CHAPTER 81: DANGER RATING

Patting the dust off his body, Nash continued his trek.

Along the way, every dark beast he encountered was tortured to death as he extracted all their data.

He also didn’t pass up any herbs he found.

With the Crimson Eye Astral Art, his eyes were like treasure detectors, spotting every herb containing void energy.

Filling up the empty containers on his back, his walk became slower.

"It’d be better to have a storage device..." Nash sighed.

Unfortunately, the cheapest storage treasure usable in the Dark Plane costs a hundred thousand merits.

With his pockets clearer than his face, he couldn’t afford it without months of nonstop hunting.

Soon, as he was walking through the shallow water along the marshland, a huge monster lunged at him.

Fortunately, before waiting for his body to react, the [Combat Module System] took control and made him leap away.

[Giant Moss Alligator: Danger Level 5-star]

"Five-star danger level? How can that be? This is a four-star danger zone!"

Not wanting to face a monster the size of a car, Nash activated the [Overloading Module System] and ran for his life.

Fortunately, the alligator wasn’t as fast as him. After a few minutes of running, it retreated back into the water.

"Phew~ This place is dangerous!"

A four-star danger zone had a five-star dark beast? How could the Nova Government be this careless?

The notification and classification of each battlefield and dark beast were handled by the top leaders of the Nova Dark Battlefield—aka, the Nova Government.

From the name, scope, danger, description, all the details of the battlefield and the dark beast were in their jurisdiction.

Seeing a dark beast stronger than the battlefield’s danger rating, Nash figured those government soldiers probably hadn’t had time to update the information.

But thinking about how the Giant Moss Alligator couldn’t keep up with him, perhaps it was his understanding of the battle zone’s star rating that was wrong.

A battle zone’s star rating shouldn’t be entirely about the level of the dark beasts in it, but also how much danger they actually pose.

Otherwise, the Carrion Beetles wouldn’t be rated four-star danger but only one star.

Remembering the Giant Moss Alligator’s slow movements, Nash figured as long as he had a long-range weapon, he might be able to take it down.

He just wasn’t sure if a Tier 1 weapon could even break its armor-like scales.

Patting his nervous heart, he continued trekking through the marshland, collecting herbs and killing off every dark beast he found.

From snakes, birds, frogs, and carrion beetles to other bugs like crickets and spiders.

Fortunately, most of them had a danger level of 1 or 2 stars.

Slaughtering everything in sight, he soon encountered an obstacle.

"100... 200... 300... about 325 carrion beetles," Nash counted, hiding hundreds of meters away.

Although his eyes could see clearly within a few kilometers, unlike the Silver Forest, which was wide open with a few trees, this area had thick vegetation blocking his view.

Staring at the dense swarm of insects, Nash felt a little nervous.

Until now, the most dark beasts he had encountered at once were about 50 carrion beetles.

Facing hundreds of them, he wasn’t sure if he could handle it.

He still hadn’t updated the [Combat Module System] with the data he gathered on Carrion Beetles.

Needing to stay fully alert, he couldn’t let his consciousness work in the runic space while his body wandered around in the unknown.

Thinking of the hundred-plus merit points he could earn and the perfect-grade armor he was wearing, Nash finally steeled his heart.

"I can do this."

Circling around, he tried to see if he could pick off the carrion beetles one by one without the others noticing.

Unfortunately, these dark beasts moved as a group. As soon as he killed one, the rest turned their attention and began buzzing toward him.

"This is do or die!"

Knowing he couldn’t back down, Nash quickly brandished his blade spear, slashing and sweeping at them.

Having studied the anatomy of the carrion beetles, he knew it was best to aim for the joints, eyes, mouth, or under the shell.

Taking one or two strikes to kill a carrion beetle, some of them escape the gap of his attack, charging toward him to take a bite.

Activating the Blue Stone Armor, a barrier quickly wrapped around him, stopping the beetles from latching onto his body.

However, as they bit into the invisible barrier, he felt the void energy in his body being consumed faster and faster.

Knowing he couldn’t last long like this, he ramped up his attack, activating the [Overloading Module System] and the [Overclocking Module System], boosting his speed, strength, and reflexes tenfold.

With faster, sharper strikes, it took him less than a minute to wipe out about 325 carrion beetles.

"Huh~ Easier than I thought." Taking a deep breath, he calmed his racing heart.

With the perfect-grade armor and his runic modules, he felt confident, even if there were a few hundred more carrion beetles, he could handle them.

Once he had fully studied and input their data into the [Combat Module System], he was confident he could even take on thousands at once.

Feeling the ache from using the [Overloading Module System] and [Overclocking Module System], Nash sat down to rest and activated the [Recovery Module System].

Unlike in the past, when he would be in a critical condition, the 10x amplification only caused minor fatigue.

Unless he kept it activated for over ten minutes, he’d only need a few minutes for the [Recovery Module System] to bring his body back to peak condition.

As he rested, he sorted through his harvest, packing everything back into his bulging bag.

Soon, feeling his body fully healed and his stamina back at peak, he continued his journey.

He still had over three hours left to explore. Wanting to return with a full harvest, he pressed forward, ready to kill every dark beast in his path.