[Should I help him?]

As she pondered, one of the other's spoke up, "What move is he using against the ant queen's sh.e.l.l? It seems like he is actually breaking it!"

"Hmph. He is just hitting the same spot again and again. The Queen has almost killed him several times already. He's just been lucky enough to get away in the nick of time…!"

Delphine rolled her eyes, "If he can roll and dodge that many times it's no longer just luck, it's skill."

They ignored her. One of them stopped running.

"I've just had an idea. Why not use the kid as a softener and then kill the ant queen ourselves? Then we can harvest its valuable sh.e.l.l!"

"But none of us is in the 4th level of Qi Distillation, and you clearly saw the result when we tried fighting just then. We couldn't even land a blow!"

The one that spoke first was a thin youth with a sharp chin; hearing the words of his fellow disciple he scoffed.

"But now we have that kid as a buffer! You have already seen that he has some mysterious skill that can crack open the ant queen's sh.e.l.l. Although he can't kill her with just that, us four can! Plus, with four of us, we can take the exoskeleton for ourselves!"

Green began to show on the faces of the Zephyr sect disciples. Ten thousand silvers… that was a lot of money.

"You're right, brother. That person wouldn't have found the Queen if we had not accidentally b.u.mped into it and led it here!"

"Francis, Serci, Marcus. That person saved our lives by taking the Queen's attention away from us!" Delphine said crossly. However, her words were ineffectual. The other three looked at Delphine with discontent in their eyes.

"You may not agree with us, but we have made up our minds."

Just at this moment, a deafening shriek echoed through the woods.

That shriek… the kid had somehow badly harmed the ant queen!?

"Quick! Before he kills her first and takes all the good stuff!" Someone said.

They charged towards the direction of the sound. Delphine followed.

________

BANG!

An immense wave crashed down from the skies. The ant queen roared. Invasive, cold qi seeped into its flesh through the numerous fractures in its sh.e.l.l. It started to feel pain. It looked at Van angrily and roared again.

Van leapt back just as a giant leg stabbed into the ground beside him. Sweat dripped from his brow.

He had just his most powerful skill– 'Tide Swallows the Earth!'

It was very effective. The destructive power was higher than 'River Splitting the Rock's and it's slowing ability much better too. The only problem was that it consumed way too much of his spiritual reserves! He estimated that he could only use the move two more times.

However, this may not be too much of a problem!

The herb juice's effects were beginning to show. The ant Queen stumbled forwards as it tried to attack him and missed.

Van saw that the fissure he had created in her sh.e.l.l was right before him. He did not miss the opportunity. He pulled back his fist. His muscles bunched up beneath his skin and a ferocious aura emitted from him. His skin turned a crystalline copper.

BANG!

His fist blasted through the crack in the exoskeleton and deep into the squishy flesh.

The Queen shrieked. It tried to fling itself violently to dislodge Van.

[Flaming Bull Fist!]

Blazing flames directly entered the Queen's flesh. The giant insect was being cooked from within!

Tortured screams emitted from the giant insect queen. It was in so much pain! It writhed and snapped its mandibles. As it writhed, it managed to hook a mandible around Van's leg.

Immediately, Van jumped off and landed on his feet.

His eyes locked in on one of the Zephyr Sect disciples who were now less than two kilometres away. In front of him, the ant queen was not yet finished!

Despite its burning flesh, the Queen rallied herself and ran forward once more.

"Tide Swallows the Earth!" Van calmly waved his palm.

An enormous tidal wave blocked the sunlight.

It crashed into the Queen. The sudden drop in temperature caused a ma.s.sive crack to form in its abdomen!

The ant queen was furious. It had never been in so much pain in its life! All it usually did was sleep and eat lazily as her workers served her.

At that moment, the Zephyr disciples arrived.

"Kid. Move quickly! This Queen of Brown King Ants is ours to kill!" Francis, who was at the front, arrogantly shouted. He was also the guy who had spotted Blackie and wanted Van to join their team.

Van ignored him. Das.h.i.+ng forward, he once more channelled his fleshly cultivation and slammed his fist into the cracks in the ant queen's sh.e.l.l.

Francis was affected Van's intimidating aura and felt wary. However, he told himself that Van was only a third ranker like them. Francis didn't put Van into his eyes. There was four of them and one of him! Although Delphine might not help them, they still had three people of the 3rd level of Qi Distillation!

Van finally deigned to speak, "Haven't you forgotten about someone?"

At that moment, Van leisurely turned his body and ran straight towards the three Zephyr Sect disciples.

Francis was confused at first, but as he saw the giant form of the ant queen following right behind Van, he paled. Not good!

The Queen roared and barrelled forwards.

"s.h.i.+t!" Francis tried to move away but he was nowhere near as nimble as Van. He could only watch helplessly as his arm was sliced right off! With a spray of blood, it disconnected from his body and tumbled to the ground.

Van smirked. He mockingly looked at Francis. The only person he was wary of was Delphine. He felt instinctively that she had yet to display her true skill.

