Bro, Stay Strong

Mu Yi was studying the defensive strength of the Giant Ants' shells when Zhong Xuezhi suddenly came over again.

He asked, "What's your weapon? If it's a blade, bring it out."

"Their weak spot is the joint between their waist and legs. Cutting straight through is the most efficient way."

Mu Yi glanced at the Ice Scythe in Zhong Xuezhi's hand. Earlier, he had seen these people's weapons appear and disappear out of thin air, summoned and dismissed at will.

They were probably formed through so-called energy materialization.

As for materialization, as a rare double-Grade S Alpha, he could materialize his pheromones too, but at most, he used them to build a protective wall around himself or as a rain shield on wet days.

A weapon? He had honestly never tried that.

So he replied, "I don't have a weapon."

"No weapon?" That answer surprised Zhong Xuezhi, who smiled. "You don't see many people fighting empty-handed these days."

Using abilities for an entire fight consumed too much energy. Once that energy ran out, anyone without a weapon would be left at the enemy's mercy.

Du Jing, for instance, still had to carry a battle-axe despite having two powerful means of attack, demon seeds and Devil Vines.

Mu Yi, however, knew nothing about the reason behind this and merely drawled, "Then take a good look while you can."

With that, he mobilized the pheromones in his body again, rapidly building up a surge of high-voltage electric flame.

After finding the right target and timing, he abruptly raised his hand and drove the electric flame down into a Giant Ant through the top of its head.

The Giant Ant's shell was certainly highly resistant to fire and electricity, but his current and electric flame were no pushovers either. Released together, they were practically an electrified smelting furnace.

With enough power, there was nothing he couldn't melt down.

Sure enough, when he raised the electric flame's intensity to level four, the Giant Ant suddenly began shuddering all over. Its enormous head reared high, as though letting out a silent howl.

Mu Yi curled his lips and snapped his fingers, taking the electric flame's intensity straight up to level seven.

With a bang, the Giant Ant's massive body crashed to its knees, clearly unable to withstand it.

It barely even struggled. After a few frantic kicks, it stopped moving altogether.

The hard black shell covering its body had already been burned glowing red.

"Not bad at all!" Zhong Xuezhi had just finished cutting down a group of Giant Ants. He turned and whistled at him in appreciation.

Mu Yi raised an eyebrow slightly. Without offering any modest pleasantries, he accepted the praise outright.

Then, rubbing his hot fingers, he walked straight over to the Giant Ant's corpse.

He raised a foot and ground the toe of his ankle boot against the red-hot shell.

With several cracks, the shell broke into pieces, revealing an interior already reduced to ash.

Mu Yi stirred it a couple more times with his boot and unearthed a blue crystal from the pile of ash.

He bent down to pick it up, narrowing his eyes as he examined it curiously.

If he remembered correctly, the crystals dropped by those E- and F-rank Spine Celery plants had been brown and gray, while the so-called Grade B leader had dropped a green one.

Did different colors represent different ranks?

Then what rank did a blue crystal represent?

While he was pondering this, Zhong Xuezhi suddenly shouted again from nearby. "Hey! Get out of the way!"

Sensing something, Mu Yi turned his head and saw a Giant Ant two meters behind him, its upper body reared upright toward him.

An abnormal movement meant trouble. Mu Yi reacted immediately, dodging aside as fast as he could.

At the same moment, a stream of dark yellow liquid sprayed from the Giant Ant's body. Even though Mu Yi dodged quickly, a tiny drop still splashed onto his arm.

Mu Yi felt a cool sensation on his arm, followed by relentless waves of intense burning pain that nearly made his vision go black.

Fuck, what was that?!

A moment later, Zhong Xuezhi darted in front of him and quickly condensed frost to cool the injury and ease the pain, while also answering his question.

"They have a venom gland at the end of their abdomen that sprays formic acid. It's extremely destructive to living cells. Be careful."

"Isn't that warning a little late?" Mu Yi's face twisted into a grimace.

Zhong Xuezhi shrugged innocently. "How was I supposed to know you lacked even basic knowledge?"

Mu Yi knew he couldn't blame anyone else, so he let out a breath and asked, "How long does it hurt after you get hit?"

