Ghost Knight King's Dungeon Project

Chapter 47 [The Demonic Insect Skull and the Shadow of the Deer Antlers]

Click, click, click.

The clanging of metal armor mingled with the soft clatter of cautious footsteps, echoing through the deathly silent, rusty bronze forest.

“It’s so quiet…” Samael said softly.

“They are all hiding,” Talia replied. “I can sense some of the magical beasts in the surrounding environment—they are not only afraid of me, but even more afraid of the undead.”

For some reason, most of the monsters here seem to possess powerful mimicry and stealth abilities. Perhaps it's a result of the Skeleton Heart Undead's indiscriminate slaughter of all living things, leading to selection and adaptive evolution.

In the dim light of the Heart of Bones, the vertical shadows of the rusted bronze trees created an astonishingly vast emptiness. The monsters remained hidden in their mimicry, while the undead, suppressed by Samael's aura, also lay in wait.

It was eerily quiet.

"Would you mind if I summoned a few undead from the environment to take a look?" Samael asked.

Talia shook her head.

"Why are you being so polite to me over such a small thing?" She seemed a little unhappy and gave a soft hum.

Samael's shoulder armor.

The bronze resonator is now in use.

He raised his gauntlet and snapped his fingers, sending a tiny cluster of pale blue sparks flying from his fingertips.

With a whoosh, a clump of fallen leaves in front of them suddenly burst open, and a rotting, deformed human figure stood up straight, moving strangely like some kind of twisted marionette.

On its face—or rather, where it once was a face—a rotten human hand and half the body of a bird creature were haphazardly stuck together and fused. An eyeball was embedded in the palm of the human hand on the left half of the face, while the folded wings of the bird's body on the right half of the face obscured the right half of the face.

A bird spit out a human tooth from its half-rotten beak, emitting a hoarse, low cry. The beak and the tattered veiled wings were only a few centimeters away from Talia's helmet.

Talia was so frightened that she almost swung her hammer and spear horizontally, but slowly lowered it halfway down.

"Okay... well, it's still necessary to mention this beforehand." She stammered, "The undead have no heartbeat or breathing, and remain completely still in their dormant state, making them difficult to detect under normal circumstances. Plus, given their appearance, it's quite frightening when they suddenly stand up..."

Samael shrugged his shoulder armor and spread his hands.

He stepped forward and examined the undead before him—a rotting monster haphazardly pieced together from a jumble of corpses. Half a canine claw and two sharp insect-like limbs dangled from its chest. Its left arm was a huge, deformed bone blade twisted with flesh and blood, while its right arm was a giant, rotting, scaled claw resembling that of a reptile. Its legs were a human leg wearing rotten leather boots and a thick tentacle. Despite this haphazard patchwork, it still managed to vaguely resemble a human.

“A necromancer.” Talia took a half-step back in disgust. “A monster cobbled together from rotting flesh and humus. Initially, it’s just a normal, moving corpse, but they hunt living things, attaching fragments and limbs of their victims to themselves, fusing together, and over time they become like this—the undead are always so disgusting…”

Samael turned to look at her.

“I’m not talking about you! You’re different… Aside from your armor being a little cold, what makes you look like an undead?” Talia explained irritably, jumping up and hugging Samael from behind, resting her chin on his cold shoulder armor.

The scanner is now enabled.

【Psionic Construct (Main Material: Organic Matter)】

[Constructed artificial life form, manufactured using recycled biomass, retaining the original biological structure, with a probability of generating a small amount of biological form materials. Inexpensive and extremely easy to generate in psionic environments. Capable of performing simple tasks.]

[Possesses a rudimentary circuit permeator, capable of creating and autonomously modifying and assembling simple organic psionic construct components. Has no intelligence.]

[The methods of activation include, but are not limited to: resonant signals from necromancy, modification with psionic implants, and forced coverage of the circuit by etheric psionic signals (difficult, and the psionic circuit possesses self-repairing capabilities, breaking free from the control of the etheric psionic signals).]

[Target Source: Naturally Generated]

【Condition: Good】

Structural integrity: 93%

[Stamina: 97%]

[Can record biological pose images. Total number of recording bits: 10]

[Recorded bio-poses: Frenzy Stance, Grab, Nightmare Dash, Judgment (4/10, not yet complete)]

【@refresh@】

[Biological Posture Detection: Nightmare Dash]

[Using any number and type of limbs, it runs wildly with random movement patterns, its movements chaotic and unpredictable, ranging between running/crawling/wriggling/twitching/rolling. It possesses powerful deterrent force, chaotic destructive power, and unpredictable random trajectories. Commonly used in biological weapons.]

