My Computer Leads to an Instance Dungeon-Chapter 62: Fear of Darkness

BANG!

A Crossbow Arrow pierced through the back of the Dogman Scout’s head and exited from its forehead, throwing its whole body forward.

As luck would have it, as it fell, it knocked over the candelabra in front of it.

The Dogman Scout was quite tall, and its body landed on top of the candelabra.

Instantly, all the candles on the candelabra were snuffed out, and the light abruptly dimmed.

The Dogman Miners, who were still in the middle of their mysterious ritual, were completely bewildered, having no idea what had just happened.

Fang Zhen had already switched the Dragon Gall Crossbow to its repeating steel ball mode.

Practice makes perfect. Using the repeating mode for the second time, Fang Zhen was much more adept. He felt the confident certainty of an expert, a belief that he couldn’t miss.

His hands moved with increasing dexterity. He could now load, aim, and fire in just under two seconds.

Fang Zhen might truly have a talent for projectiles. Without even using a scope, relying purely on his naked eye and intuition, his second steel ball blew another Dogman Scout’s head apart.

Then came the third shot, and the fourth.

In less than six seconds, Fang Zhen had fired four consecutive shots.

Both Dogman Scouts were killed. One Armored Dogman Warrior’s left eye was blown out, while another took a steel ball to the head. It wasn’t a fatal shot, but the ball was lodged in its skull, and the pain made it stumble. The candle in its hand had long since slipped from its grasp and fallen.

In less than seven seconds from his first shot, Fang Zhen had extinguished all sources of light at the scene.

At the scene, Fang Zhen heard the terrified, panicked shrieks of the Dogman Miners. The situation was utter chaos.

Inside the mine, with the light sources gone, they were plunged into deep darkness.

Fang Zhen remained immersed in concentration. With his left hand, he pulled down the eyepiece of the thermal imager over his right eye, activating thermal vision for both eyes.

Everything in the mine turned black, but the heat emanating from the Kobolds’ bodies turned them into distinct, white, humanoid targets.

The Kobolds barked madly, thrown into a panic. They were in a state of extreme terror. In Fang Zhen’s thermal vision, the Kobolds were running around everywhere.

Fang Zhen held the Dragon Gall Crossbow with both hands, focused and calm, continuously loading, aiming, firing, loading.

Having gotten into the zone, Fang Zhen entered a flow-like state of continuous fire.

He fired.

The Kobold closest to Fang Zhen convulsed and collapsed.

A headshot. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Fang Zhen reloaded.

Every shot he took downed a Kobold. His accuracy was incredible.

It seemed his combat intuition was having a subtle chemical reaction with his continuous use of the Dragon Gall Crossbow.

Fang Zhen had a premonition that he was on the verge of awakening some kind of skill.

Fang Zhen kept up his continuous fire, sniping the Kobolds from the tunnel entrance.

"AWOOOOOOOO!"

The Kobolds’ cries were a mixture of shock, anger, and fear—no different from the sound of a stray dog being chased and beaten.

Under the constant attacks and the even more terrifying darkness, something strange began to happen among some of the Kobolds.

Fang Zhen was aiming at a Kobold with his thermal imager when, before he could fire, another Kobold running terrified in the dark slammed into his target.

The next moment, Fang Zhen saw in his thermal vision that the Kobold that had done the colliding suddenly began to bark maniacally. It then grabbed the other Kobold and, opening its mouth, started biting it ferociously.

’What?’ Fang Zhen’s eyes widened, and he stared for an extra second.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. Several Kobolds that had bumped into each other began to savagely tear at one another. The scene was pure madness.

’Is this the terror of having no light source?’

’Did these Kobolds’ SAN values just hit rock bottom, driving them completely insane?’

In that moment, Fang Zhen suddenly understood.

For the Kobolds, darkness was a source of endless terror—an existence even more unbearable than Hell. The fear, accumulating over time, had finally shattered their nerves.

