252 Cleared

After recovering their energy, they continued their way along the tunnels.

"Alex, do you see anything in the next room?"

"No, it is safe."

Alex answered Anna's question. They were crossing a tunnel that leads to another room where the ants swarmed them.

When they reached the room, they found out there were two passages, leading to another place.

"Now, which one should we go to? Left or right?"

Alex looked at the passage on the left with his Spirit Eyes but couldn't see anything. He turned to the right passage, but it was the same. He came to a dilemma.

"I don't see anything from both." Alex shook his head.

"So, where should we go?" Anna asked.

Alex tried to look at Putri and Fabio. They shook their heads, letting Alex choose. Alex pondered for a moment then said, "Left."

"Why?" Putri asked.

"Well... There is this saying back in my hometown. Although it is often used as a joke, it might be useful at a time like this. It says, 'Woman is always right.' Since I am a man, I should go to the left."

Anna and Putri were dumbfounded when they heard that. But Alex had started walking to the left passage. Fabio only giggled while following Alex.

After walking for a few minutes, they finally reached a dead-end. All of them immediately knew it was the wrong passage.

Anna immediately grabbed Alex and dragged him. "It is indeed right. We, women, are always right. You should just follow us."

... Ugh, it hurts.

Looking at them, Putri chuckled. Beside her, Fabio, sweatdropped. He was relieved that his wife wasn't here at the moment.

They then used the right passage and found it was really the right passage. Anna bragged about this continuously.

Unfortunately, they found another room like that, and Anna immediately chose the right passage. But this time, she was wrong as the group chose the wrong passage. This time, Alex was the one who dragged her while saying, "Like I said, it is often used as a joke."

Putri was laughing all along. In her eyes, they looked like a lovely couple... It wasn't 'look like',

This ant nest was really a labyrinth. But Alex thought they were lucky. If this was really a labyrinth or dungeon, there might be traps along the way.

They finally arrived after a day of searching. They killed another thousand ants along the way. But when they arrived at their destination, Alex could only see numerous signs of energy.

"There are many ants in front of us... their numbers were around two thousand. I'm afraid this fight will be long like yesterday," Alex warned them.

"I am ready," Anna said.

"An Ant spotted!" Putri suddenly shouted. Alex and the rest turned their head to see a bigger ant than the usual ants. Three meters high and ten meters long, its head was also big.

"It... it might be the queen... No, if I'm not wrong, it should be a general ant!" Alex said.

Putri didn't have any knowledge about this, so she was confused, "What is a general ant?"

"No time, let's kill it first," Alex said.

"Cree Cree!"

As expected, the normal ants were also with him. Fabio immediately charged at the general ant and swung his sword. But surprisingly, the ant was very sturdy. His sword didn't manage to cut its head.

It blew Fabio away, and Alex also did a follow up.

"Seven Stars Cut."

Even with its sturdy body, it couldn't stand a chance against Alex's Seven Stars Cut.

"Let's go."

Alex and the rest moved through the tunnel and found the nest. The nest was really huge. It couldn't even be compared to all the previous rooms they had found. It was more than one kilometer wide with two thousand ants inside. Of course, there were a few general ants too.

Alex saw a far bigger ant at the center of the nest. The ant had a pair of wings, and its size was twice that of general ant's.

Alex realized it must be the queen.

"Senior Sister, could you make a giant tornado in this nest? I will try to fuse my fire in it. We might be able to reduce their number significantly."

Putri nodded. She started controlling her wind energy. "Spirling Wind."

A huge whirlwind appeared inside the nest. It alarmed every ant inside the nest. Alex discharged his flame too. But, he used a gentle approach. The flame started spinning around the whirlwind.

It continued to expand until it became a huge fire tornado. It wrecked havoc on the entire nest.

[Gacha Ticket x1]

[EXP+ 8000]

[EXP+ 9000]

[EXP+ 5000]

...

It rained down EXPs and Gacha Tickets. That gust of wind alone managed to kill a few hundred of the ants. Of course, Putri started sweating. To maintain that huge tornado, she used a huge amount of Spiritual Energy.

"Senior Sister, rest first. There might be another chance to use it again," Alex said.

Putri nodded. She tried to recover her Spiritual Energy as soon as possible to help him.

"Fire Phoenix Art, First Stage. Phoenix Summoning."

Alex summoned his fire phoenix, and it flew toward the queen. One of the general ants suddenly appeared in front of the queen and blocked the phoenix with its body. The phoenix immediately engulfed the entire general ant's body.

"Cree Cree!"

The ants started swarming them. Anna and Fabio immediately moved to intercept those ants.

"Sherry," Alex called her to use the phoenix together.

"Wuu (Fire Phoenix Art, First Stage. Phoenix Summoning.)"

Two phoenix appeared and flew toward the queen. Another general appeared to block a phoenix. Another phoenix met a barrier of ants. The normal ants formed a wall to protect the queen.

They managed to kill a few tens of ants and one general with this attack. But if they continuously used this technique. They would be exhausted before they finished them all.

Alex jumped toward the nest. He summoned another phoenix and made it as he wanted to clear the ants away.

