And they guessed it right. Ling Jiu was indeed planning to do just that. Rather than wait for the Greatmaw Ants to come out one by one, he might as well charge in... and kill them all in one fell swoop!
Simple and easy!
Moreover, while it may look risky, but it was actually very advantageous for Ling Jiu. The Greatmaw Ants’ numbers were astonishing, and if he was surrounded by a thousand Greatmaw Ants, even he would need to die.
Charging into the nest was a whole different ball game. The space inside the nest is limited, and the Greatmaw Ants cannot attack at the same time, so Ling Jiu would only need to face a couple at a single time, greatly reducing the pressure on him.
Things were as Ling Jiu expected!
After entering the nest, the Greatmaw Ants rushed over in a long line. It was a literal line as they came one by one to their deaths.
They were moving quickly and had charged forward in a blink of an eye. Yet there was only one facing Ling Jiu, and with a wave of his hand, a long spear shot out.
Dush!!
The Greatmaw Ant at the forefront had its head immediately impaled by the stone spear, and died on the spot.
Ling Jiu put its body away, and the second Greatmaw Ant charged forward. With another raise of his hand, another Greatmaw Ant was impaled by the spear.
The slaughter had begun.
Ling Jiu ran rampant inside the nest as he stood alone against the horde, and like a meatgrinder, he butchered the Greatmaw Ants rushing over with tireless abandon!
The butchering lasted little over an hour, and when Ling Jiu arrived at the deepest part of the nest, all three thousand Greatmaw Ants had perished.
The deepest part of the nest was the nexus of it. It was massive, much like an underground palace.
Yet, surprisingly, the place was bright, filled with milky white light.
“That’s...”
Ling Jiu’s eyes were attracted by the numerous light pearls at the center of the palace.
Each ‘light pearls’ had the size of a watermelon, and was thoroughly milky white, like it was the best white jade as they exuded a milky white light.
Ling Jiu knew that this was not any light pearls but instead Greatmaw Ant eggs. The ferocious Greatmaw Ants were all hatched from here.
“The eggs of the Greatmaw Ants are rich in lots of nutrients. In terms of price alone, a Greatmaw Ant egg is no lesser than one of their corpses!”
“So many Greatmaw Ant eggs, if I take them out and sell them off, I’ll make another big buck!”
Ling Jiu waved his hand and put away all of the Greatmaw Ant egg into the bag.
Krrreak!
At this moment, a sharp sound that sounded like a ripped-apart gong rang out and sent goosebumps all over Ling Jiu as his ears buzzed.
“The hell?”
Ling Jiu turned around and saw in a corner not too far away lay a mountain of flesh. Yeah, let us call it that because it was just too enormous!
It was 20 meters long, and 15 meters thick. Its body was thoroughly milky white as it lay there like a mess of rotting flesh and crept along extremely slowly. On the other end of it, was a tiny body of an ant.
“That’s ... the Queen? ”
Ling Jiu said to himself.
The Queen’s abdomen was just too big, like a white mountain of flesh.
And its upper body was about the size of an ordinary Greatmaw Egg, but its lower body and abdomen... was completely out of proportion, looking particularly distorted.
At this moment, the Ant Queen looked at Ling Jiu furiously, as flames of fury and hatred burned in its crimson eyes.
The Ant Queen was extremely intelligent and was actually the brains of the entire colony. She knew that Ling Jiu had killed all of its children, and now was taking away her eggs, that made her wanted to rip Ling Jiu into shreds.
“You dare to stare at me!”
Ling Jiu had no time for nonsense with the Ant Queen, as he ran a stone spear through the queen’s head. Looking at the ant nest again, the one had needed to be killed the most was the Ant Queen.
Only with the queen’s death would a colony die out. Otherwise, she would simply breed new swarms of ants.
...
“Captain Ling went in for a while now, why hasn’t he come out yet. Did something happen?”
“Alas! He’s still too young! Those are Greatmaw Ants, him rushing in like that means he probably ran into some mishaps...”
“Captain Ling’s coming out!”
The team members hurriedly turned and look and saw Ling Jiu casually walking out of the nest. His body did not have a speck of dust, nor any signs of sweat, and his clothes were intact.
Mishaps?
No such thing!
“Captain Ling, are you all right?”
“Do I look like I’m not?”
Ling Jiu shrugged.
“Team Ling, what about the Big Tooth ant colony? You won’t really be taken care of by you alone, right?”
“If not, then?”
Ling Jiu raised his eyebrow.
“Hiss...”
All of them gasped hard as they looked at Ling Jiu like they were looking at a monster. 3000 Greatmaw Ant, with seven to eight Class 4 ones, were all gone just like that?
“Captain Ling, you are really...”
Chen Feng smiled wryly. “Pardon my lack of education, that I cannot describe what I’m feeling now. I can only use the word ‘awesome’ to describe you!”
“Three thousand Greatmaw Ants! Killed by you alone! Awesome!”
“Yeah, awesome!”
“How is a single awesome even enough?”
Listening to the flurry of ‘awesomes’, Ling Jiu could not help but to roll his eyes. “You guys only know how to use awesome to express your emotions?”
“Hey hey! It’s not like we have a choice, we are not well-educated, so Captain Ling please don’t mind that!”
“Yeah, we’re caught up with the Direbeast Catastrophe not long after we were born, and did not have the chance to attend primary school! How will we know any other big words?”
“Yeah...”
“All right, all right!”
Ling Jiu shook his head. These guys were all in their thirties, and the Direbeast Catastrophe had only happened 30 years ago, so their generation really did not receive much education.
“Let’s go, we’ll continue to clean up the Direbeasts around Longquan Town!” Ling Jiu said softly.
“Yes, Captain Ling!”
Next, the entire team went on a frenzied clean-up sweep.
Ling Jiu had single-handedly done in all of the powerful Class 3 and Class 4 Direbeasts, and the rest were just scrubs that did not even needed Ling Jiu to take any action as the team members could easily deal with all of them.
At this moment, Ling Jiu saw all of everyone’s Arcanas. Earth Manipulation, Thunder Manipulation, Metal Manipulation, Tyranno-Form, Tungsten Form...
Ling Jiu’s focus was naturally on the Tungsten Form Arcana. Watching Meng Lijun morphing into that form, and bashing the Class 2 Direbeasts to death with his own eyes, Ling Jiu felt extremely greedy.
Supreme Defense...
A thirty times boost in strength...
It was a proper Steelskin Hulk!
“If I calculate it correctly, I only need to wait until tomorrow before I can replicate a new Arcana, then I can immediately copy Meng Lijun’s Tungsten Form Arcana!”
“With my Level 4 Arcanist strength, I should be able to unleash 100 times the strength than normal!”
“A hundred times the power!”
Ling Jiu licked his lips as a flash of excitement gleamed in his eyes. The power of the Tungsten Form was insane due to the fact that its defense and strength would continue to grow as one leveled up.
When Meng Lijun was a Level 1 Arcanist, he was able to use 3 times the strength; when he was a Level 2 Arcanist, it was 10 times.
Now that he was Level 3, he was able to unleash 30 times the strength, and when he reaches Level 4, it will be 100 times the strength!
In theory, as long as Meng Lijun becomes a Level 9 Arcanist, he could exert 10,000 times the normal power.
This was even more freakish than Emperor Might’s Pangu God Ant-form.
After all, Emperor Might’s Pangu God Ant-form only had the 10,000 times strength but not the corresponding super defense.
“Tomorrow, this Arcana will be mine!”