When fear reached its peak, it turned into madness.

It was the equivalent of their SAN values being completely depleted.

The Kobolds, driven mad by fear, had lost all reason. They likely perceived everything in the darkness as an enemy. They attacked indiscriminately, not even checking if it was one of their own kind, driven by a primal instinct to gnaw on whatever they touched just to alleviate their own extreme panic.

It was the same logic as a drowning person who, regardless of whether someone is trying to save them, will instinctively grab onto anything that floats—even a single straw—often dragging their would-be rescuer down to die with them.

Though Fang Zhen understood all this, his hands didn’t stop.

He continued to load the Dragon Gall Crossbow and fire in rapid succession.

After felling another six or seven Kobolds, Fang Zhen suddenly found it difficult to continue his barrage.

He had already taken down nearly all the easy-to-hit Kobolds within his effective range.

The ones that remained were either beyond the Dragon Gall Crossbow’s effective range or had scurried into nooks and crannies, making them difficult to hit.

Fang Zhen scanned the area. In Mine Tunnel B, he had killed or downed fourteen Kobolds. Fifteen or sixteen were still alive, but he didn’t know if the Dogman Priest was among the dead.

Fang Zhen wanted to keep sniping the Kobolds in the dark with his thermal imager. The feeling of being the only one who could attack was just too satisfying.

He tried to shoot the easiest target within his line of sight.

The steel ball from the Dragon Gall Crossbow flew out, but the target was almost fifty meters away from Fang Zhen. Beyond that distance, the steel ball’s trajectory became unstable, and it began to drift and drop.

The steel ball grazed the cheek of the Kobold Fang Zhen was aiming for and flew past.

It was Fang Zhen’s first miss.

Fang Zhen let out a soft breath through his nose.

’Beyond forty meters, the ball’s trajectory drifts, and its power drops off.’

Facts were facts; he didn’t have the skill to reliably hit targets beyond that range.

Moreover, the Kobolds seemed to have regained some sense of direction and were all retreating deeper into the mine.

If this kept up, all the Kobolds would escape.

Fang Zhen gave up on the idea of sniping every last Kobold in Mine Tunnel B with the Dragon Gall Crossbow in the dark.

He took a breath and then blew hard into the dog whistle in his mouth.

As the dog whistle sounded, Fang Zhen thought he could perceive something—a sharp, piercing, yet tiny sound, like that of a mosquito.

However, that was only what Fang Zhen perceived. Through his thermal imager, he clearly saw the Kobolds in the mine stiffen for a moment. Then, looking even more agitated, they abruptly turned and charged toward his position, barking furiously.

’It actually works!’

Fang Zhen’s brow twitched; the dog whistle was effective.

The Kobolds in the mine were now all rushing toward the tunnel where Fang Zhen was located. They barked madly as they charged, their cries filled with agitation, madness, and aggression.

Fang Zhen couldn’t tell if the fear had stimulated the Kobolds’ potential, but he could clearly sense that their running speed had increased.

While still blowing the dog whistle, Fang Zhen kept firing the crossbow, letting loose two more shots.

The Kobolds were back within the crossbow’s range.

But just as Fang Zhen downed two more Kobolds, his heart suddenly clenched. A powerful sense of unease washed over him.

Without stopping to figure out why, Fang Zhen instantly sidestepped, following his intuition and ducking behind a rock at the tunnel’s entrance.

Less than a second after Fang Zhen dodged to the side, a Flaming Arrow shot over, transforming into a blazing inferno as it exploded at the tunnel entrance.

Instantly, sparks flew everywhere. The rock at the tunnel entrance shattered, and shards of stone struck Fang Zhen’s face.

Fang Zhen felt a sting of pain on his face and wondered if he’d been cut by the flying debris.

’Magic!’

A chill went down Fang Zhen’s spine!

Fang Zhen snatched the long spear from the ground, simultaneously switched on the tactical flashlight attached to his belt, and turned to run.