Liam's eyes widened as he gazed at this unexpected phenomenon. What was that? And when he observed it closely, the glow seemed to be appearing near the city where their main base was!
"Luna! Let's return to the base! Now!" Liam did not hesitate and immediately gave the orders. What made him anxious was that he had no idea what this red glow could be.
Another portal? A new dungeon? Nothing of that sort should be appearing right now. What was going on?
Several terrifying scenarios ran through his mind as Luna raced back to the hotel. When they got closer, another red glow appeared, and this time they were able to see it more clearly.
The glow seemed to be coming from a flare of sorts, and it was definitely coming from their city, more specifically from their base.
What happened? What went wrong? Crawford found him so soon? Or perhaps something else terrible had happened?
Each possibility was scarier than the previous one. Liam's gaze sharpened as he almost dove out of Luna as soon as they arrived at the base.
Shen Yue, and Mei Mei were standing right there at the entrance, waiting for him. "Brother! You came back! You saw our flare!"
"What happened? Did you both signal me?" Liam could see that at least these two were visibly safe, and nothing disastrous had happened.
The hotel buildings also seemed to be intact, and there were no signs of struggle or beast activity. So he felt a little relieved.
Mei Mei as well smiled and did not look panicked. "Brother, sorry to call you back like this, but we thought that you might want to know about this. We discovered something unusual."
"Let's go in and talk." Shen Yue shushed Mei Mei hurriedly as there were quite a few people still standing outside, waiting in a queue.
Seeing how the two were acting, Liam became very curious. He wanted to know what made them call him so urgently. "Alright. Quick. Let's go in and talk."
Luna also followed them after shrinking back to her small-sized version. The several people waiting outside in the lines watched the scene with amazement, but no one could figure out what was going on and could only simply watch.
Meanwhile, Mei Mei dragged Liam to the health section right after they entered the hotel. Surprisingly, there seemed to be too many people gathered here at the moment when compared to the usual.
"Did something happen in the dungeon run?" Liam immediately asked. That was the only thing he could think of because the injured people were not just any members of the guild.
They were, in fact, the trained members of the dojo under the leadership of the granny. All of them had excellent combat skills, and all of them were very experienced.
So the chance of anything unexpected happening in the low-level dungeon was very unlikely. But despite this, they were all injured?
Liam walked closer and observed that they were also quite heavily injured. He also did not see the granny around. Was she alright? Just what the hell happened? This did not seem to be a simple run of the mill bad luck situation.
Ning Xi noticed whom Liam was looking for and quickly cleared up the misunderstanding. "Mr Liam. Master is doing fine. She retired to her room because she had obtained some insights, and she did not want to be disturbed."
Okay." Liam nodded. "Then what happened?" He sat down, letting out a small sigh.
"I will explain everything from the beginning now." Ning Xi unexpectedly smiled. Liam became more and more curious.
"We were clearing the dungeon like usual when we encountered something strange. Or rather, Master felt as if there was something strange about a passageway."
"We debated over it, but in the end, we decide to make sure that we were not missing anything. So we broke the wall down completely."
"Hmmm? You guys actually broke down a dungeon wall?" Liam was puzzled. He had never heard of such a thing before.
"Yes, and we found another passageway inside. We entered this new passageway and unexpectedly ran into more mobs of the dungeon."
"But… this time, the mobs were a lot stronger."
"You mean…" Liam stiffened up as realization sank quickly.
"Yes, this part of the dungeon was no longer just Level 1 to 20. This part should be from Level 20 to 30 or even 40."
Liam clenched his fists in excitement. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
He knew that there were different dungeons scattered all over the world, but as far as he knew, these were just low-levelled dungeons suitable for players ranging from Level 1 to Level 20. So what was happening now?
Ning Xi smiled. She already knew that Liam would be excited to hear this. She was also equally excited. For the first time, they were contributing something to the team.
All these days, they had only taken the information and help from Liam, so it felt good to give something back in return, to prove that they were also important members of the guild.
"We ended up suffering some injuries because we hadn't expected something like this to happen. But we somehow managed to make it out of the dungeon alive, thanks to Master and senior brothers."
Ning Xi explained everything. Liam also patiently listened to her from beginning to end. The more he heard, the more he was sure of it. These dungeons were not what they seemed to be.
In his last life, these dungeons were merely considered tools that beginners used to train. There were always rumours and talks about dungeons of higher levels.
Everyone entertained such notions because the idea was not far-fetched. While the portals and the beast waves were considered trials of the apocalypse, these dungeons were training tools.
It wouldn't be surprising to find out that just like in the game, in the real world also, there were dungeons of different levels.
But, even though these assumptions made sense, no one had ever been able to find a higher-level dungeon. It was always a mystery to the different guilds.
