"Firewave Emission." Alex and Sherry created a giant horizontal fire tornado, sweeping everything inside the cave. "Good one, Sherry."
"Yes, Master," Sherry shouted in a happy tone. If she was in her half-human form, she might jump in joy after that praise.
"Don't celebrate too early you two. None of them die yet." Anna shouted as she went in front of them and slashed her scythe forward. "Dark Cut."
The dark wave flew toward the lizards that had been blown away by Alex's and Sherry's Firewave Emission. It had been two hours since Alex finished his array. Kyle's group took charge of the defense as soon as one hour was up.
Fabio's group escorted Anya to get to a safer place and met Alex's group on the way. The tunnel seemed to be longer than he expected because there were around one hundred meters between the frontline and the safe place. Alex vaguely noticed this because he was too focused on the lizards.
Anya had no report, so they quickly passed them without talking with each other. They knew their priority was to recover to make this battle easier.
After another hour, Alex finally took charge of the frontline while Kyle, Artur, and Jean pulled back to regroup with Anya and the others. And it had been another hour since Alex's group took over.
The situation wasn't really dangerous because they could blow the lizards away with their Firewave Emission. Although they had strong bodies, they never fought in their life. Just like a lizard that had been inside the cage for a few hundred if not thousands of years, knowing nothing other than getting stronger, the lizards were pretty easy to control.
Every time the lizards were closing in against them, Alex and Sherry used their flame to blow them back. Besides, they could rain them down with unlimited firebirds, making their job easier. Anna was there as a buffer to kill every lizard that somehow passed them.
"Blade of Conquest." Alex sent another Blade of Conquest by channeling the shockwave to the ground. This was the proper way to use Blade of Conquest. Obviously, the power inside this shockwave was stronger than when Alex used it as a sword wave.
Each Blade of Conquest could kill around five to ten lizards before they could stop them with their strong arms. Of course, Alex didn't use it that much because of the stamina reason.
After these three hours from Fabio's group, they hadn't seen a single big lizard again in this tunnel, so they thought the big lizard earlier was a special one.
At first, Alex was worrying whether the lizard would continue rushing to this place after this much ruckus or not. Considering it was a long tunnel from Alex's position to their nest, it was normal that no lizard would be bothered enough to come in. Luckily, the sound of explosions and other things kept echoing through the cave, alarming the rest of the lizards.
According to this rate, most of his Spirits should reach 10-Star Martial Monarch in this place. After that, he could use his EXP Cards to turn them into a Martial Monarch. When Sherry, Kyle, and he turned into Martial Monarch, The Black Devil Sect wouldn't be able to stop them.
This thought motivated him even further. He killed the lizard one by one, not letting even a single of them pass him. Besides him, Sherry mostly used Firewave Emission and Flame of Extinction because she didn't have any other fire arts.
"Sherry, how about learning other fire arts? I can search for one that suits you after this." Alex asked while swinging his sword.
"Hmm…" Sherry thought for a moment. All the fire arts in her repertoire were pretty versatile, except fighting underground like this, so she answered. "I don't particularly need one though since Master learned the fire art after putting in so much thought. Of course, I can't copy Master's Hell Inferno for various reasons, but if Master wants me to learn another fire art, I don't mind."
"Sure. I will pick one to add your firepower since Kyle had Fire Lotus Art from Stina. Maybe, I will also learn that, but who knows." Alex shrugged.
"Yes. I will master it as quickly as possible." Sherry nodded with a smile.
Alex nodded as he focused back on his enemies. Anna didn't have too much screen time because most of the monsters died before it could pass Alex and Sherry. She ended up watching these two from afar while sending her 'Dark Cut' from time to time.
After the two hours passed, Fabio, Vera, and Greg appeared right behind them. Greg said, "Young Master, please retreat. We will take care of here."
"Sure." Alex nodded without hesitation while Anna and Sherry followed him abruptly. Fabio and Vera crossed their swords and slashed downwards at the same time, sending a cross sword wave.
Unfortunately, Alex couldn't see it anymore because he already arrived in front of Anna. A hundred meters was nothing for a Martial Emperor. He asked, "How is your condition?"
"With this rate, I am sure I can hold on until we kill them all," Anya assured him with a smile.
"That's good. Just don't overwork yourself." Alex smiled before checking the others.
They kept rotating their members around and chipped away their number bit by bit. It was only after six rotations the True Spirit Body was finally undone. It was still Alex's group turn, but Fabio's and Kyle's group already appeared behind him, helping him in fighting the lizards.
Alex decided to have a thirty minutes break and continued fighting. The progress was according to the plan, and they started pushing them through the tunnel after they killed three thousand lizards. Because of the size of the tunnel, they split the group into two.