Zhong Xuezhi flashed a toothy grin. "Twenty-four hours."

Mu Yi's head shot up. "How long?"

Zhong Xuezhi lowered his eyes to meet his gaze, his expression kindly. "Yes, you heard right. You're about to experience twenty-four hours of nonstop pain."

"You're not joking?" Feeling the dull pain in his arm, Mu Yi's briefly relaxed expression cracked again.

Zhong Xuezhi patted his arm. "Bro, stay strong."

"Fuck..." Mu Yi shoved Zhong Xuezhi out of his way and leaped into the swarm of Giant Ants, his whole body wrapped in electric light.

With pain like this, nothing short of wiping out its entire bloodline would settle his anger!

Mu Yi completely unleashed his pheromones. High-voltage current and scorching electric flame took turns, roasting the huge ants until they scattered and hopped about, trailing smoke.

But that was still nowhere near enough. His temples tightened as he compressed the intensity of all his current and electric flame to the absolute limit in an instant.

BZZZZ-!!

After an enormous hum unique to electric current, masses of Giant Ants turned to black ash in an instant, without even their shells remaining.

Only the colored crystals, deliberately spared by the electric flame, remained. Blues and reds carpeted the ground.

Zhong Xuezhi turned at the sound and saw that more than half the Giant Ants had become little piles of dust.

He immediately clicked his tongue. That strength...

Zhong Xuezhi was more inclined to believe the other man was a mutant, so he hurried over to warn him. "You're burning through too much energy like that. Rein it in."

Mu Yi shook his agonizing arm, unconcerned.

Pheromones were different from this so-called energy. Once energy ran out, failing to replenish it in time would leave someone depleted, but his pheromones were constantly regenerating in a cycle.

They would never run out.

So he replied, "Stay out of it."

Then he paused and held out his right arm, amending his words. "If you want to help, help with my arm. Give me some more ice."

Zhong Xuezhi glanced down and discovered that the initial little red spot had spread until Mu Yi's entire arm was red. Treating all of it clearly wouldn't be easy.

So Zhong Xuezhi pulled the Ice Band straight from his waist, infused it with some pain-numbing cold, and deftly wrapped it around Mu Yi's arm.

As soon as he finished, however, Mu Yi complained. "Why did you tie such a huge bow? Change it."

"You're lucky I tied it for you at all. Where do you get off making so many demands?" Zhong Xuezhi refused. Once he finished tying the bow, he turned and left.

He still had to hurry back to harvesting Giant Ants. Originally, he had only planned to stall for a bit before retreating. Who knew the electric kid would be this strong?

He had no choice but to tearfully rake in another haul.

Meanwhile, Mu Yi rolled his eyes hard and tried tugging on the bow's tails himself, only to find that they wouldn't budge.

"Fuck, he even knotted it tight?"

That sneaky bastard... he definitely did it on purpose again!

In the end, Mu Yi still couldn't undo it and had to leap back into the Giant Ant swarm sporting a big, fluttering bow.

So what if it ruined his look? As long as it worked.

With the Ice Band tied around his arm, the pain dropped by at least seventy or eighty percent. He could move much more freely, regaining his earlier lightness as he turned and stepped back.

Only... his current appearance was hardly presentable.

Being bound by the Ice Band earlier had made him scrape through quite a lot of dust on the ground, leaving his originally pristine white shirt filthy.

Two shirt buttons had also been torn off at some point, leaving the front hanging open. Cold air rushed inside whenever he moved, making the entire shirt flap noisily.

His hair was even more tousled by the cold wind, especially his overlong bangs, which were soaked with sweat and plastered crookedly across his forehead.

As he fought, perhaps annoyed by how much they blocked his view, he casually raised a hand and swept them back, revealing his eyes and brows-the only part of him still reasonably clean.

Watching from the other side, Zhong Xuezhi couldn't help clicking his tongue.

How strange. It felt like he was looking at some bizarre blend of dishevelment and wild, carefree abandon.

[Note: With enough power, there was nothing he couldn't melt down.]

[But at present, he couldn't melt down Zhong Xuezhi's Ice Band, because Zhong Xuezhi was currently stronger than Mu Yi.]