Insect Nest Arena

Before Chen Keyu stood a gigantic Giant Dragonfly.

One of its eyes alone was twice the size of a human head, right in front of Chen Keyu, practically inches away!!

"Hey!!"

Chen Keyu shouted, warning the others.

The hearts of the group, who had just received his false alarm, instantly lurched.

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

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

Before the blades in Chen Keyu's hands could complete their swing, an immense force suddenly 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.

"Broadsword!"

Shi Hongyu shouted, calmly reminding Chen Keyu.

Chen Keyu immediately came to his senses. 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 a broadsword. His right hand spun it in a wide arc, and the blade, wreathed in blazing scarlet fire, slashed fiercely at the Giant Dragonfly's forelegs.

A strange scene unfolded.

The broadsword, which had been brimming with unstoppable momentum a moment ago, was halfway through its arc when it neared the Giant Dragonfly's forelegs. 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 that completely obeyed the drive of Palm Energy.

Its strength depended on the user's Palm Energy.

Its form depended on Palm Energy's conversion. It could take on elemental properties, or it could be used to increase physical momentum.

Anyone could use any enhancement, but proficiency was an issue. If you constantly used fire elements, accumulated experience, and formed habits around them—

Then suddenly switched to ice elements one day, the results would be greatly diminished. In battle, that would waste Palm Energy and could be fatal.

Therefore, without the support of fire elements, Chen Keyu's attack power was instantly weakened by seventy percent.

His slash against the foreleg left only a white mark.

"Captain, the elements have failed!!"

Chen Keyu panicked and shouted down below.

The Giant Dragonfly was desperately carrying him upward.

The sky was a land of death, filled with Electromagnetic Interference Clouds and terrifying heavy-metal pollution. Forget breathing it in—if it remained on the skin for too long, it would begin corroding the flesh.

The Giant Dragonfly was clearly planning to carry him into the heavy-metal clouds.

"Zishu!"

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

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

It precisely pierced one of the Giant Dragonfly's forelegs.

With a crisp crack.

The foreleg broke. Dozens of meters above the ground, Chen Keyu spun his greatsword in a circle around himself in midair, preventing the dragonfly from grabbing him again.

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

Even 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 above, he could see dozens of monsters pouring through the passage toward Shi Hongyu's group.

Boom!!

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

It coiled 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, and a massive centipede burst from the earth. It made a rasping, screeching sound, while its horrifying maw, packed with dozens of blade-like parts grinding against one another, looked terrifying.

As the centipede prepared to pounce again, the robot operating above leaped straight onto its head. Its hands transformed into two drills and bored toward the centipede's brain.

Naturally, the robot did not succeed. It was violently flung onto a huge boulder nearby, but it had still managed to hold the centipede back.

And right at that moment.

The ground at the corner ahead trembled faintly.

Then, bang, crack!

A gigantic mantis failed to make the turn in time and slammed straight into the stone wall at the corner.

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

Before it could recover, a second mantis crashed into it, brutally slamming the first mantis against the wall.

Then came a third, a fourth—each unable to brake in time around the corner, all crashing into one another.

They produced the distinctive cracking sounds of arthropod limbs colliding.

It made their scalps crawl!

Each mantis stood around two meters tall. They were crammed together at the corner, but quickly got back to their feet. Some even climbed directly along the walls on both sides and surged toward the group!

At a glance, they formed a dense, countless mass. It was impossible to tell where the heads ended and the limbs began.

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

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

Shi Hongyu roared.

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

Swish!

Chen Keyu, who had landed atop the huge boulder, threw down a rope. Without a moment's hesitation, Duo Xinyu grabbed it. Before he could climb on his own, Chen Keyu gave it three hard pulls, hauling him straight onto the six-meter-high boulder.

"Teacher!"

Fu Junlin cast a worried glance at Shi Hongyu, who was charging toward the swarm of mantises.

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

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.

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

A shield.

Subspecies possessed only one Physical Enhancement gene.

But in addition to Physical Enhancement, Superior Humans 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.

A shield was inherently one tier stronger than physical enhancement. Though it consumed more energy, when Superior Humans and Subspecies of the same level clashed, the shield was simply more powerful.