[Extremely fast movement speed, and unpredictable movements.]

[Can be used in any biological form.]

The database has been updated.

[Burn to the "Artificial Life Science - Biological Posture Materials" content library]

[The device is usable.]

What... what is this thing? Samael was stunned. What does "usable" mean? I can use this Nightmare Rush too? Crawling around on all fours?

However, the scanner pop-up in the helmet's UI didn't stop there; it kept popping up even more bizarre explanations.

【@refresh@】

[Biological Posture Detection: Conviction]

[Targeted destruction based on anatomical principles requires the use of sharp instruments for cutting and dismantling limbs. Suitable for crude dissections, organ removal, dismemberment, and amputation.]

[Low precision, not suitable for medical applications. Typically used for slaughtering, carcass recovery, carcass dismantling, and preliminary processing of biomass.]

The database has been updated.

[Burn to the "Artificial Life Science - Biological Posture Materials" content library]

[The device is usable.]

Samael remained silent for a moment.

"What's wrong?" Talia asked.

“I think I can understand why everyone is afraid of the undead,” he replied. “Think about it, a dismembered monster crawling all over the place, tearing out its internal organs, and scratching wildly is indeed quite scary.”

"Is this Corpse Demon really something used in underground colony engineering? No, it seems more like a biological weapon." He pondered as he and Talia continued their exploration. "Perhaps it was deliberately deployed to cause destruction and slaughter, which is why it was designed to naturally generate in a psionic ecosystem filled with corpses."

The surrounding rusty copper trees gradually thinned out, and as we continued forward, the sky suddenly brightened. Taking a few more steps, a vast plain of tall grass stretched out before us under a gloomy, leaden sky. Thin mist drifted between the pale green grass and the leaden sky, like ethereal ghosts.

Huge, grayish-white rocks, with their menacing shapes, are scattered among tall grasses nearly as tall as a person, standing like the skulls of giants.

The two stood side by side before the tall, resilient grass, which formed an impenetrable wall that stretched into the distance, its stalks reaching only to their shoulders. They looked like two miniature ants standing before a plush carpet.

"Ahhh, ahhh, help... ahhh, help." A withered wail echoed somewhere in the tall grass. Somewhere, the blades of grass swayed, and something within them was pleading for help in Common Tongue.

"Ahhh, help me. Ahhh. It hurts, it hurts so much!" Three or four different cries echoed, moving back and forth in different locations in the tall grass in the distance.

The rustling sounds of footsteps echoed through the tall grass, carrying withered cries for help.

“Hiss…” Talia and Samael exchanged a glance.

“You don’t think I’d rush in to save someone just because they’re crying for help, do you?” Samael asked.

“Of course not.” Talia looked away. “Of course, just to be on the safe side, I'll ask... You won't, right?”

“If it’s your voice, then I will,” Samael replied.

"..." Talia shuddered and pressed her burning face against the helmet to cool it down.

“Of course, if it were Rondar and his friends, or Archie and Gwyneth, or Elder Duke, or anyone from the Exile Tribe, or the snake catcher, the barracks owner, the ice cream-selling mage girl, or any innocent living person in need of help, I would go to save them.” Samael thought seriously and continued, “If it were that Norman Passat and his teammates… I might hesitate for a moment, but I would still go to save them, because he traumatized me and made me live in fear for days. But if it were the Cuckoo Chicken Killer, I… I would hesitate for a little longer, maybe an extra second or two.”

“You could have just said the first sentence,” Talia sighed. “The rest is a bit redundant for me… Wait, explain yourself! Who is the mage girl who sells ice cream? And why do you remember her for so long?”

"Ahhh, help me, it hurts so much, it hurts so much!" The voice lurking in the tall grass continued, and rustling shadows moved back and forth between the shadows of the grass.

“We were being hunted down at the time, and you were in a bad mood, so I didn’t have time to go into the details of this story—” Samael covered his face.

"We'll talk about it later," they both said at the same time.

"Ouch, it hurts! Help me..." The voice from the bushes was still wailing.

"Hey, quiet down! Stop howling, I know what you are!" Samael shouted at the tall grass, raising his bronze sword and shield and banging them together.

The bronze resonator is now in use.

clang! clang!
The wailing ceased, and seven or eight long, thin, serpentine-like fleshy monsters shut their mouths, rising nearly three meters tall from the tall grass, silently saluting Samael from a distance. Samael tapped his sword and shield again, and the serpentine monsters retreated back into the tall grass, scurrying away swiftly with a rustling sound.

“A trap-type corpse demon.” Talia shook her head.

