Silverwing’s fighting spirit was higher than them, he urged them to continue, “we must persevere! The Boss has only a little life left, we must not let go of this chance!”
“Little life my ass!” Warpath spat. “It took us so long to reduce its life, and we have already run out of our potions. Do you want us all to die in a futile fight?”
“Focus on defending and evasion to survive, no need to attack.”
“And how do you think we can win that way?” It was Queen Magenta that responded.
“We just need to buy time.”
“For what?”
“Storm Wind will catch up!”
It was still good if he did not bring up Storm Wind’s name, as when Warpath and Queen Magenta heard the name, they were further infuriated. Queen Magenta immediately shouted out, “you still dare to bring up that useless person? You didn’t bring Grimclaw but instead bring that unknown guy. Where is he now? Perhaps he had run away by himself! Our failure this time is all due to him! We will deal with him once we are out of this dungeon, don’t you dare try to protect him!”
“We are leaving!” she added with a conviction.
Silverwing was helpless to stop them. Weren’t they a bit too unreasonable to blame Storm Wind for their failure? They were the ones that were clearly not strong enough to deal with the boss but made an excuse for it.
“You should have picked your helper better next time,” Warpath smirked as he disengaged from the Queen Ant. The three from the Wicked Witches ran for the entrance.
“Hey! At least give me the Leader command if you plan to tap out!” Silverwing called out. Before they went into the dungeon, they had formed a party. Queen Magenta had demanded to take the position of leader. Silverwing was not interested to argue so he had acceded to her request.
Now that the woman wanted to quit the dungeon, he had to ask for the leader position. Otherwise, he did not know what would happen if the leader of a party exited the dungeon before the members. The best outcome would be the leadership was transferred automatically, the unfavorable outcome would be that they all got booted out when the leader exited. While the worst would be that they were killed off and ended up losing one level. He did not think that now was the time to experiment with these possibilities.
Although Queen Magenta was overbearing most of the time, she was not unreasonable to keep the leader position when she had decided to leave. She opened up her party interface and transferred the leadership to Silverwing, all the while continued running to the exit.
“Do not bother to look for cooperation with us anymore,” she said before she ran out from the Boss’ room. “We will look for cooperation with Death Associates or Corporate United.”
The three disappeared from his view soon after. Silverwing was dejected, now apart from him within this hall, only Bluedaze and Sinreaper were left. They were running around like chicken who had lost their heads just to keep themselves alive.
Was he wrong to put his hope on Storm Wind? The reason he was still having hope was because he had checked his Party window and saw that Storm Wind was still alive and within the dungeon. After witnessing that guy’s relationship with his friends, Silverwing knew that he was not the type to just run away. Silverwing was certain that he was still fighting his way to reach them. The question was whether they could survive until then. He had tried to send a message, but it seemed that this dungeon prevented message sending even between party members.
“That’s strange,” Sinreaper said.
“What is it?” Silverwing who was lost in his thought was clueless to what Sinreaper was referring to.
“The last time it made the shriek, some Giant Ants came out, but this time there was none…”
Silverwing looked at the walls around. Sinreaper was right, the shriek had been released some time ago, but nothing seemed to be out of ordinary, just some parts of the cave walls were broken and revealed larger holes. But nothing were coming out from those holes.
“Let’s just consider it as good luck,” he said. “Do not fight the Boss, continue running around to buy time.”
“Will Storm Wind really come?” bluedaze tone did not sound confident.
“Let’s hope so,” Silverwing replied. His voice carried the same tone.
—————
Jack and Jeanny had already cleared out two thirds of the eggs in the room. They had also killed three Giant Armored Beetle in the process, Jack could see there were only two other red dots left in the room. They would deal with them when they reached their places.
At the time, they heard another of the similar ear-piercing shriek from before. Once the shriek died down, Jack saw changes in his radar. The red dots that were just two previously, suddenly increased to innumerable all around them.
Jack immediately understood what it meant. He shouted to Jeanny, “watch out! The eggs are hatching!”
As his warning came out, the both of them heard many popping sounds. The eggs that were still unbroken cracked and shot out the slimy liquid inside. The eggs split apart and grotesque beings with six legs came crawling out. Their numbers made the two humans’ skins crawled.
Realizing there were two intruders amongst them, the swarm immediately came upon them.
“W– what should we do?” Jeanny was at a loss after seeing the swarm that suddenly emerged.
Jack gritted his teeth, “what can we do? Just kill them all!”
“There are more than a hundred of them here!” Jeanny protested after hearing Jack’s unreasonable suggestion.
“I will get their attention! You try to survive as best as possible!” After his words, he charged right into the middle of the swarm.
He was insane! Jeanny thought after seeing Jack’s action.
Jack reequipped the round shield as he charged into the Giant Ants swarm. He first used Power Strike to send one of the closest Giant Ants shooting back. It bowled against its kins on its way and sent them tumbling. Jack then used Swing at close range to all the insects around him, cutting them all at the same time. After stopping the swarm momentum, he then weaved around them with his footwork while slashing with his sword and defending with his shield at the same time.
Jeanny was flabbergasted looking at Jack’s reckless fighting style, but he was more shocked by the damage and force behind his every attack. Each of Jack’s hit contain a force that either pushed the monsters back or stopped their movement in the least. Such effect was only possible when there was a large disparity between their strength stat.
Most of the Giant Ants had focused their attention on Jack, but since the space was limited, some still scattered around and came to Jeanny. The incoming monsters awoke her from her stupor. She immediately used her spear to attack the Giant Ants that came into range.
Despite Jack’s high stats, he still could not prevent himself from getting hit, as the hits came from all directions. He soon found himself surrounded by endless Giant Ants. But since the Giant Ants could only hit him from melee range, not many could hit him at one time. The ones at the back needed to wait for the ones in front to die first before they could proceed forward.
Jack completely relied on his high defense to soak the Giant Ants’ damage, while he delivered non-stop attacks on his own. He had already activated his Heightened State skill to allow himself more frequent skill usages. But looking at the rate of speed by which he killed one Giant Ant compared to the damage he received, he would only be able to kill off half of the Giant Ants before his HP ran out.
He glanced at Jeanny who was fighting the Giant Ants from the side. He had a good feeling about the girl after their chat, he thought she was the type that could be trusted. He then looked at the Giant Ants surrounding him, no time to hesitate.
He stored his round shield and took out his magic staff.
