guwa?"
The bandits were bewildered.
Then...
Boom!
The same flames, in the same place.
There were more bandits this time, and Wu Yu detonated more [Bi Fang Sigils]!
The flames instantly swept through the surroundings, consuming every bandit.
Before long, the flames dissipated, and the many bandit corpses dissolved into light.
But Wu Yu did not approach. Instead, he grabbed a piece of broken wood he had just picked up, took an old garment from his Inventory, and wrapped it around the wood.
Taking a few steps forward, Wu Yu hurled the wood over!
The moment it hit the ground, arrows shot out from deep inside the dungeon, piercing the wood clean through!
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