The anger of the three Cat Person Hunters was useless.
As the effects of the potions on them gradually faded, the number of Sand Ants kept increasing, leaving them with no time even to feel angry.
Just fending off the Sand Ants' encirclement had already exhausted all their strength.
Yet it was still useless. In the end, the three Cat Person Hunters were swallowed by the Sand Ants, their blood staining the ground red.
After the three Cat Person Hunters died, the surrounding space twisted, dropping a huge pile of items.
Lu Yuan stared at the things on the ground, his eyes widening.
Leaving aside the pile of spirit crystals and materials, there were actually two white light orbs.
Lu Yuan's eyes lit up.
Were these Gene Armaments or Extraordinary Genes?!
This time, he'd struck it rich!
That Cat Person Swordsman really was rotten to the core!
He'd actually lied and said there was no loot?!
When the haul was clearly this huge!
Lu Yuan jumped down from the top of the deep pit into the ant nest. His longsword flashed, instantly killing two Sand Ants and knocking the others flying, clearing an open space.
On the ground, the three Cat Person Hunters' corpses lay flat, gradually turning into white light and vanishing.
Gene Warriors who died in the Origin Land would eventually return to the real world and revive.
Lu Yuan paid no attention to their disappearing corpses and hurriedly picked up the two light orbs from the ground.
He took a look. Inside the light orbs were two sets of leather armor, both Gene Armaments.
Though they were not as valuable as Extraordinary Genes, they could still sell for tens of thousands.
That was quite good for Lu Yuan.
Just as Lu Yuan picked up the two light orbs, the surrounding Sand Ants screeched and pounced on him again.
They had just killed three intruders, only for another one to show up.
The Sand Ants attacked Lu Yuan frantically, but his expression did not change much.
He wore armor and maintained Black Iron Body at all times, giving him formidable defense.
Although the Defense Potion's effect had already ended, ordinary Sand Ants still could not break through his defense.
A Sand Ant clamped its massive mandibles around Lu Yuan's thigh, producing a series of clacking sounds. Lu Yuan felt only a faint prick of pain.
"Get lost!"
Lu Yuan shouted lowly and kicked away the Sand Ant that stubbornly tried to snap his thigh in half.
As he cleared out the Sand Ants, he picked up the spirit crystals and materials on the ground one by one.
There were not only the spirit crystals and materials dropped by the three Cat Person Hunters, but also the spirit crystals dropped by the Sand Ants they had killed earlier.
However, the Sand Ant corpses had been dragged back into the ant nest by their companions, so there was no way to collect their materials.
Moreover, the Sand Ants' most valuable material was a peculiar tendon inside their bodies, which had to be collected by cutting them open. It could not be gathered in this environment.
Naturally, Lu Yuan gave up on the idea of collecting Sand Ant Tendons.
Before long, Lu Yuan had picked up all the spirit crystals and materials that had dropped earlier.
The Sand Ants continued attacking Lu Yuan without pause.
Lu Yuan looked at the densely packed Sand Ants pouring from the two tunnels, and his original thought of retreating directly faded somewhat.
With so many Sand Ants, even if he did not collect their materials, he could still make a fortune from the spirit crystals they dropped alone.
For anyone else, facing so many Sand Ants would likely pose a fatal threat.
But Lu Yuan was different. He maintained Black Iron Body at all times, and these worker ants could not break his defense.
Moreover, his spiritual energy could be replenished continuously and would not be exhausted.
That gave Lu Yuan the means to keep fighting here.
Unless he encountered worker ants with high Tempering Levels, or Elite Quality soldier ants.
But more than a hundred Sand Ants had already died, and no stronger worker ants or soldier ants had appeared yet. That suggested this Sand Ant nest might not be very large.
Even if it had Elite Quality soldier ants, there probably would not be many of them.
It would not be too late for him to leave once he encountered powerful worker ants or soldier ants that he could not handle.
After all, the pit was not very deep. Climbing out would be easy for him.
It would not be easy to find so many ferocious beasts elsewhere that also had difficulty breaking his defense.
With that thought in mind, Lu Yuan took a deep breath and turned his gaze toward the worker ants constantly surrounding him.
Time to get to work!
He gripped his greatsword with both hands and began harvesting the lives of the worker ants attacking him.
Five, ten, twenty, one hundred...
Whenever Lu Yuan felt tired, he used spirit crystals to absorb spiritual energy, always keeping Black Iron Body running at full power.
He no longer remembered how many Sand Ants he had killed.
His body was already covered in the transparent mucus left behind by the dead Sand Ants.
At the same time, he deliberately trained his movement techniques and swordsmanship.
His movement techniques and swordsmanship steadily improved as well.
Ssh!
A dark sword light flashed past, and Lu Yuan killed a Sand Ant with a single strike.
A white light orb emerged from the Sand Ant's corpse.
Lu Yuan's mind, which had already gone somewhat numb, jolted awake.
Something dropped?
He hurriedly picked up the light orb. Inside was a pair of daggers resembling the massive mandibles of Sand Ants.