"Are we on the right track? We've been heading deep into the heart of the skeleton, haven't we?" Samael looked at Talia.

"The direction is correct. We're about 75 kilometers deep into the Heart of the Corpse." Talia nodded. Demons have the ability to sense the Earth's magnetic field, giving them a strong sense of direction and distance.

Samael grabbed a handful of tall grass and activated the Nether Bronze Generator.

Amidst the low buzzing sound, the grass stalks and blades drooped, unresponsive.

Copper-free.

The scanner is now enabled.

[Ecological maintenance plant P-26.]

The leaves are slightly toxic, while the stems and seeds are non-toxic. The seeds are edible after minimal processing. Yields are extremely low in the natural environment; however, production can be increased by the care of artificial life forms—symbiotic animals.

“Perfect.” He gazed at the endless grasslands before him and murmured, “An excellent location for building an underground city.”

“It’s really good. There are a lot of magical beasts living in the tall grass.” Talia closed her eyes and sensed it. “The tall grass can provide effective shelter and help them avoid the undead. There’s no shortage of servants here.”

She suddenly opened her gray eyes and abruptly grabbed Samael's arm.

"Earth-devouring demon worms..."

Before the words were even finished, the earth began to rumble and tremble! The blades of tall grass trembled, and several startled magical beasts and birds swept across the tall grass in the distance. Huge beasts with their carapaces and thick manes, tentacles of rotting flesh, and fragments of white bone were faintly visible in the grass.

As the earth trembled, several patches of grass on the tall grass plain collapsed with a deafening roar! Dust flew everywhere, as if an unseen giant mouth was swallowing the soil, grinding rocks, and gnawing at the earth's strata underground.

A moment later, the earth returned to silence.

A rustling sound came from the tall grass, like something with many limbs writhing. A few seconds later, the roar of a lion-like monster and the sound of flesh being torn apart echoed.

The two exchanged a glance. Talia stepped into the collapsed patch of tall grass to search for traces of the earth-devouring worms, but Samael grabbed her arm.

“The grass is up to our shoulders, and the blades are enough to cover our heads. If we venture in rashly, we can easily be hidden from view.” He pointed to the tall grassy plain in front of him. “The environment here is unfamiliar, and there are many unknown things. Don’t get separated. There might be high-level undead like corpse demons lurking in the grass—we can’t split up.”

Samael took off the forged Nether Bronze chain from his shoulder, jingled it around his waist, and then extended his Nether Bronze gauntlets, intending to tie the other end of the Nether Bronze chain around Talia's waist as well.

“I can do it myself…” Talia’s slender waistline swayed slightly within the rings of the Nether Bronze Chain, her voice carrying a strange awkwardness.

"Hmm?" Samael paused, unaware that his hands, which were holding the Nether Bronze Chain Ring, were resting on either side of Talia's slender waist.

"No, no, it's okay...you continue...Ouch!" She cried out as the dark bronze chain around her waist tightened, and angrily slammed into Samael's shoulder armor. "What are you doing now!"

“Tie the chains tighter! What if they come loose and come apart? Are we going to play hide-and-seek in the tall grass? There might be something else even more dangerous in there!” Samael answered matter-of-factly, gathering up the excess chain hanging between them and holding it in his hand. “We have to move forward at the same time—I don’t want to be attacked by the claws of monsters hiding in the grass, and you don’t want to run into a bunch of moving, rotting monsters in the grass.”

“You really are…” Talia snorted.

The two rushed into the tall grass, the hammer and spear on one side and the bronze kite-shaped shield on the other, working together to push aside the tall grass that blocked the view in front of them. They trudged through the crushed grass stalks with difficulty, and strode forward side by side, carving a path through the dense wall of tall grass as if swimming.

From above, on either side of the path the two had cleared through the tall grass, seven or eight swaying grasses scattered and fled with a rustling sound, while the hidden monsters and undead retreated.

After a difficult trek, the two crashed through the grass wall and stumbled into the sunken, tall grassy area they had seen in the distance. However, the sunken area turned out to be a deep pit scattered with messy grass stalks.

Samael lost his footing and nearly fell into the pit. Amidst the clanking of the dark bronze chains, Talia grabbed the chain loop around her waist and, relying on the power of the demon race, barely managed to suspend Samael's heavy body in mid-air.

“My waist… is already thin enough, I don’t need to tighten it anymore,” Talia grimaced beneath her helmet. The weight of Samael’s fall had tightened the chain around his waist a little more.

“No need to hold on, it’s not deep down here.” Samael was suspended in mid-air, looking down. “Below is the tunnel left by the Earth-Eating Demon Worms.”

