Chapter 596: Splitting Up
Fierce wind blew as the Blight Butterflies slowly and forcefully fluttered their wings. These butterflies were using wind runes!
Thud Thud Thud Thud!
The wild wind crashed onto Qin Feng’s energy barrier but they could not break it. Qin Feng’s energy barrier was formed from his internal energy, after all. And his internal energy was quite powerful now.
In the blink of an eye, Qin Feng had reached the Blight Butterflies and his blade landed on a butterfly in one swing. This slash had one percent of his internal energy in it—thus, the Blight Butterfly was cut in half like butter.
This was easy for Qin Feng; but it was quite impossible for the others to do that.
After all, his one percent of internal energy was like one-tenth of the internal energy of any other C9-tier. Even though everyone in the party were of different tiers, they would usually opt to conserve their internal energy unless needed. To them, their internal energies were quite limited.
Qin Feng, however, had a lot of internal energy to spare.
Pffft! Pfft! Pffft!
Qin Feng slayed three more Blight Butterflies in the next second.
After witnessing him doing this with ease, the others were stunned. Since when were Blight Butterflies this weak?
Thus, an ancient warrior stepped forward and slashed his sword at the butterflies too. However, his energy barrier was crushed to pieces as the C-tier insectoids’ wind blades landed on him.
Kreeesh!
One of the wind blades landed on his body, cutting his body open and sending him flying into the air! His blood started to drip out of his combat suit. In a few seconds, potent venom started to spread across his body.
White foams started to bubble from the ancient warrior’s mouth as he lay on the ground motionlessly.
The Blight Butterflies’ poisonous pollen was no joke!
“Be on your guard! Don’t rush in recklessly!” Quong Po commanded.
Then, he started to inject his internal energies onto his throwing knives before hurling them out.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Several dozens of throwing knives darted out and slashed through the air, pinning a dozen of the annoying butterflies.
The others were delighted when they saw this. They had a B-tier with them; so, there was no need to worry too much.
After recovering their confidence, the aptitude users started to calm down.
Indeed, these Blight Butterflies were terrifying. However, they were no weaklings either. Thus, they worked together to attack the insectoids and kill them one by one.
After a few minutes, the butterflies were all slayed.
The unlucky ancient warrior too was saved after one of the aptitude users injected him with his antidote.
After the battle, everyone naturally noticed Qin Feng’s capabilities. This boy was able to kill more than thirty Blight Butterflies alone, showing that he was quite formidable. Even Jiang Po, who looked down at him, was staring at Qin Feng with his mouth wide open.
‘No wonder General Xu Qing was trying to recruit this young man. He’s really good!’
As he was thinking to himself, Jiang Po started to feel a sting of jealousy. Qin Feng was strong and powerful; so, it was quite natural for Xu Qing to take notice of him. Yet, he had served all these generals earnestly all his life! And the general never praised him, ever. This made Jiang Po upset.
Of course, given the situation at hand, Jiang Po could not afford to entertain these thoughts. He quickly collected the loots and handed them to Quong Po before continuing to journey on.
Bai Li, on the other hand, was pouting. The Blight Butterflies were all collected by Jiang Po and now in Quong Po’s hands! Noo!! Her butterfly-wing dress!!!
“Hey, chin up. When we complete our mission, we could ask him for the materials. Even if he doesn’t give them up, we could still head back to the markets in Dusan Central City. Surely there’s someone selling these butterflies’ wings. And it’s quite usual for a raiding team like this to split their loot after the mission. See? We did the same too back when I was leading the ultra beast hunts. Remember?”
Bai Li lightened up after hearing this. “Hmph! Of course I know that. What? You think I’m a child?”
“Well, you are actually still a child!” Qin Feng smiled.
“No… I’m all grown up now!” Bai Li muttered to herself.
As they were talking, Yuan Xiaoguang found another dark crimson cloth in the area. However, he had spooked another wave of Blight Butterflies when he picked it up.
The party then spent a dozen minutes battling the butterflies.
When they found the third dark crimson cloth, everyone frowned. They looked at one another, wanting to say something but dared not to.
Seeing that these people were not talking, Qin Feng did not want to waste time anymore. He knew someone was watching them in the dark. If they kept on searching like this, this would yield very little result other than getting more Blight Butterfly materials.
“General Quong, something’s off. Even if your daughter had accidentally stepped into the thirteenth region, there’s no way her clothes would be slashed to pieces like this. The Blight Butterflies don’t have abilities to do that. Even if they could, there is no way they would leave the pieces of the jacket like this and not leave any trail of blood.” Qin Feng made his deduction to Quong Po.
Yuan Xiaoguang seemed to agree, “He’s right, General Kong. I haven’t found traces of blood so far. I’m afraid this could be a trap!”
Quong Po frowned. “I’ve received Quong Ting’s message that she’s stuck in the thirteenth region. However, there was no clue as to where exactly she was. Even if these clothes were not cut off by the insectoids, these could be the traces that Quong Ting left behind when she fled from them!”
“If I remember correctly, the entire thirteenth region is covered by the communicator network. General Quong, can you still detect your daughter’s signal?” Qin Feng suggested.
After hearing this, Quong Po’s face turned grim. In fact, after receiving the message, he was not able to connect to her communicator at all.
“If that’s the case, I’ll head deeper into the thirteenth region and search for her. It’s best that you bring the rest of the party out of the thirteenth region for now, Sir. They are all worn out.”
It was true. Some of these men had started to show symptoms of hallucinating and not able to focus their conscious energy. It was clear that they were tired and starting to feel the effects of the thirteenth region’s mist.
Quong Po hesitated as he looked at his men.
He had gathered this many people because he knew that the thirteenth region was quite huge. As such, with this many people, they could split up and search for his daughter. Yet, from the moment they found traces of his daughter until now, everyone was still sticking together. Despite that, they still faced a lot of trouble handling the Blight Butterflies.
It had been three hours since they first stepped into the thirteenth region and they yielded no results. Not only that, these men were exhausted.
Seeing Quong Po frowning, Yuan Xiaoguang suggested, “How about I go with him? I could aid him in his efforts too.”
Qin Feng took a glance at Yuan Xiaoguang. This man was a wood type ability user. With him by his side, traversing in the woods would be much easier. Due to the flora and fauna in the area, Yuan Xiaoguang might actually do better than Qin Feng at the right moments.
Not only that, the fact that he could communicate with plant life meant that it would be easier for them to search for any clues of Quong Ting’s whereabouts.
“Okay.”
Despite seeing Qin Feng’s prowess in combat, Quong Po seemed to trust Yuan Xiaoguang more —after all, it was him that found all those pieces of his daughter’s jacket.
Besides, Qin Feng was a newcomer in Dusan Central City. Compared to him, Quong Po had heard about Yuan Xiaoguang more since he had already attained some name for himself in the Dusan community.
Meanwhile, a camera was recording everything in the shadows.
It was an extremely stealthy tactical camera. Not spending much of his conscious energy to scout his surroundings, Qin Feng had not noticed it yet. Although Yuan Xiaoguang could talk to trees, these plant life was no human either—so unless the trees knew about technology, they could not tell him about the camera.
Thus, every single move that the party made was sent out to its recipients.