Now, Zhao Lin's group consisted of nine people.
Aside from himself, the remaining eight were already his backup proxy targets.
Zhao Lin happily made a quick estimate of how many people were left in the dungeon.
Wu Su must still be alive.
But after so much time, he still hadn't caught up, which meant he must have taken another path.
After some thought, Zhao Lin decided not to look for him for now.
With eight people still by his side, there was no need to rush.
Over the next period of time, Zuo Lin'an did not show up.
After all, when Zhao Lin and the others were at the lowest level of the mine shaft, they had already experienced the specter blocking their path many times to make them change directions.
They wouldn't be easily frightened anymore.
Since that was the case...
After discussing it with Fang Tang, Zuo Lin'an came up with another excellent way to stall for time.
Four-thirty in the morning.
Zuo Lin'an's specter body stood in a mine shaft.
Holding a boning knife in his hand, he surveyed the mine shaft's condition, then began swinging his knife at the ceiling and the walls.
In about a minute, a large amount of rubble fell, blocking the path.
Although Zhao Lin could still use his art of Qi-gazing to determine that the blocked shaft was the correct way out, clearing enough of the rocks to pass through would definitely be necessary.
And that would take some time.
“No matter what, it'll easily take them ten minutes or so, right?”
Zuo Lin'an made a rough estimate.
Furthermore, damage of this scale wouldn't cause any major issues to the mine shaft itself.
As it turned out, his estimate was spot on.
When Zhao Lin's group arrived and saw the blocked mine shaft, they didn't change directions. Instead, all nine of them worked together and spent about thirteen minutes.
They only managed to clear less than half of it, but it was enough to squeeze through.
Fang Tang was delighted to see how effective it was.
With a beaming smile, she slapped Zuo Lin'an's arm repeatedly.
“Great, great, great!”
“Just do that! Go hunt players on the hour, and spend the rest of your time collapsing the mine shafts ahead of them. Keep your movements subtle and minimize the damage as much as possible.”
She began to calculate excitedly.
“Thirteen minutes each time—ten times is a hundred and thirty minutes, over two hours!”
“If you do it more often later...”
“Haha!”
The thought of the players spending half the day just clearing buried mine shafts made it impossible for her to suppress her grin.
Seeing how excited she was, Zuo Lin'an stepped back slightly.
Lest she start slapping his arms and shoulders again.
Time flew by, and soon it was five o'clock.
This time, Zuo Lin'an chose to attack Zhao Lin.
Naturally, the outcome was the same as the previous attempt.
【Player talent triggered successfully. Your target has been redirected. You may only attack this target from now on, until either their debt of gratitude to Zhao Lin is settled, or they die and the curse seed within them vanishes.】
He glanced at the dungeon notification, smoothly shifted his target, and went after another player.
With this, Zhao Lin's group lost another member.
Shrinking from nine people to eight.
At six o'clock, another was gone.
At seven o'clock, another casualty.
At eight o'clock...
All the way until ten o'clock.
From five to ten, Zuo Lin'an killed a total of six players.
Zhao Lin's group had originally consisted of nine people, including himself.
But now, only he, Li Zhuang, and a female player named Zhou Xin remained.
Zhao Lin's face was visibly dark.
He pulled out his phone and took a look.
“Ten-five.”
“The specter just killed another person.”
“By now, you two must have realized it, right?”
Li Zhuang nodded with a solemn expression.
“It's the time.”
“That specter hunts a player every hour on the hour. Moreover, it's immune to talents and specter items with repel effects, though it isn't immune to control effects.”
They had witnessed it with their own eyes when the specter hunted the other players.
This specter was incredibly troublesome!
They couldn't kill it, and they couldn't escape it.
Zhao Lin sighed.
“Even if we know its Death Rule, there doesn't seem to be any way to guard against it. The only thing we can do is get out of here as fast as possible and find the exit.”
Zhao Lin turned around.
“Let's go. Stay sharp.”
Li Zhuang and Zhou Xin quickly followed.
However, before long, the three of them suddenly stopped.
When Zhou Xin saw the mine shaft ahead blocked by rubble, her entire face scrunched up in anger.
“Brother Zhao, Brother Li, another cave-in blocking the way. Why does this keep happening?”
“There weren't any of these when we first started...”
Li Zhuang snorted coldly.
“Why else?”
“It's obviously the specter's doing!”
“Although the specters in dungeons don't have much intelligence, they're still capable of simple tricks.”
“Previously, it kept blocking our path and faking attacks just to force us to change directions and take the wrong paths, thereby stalling us from reaching the exit.”
“Now that it realized the old method doesn't work anymore, it came up with a new one.”
Li Zhuang said helplessly.
“I have to admit, although this method is simple, it's highly effective. When there were nine of us, we could clear it in ten minutes or so. But now...”
Now, they were down to just three, and every cleanup required far more time.
Zhao Lin pointed toward the very top.
“Let's keep going. Clear the rubble from the very top. It doesn't need to be very wide, just enough for us to crawl through. That will save us a lot of time.”
They had started doing this once their numbers dwindled to five.
By now, Zhao Lin and the others were already on the eighth underground floor.
And their current location was already very close to the seventh underground floor.
If things went smoothly, at their current pace, they would be able to enter the seventh underground floor in a little over half an hour.
As for Wu Su, he was still in the middle of the eighth underground floor.
His method of capturing the stray spiritual energy was indeed viable.
However, compared to Zhao Lin's art of Qi-gazing, it was still a step behind.
Yet, because Zuo Lin'an had been busy targeting Zhao Lin, Wu Su hadn't encountered any danger along the way, allowing him to make smooth progress.
Meanwhile, Su Menglan had been following Zhao Lin's group by tracking their footprints. Because he kept a slight distance, Zhao Lin and the others had yet to notice him.
At this moment, on the fifth underground floor.
Zuo Lin'an and Fang Tang's living bodies were here.
Fang Tang counted on her fingers.
“I remember Su Menglan's talent expires at eleven-five, right?”
Zuo Lin'an nodded.
“Yes. But since it's only just past ten, if I were to make a move on him, I'd have to wait until twelve.”
Fang Tang muttered.
“My specter body's recovery time is 1:53 PM. We might as well let him live for a few more hours.”
Zuo Lin'an looked at her.
“So, you want to kill him yourself?”
Fang Tang gave an affirmative grunt.
“Exactly. I did it before, and I'll do it again this time.”
Zuo Lin'an naturally wouldn't object.
“Then who do you want dead at eleven o'clock?”
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