"Hmm?" She slowly lowered the bronze chains, and when Samael's feet touched the ground, she slid down the cave wall.

The worm tunnel ahead was deep and dark. The air was filled with the fresh scent of soil, and the cave walls were covered with spiraling, scale-like excavation marks.

Talia ignited a pale fireball, holding it aloft as the two stepped side-by-side into the shadows of the wormhole. Everything felt familiar, just like when they first met.

However, before they could take a few more steps to reminisce about the past, at the moment the insect path turned a corner, the two of them simultaneously crashed into a cold "wall" made of spiral scales.

"What is this..." Samael and Talia drew their weapons at the same time, but the scale "wall" in front of them remained silent, completely blocking the insect passage in front of them.

Earth-devouring demon worm.

A soft splash. The two looked down; at their feet lay a pool of blood emitting a faint blue glow.

The blood of the demonic insects, shimmering with a faint blue light, was seeping from the corpse and flowing silently through the insect tunnels.

A small portion of the corpse of the Earth-Eating Demon Worm.

Its scales gleam with a coppery sheen, clearly due to the unique geological conditions of the Skeleton Heart Plains, which have resulted in a high concentration of copper in its body, which has become the material used to construct its scales and teeth.

"It's dead?" Talia stepped forward in astonishment, pressing her hand against the scales of the Earth-Eating Demon Worm's body, trying to sense even the slightest sign of life.

However, it's meaningless. It's just a corpse.

“I originally planned to use the Nether Bronze Chains to trap the Earth-Eating Demon Worm and try to implant a Nether Bronze psionic implant into it—” Samael stared at a corner of the lifeless, massive body in front of him.

"Wait, wait!" He suddenly realized an important piece of information. "Although it sounds a bit like hell, since it's already dead, I can use the circuit permeator to transform it into a necromantic earth-devouring worm."

Samael pressed the bronze gauntlets onto the dead body of the earth-devouring worm.

[The loop permeator has been activated.]

[Testing biological materials...]

[Excessively large size, severe defects (over 70%)]

Unable to generate organic psionic constructs.

“What do you mean by more than 70%? Wasn’t this earth-devouring demon worm completely dead…” Samael paused, then quickly climbed back to the surface with Talia and jumped into another worm tunnel pit.

The pit contained a huge cross-section of the corpse, covered with digging and biting marks from the spiral scales.

A single earth-devouring demon worm was torn into more than a dozen pieces. Therefore, it was determined that the damage exceeded 70%.

“There are the digging marks of another Earth-Eating Demon Worm here, a slightly smaller one.” Talia pointed to the crisscrossing worm tunnels, where two different-sized digging marks intersected on the cross-section of the corpse. “Two Earth-Eating Demon Worms were fighting each other, and the smaller one killed the larger one.”

Samael waved his hand and activated the scanner on the mutilated corpse in front of him.

The scanner is now enabled.

[Drilling-type artificial organism, Type 1. Level 6 technological organism, capable of driving industrial and excavation biomechanical machinery for mining, excavation, and the construction of prototype alien underground colonies.]

[The methods of activation include, but are not limited to: etheric psionic signals (i.e., the psionic signals of space-descent beings), and psionic implant modifications.]

Status: Dead

[Life Cycle: Childcare Period]

“Incubation period,” he said softly. “Its cubs should still be there, perhaps it died protecting its cubs… Let’s check the other pits around here and look for its cubs.”

As the two struggled back to the surface, the ground suddenly began to rumble and shake again.

The enormous figure of the murderous earth-devouring worm, like a giant dragon, dug and emerged from the soil at the edge of the distant high grass plain.

Its body was twisted, grotesque, and broken; in some places, only bones remained. On its undead-like, incomplete body, metallic scales and curved, drill-shaped fangs gleamed with a familiar, eerie blue luster—not copper, but ghost copper.

It suddenly raised its enormous head, opened its spiraling, blade-like fangs of dark bronze, and with its incomplete necromancer tongue, lifted a tall, humanoid figure with metal antlers on its head out of its dark bronze-covered mouth.

The tall, humanoid figure with antlers slowly turned its head, gazing silently at the high grass plain from a great distance. Its body shimmered with the color of dark bronze, like hollow armor.

However, the tall grass obscured Samael and Talia.

It couldn't see anything.

The humanoid bronze figure with antlers withdrew its gaze and slowly returned to the mouth of the undead earth-devouring demon worm.

The necromantic worm closed its massive copper teeth, roaring as it slowly burrowed back underground.

The tremors in the strata gradually receded into the unknown northern region, and the earth returned to silence.

(End of this chapter)