A green monster card—Heroic Gargoyle!
Brock endured the stinging pain and reached out his hand. The monster card drifted into his palm.
A metallic texture met his touch as Brock examined the card closely.
Most monster cards were currently obtained from treasure chests, monster merchants, or ruins.
Although there was a chance for monsters to drop their corresponding cards, the probability was notoriously low. Adventurers generally held no hope of finding cards this way.
In reality, under Dalun Li's settings, the drop rate for elite monster cards was indeed higher than that of ordinary monsters.
Elite monsters were extremely rare. If the drop rate wasn't set higher, given the small number of elite monsters in the Well of Eternal Imprisonment, the odds would have been practically impossible.
[Heroic Gargoyle Lv. 1]. The back still featured the same complex pattern of overlapping diamonds.
The front had diamond-shaped lines that connected to form a rectangular border.
Inside the border was the image of the heroic gargoyle.
The background behind the heroic gargoyle at the center of the frame was no longer the white of a white card, but the pale green of a green card.
However, the heroic gargoyle in the card was only Lv. 1 and held no weapons.
This confirmed Brock's suspicion during the battle: the weapons held by the two heroic gargoyles were not a part of the monster itself.
A green card.
The level cap for the monster was increased from Lv. 10 to Lv. 20. Currently, green cards were exceptionally rare throughout the entire Well of Eternal Imprisonment.
Brock endured the agony in his shoulder and used the wall for support to push himself up from the ground.
Obtaining the green card for the heroic gargoyle was a pleasant surprise, to be sure.
However, the current situation remained quite grim.
The searing heat of the lava cave alone was enough to bake him dry; he couldn't survive in this environment for long.
Moreover, he was severely injured, and one arm was completely incapacitated.
Gasping for breath, Brock turned his head to look at his shoulder.
The gruesome wound he had sawn open himself was now covered by the vines of the wood armor monster.
Beneath the vines, the wood armor monster was slowly healing the wound.
The gash hadn't healed yet; the wood armor monster had merely managed to piece the flesh back together.
The healing process was constantly draining his mana.
Simply maintaining the wood armor monster's existence was a steady drain on his mana.
The continuous healing and reconstruction consumed even more of his mana.
Propping himself up with his staff, Brock quickly gathered the drops from the two heroic gargoyles.
Since the heroic gargoyles were elite monsters, the value of their drops was far higher than that of ordinary monsters. Judging by their appearance, they seemed to be fragments of stone armor.
Besides the drops, there were the two weapons the heroic gargoyles had used.
A greatsword and a halberd.
Both weapons pulsed with mana, marking them as mana equipment of significant value.
Brock walked toward one of the greatswords and pulled out the Heroic Gargoyle card.
“Heroic Gargoyle, summon!”
As the card was activated, a heroic gargoyle two heads taller than Brock appeared before him, looking mighty and imposing.
Brock commanded the gargoyle to pick up the greatsword from the ground.
Then, he deactivated the summon.
The heroic gargoyle reverted into a card and returned to Brock's palm.
However, the image on the card had changed; the heroic gargoyle was no longer empty-handed.
It now held a greatsword in its hands.
So they really can be equipped.
Brock then looked at the halberd that had previously pinned him to the wall.
However, a heroic gargoyle could only hold one piece of equipment, so he had to leave the halberd behind.
Brock didn't have the strength to carry an incredibly heavy halberd on his back.
After quickly gathering everything, he ignored the pain and continued deeper into the lava cave.
He had gained a Heroic Gargoyle card, but whether he would make it out alive was still a mystery.
Regardless, he had no room to linger here any longer.
Forward, he had to keep moving forward.
Sheer willpower pushed Brock to endure the blistering heat as he pressed on.
However, the cave only continued to descend, with no end in sight, while the environment grew hotter and hotter.
He could only keep his eyes on the map, following that single ray of hope downward.
The fireproof suit had been damaged in the previous fight, and its resistance to high temperatures and flames was compromised.
This made it harder and harder for Brock's willpower to hold out. He squinted at the map, but his vision was becoming increasingly blurred.
Damn it, I can't see...
Am I about to give in...
Brock tried to force himself to focus, but his body had reached its limit in the high-temperature environment. It wasn't something he could simply push through with spirit alone.
The world before him began to distort—a sign of impending shock and fainting.
His hand trembled uncontrollably, and the map slipped from his fingers.
This sight caused a sudden surge of adrenaline. He reached out to grab the map, but his willpower was at its limit, and his hand only grasped empty air.
He watched helplessly as the map drifted away, floating into the nearby boiling lava and being swallowed whole.
“Damn it!”
Brock couldn't help but curse as his body collapsed to the ground.
He was likely going to die here.
He couldn't go back; he had traveled too far, and turning back would only hasten his death.
He couldn't lose heart; he didn't have time for that.
Every second spent in despair was a second wasted, draining his already meager chance of survival.
Brock crawled back up, bit his lip, and continued deeper step by step.
Whenever he felt he was about to pass out, he would gnaw on his lip, using the pain and the taste of blood to stimulate his fragile resolve.
He kept going until his lips were a bloody mess and his skin was covered in burns from the heat.
Finally, the tunnel before him was no longer sloping downward.
This long-awaited level ground nearly brought him to tears.
He squeezed out every bit of his remaining strength and strode forward.
The view ahead widened, and Brock thought he saw a glimpse of the twelfth floor.
However, when he reached the end of the passage, it wasn't the twelfth floor that greeted him.
It was a sheer cliff.
And a cascading lava waterfall.
The lava waterfall stretched infinitely downward, plunging into an invisible abyss.
The heatwave kicked up by the waterfall baked him like an invisible wall of fire.
This was a dead end.
There was no path forward.
Rate on N.U.
