Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After Feng Luo jumped off the cliff, his body fell down quickly.
“Whoosh!”
The cliff was almost 40 meters high, which was around 10 stories tall. As a gunner, even if his HP was over 10,000, falling from that height without any buffer would most certainly be fatal.
However, since Feng Luo jumped, it was natural that he would have a coping mechanism.
“Whoosh!”
Feng Luo held Wings of Death with his right hand and with the special agent watch on his left wrist behind his Black Eagle gloves shot out a silver traction anchor that wrapped around the root of an old tree hanging in the middle of the cliff. It tightened and began to retract.
“Pa!”
Feng Luo’s body spun in the air before landing firmly on a branch of the old tree.
“Tssst!”
However, the old tree already had a “master.” A Level 35 Elite Cave Spider was shooting energy strings at the group of beetles beneath it.
As Feng Luo landed behind it from the sky, the Cave Spider reacted quickly. It opened its mouth, baring its poisonous teeth before hissing at Feng Luo before charging at him.
“Bam!”
“-6443!”
Feng Luo raised Wings of Death and used the muzzle to block the Elite Grade Cave Spider’s head in the air before pulling the trigger. The powerful impact of the C-Grade High Explosive grenade turned the Cave Spider into smelly bits and pieces.
He might have needed to dodge when it was a Level 40 Quasi-Boss, but for a Level 35 Elite Grade monster to charge at him?
Not to mention an Elite Grade monster, even a Level 38 Commander Grade Cave Spider would not pose much of a threat to the current Feng Luo.
After taking care of the only threat – the Quasi-Boss, the battle was fundamentally over for Feng Luo.
“Hiss, hiss…”
After the Elite Grade Cave Spider was killed, three other Normal Grade Cave Spiders charged at and tried to tackle Feng Luo. Feng Luo quickly unsheathed Ghost Weep from his tactical vest and killed them all with a cut each.
After killing four Cave Spiders on the tree, the Cave Spiders on the surrounding cliff wall no longer attacked Feng Luo. Instead, they shifted their attention back to their original targets.
Feng Luo understood by then that although the Cave Spiders are gregarious creatures, their combat habits were quite individualistic.
It also explained why after the Cave Spider Queen took it upon itself to attack Feng Luo after being angered by him rather than mobilizing its army of minions.
This meant that it was a beneficial situation. The scattered and uncoordinated combat method of the Cave Spiders would increase the chances of victory for the beetle group that had gained a commander in 24K.
As Feng Luo predicted, the status of the battlefield was starting to tilt to one side.
24K’s AI had always been very high, and after being with Feng Luo for so long, its AI had also learned and improved a lot.
Even without Feng Luo’s help, 24K knew what it should do after the Quasi-Boss Spider Queen was killed. Immediately after its death, 24K ordered the Spray Beetles to target the Commander Grade spiders.
Since it had just leveled up, the psionic energy that it consumed to command a bunch of beetles to block the Cave Spider Queen earlier had recovered, making it a lot easier for 24K to issue commands.
“Bang, bang…”
After seeing 24K’s decent commanding display, Feng Luo decided that he did not need to intervene, and simply stood on the empty tree hanging by the cliff.
He switched the bullets of the Wings of Death to normal Armor-piercing Rounds and consecutively shot at a few Elite Grade Cave Spiders. Under the one shot per second automatic shooting mode, even with his damage reduced to only 70%, he easily took care of an Elite Grade Cave Spider.
The battle had gone on since the sun rose in the east and until almost sunset.
The last Elite Grade Cave Spider was found by a Scout Beetle. It was instantly torn to pieces by over 30 Bladed Beetles that leaped forward to attack it.
After that, the battle in the valley was officially over.
“What a huge loss. Nonetheless, there are still some left.” Feng Luo looked at the valley filled with beetle and Cave Spider corpses. Over a thousand beetles were lost in this battle, and around 300 of them remained. Including Scout Beetles and Collector Beetles, the total number of surviving beetles was around 400.
The beetle army went from over a thousand to only around 400. Clearly, this was considered a heavy loss.
If he were to also consider the fact that the number of remaining beetles, which was 400, was actually 10 times the amount he originally had, it was still quite comforting.
All of the beetles that survived had been subdued by 24K after the battle. Now, they were all part of Feng Luo’s Beetle Army.
Although his wish for a thousand-beetle army was no longer possible, the combat strength of 400 beetles was not any inferior to a Quasi-Boss.
With someone issuing commands at the top, their combat strength would grow exponentially to an unprecedented level. In particular, it was because, among the 400 beetles, around one-third of them were Elite Grade.
The 400 beetles were divided into six categories. Among them included the following:
[Energy Beetle] – 119, where 13 of them were Elite Grade.
Since they were constantly making energy shields in the air and did not come down to fight, the number of losses recorded among the Energy Beetles was low. One-third of those that survived were Energy Beetles.
However, the number and ratio of Elite Grade Energy Beetles were low, even among Feng Luo’s over 20 Energy Beetles, only two were Elite Grade.
[Bladed Beetle] – 30, where 15 of them were Elite Grade.
As a melee assassin type agility beetle, the Bladed Beetles recorded the highest number of deaths. If Feng Luo did not have 24K command them to exit the battlefield, it might have even been possible for the number of survivors to be in the single digits. Having over 30 of them survive was in itself an achievement.
[Steel Beetle] – 58, where 25 of them were Elite Grade.
Steel Beetles definitely earned their title as the tanks of the combat beetles. Although their large size easily attracted the attention of the enemy, many of them still survived. It was specifically noteworthy that half of those that lived were Elite Grade.
[Spray Beetle] -106, where 42 of them were Elite Grade.
As one of the main contributors to the battle, Feng Luo had asked 24K to command the Spray Beetles to position themselves behind the Steel Beetles early on in the battle. As such, the number of survivors was also quite high, with Elite Grade beetles occupying one-third of the total.
Apart from these combat beetles, there were also 18 Scout Beetles and over 50 Collector Beetles.
The Scout Beetles had the camouflage ability as well as the stealth flying, which made them incredibly hard to detect. As a result, the number of casualties was also low, simply because the number of Scout Beetles in the beetle group was already quite low.
However, among the 18 Scout Beetles, six of them were Elite Grade. This really surprised and delighted Feng Luo, because whether it was using or incubating Scout Beetles, a lot of psionic energy needed to be consumed. However, at the same distance and with all else equal, Elite Grade Scout Beetles consumed less psionic energy when compared to Normal Grade beetles.
To obtain six Elite Grade Scout Beetles all at once, Feng Luo no longer had to worry about the depletion of psionic energy anymore, even in situations where Scout Beetles needed to be used extensively.
However, the downside was that although there were a lot of beetles, there was no Commander Grade beetles, which particularly disappointed Feng Luo.
He was very much aware that Commander Grade Scout Beetles were truly powerful creatures, as Scout Beetles of that caliber would be able to use the anti-detection skill. At closer distances, they could even jam the signal of Scout’s recon meter.
Back then when they were working on the City Building mission, Mu Zi, who had the Detection talent, failed to detect the hidden presence of a Commander Grade Scout Beetle in the beginning.
However, after a moment, Feng Luo chuckled and wondered if he was being too greedy. He had just received over 400 beetles, where over a hundred of those were Elite Grade Beetles.
Although mobilization in real-time battle was still limited by psionic energy, the combat strength of 20 to 30 Elite Grade beetles would at least be as strong as a few top-class players, right?
The existence of a pet like this was definitely enough to crush the existence of all non-boss grade pets.