"Boom!"

He killed another few tens. But the phoenix just now wasn't for killing. Instead, it was for Alex to get some space to deal with those ants.

"Sherry, I leave the bombing to you. Kyle may have tried it too."

"Wuu."

"Chirp."

Alex started cutting the ants one by one. If they saw this scene, they might think it was foolish. After all, the ant was going to swarm him, and he wouldn't be able to escape from there.

But Alex was skillful. It was like he didn't have any pressure on his shoulder to cut those ants. He never got surrounded by the ants.

Alex didn't fight the ants like he was fighting thousands of ants. Instead, he fought the ant one by one, thousands of times.

It was different from a 1-vs-1000 fight with a 1-1 fight but a thousand times. Alex used this strategy to fight his way in this situation. It would be effective as long as Alex could finish it in a single blow and move to another.

Alex had been using his 'Fleeting Step' and his Sword Intent to kill the ant. He also had his absurd brute strength to boot.

Alex was a killing machine. He had been experiencing something like this, even in the lower world. He tried to search for the most efficient way of killing a huge number of enemies without exhausting his energy. This was the strategy he came up with as the solution.

After an hour, Alex started feeling tired. After all, he alone had killed almost five hundred ants. Alex glanced at Putri while killing the ants.

Noticing his glance, Putri nodded to him.

"Use it around here," Alex shouted.

Putri hesitated a bit but chose to trust him.

"Spirling Wing."

A whirlwind appeared around his area. Alex immediately flew away while releasing his flame.

Another killing tornado appeared inside the nest. Alex and the rest had killed two-third of the ants. His spirits had leveled up at least once. Surprisingly, Anna and Fabio were fine even though they became a Martial Lord.

Putri was shocked to see Anna and Fabio suddenly broke through to Martial Lord.

"System, this place is only for Martial Grandmasters... right?" Alex asked.

[Yes. But, because Anna and Fabio leveled up here, that condition is not valid. After all, it is only applied to the portal to come to this realm. As long as you have come inside the realm. You can breakthrough here. The only exception is for those who have been residing in this place. They are restricted to peak Martial Grandmaster]

"..." Coming here is really good. Because of the huge amount of monsters, this place had become his source of EXP.

They killed the ants in this place completely. He looked at a giant white door behind the queen. It must be the entrance of the white building. But, even so, he was so tired after fighting this much.

Anna and Fabio were in their best shape since they leveled up.

"We should rest a bit before entering the place. It is still unknown what kind of thing is behind that door."

Anna and the rest nodded. Anna and Fabio didn't need to rest though so they searched around to see if there was something noticeable.

...

On the surface, a group of people consisting of ten women flew around the area.

"Senior Sister, why are we flying around like this? We only got a few treasures in this place. We should get back to the white building and complete a few more quests." One of the girls complained.

The leader of this group was a gorgeous woman with light blue hair. She had big blue eyes, a small nose, and cherry lips. She wore a pure white dress.

"If you guys want to go to the white building again. It's up to you. But make sure you group up first," she said.

The others looked at each other, trying to make a decision with just eye contact.

"Then, Senior Sister, we are going back."

She was surprised to see eight of them wanted to come back. She thought at least half of them might stay with her. But it seemed that the temptation was too big.

She looked at the only one who didn't leave. She had beautiful purple hair tied into twin tails. She wore a black shirt and a black miniskirt.

"Are you not leaving?" The leader asked.

She shook her head, "I will follow you, Senior Sister."

She nodded. Both of them flew again, and before long, they suddenly smelled blood.

"!!!"

They looked at each other and decided to descend carefully. They found ten corpses in the area. And they recognized one of them. The corpse had lost one of its hands. Even though it had been more than ten days, cultivator corpses had yet to root.

"This... isn't this the Zhou Kingdom's second prince?"

"Who killed him?"

They started searching for their surroundings and found a green array on the ground. They were shocked as there wasn't any information about this array.

"Senior Sister, should we go there?"

"..." She also hesitated about this. Eventually, she nodded, "This might be the entrance of the white building. Because it is far away from the building, no one has been able to find it yet. But looking at the corpses, we should be careful. If anything dangerous comes, we will immediately retreat."

The purple-haired girl nodded her head. They went inside the array, and suddenly they got teleported to the underground.

"Kya!"

They were shocked to see they were teleported. Not long after, they reached the bottom of the passage. They gulped down.

"Let's go."

The purple-haired nodded anxiously, and she became tense because of the sudden situation.

They walked quite a while and found a room full of ant corpses. They were shocked to behold such a sight.

"Senior Sister?"

"It seems there is another group that finds this entrance. I am assuming they were the ones who killed these ants. Be careful."

"Ye-yes."

They proceeded carefully, going left and right like Alex's group. They were shocked when they found the number of ant corpses. If it were their group that encountered such a situation, they might not be able to defeat those ants and be forced to retreat.

But they didn't find any human corpses. So, they thought the group must have survived and continued.

They didn't know about the other passages since the entrance itself wasn't flashy. She only found the entrance because of the smell of blood and the corpses there. If not, she might not be able to find this passage. She was very lucky.