At that moment, the young girl spoke. Her eyes were unreadable.

"Francis! This young man is the only one able to penetrate the Queen's sh.e.l.l. With this, we have a chance of winning if we all work together. We can discuss how to split the exoskeleton later!" She said slowly as she arrived at the scene.

Van looked at her oddly. What was going through this girl's mind? 'We can have a chance of winning if we all work together?'

Little girl, I could have won easily if you pests hadn't disrupted my plan!

However, what came out of Van's mouth was different. After so many run-ins with unreasonable and arrogant people, he had learned some skills.

"Sure. If we can kill the Queen, that is. The sh.e.l.l is ma.s.sive, and I do not have the tools to cut it or the equipment to take it away."

This was the truth. His bone dagger may not be able to slice through the sh.e.l.l. However, if they thought he was giving them anything substantial they were kidding themselves!

Van felt no need to disrupt the beautiful image they had in their minds. At maximum, the four of them would get one part out of ten!

He thought of the girl's mysterious skills and strength and then adjusted the figure slightly. Hmph, maybe two pieces in ten then!

On the other side of things, someone else was having similar thoughts. Marcus was excited by the thought of having a cut of the ten thousand taels despite Francis losing an arm.

[We'll let him think we'll give him an equal share, but he'll be lucky to get two parts out of ten!]

Meanwhile, Francis gazed at Van with a smile full of rage and killing intent.

The two groups faced each other with strange looks on their faces.

_______

"Beam Spear!"

A golden spear of light stabbed into the ant queen's eyes. Momentarily blinded, it flailed about, swinging its head from side to side wildly.

Two of the Zephyr Sect disciples were knocked away. They touched their broken ribs and winced painfully but ran back to resume fighting.

Van took a step back. He only occasionally used Thermocycling Fist to form fractures in the Queen's sh.e.l.l and let the three Zephyr Sect disciples do the heavy work. They were quickly expending their qi as they hurled their strongest attacks at the Queen. In the meantime, Van was slowly recovering his internal power.

He and the girl in pink were coldly ignoring each other.

Like Van, Delphine suspected that the other was a lot stronger than they let on. An ordinary person could not survive so many clashes with the giant insect queen, nor could they could they so easily damage the extremely resistant exoskeleton!

The duo let the three in front of them tackle the giant ant queen while they watched.

The ant queen by this time was fully enraged and was attacking everything with impunity. Her strikes often went wild and accidentally tackled trees or rocks instead of its attackers.

The three disciples were immensely cheered.

However, a faint crease appeared in Delphine's brow.

There was something wrong with the giant queen ant in front of them. As she observed closely for a few more seconds, she realized:

It had been drugged!

Delphine recognised the effects of the juice of the Nightsoft Leaf.

Chilled, Delphine turned and looked at the young man beside her and saw the mysterious smile on his face. A s.h.i.+ver went through her. She had not seen him drug the ant queen...that meant…

This had all been a pre-planned event!

The four of them had interrupted this young man's attempt to drug and kill the Queen of Brown King Ants – alone!

Delphine thought to herself that this young man was absolutely not simple.

A scream tore the air.

Van's expression subtly changed. The Queen was dying!

Delphine also reacted quickly. She waved an arm.

An enormous green vine emerged from the ground and restrained the enraged Queen.

Van ran forwards and waved a palm. An immense wave blotted the sky and enveloped the cracked sh.e.l.l of the Queen.

Dense, icy qi entered the cracks and ravaged the Queen's flesh. With a final ear-piercing scream; it perished!

The green vine receded into the ground.

"We killed it!" Marcus enthused; his face was pale and his breaths short and sharp. The other two were in a worse state. Francis had been bleeding from his arm the entire time.

Van leapt up onto the still corpse. He stood upon the highest point and looked down at the four below him.

"I will take eight-tenths of the loot."

The three disciples were enraged.

"Get f.u.c.ked! Eight-tenths of that corpse belongs to us!"

Van stood his ground.

One had lost an arm, the other two were extremely exhausted and had wasted all their qi. Exactly as he had planned.

The only person he was wary of was the girl in pink.

Delphine looked up at him with a complex expression on her face, "We can discuss how to split the tiger."

Van looked at her approvingly, "I will give you two-tenths of the corpse if you guys dissect the corpse and organise transport for it."

"Like f.u.c.k, we will! That exoskelton belongs to us!", Francis angrily shoved Delphine aside with his intact arm. Marcus came to his side and pulled out his golden spear threateningly at Van.

The remaining disciple, Serci, stood quietly behind Delphine. She was unwilling to get involved.

Francis sneered, "Arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Do you think you have the qualifications to decide the rules? Only the winners do!"

Franci and Marcus ran up.

"Stop!" Delphine tried to stop the two Zephyr Sect disciples, but it was too late.

"Beam Spear!" One shouted.

A flash of bright light lit the gap in the woods. The attack was headed straight for Van!