The first group would be the vanguard: Artur, Greg, Anna, Jean, Fabio and Vera. Alex and the rest were the second group, and their task was to bombard the enemies with their elements.
With how powerful and extraordinary these people were, the lizards were pushed back like none other. Surprisingly, they needed to cross a few hundred meters just to arrive at the other side. Alex confirmed such a nest existed with his Spirit Eyes before Artur made a move.
"Heroic Slash!" Artur released a sword wave and used it as a cover to break through the enemy's line. The nest was big, but he didn't have time to observe the nest because there were still enemies inside.
"We have arrived at their nest!" Artur exclaimed, looking at three giant lizards with six hundred normal lizards. He quickly reported their number to Alex.
"We are going back to the tunnel first and fight them until there are only three hundred left. We can then fight them in a bigger area to speed up the process." Alex quickly ordered after knowing their number. "Sherry, Kyle."
Sherry and Kyle understood their jobs with a single shout of their name as they made two hundred firebirds each. There were a total of six hundred firebirds, including Alex's, and all of them flew toward them at the same time.
"Scree Scree Scree!" A series of roars from the lizards echoed as they raised their arms to block the incoming firebirds after sensing the extraordinary heat coming from each of the birds.
"Boom Boom Boom!" The sound of explosions followed their roars. Many of them had their hands charred black, especially when Alex's firebirds hit them. After all, it was a Pure Fire Element. However, they seemed to be not very effective because it only killed less than twenty lizards despite using so many explosions. It might be because the firebirds were too scattered. Nonetheless, Alex was disappointed and retreated to invite them.
They quickly used the same formation to fight the rest. Alex couldn't say it was a hard fight nor an easy fight. After killing around four hundred lizards, they finally broke through their ranks and moved to a bigger place.
The one tasked to kill the three giant lizards were Alex, Artur, and Kyle. Alex finished the lizards by sending six consecutive Blade of Conquest with his Spear and Sword coupled with Triple Draws. The first destroyed the two arms with its overbearing power while the other three split the lizard into two.
On the other hand, Artur used his unique footwork to confuse the lizard and somehow made it trip. For a lizard who never knew how to fight, it wasn't a hard task for Artur. After that, he pierced the belly a few times until it finally died.
Kyle was the most brutal one. Like how Stina dominated the battle with her fire, Kyle had the same style… No, it could be said that Stina actually copied Kyle's previous life fighting style while Kyle copied her style. In other words, Kyle just copied his previous style, so it made him more comfortable in fighting because the fighting style was the accumulation of many battles. Of course, it was already in perfection.
Kyle used Fire Lotus again to blow away the two hands like the first giant lizard. He then used the Fire Blast, a fireball that turned into a laser, aiming it right at its belly. It was awful because it created a giant hole on its stomach as it slowly evaporated the blood that touched the remnant fire.
The lizard let out a shrill before it died. Those three joined the fight with the remaining two hundred which had been cut into half by the others. The battle didn't last for ten minutes.
"We should rest first before continuing the exploration," Alex informed after looking around.
"I shall be the lookout then. I haven't used my energy too much, so I am fine." Greg informed him.
"Thank you." Alex nodded before observing this big nest. The nest was around one kilometer wide and two kilometers in length. No wonder it could nest for a few thousand lizards in this space alone. Sadly, the lizards could only sleep and cultivate in this place, so they didn't have any combat prowess like the monsters on the surface.
At the end of the nest were two tunnels leading to the unknown. Alex was wondering whether to split their force into two, so they could explore both tunnels simultaneously, albeit many thoughts prevented him from thinking so. First, there might be another nest like this… the chance was low, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Second, in case they found something unordinary and related to Array, they would be clueless about it, and it would take a while to go to their place. In the end, Alex decided not to split and sat down, restoring his Spiritual Energy.
A few hours later,
Alex rose from the ground as he noticed that all of his spirits had fully recovered. Before talking to them, he had another job to do.
"Hmmm? We should have finished all the monsters nearby." Alex activated his Spirit Eyes to see through the wall, but not a single monster appeared in his eyes. "Should we get going?"
The others nodded without hesitation because there was no point in sitting here any longer. They needed to check this place before the Cultivation Place opened. And since they had wasted two days in the battle of Black Devil Sect and recovering, one week of waiting for the True Spirit Body, and two days for killing these lizards, they only had three days left.
If there were more monsters in the deeper area, it would be bad.
"Sure. Let's proceed." Anya nodded in agreement. "Keep using your Spirit Eyes to see if there is an ambush or not. Greg will detect if there is any metal nearby while Artur walks in front to check whether there is a trap or not."
"Yes." Greg and Artur clasped their hands and bowed to Anya. Then, the group began exploring the tunnel.