Chapter 1464: Chapter 903: Duke’s Library.exe

"Rumble..."

The moment the lever was pulled, the huge lift began to slowly rise upward amid a faint trembling.

Adventurers who’ve been soaking in the Sain Dungeon year-round have summed up an experience: generally, the time they spend on the lift is when they’re relatively safest, with a high chance of not being attacked by Monsters.

Except for Sick Village. That damned place doesn’t follow this rule thanks to Blowguns.

"We can finally catch our breath here..."

Fingerley’s voice was tainted with exhaustion. With a dull "thud," he dropped straight down onto the lift, his Armor crashing against the wooden floor with a heavy sound.

As the lift slowly rose, his appearance gradually came into view.

The first thing that slowly came up from below was... a big boar’s head?

Wasn’t that the giant wild boar from just now?

Looking carefully, you could finally spot what was off: it was actually the giant boar’s steel helmet. This thing practically covered the Monster’s entire head, so from the outside it looked almost identical to a wild boar.

Fingerley was now wearing it as a helmet, and it looked like the thing had shrunk quite a bit to fit his head size.

This look really did not match his character setting at all, making it hard not to burst out laughing.

However, when the lift rose all the way up and revealed his Armor, hacked into pits and grooves and still covered with chunks of Crystal shards, you immediately understood why he had to put on that thing.

After all, no matter how ugly the Tusk Pig Helmet was, it was still a helmet, and it still had some defensive ability.

His own original helmet had already been beaten to tatters by the group beating from the Crystal Living Corpses and was no longer usable.

Thinking of this filled Fingerley with the urge to complain. He hammered the railing hard and muttered to himself:

"Those bastard Monsters actually know to aim for the head—this level of smarts really doesn’t match their looks!"

Maybe it was because this was Duke’s Library; the Crystal Living Corpses here all knew how to use tactics. Fighting them felt like dealing with Monsters more intelligent than the Giant Guards outside.

Fingerley couldn’t adapt in time. He failed to quickly clear out the Monsters, got surrounded in the blink of an eye, and ended up in a full-on group beating situation.

Thankfully, he had the Wolf Ring on his hand, which boosted his resistance to blunt trauma. Only because of that did he manage to tank the damage from the beating, break out of the encirclement, and butcher that whole pack of Monsters.

On a normal day, even being surrounded and pummeled by a dozen Living Dead Soldiers wouldn’t bother him much; he could just stand there and let them hack away, and they might still fail to break through his equipment’s defenses.

However...

"The Monsters on this floor are just pure brute force."

Those skinny, scrawny Crystal Living Corpses were all as thin and dry as withered branches, with Crystals growing all over them that looked like they’d seriously slow them down—yet somehow their movements were completely unaffected.

Not only were they about as fast as normal Living Dead Soldiers—usually slow and shambling, but going utterly berserk once they swung their weapons—their strength was many times that of a Living Dead Soldier. Combined with the hardness of those blue Crystals, this trio of factors directly bashed Fingerley’s Armor into a dented mess, with holes punched through in several spots.

What else could Fingerley do? He could only wear whatever equipment he had on hand.

"If I walk out wearing this thing, no one’s ever going to recognize me," he said as he stood up and rolled his shoulders. "But after putting on this helmet, I actually feel... kind of more wild and free?"

Deep inside, he felt a strong urge to charge ahead like a boar.

Isn’t there a saying, something like, "When you put on a mask, you’re also taking off a mask"? When what you’re wearing on your head is this ridiculous, even the wearer’s own personality is probably going to be affected.

"This should be the place. I can feel a thick wave of treachery rolling straight at me from the other side."

Spread out before Fingerley was a massive space so vast it exceeded imagination.

The floor here could easily compete for the title of cleanest ground in the entire Sain Dungeon. At a glance it was polished enough to reflect his own face; it was obvious quite a lot of servants handled the cleaning.

Taking up more than half the space were towering bookshelves reaching to the ceiling, row after row, line after line. These fully packed shelves formed something like walls of a city.

If the arrangement of these shelves were just a bit more chaotic, this place could easily turn into a full-blown maze.

[Duke’s Library]

Just as he showed a shocked expression, the Magic Words from the Sain Dungeon appeared along with it, probably the most perfectly timed entry yet.

Even just standing at the doorway without stepping in, Fingerley could feel countless Monsters using the dense bookshelves to hide their bodies, ready at any time to ambush him.

The Monsters in this library were even more numerous than those in the hall below.

And he could see, standing on the other side, a creature seemingly made entirely of Crystal, its shape like a musclebound gorilla. Just from its burly frame, you could tell its strength was terrifying.

Fingerley looked at the Dual Blades in his hands and started doubting whether these two blades could even cut this Monster.

How was this any different from using weapons to mine ore? Mining might not even chew up the weapon’s durability this badly.

"Really wish Matilda were by my side right now. Her Weapon is perfect for this kind of scene."

Fingerley sighed and took up a combat stance.

The next second, his figure shot into Duke’s Library like a whirlwind, his Dual Blades spinning into dazzling arcs of light as they shredded the Crystal Living Corpses blocking his path into fragments.