Chapter 54: Abandoning the Dwarf King's Ring

"How do we get to the second floor of the Bone-Burial Dungeon?" Lin Yuan asked.

"There is a maze right behind the main prison. The entrance to the second floor is at the very end of the maze," Xu Xia replied.

"So we have to get through the maze just to reach the second floor? A puzzle game on top of it all, what a headache!" Lin Yuan scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, the guides already list five different clearing routes for the maze, and the maze changes every time we enter the abyss, so we'd have to try them one by one."

Although Xu Xia had never entered the abyss himself, as a native of Wancheng, he was intimately familiar with the Bone-Burial Dungeon since it was essentially the abyss right in his backyard.

"Such a waste of time," Gu Chen shook his head. "I want to use a different method."

"What method?"

"I saw it in a guide once. There is a stone statue right at the entrance of the maze. If we place the Dwarven King's Ring on the statue's finger, we can go straight to the second floor."

"True, the statue will temporarily revive once it gets the Dwarven King's Ring, but the entrance to the second floor will only appear after we defeat the statue!" Xu Xia said hastily.

After slaying the Beast-Corpse Chieftain, two Rare-tier pieces of equipment had dropped. One was the Dwarven King's Ring, which boasted highly impressive stats and effects.

The other was the Mithril Armor, a piece of gear for warrior-class professions, which Gu Chen planned to list on the professional trading platform as soon as they left.

[Dwarven King's Ring]
[Quality: Rare]
[Level: LV.16]
[Stats: Strength +30, Agility +30, Constitution +30, Spirit +30]
[Effect: Increases damage dealt to Dwarven units by 100%]

The exotic creatures in the Bone-Burial Dungeon were mostly crafted from dwarf corpses and orcs. This meant that simply by wearing the Dwarven King's Ring, one would deal double attack damage to every single subsequent exotic enemy.

With +30 to all stats and a 100% damage boost, this assistance was unprecedentedly powerful. Consequently, ninety-nine percent of professionals would rather test the maze over and over again than give up this ring.

Yet for Gu Chen, since he was aiming for the record-breaking reward, he simply refused to fuss over such trivial matters.

It was just a Dwarven King's Ring; +30 to all stats was negligible to him, and as for the doubled damage against dwarves, it was hardly an unbearable sacrifice.

After all, the Corpse Revenant Golem had already evolved into a Legendary-tier summoned beast, and the assistance it provided was certainly far beyond the reach of a mere Dwarven King's Ring.

"Every deeper level of the Bone-Burial Dungeon increases in difficulty exponentially. The Dwarven King's Ring provides a 1x damage bonus, making it an extremely vital tool for clearing the later stages," Xu Xia persuaded from the side.

"Besides, the entity awakened by the Dwarven King's Ring is a Level 20 stone statue with immensely powerful strength and terrifying damage output!"

"A Paladin with 60,000 health points was once killed in a single hit by one of its skills; absolutely no one can withstand such terrifying damage."

Gu Chen didn't say much. He demonstrated his intentions with actions, walking straight toward a stone wall located behind the main prison.

A square hole was carved into the stone wall, serving as the entrance to the maze. Next to it stood a stone statue of the Dwarven King, clad in armor and wearing a crown, with a massive stone hammer slung across its waist.

Without hesitation, Gu Chen placed the Dwarven King's Ring directly onto the statue's finger. A flash of light rippled across the statue, and its limbs began to stir, coming to life as if it were truly alive.

Immediately afterward, the Dwarven King stone statue let out a booming shout and stepped forward, gripping its giant hammer.

"Challenger, are you the one who wishes to duel me?" The Dwarven King stone statue glared with its copper-bell-sized eyes, fixing its gaze entirely on Gu Chen.

Seeing this, a look of wary apprehension instantly surfaced on Xu Xia's face.

[Exotic Creature: Dwarven King Stone Statue]
[Level: LV.20]
[HP: 85,200]
[Stats: Strength 310, Agility 177, Constitution 192, Spirit 170]
[Skill: Warhammer Impact]

A Level 20 ordinary exotic creature with 85,000 health points.

