CHAPTER 269: CHAPTER 229: YES, BUT NOT COMPLETELY

"Awooo~!"

As the dust settled, Xiao Ying suddenly flicked its tail and jabbed repeatedly.

Thump thump thump thump thump~

Five small pits appeared on the sand.

Wang Chaoran and the others stared dumbfounded, shocked to find each pit contained a palm-sized earth-colored scorpion, crushed to death by Xiao Ying.

"Oh my god! The big boss’s pet is truly extraordinary!" the teammate exclaimed in awe, shouting ’666’.

Wang Chaoran nudged him with his elbow: "Didn’t you notice its tier?"

"What?" The teammate hadn’t paid attention before, but now, upon being reminded, he looked closely: "Awesome! Gold Level leader?!"

Xiao Ying flapped its wings and flew to the top of a land crest, observed for a moment, and swiped its tail horizontally.

Crack!

The upper half broke with the sound.

As the land crest fractured, it attempted to control its ability, dispersing the top part.

A stone platform was created by it.

"Awo!"

Following the same method, it carved another land crest into a similar platform. Xiao Ying landed on it, waving at the others to come up.

By now, Wang Chaoran and the others had noticed a dense "rustling" sound coming from the sandy ground around them, as if countless hard claws were tapping beneath the dust.

"Quick, everyone get on the platform, two people on each side!" the teammate shouted, turning to carry the injured Zhang Yue, regardless of her struggling, and tried to climb up by grabbing the edge of the land crest.

However, even with Xiao Ying slicing off the top half, the land crest was still nearly three meters high, and he couldn’t climb up while carrying someone.

"Chao Ran, come help lift me up!" The teammate had already seen a large number of scorpions emerging from under the sand nearby and was extremely anxious.

Wang Chaoran and Liu Li ran over, each lifting one side, using force to hoist them up.

Fortunately, they had all consumed genetic potions, enhancing their bodies.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to lift the weight of two people.

With two people supporting, the teammate finally grabbed the edge of the platform, exerting his arms, doing a pull-up.

When the height was sufficient, Zhang Yue released her hands, also grabbing the edge to support her own weight, making it easier for the teammate.

Then, Zhang Yue pushed hard with her arms, flipping herself onto the platform, turning back to pull the teammate up as well.

"Phew! Thanks." Safely reaching the top of the platform, Zhang Yue breathed a sigh of relief and quietly expressed gratitude.

The teammate nonchalantly waved his hand: "We’re teammates, no need to thank me."

On the other side, Wang Chaoran and Liu Li helped each other up to the top of the platform and shouted here: "Don’t just stand there, those scorpions are climbing up!"

The four of them almost simultaneously gripped their weapons again, attacking downward around the land crest platform.

The five scorpions crushed earlier by Xiao Ying seemed to have been scouts, only used to locate where these players were.

And now, in a very short time, a large group of desert poison scorpions had gathered, all emerging from the sand surface, spreading upward along the land crest like a tide, densely packed, numbering over five hundred!

Their hard arthropods seemed to have a mysterious attraction, even securely gripping the surface of the land crest while climbing swiftly, as if traversing flat ground.

This situation was not suitable for firearms to perform well, so the four of them uniformly used melee weapons to swing downward.

They didn’t aim to kill but just tried to prevent those scorpions from climbing to the top of the platform.

The desert poison scorpions were very small in size and lightweight, easily swept away in large numbers with a few casual swings.

Those falling scorpions dropped into the swarm below, rolling and continuing to crawl along with the swarm.

Drip drip drip

The sounds of arthropods hitting the surface of the land crest created a chilling sound, resonating as if endless and tireless.

"This won’t work!" Wang Chaoran shouted loudly, as despite their efforts, the damage to the scorpion swarm was almost negligible.

While the lightweight nature of the desert poison scorpions made it easy to sweep them away, it also made it difficult for melee weapons to break through their shells.

Zhang Yue, dragging an injured leg, was almost lying on the platform edge, swinging a single knife downward. Earlier, while dealing with a sting from a scorpion, she had cut an opening in the sole of her foot, which hadn’t healed yet.

After smashing a few more scorpions, she suddenly noticed that her weapon seemed more suited to slapping in this situation.

She then changed her attack mode, using the flat of the knife to strike a scorpion.

Slap!

The scorpion fell with a sound, appearing no different from those that fell earlier.

But she noticed with slightly brightened eyes that the crack in this scorpion’s shell seemed wider.

Immediately, she exclaimed excitedly: "Switch to blunt weapons, these scorpions are afraid of being smashed!"

"Got it!"

The group responded in agreement, quickly switching weapons, temporarily purchasing hammers, sticks, and similar weapons from the trading hall.

"Wait... crap!"

With Zhang Yue’s limited mobility, most of the defensive pressure was on the teammate, and being a step slower in buying weapons from the trading hall, a few scorpions broke through the defense, nearly reaching the platform edge.

"Don’t panic, stand firm!" Zhang Yue didn’t turn back, pressing a hand on the platform beneath her, activating her genetic ability!

