Only after the Graystone Beetle swarm and the two kobolds vanished from the four beings' sight did they exchange glances, their eyes still filled with confusion.
"...What was going on with them?"
"I heard that human say earlier that he had companions. Could those have been the two kobolds?"
"A human actually teaming up with kobolds? That's pretty rare."
"Isn't there a kobold in our own party? What's so rare about it?"
The Elf Boss did not think much of it.
A Huang, the kobold, exchanged a glance with the human man and grinned.
"From the looks of it, did that human accidentally provoke a nest of insects, and now those two kobolds are helping him kill the Graystone Beetles?"
"We kobolds are loyal and righteous!"
A Huang looked deeply moved.
"Just like us!"
The tall, thin elf nodded as well.
"Alright, let's not disturb them. Let's head in another direction."
With a wave of his hand, the Elf Boss led the way toward another passage.
Time passed. More than an hour later, the intense running had left the two kobolds panting nonstop.
They looked ahead and saw that the Graystone Beetle swarm had grown even larger.
There were already over thirty of them, an enormous and terrifying mass.
After all, they kept encountering other Graystone Beetles along the way. Lu Yuan had no chance to kill them and could only avoid them, so all those Graystone Beetles had merged into the main swarm.
The Gene Warriors they encountered along the way all kept their distance when they saw so many Graystone Beetles.
Everyone looked at Lu Yuan leading a swarm of Graystone Beetles as though they had seen a ghost.
This was utterly ridiculous. Was he seriously not afraid of dying?!
Even the two kobolds felt their scalps tingle as they looked at the Graystone Beetle swarm.
If they got surrounded by that, there probably would not even be scraps left of them, right?
Their gazes passed over the Graystone Beetle swarm and settled on Lu Yuan ahead.
Lu Yuan's speed had not dropped at all. He did not even look tired.
This left the two kobolds shocked and bewildered.
The brown-haired kobold was so exhausted that his tongue hung out.
Panting, he spoke.
"Boss, what is going on with that human?! He's obviously slower than us, so how is his endurance this insane?!"
The gray-furred kobold frowned deeply, his face grim. As he stared at Lu Yuan's retreating back, disbelief filled his eyes.
"This shouldn't be happening... How can this be? We've nearly exhausted all our spiritual energy. Logically speaking, he should be more tired than us! Why does he look completely fine?"
The gray-furred kobold nearly racked his dog head apart, yet he still could not figure out what had gone wrong.
"Boss, what do we do now? We barely have any spiritual power left. If this keeps up and we run into enemies, we'll be in danger too."
Naturally, the gray-furred kobold understood that.
He stared at Lu Yuan's back, his eyes flickering. After a long silence, he gritted his teeth and spoke.
"Consider that human lucky! We're not chasing him anymore. Heh... With so many Graystone Beetles following him, I refuse to believe he can survive! Sooner or later, he'll be eaten until not even scraps remain!"
"Boss is right! I think there's no way he'll survive either! We're letting him off easy."
"Stop."
The two kobolds stopped and watched Lu Yuan leave with the Graystone Beetle swarm.
Only after Lu Yuan and the Graystone Beetle swarm disappeared did they leave in another direction.
Lu Yuan occasionally turned back to check on the situation behind him.
When he turned around again and failed to see the two kobolds, he froze for a moment before breaking into delight.
"Those two dog bastards finally gave up?! Fuck, how could they keep going for so long?!"
Lu Yuan was speechless. Those two kobolds had chased him for over an hour!
Over an hour!
Do you know how I spent that whole hour?!
He had practically run through an entire small section of Graystone Forest and encountered quite a few Gene Warriors.
He could not understand what had made those two kobolds so persistent.
Fortunately, Lu Yuan had deliberately saved a spirit crystal just in case. Together with the spirit crystal he had obtained when he encountered those two kobolds earlier, he had two spirit crystals in hand.
Only by absorbing the spiritual energy in the spirit crystals to nourish his body had he been able to maintain his stamina and keep running.
Even so, he had already started using the second spirit crystal.
Once this spirit crystal was used up, he would truly be out of options.
Luckily, those two kobolds had finally given up.
However...
Lu Yuan turned around and looked at the densely packed Graystone Beetle swarm behind him, the corner of his mouth twitching hard.
What the hell... He had never expected to gather this many Graystone Beetles!