Piece of cake!

Gu Chen remained silent. With a mere thought, two bolts of black light erupted from the Corpse Revenant Golem, instantly landing on the Dwarven King stone statue.

Since the stone statue was not a living biological entity, [Black Death Plague] failed to take effect immediately.

However, under the influence of [Utter Exhaustion], the Dwarven King stone statue's stats were suddenly halved, and the damage it received was increased by 100%.

Sensing the negative status afflictions weighing upon it, a look of intense fury flashed across the statue's rugged face, and the massive stone hammer in its grip blossomed with a brilliant golden light.

[Warhammer Impact]

The gigantic golden stone hammer smashed fiercely down toward Gu Chen.

Watching the incoming attack hurtling down at blinding speed, Gu Chen showed no intention of dodging whatsoever.

Xu Xia, watching from the sidelines, turned pale with shock and let out an involuntary exclamation.

At that exact moment, Gu Chen's figure vanished instantly, replaced by the Nightmare Sovereign appearing right in front of the Dwarven King stone statue.

Boom!

The golden warhammer crashed down. The black mist enveloping the Nightmare Sovereign churned violently; because it was an energy entity, the physical damage dealt to it was pitifully minimal.

Following closely, the black mist expanded as ten dark phantoms instantly coiled around the Dwarven King, shrouding the stone statue in thick, rolling darkness within the blink of an eye.

[Annihilation Instant Kill]

The Nightmare Sovereign unleashed its skill directly, stacking ten times the damage, plus the additional 100% damage bonus from [Utter Exhaustion], causing the Dwarven King stone statue to instantly suffer twenty times the skill damage.

Boom!

A heavy, mournful wail echoed through the dungeon. While no external damage was visible on the surface of the Dwarven King stone statue, its pool of 85,000 health points was instantly depleted to zero.

The next second, the radiance faded from the statue's surface, and it stepped back to take its original position.

[Duel Won]
[Defeated LV.20 Dwarven King Stone Statue, EXP +3,687]

The stone statue turned around, and the stone hammer in its hand suddenly burst with golden light, smashing fiercely into a nearby section of the wall.

The wall shattered, revealing a massive opening leading into a deep flight of stone stairs descending into the darkness.

The dwarf stone statue withdrew its hammer and returned to its original posture, while the Dwarven King's Ring on its hand vanished completely.

Looking at the stone steps leading down to the second floor of the dungeon, a smile appeared on Gu Chen's face. Yet Xu Xia, standing beside him, had yet to recover his composure.

"A duel with the Dwarven King stone statue... and it's already over?"

The legendary Dwarven King stone statue renowned for crushing a Paladin with 60,000 health in a single blow had been instantly killed by a single skill from the Nightmare Sovereign?

Xu Xia felt as though he were dreaming, yet the thought of Gu Chen leading them into the first-floor main prison—where three summoned beasts went on a wild killing spree and ruthlessly slaughtered the Beast-Corpse Chieftain amidst a tidal wave of beast corpses—flashed back into his mind.

"Who would have thought a Summoner could be this terrifyingly powerful? No wonder he was so confident, challenging a Nightmare-grade abyss right off the bat."

Xu Xia gazed at Gu Chen with complex emotions. Although he was not a professional class-holder himself, he had genuinely and personally witnessed Gu Chen's overwhelming might.

This level of strength completely shattered his previous understanding of professional class-holders.

"Shocked? We've barely even started!"

Lin Yuan stepped forward and patted Xu Xia on the shoulder. "Let's go, to the second floor of the dungeon. The real fight is still ahead of us."

A large swarm of vampire descendants surged into the opening, stepping onto the stone stairs and pushing downward into the abyss below.

Gu Chen checked the time; exactly one hour had passed from the moment they entered the abyss.

At this rate of progress, the record-breaking reward was absolute certainty.

With a wave of his hand, his three summoned beasts followed closely behind as Gu Chen led Lin Yuan and the others down toward the second floor of the dungeon.