Zhang Xiaoli watched the scene and laughed, "Shi Lei, why do I feel like you're like an exploitative capitalist?"
Qin Shilei chuckled, "Isn't it because I'm afraid the crystal cores are too hard and will break their teeth?"
The queen ant, capable of understanding human speech, nudged its master with its antennae, then bared its cold, gleaming teeth. It seemed to say, "Master, my teeth are perfectly fine, they won't break."
Qin Shilei cursed with a laugh, "I know your teeth are good. Guard this cave for me, and I'll reward you with some crystal cores later."
Having received its master's promise, the contented queen ant also crawled into the cave.
An Qian said with some worry, "Shi Lei, can the ants really hold this place? Although they can deal with bugs, their losses are still not small. They've lost one or two hundred thousand on the way here."
Qin Shilei said calmly, "Our ant army numbers at least tens of millions. Even if twenty thousand die each day, we can hold out for fifty days."
"After fifty days, perhaps we can figure out a way to solve the problem of this spatial rift."
"Moreover, after devouring bugs, those ants can evolve, and the queen ant can continuously lay new ants. Perhaps in a few dozen days, the ant swarm's strength will not decrease but increase."
Hearing this, An Qian also let go of her worry and instead asked, "Then do we still need to risk passing through the spatial rift to enter the world on the other side?"
Qin Shilei shook his head, "We don't know if this spatial rift will spawn bugs that even the ant army can't handle, so we still need to go to the异世界 (yi shi jie - other world)."
Seeing that the ant army had already secured the exit of the spatial rift, everyone turned back.
That night, Kong Qingshu, Zhang Qiang, and Xie Haimei all advanced to the Silver realm one after another. With these three guarding Hope City, Qin Shilei and the others could set off to investigate the situation on the other side of the spatial rift with peace of mind.
The next morning.
Qin Shilei, An Qian, and Zhang Xiaoli once again arrived in front of the cave in the valley.
"Let's go down."
The three of them quickly descended to the bottom of the cave along a long rope. In their sight, every minute, two or three beetles emerged from the azure spatial rift. As soon as a beetle appeared, countless ants would swarm and engulf it.
"Hold onto me tight."
Qin Shilei released the rope in his hand, and the three of them fell together into the spatial rift below.
The three only felt a darkness envelop them before appearing in a cave. Before they could get a clear view of their surroundings, they saw a scythe with a cold glint slash down.
Qin Shilei kicked forward, sending the scythe beetle flying. He quickly scanned the surroundings and found it to be a cave of about ten square meters. To the right, twenty to thirty meters away, light was shining in, presumably the cave exit.
Just then, seven or eight more scythe beetles surrounded them.
Qin Shilei let go of the two women, drew out the Blood Soul, and transformed into an afterimage, swiftly killing the more than ten beetles in the cave. He then charged towards the cave entrance, holding the Blood Soul. "Let's break out first."
An Qian and Zhang Xiaoli also drew their weapons and followed closely.
Soon, the three arrived outside the cave and looked up, their eyes filled with astonishment. It was a valley thousands of meters deep, and at a glance, it was densely packed with bugs, likely hundreds of thousands. There were scythe beetles and silver beetles, as well as a gray beetle similar to the scythe beetle. Furthermore, dozens of massive, fleshy mounds, twenty to thirty meters tall, were distributed around the valley.
"Roar!"
Upon discovering the three intruders, the bugs in the valley let out countless roars and surged towards them. Even a thousand peak Silver cultivators facing such a situation would probably only panic and flee back to Blue Star through the spatial rift.
However, Qin Shilei and the others had already anticipated such a scenario.
An Qian and Zhang Xiaoli simultaneously summoned their pets. Little Fly and Little Green spread their wings and flew towards the sky as soon as they appeared.
Qin Shilei and Zhang Xiaoli leaped up, grabbing the sharp claws of Little Fly and Little Green, allowing the latter to carry them into the sky. An Qian unfurled her Phoenix Wings and also quickly flew upwards.
Countless psychic attacks from below rained down upon Qin Shilei and the others, but none could catch up to the astonishing speed of Little Fly and Little Green. Qin Shilei soon climbed from Little Fly's claws onto its back.
Looking around, he finally had the chance to properly survey this异世界 (yi shi jie - other world). Besides the bug-infested valley they had just seen, the surroundings were an endless forest. It resembled Earth's primeval forests, only the trees within were taller and larger, with giant trees reaching hundreds of meters in height being a common sight.
Looking down at the valley below.
Qin Shilei immediately shouted, "Keep flying upwards."
From the tops of the dozens of massive fleshy mounds around them, large openings simultaneously appeared, firing meatball-like projectiles with a diameter of half a meter towards them like cannons firing ammunition.
As the meatball was about to hit Little Fly.
Qin Shilei casually waved his hand, sending a bolt of lightning towards the meatball.
Boom!
The meatball exploded violently, like a high-energy bomb, causing the air to vibrate intensely. Seeing the yellow fluid splattering everywhere after the explosion, Qin Shilei suspected these meatballs also had strong corrosive properties.
After hitting and causing more than ten explosions, Qin Shilei and the others had already ascended to an altitude of several hundred meters, leaving the range of the meatballs. Qin Shilei took out his binoculars and observed the bug valley below again. Besides a few types of beetles, he didn't find any particularly special bugs in the valley.
An Qian flew to Qin Shilei's side, saying with some confusion, "Do these bugs have no queen or other leaders?"
Qin Shilei said with some uncertainty, "There should be, we just haven't found them yet." He paused and then added, "Let's check out the surrounding forest first."
Although An Qian could fly, her Phoenix Wings were formed from Yuan Qi, which consumed a considerable amount, and she couldn't stay in the air indefinitely. Soon, the three of them landed about ten kilometers away from the valley.
An animal resembling a muntjac suddenly darted out from the grass and fled into the distance.
"There's an animal," Zhang Xiaoli exclaimed in surprise. This was the first animal they had seen here that wasn't a bug.
Just then, a scythe beetle also emerged from the same patch of grass, pounced on the animal, and killed it with a sweep of its scythe. It then turned its attention towards Qin Shilei and the others.
"Bugs need to eat too, so it's not strange for there to be other animals." Qin Shilei said as he swiftly killed the attacking scythe beetle.
An Qian asked, "What do we do now?"
Qin Shilei pondered for a moment, then casually pointed in a direction and said, "Let's walk a hundred kilometers in this direction, and then we'll make further plans."
Since they were not yet capable of quickly eliminating the bugs in the valley, he planned to first explore this异世界 (yi shi jie - other world).