Some people even refused to believe that this was true. They accused each other of cheating and hiding dungeons in their territories, like small children accusing each other of not sharing their toys.
Only now was Liam able to see the truth. Not only these higher-level dungeons existed, but they had been right under everyone's noses!
Liam immediately stood up in a hurry. This was indeed huge news! He needed to immediately go there and pick the dungeon apart from top to bottom!
Which dungeon is this?" Liam hurriedly grabbed Ning Xi by her shoulder and shook her.
"Ah… Ah… it's the same Jing city dungeon." The poor girl got scared and blurted out.
She was also excited about this new information, but she did not know enough to fathom the implications of such an unexpected discovery.
Liam was the only one who knew, and he was also the only one who needed this right now. This was probably what the fairy had meant when she had let slip earlier about something.
Liam grew more and more excited. Though he was doing something at the moment, it was not nearly enough to improve his current condition.
But now, that had changed. He could actually tackle the higher-level dungeons and go beyond 80, the level he was currently stagnated at.
After getting all the information from Ning Xi, Liam did not dare linger around.
This time he did not call anyone for company and immediately rushed over to the dungeon by himself, riding on top of Luna at top speed. Sensing Liam's mood, the fox was also equally excited.
The two of them did not take long before they arrived in the same village they had visited before. This time the place was even more deserted when compared to earlier.
The reason for this was abundantly clear as a swarm of mosquitoes assaulted the duo as soon as Luna landed.
The mosquitoes were bigger in size, numerous and did not have the brains to know that they should not mess with beings far beyond their abilities. So they foolishly tried to stick their parts into the meaty fox.
Growl!
The fox immediately opened her mouth and spit out a burst of fire in anger.
"Just ignore them and go straight for that dungeon." Liam pointed at the green-coloured portal. He did not have the patience at the moment to deal with these smaller mobs.
Kyuu! Luna shook her head and tossed out another burst of fire before she blurred her way into the dungeon.
Liam swiped the notification away and blasted his way through the inside of the dungeon. It was only a basic dungeon with weak monsters meant to be fodder for the beginners. In this particular case, these were wolf-like chimaeras.
The entire dungeon was in the shape of a network of caverns, and Liam made a quick work of the howling monsters by summoning his soul army.
He then managed to arrive at the specific location in a couple of seconds. "This is where they mentioned, so the wall should be one of these two." He looked at the narrow passageway in which he was standing.
He tried to sense if something was different. He closed his eyes and tried to observe the air around him, searching for clues about mana or anything else for that matter. However, he was only drawing a blank.
But how did the old granny sense something that he was not able to? He couldn't understand.
He decided to think about that later and first took a deep breath before punching the wall in front of him. He then immediately turned around and punched the one behind him as well.
Pa! Pa!
In the blink of an eye, the whole thing shattered, both front and back, falling down as bits of rocks.
When the dust cloud settled, lo and behold, there was indeed a passageway staring at him, just like the granny had said.
Howl! Immediately, a pack of chimaera wolves jumped forward before Liam had time to process anything. He did not bother dealing with these low-level cretins as he side-stepped them, leaving them behind for his soul minions.
He entered the main passageway with a gulp. Could it really be true? His heart was pounding loudly as he took one step after another, observing the surroundings.
He was still in the same cavern-like network, but the steps were inclined and winding, almost as if he was climbing onto a different floor.
As he turned the corner, he was actually on a different floor, basically with a similar layout of the dungeon, except that the chimaera wolves here were Level 20 and above.
"Motherfucker. I can't believe this." Liam smiled in disbelief at the scene in front of him. The information he had received was indeed true. The dungeon was not just a low-level beginner dungeon. It had another level!
Then, could it mean…
Liam's heart was still pounding as he picked up the pace and blasted through the second floor of the dungeon. While his soul minions attended to the mobs and the floor boss, he busily scanned the dungeon floor from top to bottom.
Howl! All the chimaeras were wildly incensed by this blatant disrespect, but they dropped down dead left and right before they could even get a chance to express this anger.
Meanwhile, Liam started from the dungeon entrance itself and repeatedly punched every inch of the walls that lined the pathway. Some of the walls collapsed, and some did not.
Those that collapsed also did not reveal anything spectacular, just another small cavern or loop. However, as he approached the main lair of the final boss, there was finally a change!
One of the walls crumbled to reveal a passageway that had inclined winding steps which lead further upstairs.
Liam clenched his fists in excitement as he felt his pulse quicken some more. He only took a step upstairs when another pack of chimaera wolves emerged.
And this time, they were Level 35 and above!
It was true! Everything was true! If he climbed higher and higher, he could actually reach Level 50 and stronger beasts?
Liam licked his lips. With a grin, he stepped forward confidently as he slammed the incoming beasts onto the sides of the wall and continued to walk forward as he reached the next floor of the dungeon.