Demon King: Hero, don’t run away!

Following the leader, they continued to dive into the sea, where sandy patches spread across the seafloor, and slender seaweed swayed gently with the waves.

On the white seabed, a high archway built from sand marked the entrance to the Underground Maze.

In the Ocean Duchy, aside from the Underground Mazes found in the public sea which can be explored freely, those appearing in others’ territories require permission from the landowners to explore.

Therefore, most Underground Mazes are digested by the various races themselves, and if they cannot conquer them, they may halt the exploration or outsource it to adventure groups for collaborative efforts.

Through the Sentinel, Yang Yu learned that this Underground Maze had been explored up to the Ninth Floor, but strange mechanisms have prevented them from conquering the Ninth Floor.

This counts as an unfortunate blessing.

If the Underground Maze had already been conquered before Yang Yu arrived here, it would be quite embarrassing.

Under the leader’s guidance, Yang Yu and his team passed through the sand-constructed archway, walked along a narrow passage, and finally passed through a thin layer of bubbles, arriving at the damp first floor of the Underground Maze.

A new task quickly appeared on Yang Yu’s task panel:

[Underground Maze Strategy Task: [Will Hall]

Task Requirements: Conquer the Underground Dungeon Maze, defeating the Guardian on the final floor.

Rewards: Experience 50000, Gold Coin 100000, free attribute points +100, Skill Points +50]

This task is not much different from previous strategy tasks, yet one cannot conclude its difficulty right away.

The Will Hall’s first floor has been completely cleared out, and the walls have all been knocked down, leaving a clear view of the stairs leading up to the second floor.

Currently, only five Spiny Scale Lizards and sixteen Fishmen are stationed here.

At this moment, they are all gathered here to welcome the arrival of the officers.

Yang Yu gave a glance to He Meng, who had transformed into Chongdu, as Yang Yu had expected, He Meng asked the surrounding Spiny Scale Lizards about the Underground Maze’s situation:

”These Tamers are new here. Hope you can introduce this Underground Maze’s situation to them for easier exploration.”

”Alright.”

The leader responded and then began introducing the situation of this Underground Maze to Yang Yu and his team.

The initial strategy of this Underground Maze is not difficult, the first five floors are just ordinary monster fights for treasures, with monsters ranging from simple to difficult.

Starting from the Sixth Floor, the maze undergoes a drastic transformation, with the Seventh and Eighth Floors featuring bizarre elite monsters that require certain skills and knowledge to conquer.

For instance, some monsters have shimmering red spots appearing on them randomly, failing to hit the red spots renders normal attacks and skills ineffective.

For instance, some monsters mark others for one-on-one duels, only by being covered in blood and relentlessly fighting can they inflict substantial damage and kill the monster.

The Spiny Scale Lizards and Fishmen tried various methods before gradually discovering the strategy to fight up to the Ninth Floor.

However, the Ninth Floor is completely different from anything they have encountered before, particularly eerie.

Attempting to explain its precise nature is quite troubling, so the leader opted to let Yang Yu and his team personally see it to better understand the inexplicable eeriness in his words.

Descending floor by floor along the stairs, Yang Yu casually glanced around, arriving at the entrance of the Ninth Floor.

After finishing the last segment of stairs, Yang Yu was greeted by square after square of huge blocks, each three meters tall, laid out on an endless 20x30 chessboard.

Each square’s surface was incredibly smooth, drifting aimlessly across the chessboard.

”We tried pushing these squares before; at first, their speed gradually decreases until they fully stop for two to three seconds, then they move in the pushed direction.

When a box reaches certain zones, monsters emerge from other boxes to fight us.

But after defeating those monsters, nothing happens; when pushing the box again, a red box appears on the chessboard grid.

Continuing to push the cube, it leaves the grid, but the red box on the grid doesn’t disappear immediately, instead, it turns red over time, eventually glowing, triggering a frantic movement of the cubes.

Due to the random manner of the frantic movement and its fast speed, several of our fellow explorers have been crushed alive by the cubes.

Through multiple tests, we unanimously believe that the red box signifies some kind of dangerous signal.

It’s a landmine.”

Yang Yu asked, ”Have you tested how long it takes from the appearance of the red box to the random movement of the cubes?”

The leader nodded, saying, ”Of course we have tested it; the restoration time is entirely consistent.”

”Good, then let me ask you again, when the cubes reset, are the positions of every red box the same?” Yang Yu continued to ask.

The leader shook his head, ”Each time the cubes move quickly, the positions of the red boxes change. This is also one of the reasons why it’s difficult to advance in the strategy.”

Watching the slowly moving cubes, Yang Yu pondered the potential mechanisms and strategy methods the Ninth Floor might contain.

Seeing the squares, grids, and the red boxes that appear, Yang Yu first associated it with the box-pushing puzzle game.

If this truly is a box-pushing puzzle game, then it’s an advanced version of the Super Box-Pushing puzzle that not only spawns creatures but also resets itself, changing the map, and yet, one cannot see where the boxes should be pushed.

Besides...

Yang Yu conducted an experiment with Lotcar, where Yang Yu pushed with half his force and Lotcar pushed with full force, even using the 9999 power of the [Reverse Wheel]; the result showed that the ease of pushing the squares wasn’t directly related to strength but to the time of hand contact with the squares.

As long as the squares are continuously touched and sticking to one side to change to another side, it makes pushing the squares easily from the opposite side.

With this thought, some of the previously unclear issues for Yang Yu gradually became clear.

So that’s how it is; those monsters appear to disrupt the proceedings and merely getting the person pushing the squares to release their hands from the squares counts as success.

Given that the difficulty of pushing the squares is related to the length of contact time, once the squares change positions and reset, their speed surely cannot change swiftly.

This implies that once cornered into a dead end and failing to extricate timely, being crushed into paste by the squares is inevitable.

Yang Yu then considered the scenario where all squares circumvent the red area and are crammed into a dead end.

When all squares are packed into a dead end, it might only be possible to wait for the Underground Maze to refresh on its own to restore the positions of the squares.

However, Yang Yu has every reason to believe that the designer would set the red box in a compulsory area of certain dead ends, avoiding unnecessary time wastage.