White Gene Armament daggers.
A faint smile appeared on Lu Yuan's face.
Ordinary ferocious beasts had an extremely low chance of dropping Gene Armaments. He had not expected his luck to be this good.
Of course, that was also related to the large number of Sand Ants he had killed.
Quantity could bring about qualitative change.
"Screech!!"
Lu Yuan put away the Gene Armament and was about to continue hunting.
Suddenly, a piercing cry rang out, followed by chaotic footsteps from the tunnel in front of him.
Lu Yuan's expression changed. Without a second thought, he stepped on a Sand Ant's head and leaped into the air.
As a Gene Warrior, Lu Yuan's abilities in every aspect were exceptionally powerful, and his jumping ability was naturally no exception.
With one leap, he rose nearly four meters high. Then, with his longsword in his right hand, he grabbed a protruding rock at the edge of the pit with his left.
He exerted force with his arm, lifting himself another stretch. In less than a second, he had climbed out of the roughly five-meter-deep pit.
After climbing out of the deep pit, Lu Yuan immediately ran deeper into the tunnel.
After running dozens of meters, Lu Yuan turned back and saw two enormous yellow Sand Ants, each nearly 1.8 meters tall, charging out of the pit.
Behind them followed densely packed Sand Ants. Those Sand Ants were generally around 1.2 meters tall and looked considerably stronger than the ones he had encountered before.
They were the powerful members of the ant nest.
Lu Yuan's heart tightened, and he hurriedly continued running.
Screeches and footsteps sounded behind him.
After running for a while, Lu Yuan came across several forks in the tunnel.
He randomly chose one and continued fleeing. He ignored all the ferocious beasts he encountered along the way, such as Little Stone Men and black scorpions, letting them attack him as they pleased.
After running like that for nearly half an hour, Lu Yuan could no longer hear any sounds from behind him. Only then did he stop in a tunnel without any ferocious beasts.
He leaned against the wall, gasping heavily.
After a while, once his breathing had calmed, Lu Yuan looked at the mucus covering his body and frowned.
He found a corner, put away his Gene Armament, took off his clothes, and washed himself with clean water and body wash. Only then did he feel comfortable again.
After changing into a fresh set of clothes, Lu Yuan put his armor back on.
Because of his earlier battle with the three Hunters and the ant swarm, Lu Yuan's armor was now covered in quite a few cracks.
Gene Armaments required a specialized artificer to repair them. Lu Yuan knew nothing about artifact forging, so naturally, he could not repair it.
He could only keep wearing it as it was.
Fortunately, his Beetle Claw longsword was Elite Quality. It was much harder than his armor and still looked to be in good condition.
Lu Yuan found a place to sit and began tallying the gains from this trip.
First were the three sets of Gene Armaments.
Two sets of leather armor and one pair of daggers.
Though they were all ordinary-grade, the three sets of Gene Armaments alone could sell for more than a hundred thousand!
Then there were the materials.
Lu Yuan had not had the chance to collect Sand Ant materials earlier, but the three Hunters had dropped quite a few.
Little Stone Man's Hearts, poisonous Scorpion Tail Needles, Dungeon Spider silk, Sand Ant Tendons...
There were quite a few types, with more than two hundred pieces in total.
Together, these items were worth tens of thousands as well.
And these were only the appetizer.
The real prize was the mountain-like pile of spirit crystals!
The three Hunters had dropped more than a thousand spirit crystals. Later, they had killed nearly a hundred Sand Ants, which had dropped around two hundred more. Together, that came to roughly fifteen hundred spirit crystals.
All the rest had been obtained from the Sand Ants Lu Yuan killed.
Lu Yuan had obtained more than fifteen hundred spirit crystals himself.
In other words, Lu Yuan had killed more than five hundred Sand Ants earlier!
The three Cat Person Hunters had worked together, yet they had only killed nearly a hundred before being swallowed by the ant swarm.
And Lu Yuan, all by himself, had killed five times as many Sand Ants as they had!
Lu Yuan had become numb from all the killing. He had simply instinctively dodged attacks, swung his sword, absorbed spiritual energy from spirit crystals, and kept Black Iron Body running.
Even he had not expected to kill so many Sand Ants.
Looking at the mountain of spirit crystals, Lu Yuan could not help but reveal an excited smile.
"Looks like Guardian-type genes have their advantages after all! If my combat skill this time hadn't been the defense-oriented Black Iron Body, but an attack-oriented combat skill instead, I wouldn't have been able to ignore the Sand Ants' attacks. I would definitely have been injured in the end, then swallowed by the ant swarm."
Perhaps Guardian-type genes seemed somewhat cumbersome when facing fast Gene Warriors.
But when facing groups of ferocious beasts, the power of Guardian-type genes became apparent.
Especially when paired with his limitless spiritual energy from absorbing spirit crystals.
It was practically cheating.
In this dungeon filled with ferocious beasts, the advantage was simply enormous.
By comparison, being a little clumsy in terms of speed no longer seemed so important.
Thanks to reader 20190907093602120 for the tip~~
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