Insect Nest Arena

Before Chen Keyu stood a gigantic dragonfly.

Just one of its eyes was twice the size of a human head, right in front of Chen Keyu, practically within arm's reach!!

"Hey!!"

Chen Keyu shouted, alerting everyone.

The people who had just received his false alarm felt their hearts leap into their throats.

Furious and alarmed, Chen Keyu rapidly swung the two daggers in his hands, stabbing toward the dragonfly's eyes.

But the gigantic dragonfly had seized the initiative. When he turned around just now, the Giant Dragonfly's two forelegs had already curled toward Chen Keyu.

Before the blades in Chen Keyu's hands could fully swing out, an immense force yanked at his legs.

His body immediately lost balance. The Giant Dragonfly grabbed him and carried him into the air.

Buzz!!

Amid the thunderous roar of wings, the Giant Dragonfly shot into the sky. Its eyes were completely blood-red—it was at least a Mutated Elite Monster.

"Greatsword!"

Shi Hongyu shouted, calmly reminding Chen Keyu.

Chen Keyu immediately snapped awake. The two daggers in his hands were short weapons, and now that he was hanging upside down, they lacked the reach.

He swiftly put away the daggers and switched to his greatsword. His right hand swung in a huge arc, and the blade, carrying blazing crimson fire-element energy, viciously slashed down at the Giant Dragonfly's foreleg.

A bizarre scene unfolded.

The greatsword, which had just been brimming with momentum, had only swung halfway toward the Giant Dragonfly's foreleg when the flames on it went out with a pfft!, like charcoal doused with cold water.

They had actually been extinguished outright.

A Blade-and-Sword Enchanter's destructive power came from physical attacks combined with elemental attacks converted through Passive Energy.

Passive Energy was a type of Force Energy, completely controlled by Palm Energy.

Its strength depended on the user's Palm Energy.

Its form depended on Palm Energy's conversion. It could take on elemental effects or be used to increase physical kinetic force.

Anyone could use any kind of enhancement, but proficiency was an issue. If you had always used the fire element, accumulated experience, and formed habits around it—

If it suddenly switched to the ice element one day, its effectiveness would be greatly reduced. In battle, that would amount to wasting Palm Energy, which could be fatal.

Thus, without the support of the fire element, the power of Chen Keyu's strike instantly dropped by seventy percent.

When it hit the foreleg, it only left behind a white mark.

"Captain, the element has failed!!"

Chen Keyu panicked and shouted down below.

Because the giant dragonfly was desperately carrying him higher and higher.

The sky was a land of death, filled with Electromagnetic Interference Clouds and terrifying heavy-metal pollution. Forget inhaling it—even getting it on your skin for too long would begin to corrode it.

The Giant Dragonfly was clearly trying to take him into the heavy-metal clouds.

"Zishu!"

Shi Hongyu called out a reminder. Qiao Zishu had long known what to do. She raised her heavy sniper rifle, and it gave a muffled bang.

A bullet without any elemental attachment, yet carrying an extremely powerful shockwave, tore through the air.

It accurately pierced one of the giant dragonfly's forelegs.

With a crisp crack.

The foreleg broke. Already dozens of meters in the air, Chen Keyu fiercely spun his greatsword around himself in midair, preventing the dragonfly from grabbing him again.

In theory, there were not many monsters capable of enduring heavy metals.

As he fell from the air, Chen Keyu did not forget to shout a warning to Shi Hongyu and the others:

"Captain, a large number of monsters are appearing ahead!"

From his vantage point high in the air, he could see dozens of monsters flooding through the passage toward Shi Hongyu and the others.

Boom!!

Before his words had even faded, a huge antenna suddenly burst out of the ground.

It curled directly toward Qiao Zishu, who was still aiming at the dragonfly in the sky.

Fu Junlin reacted incredibly quickly, diving forward and knocking Qiao Zishu to the ground.

The antenna swept past their ears. A giant centipede burst from the ground, making harsh scraping sounds. Its terrifying maw, filled with dozens of blade-like teeth grinding against one another, looked utterly horrifying.

Just as the centipede was about to pounce down again, the robot operating above leaped straight onto its head. Its hands transformed into two drills and bore toward the centipede's brain.

Of course, the robot did not succeed. The centipede violently flung it onto a huge rock nearby, but it had at least held the centipede back.

And right at that moment.

The ground at the corner ahead trembled slightly.

Then came a bang, crack!

A giant mantis failed to make the turn in time and crashed directly into the stone wall at the corner.

Its entire body gleamed with black-and-red luster. Every limb looked incomparably sharp, like several enormous sickles.

Before it could regain its bearings, a second mantis slammed into it, brutally smashing the first mantis against the wall.

Then came a third, then a fourth, all crashing together because they could not brake in time around the turn.

They made the distinctive crack-crack sounds of arthropod limbs colliding.

It made their scalps tingle!

Every mantis stood around two meters tall. They were crammed together at the corner, but soon all of them got to their feet. Some even clung directly to the walls on both sides and surged toward the group!

At a glance, they formed a dense, endless mass. It was impossible to tell where their heads were or where their limbs began.

All they could see were countless sharp, enormous sickle-like appendages.

"I'll hold them off! Hurry, get up there!!"

Shi Hongyu roared.

Their only hope now was to climb up. In this narrow passage, they had no advantage whatsoever against this swarm of insects.

Swish!

Chen Keyu, who had landed atop the huge rock, threw down a rope. Without a moment's hesitation, Duo Xinyu was the first to grab it. Before he could climb on his own, Chen Keyu gave three hard pulls and hauled him directly onto the six-meter-high boulder.

"Teacher!"

Fu Junlin anxiously glanced at Shi Hongyu, who was charging toward the mantis swarm.

"Don't forget, your teacher is a Superior Human!"

Shi Hongyu rolled her neck. The second Gene Particle between her brows lit up with a faint reddish glow.

Then a translucent shield, like an eggshell, appeared around her body and enveloped Shi Hongyu. The shield seemed to spread outward from her waist and abdomen as its center.

This was the universal ability that made Superior Humans stronger than Subspecies.

A shield.

Subspecies possessed only one Physical Enhancement gene.

Superior Humans, aside from Physical Enhancement, also possessed a shield. Although Shi Hongyu had not specialized in her shield and still focused mainly on Physical Enhancement, there was no denying it.

Shields were inherently one tier stronger than physical enhancement. Though they consumed more energy, when Superior Humans and Subspecies of the same level fought, shields were simply more powerful.