Rumble rumble rumble!

The land crest platform shook non-stop from her strike, causing the teammate to slip and almost fall.

But this action also shook all the poison scorpions that had climbed onto the earth ridge off.

The friend steadied himself: "Oh my, is that a gene ability?"

With the defensive pressure alleviated, Zhang Yue checked the wound on her foot, discovering that it was starting to heal a bit, but had torn open from a few urgent kicks, bleeding quite a bit.

The blood loss combined with the high heat caused her to feel slightly dizzy. Forcing herself to stay alert, she explained: "It’s just a small Silver Level ability, causing small tremors on the ground, uses a lot of energy, and I can’t do it many times."

The friend scanned his half of the circle, saying: "It’s impressive you got it to activate. Both Chao Ran and I consumed two Silver Levels, all resulted in failure, luckily without serious negative effects."

"No serious effects... Then what about the not-so-serious ones?" Zhang Yue asked casually while quickly hydrating from a water bottle.

The friend paused his scanning: "Well, it shouldn’t really count as a negative effect..."

"My armpit hair fell out and won’t grow back."

"Pfft!" Zhang Yue spat out the water, incredulous: "Is that such a good thing?! I’ll try a few more times and see if I can get rid of my leg hair."

"I suggest you don’t try." said the friend sullenly.

"Why?"

The friend turned and pointed at his eyes: "Haven’t you noticed I don’t have eyelashes?"

Zhang Yue: "..."

The friend sighed: "Well, let’s just put it this way, aside from the hair on my head and eyebrows, all other body hair fell out!"

"That’s terrible!" Zhang Yue felt a bit sympathetic towards the friend, casually putting away the water bottle, checking for any scorpions climbing up.

Smack!

The friend swung a hammer, crushing a scorpion at the forefront: "What I’ve been through is nothing! Chao Ran’s side effect made half of his liver disappear instantly."

"What? Something that serious?" Zhang Yue was slightly taken aback, having consumed two items herself, with the first failing without side effects and the second successfully developing the "Aftershock" ability.

So she didn’t have a direct concept of the "side effects" mentioned in the attributes.

So hearing it from the friend now made chills run down her spine.

"Yeah, that’s why Chao Ran and I understand more than anyone how precious the genetic potion provided by Li Zheng is."

As long as you don’t recklessly use the potion across tiers, it won’t damage your body.

Such a method of steadily getting stronger, in Wang Chaoran and his friend’s eyes, was far more valuable than any genetic ability development tools.

What’s more, the price Li Zheng offered was really cheap.

Also thanks to Li Zheng’s genetic potion, Wang Chaoran and others had narrowly counter-killed under the claws of Silver Level creatures several times.

It could be said, without Li Zheng, they would have been dead long ago.

This is why Wang Chaoran protects Li Zheng so much, not allowing anyone to slander him.

The friend well understood Wang Chaoran’s actions.

After all, it was equivalent to multiple life-saving favors!

As time passed, the desert poison scorpions that could still move gradually became rare.

A large pile of shattered carapaces in various forms lay on the sand beneath the two earth ridges, their tail stingers gleaming under the sunlight, sprinkled green among the dirt-yellow shells.

"Looks like the difficulty of these levels isn’t very high." The friend smashed the last poison scorpion, taking out a water bottle for a few gulps.

Wang Chaoran and others also replenished water, each holding a sip in their mouth, not rushing to swallow, fully moistening their mouth and tongue.

He glanced at the dungeon exploration progress.

[Desert of Exhaustion, Exploration Progress: 25%]

"What?! Only 25% progress?!" Wang Chaoran exclaimed in surprise: "This is hundreds of Black Iron Level scorpions! And it only increased the exploration progress by this much?"

Liu Li speculated: "Could there be more small monsters to deal with?"

"Maybe." Wang Chaoran looked in the direction where Li Zheng had left, worried.

The General had been gone for nearly a quarter of an hour, and there was no news?

Could something have happened?

Looking up, Wang Chaoran noticed the small Sakura flying around above, playing merrily with the balloon tied to its leg.

Wang Chaoran: "..."

I take back what I said earlier, the General’s pet doesn’t seem very reliable, isn’t it worried about the General at all?

"Listen, there’s a noise." Liu Li suddenly spoke up from the side.

"What is it?"

Wang Chaoran snapped back to focus and noticed a deep buzzing sound coming from a distance.

Looking towards the sound, he saw a dark mass approaching their area from the horizon.

"What’s that?" The friend also noticed the anomaly, stood up to look.

In his sight, a "dark cloud" flew in from the horizon, and as it slowly approached, the deep buzzing sound became clearer.

Zhang Yue re-treated her wound, tightened the bandage, and looked there, puzzled: "Is it the second wave of monsters? This sound... Could it be hornets?"

Wang Chaoran gritted his teeth and purchased a telescope from the trading hall to look closely.

When he got a clear view of the approaching dark cloud, his expression changed: "Everyone be careful, the second wave of monsters is here!"

Putting down the telescope, he added: "They’re hornets, but not ordinary hornets!"