Don't you guys ever get tired?!
I'm not a rock. Go eat rocks!
Fortunately, Lu Yuan was still slightly faster than the Graystone Beetles.
Earlier, since they had blocked the two kobolds, Lu Yuan had slowed down a little to avoid any unexpected developments and conserve his stamina.
Now, as long as he ran at full speed, he could easily shake off these Graystone Beetles given a little time.
Lu Yuan began to accelerate.
Gradually, he widened the distance from the Graystone Beetle swarm behind him.
Although Graystone Beetles still appeared ahead from time to time,
Lu Yuan's speed barely slowed, and the newly appearing Graystone Beetles were gradually left behind as well.
More than ten minutes later, there was no longer any movement behind Lu Yuan.
He turned back and saw that no Graystone Beetles were chasing him.
Lu Yuan let out a breath, leaned against the stone wall, and slowly sat down, panting heavily.
The spiritual power in both spirit crystals had been completely exhausted. His body was still extremely tired, and in the scorching heat, he felt as if he had been drenched in sweat.
Lu Yuan took out a barrel of water and gulped down several large mouthfuls. After letting out a satisfied breath, he poured water over himself from head to toe.
Then he took out two energy bars and ate them. Feeling warmth spread through his body, Lu Yuan could not help but smile.
Being alive felt great.
After resting for a while, Lu Yuan stood up and began observing his surroundings.
Where he stood, four enormous stone pillars divided the area into four passages, while a small plaza roughly a hundred meters across lay at the center.
The surroundings were quiet, without the sound of battle.
After running wildly at full speed for so long, he had no idea which direction he had ended up in.
No matter where he was, staying alive was what mattered most.
Next, he could finally continue hunting in peace.
Lu Yuan casually chose a passage and walked into it.
Before long, Lu Yuan encountered a lone Graystone Beetle.
He charged forward, quickly killed it, and collected its Gray Stone Armor and spirit crystal.
Lu Yuan absorbed the spirit crystal, and his stamina began recovering rapidly.
Lu Yuan continued along the path. After walking some distance, he suddenly stopped, his eyes widening as he stared ahead.
Ahead of him was a dead end.
About a hundred meters away stood a blocked path, but near its end, two Graystone Beetles were eating rocks.
These two Graystone Beetles looked completely different from the ones Lu Yuan had encountered before.
They were roughly a meter tall, and a black stripe ran across the gray stone armor on their backs.
Black-Striped Graystone Beetles.
Lu Yuan immediately realized what they were.
They were the stronger members of the Graystone Beetles, Elite Ferocious Beasts!
Unlike ordinary ferocious beasts, elite ferocious beasts of the same species were several times stronger than ordinary ones! Not only that, they possessed special combat techniques and were extremely powerful.
Although Graystone Beetles were among the weakest types of ferocious beasts, their elite variant, the Black-Striped Graystone Beetle, was still an exceptionally powerful existence.
There were two of them here.
That was not what shocked Lu Yuan.
What truly shocked him was that behind the Black-Striped Graystone Beetles, a wooden chest sat quietly.
The chest was about half a meter tall and looked utterly unremarkable, yet it made Lu Yuan's heart race.
A treasure chest in the Origin Land could contain all kinds of treasures!
Precious Extraordinary Genes, Gene Armaments, powerful special potions, even valuable knowledge and much more could all be obtained from treasure chests.
For any Gene Warrior, encountering a treasure chest was like striking gold.
It represented an enormous harvest!
Fortune and misfortune went hand in hand. Lu Yuan had not expected that after being chased through countless twists and turns, he would stumble upon a treasure chest by sheer accident?!
With luck like this, what else could he say but that it was worthy of me?
The problem now was... what should he do about these two Black-Striped Graystone Beetles?
Lu Yuan looked at the two oversized Graystone Beetles and felt a headache coming on.
He already found it somewhat difficult to kill two ordinary Graystone Beetles, let alone elite Black-Striped Graystone Beetles.
Even one of them alone could beat him senseless.
Two together would mean getting beaten senseless by a double-team.
Please vote with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets~~ Big shots, please try not to stockpile the story and read it when you can~ Recommendations are based on follow-up reads right now, and this author is afraid that if the follow-up count is too low, there will not even be any recommendations. That would be way too miserable, hahaha.
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