Chapter 1032: The Dishonorable Plotter
Qin Feng smiled. “Wow, I never thought that I’d meet the fabled Blooming Lord again. And here of all places. Are you here to hunt down the broodmother too?”
Petalbrook was stunned when she heard this. She was not here to take on the Insectoid leader. In fact, she visited this place because she heard that there were a lot of minerals in this area. As such, she was there to bring some soil back to nurture some unique plants.
“You want to partic.i.p.ate in that hunt? What kind of broodmother is it?” Petalbrook asked.
“I heard it’s an SS-tier Armored Star Broodmother.”
Qin Feng was not entirely sure himself. However, now that he had become this strong, he was not afraid of an SS-tier beast deity. Of course, there was also a chance that Zhao Ge had kept the actual strength of the broodmother a secret; this would mean that Zhao Ge had intended to send him and the others out to die.
As such, when putting these into consideration, Qin Feng was indeed not sure just how strong the broodmother was.
“Oh, if it’s just an SS-tier, I could help.”
Thus, Petalbrook went to talk to Zhao Ge. Naturally, Zhao Ge did not want to involve Petalbrook; but if he rejected her help now, it would seem as though he was being unreasonable. As such, he reluctantly agreed.
“We’ll depart in a few days.”
Now that more and more ability users had joined the campaign, Zhao Ge had no choice but to make sure that he completed his mission—to kill Qin Feng.
Meanwhile, Qin Feng had also hunted down a lot of armored stars too, enhancing his physical power to nearly S6-tier. He needed just a few more physical essences to actually ascend to S6-tier though.
If he could kill the broodmother, Qin Feng’s power would surely be enhanced to that level.
A few days later, it was finally time to depart.
There were now about one thousand ability users in the team, including two SSS-tiers in their ranks. About two hundred of them were SS-tiers.
With this many capable fighters, killing an SS-tier beast deity should not be a problem.
“Depart!”
Zhao Ge gave out the order with a grim face.
He had a lot to answer to if the whole team were to get wiped here.
Still, things had developed to this stage, so he could not go back on his plan. As such, he had to go on with the plan and allow this many people to die.
Of course, Petalbrook was quite capable herself so he was sure that she would survive. And he was confident that his plan was so solid that she would not be suspicious of him.
Thus, Zhao Ge boarded his battles.h.i.+p with his mind at ease.
The battles.h.i.+p then traveled through the grey landscape for five hours before arriving at a ma.s.sive crater. The crater was about twenty meters in width. It was weird but not too remarkable—there were about hundreds of craters like this one about hundreds of meters away.
These craters were the nests of armored stars.
Zhao Ge scanned the area and said, “There aren’t any other bigger craters in the area. This means that the broodmother is dwelling underground now. You should know, the broodmother of the armored stars is very gigantic in size. When it has evolved underground, it tends to get stuck underground. This is good news because we can focus on wiping out the armored stars in the area first, taking her reinforcement away before we get to her.”
Everyone nodded after listening to Zhao Ge’s a.n.a.lysis. They knew this was how void beasts worked. When they could grasp its habitat and natural habits, they could definitely grasp its weakness.
“Everyone! Spread out and clean up the armored stars in the area!”
Zhao Ge split the groups and ordered them to wipe out the armored stars in the craters in the area. He had also a.s.signed Petalbrook to be in a different group while he had Qin Feng in his own team.
Zhao Ge picked a crater and led his team into it.
These craters had tunnels that were big enough for armored stars to move about one by one; but when a human travelled through it, it seemed so wide and big that they could fit in eight hovertanks.
Zhao Ge picked an entrance and ventured through it. Qin Feng studied the place carefully but did not notice anything peculiar. When he saw that Zhao Ge was so confident in walking onward, Qin Feng began to get cautious as he tagged along.
Vooom Voom Voom!
Loud vibrating noises could be heard from within the deeper parts of the tunnel as rocks started falling from the tunnel’s ceiling. Apparently, there were armored stars moving toward them.
“Qin Feng, use your dark ability to weaken the armored stars’ defenses.” Zhao Ge ordered.
Qin Feng did not object. If Zhao Ge wanted to double-cross him, this was not the best time. Thus, he advanced forward and faced the oncoming foe.
The armored stars had advanced toward the group, facing Qin Feng and the team. It widened its mouth with its razor fangs, prepared to bite their heads off.
“Finger of Death!”
Without hesitation, Qin Feng dealt a fatal blow onto the armored star with his dark ability.
“Good work! Qin Feng, you’ll be in the front, opening up paths for us.” Zhao Ge praised.
‘Huh, Zhao Ge is probably trying to waste my conscious energy.’
However, Qin Feng had a large pool of conscious energy. If he kept on doing the same attack for ten straight days, he would still have a lot of conscious energy in him. Besides, killing these armored stars would actually replenish his conscious energy instead of exhausting it.
Of course, Zhao Ge did not know about Qin Feng’s real capabilities. His plan was to have Qin Feng be off guard when getting all the glory of being the hero first before leading him to a tight spot where he would be completely trapped in the Insectoid nest.
A few moments later, they had reached a bigger s.p.a.ce like a huge underground lobby. More importantly, the place was crawling with armored stars.
“Be careful! It’s a sub-hive.”
The armored stars tend to reproduce at an insane speed. As the adults grew stronger from eating the resources in the nest, they would push all the weaker ones out of the nests—this meant that the armored stars that the humans faced on the surface were all defectives that could not compete for food in the nests.
In other words, the armored stars in the nests here were much stronger than the ones they find out there. Each of them had the power of at least a beast king, about the strength of an S5-tier!
“Get ready. If this is a sub-hive, then the main hive where the broodmother resides should be nearby.” Zhao Gao ordered as he pulled out his sword.
“Deca Kendo Stroke!”
Zhao Ge unleashed over thousands of slashes at the enemies ahead in less than a minute.
Qin Feng had seen this martial art before it was a martial art that Liu Chong had used before. The Deca Kendo Stroke was an S-tier martial art that was rather well-known amongst the Human Alliance.
However, the Deca Kendo Stroke that Zhao Ge used here felt quite different from the one Liu Chong used.
As the thousands of sword slashes. .h.i.t the armored stars, they began to get agitated.
“Qin Feng! Use your dark ability now! Use a Dark Wall!” Zhao Ge ordered.
It was then, Zhao Ge acc.u.mulated a surge of internal energy and pushed it onto Qin Feng’s back.
Qin Feng frowned.
So, Zhao Ge had finally shown his true colors.