Chapter 100: Ganging Up Was Only to Save Potions

Iron Shell Beetles were a kind of insect clan known for their formidable defenses and a certain ability to rebound damage, a troublesome breed indeed. Yet they were also easier to deal with than creatures like Blazing Beetles, which could spew torrents of searing magma flame.

All it took was a sharp weapon, or an enhanced surge of inner energy, to break an Iron Shell Beetle’s carapace, inflict a wound, and then deliver a fatal blow that would bring it down.

So sometimes, Iron Shell Beetles were actually far easier to handle than Blazing Beetles and many other insect clans.

Not to mention that the present formation and deployment already held a tremendous advantage. So long as no major mistake occurred, everything would go very well. Even though they had already paid a death toll, death was inevitable; no battle could be without it. Yan Fan was simply trying his best to keep casualties at zero.

“Aaah!”

Another man screamed in agony. After Yan Fan finished off the Iron Shell Beetle before him and gained just over three hundred experience points, he spun at once. The Thunder Essence Blade in his hand flashed in a sweeping slash, and in an instant the Iron Shell Beetle that had been biting a man was shredded apart.

As for the fellow whose chest was missing a chunk of flesh, he kept shouting for help, begging to be saved. Seeing how pitiful he looked, Yan Fan decisively fed him a bottle of life potion. In an instant, the blood around the wound stopped flowing, then gradually began to recover, and the missing flesh started to grow back.

That was the advantage of the apocalypse system. In the real world, setting aside whether the bleeding could even be stopped, he would first have to endure the pain for a while.

In this hellish world of the apocalypse, a single bottle of life potion could drive a crowd mad. Many people had to pass the test of conscience over such a thing. Handing a bottle of life potion to a stranger at random—few would have that courage. Yan Fan gave it to him simply because he knew, without question, that he would.

Rather than dragging it out and letting the man suffer, it was better to be decisive and give him a bottle now.

But after feeding him the potion, trouble came knocking. Several people walked over as well, looking at him with pleading eyes. Yan Fan glanced at them and saw that they too were badly injured; some had lost a chunk of flesh from a thigh, others were drenched in blood and clearly in pain.

Yet after seeing Yan Fan give another man a bottle of life potion, watching the suffering stop and the wounds begin to heal, they could not resist the temptation and, abandoning all dignity, wanted to ask him for some as well.

“Damn it!”

Yan Fan cursed inwardly. At that moment, he would have loved nothing more than to be a villain. But looking at their eyes full of agony, listening to their cries, he gritted his teeth and tossed out several more bottles of life potion. Then he bellowed, “Get the hell out of my way! I’ll handle all of these myself!”

The reason he said that was because he had considered several things. First, the issue of casualties. Second, the matter of the life potions. If he kept handing them out like this, he would run out as well—and once he did, would anyone believe him?

It was a maddening, deeply vexing problem.

The others were surprised, but very quickly they scattered with impressive speed. Just kidding—if someone was willing to fight those beasts, wasn’t that a good thing? They could just hide in the shadows. If things really went bad, they could join in then.

That was their thought. As soon as Yan Fan’s shout fell, the people retreated in neat order and hid themselves away. At present, there were still more than thirty Iron Shell Beetles left in the field, along with a small number of Corrupted Shell Beetles.

“Kill!”

Yan Fan wasted no breath. His first targets were the Iron Shell Beetles that had broken free. With the Thunder Essence Blade and his reinforced inner energy, his sharpness was already more than enough to split open their defenses.

Pfft!

With the wet sound of the blade entering flesh, one Iron Shell Beetle had its heart pierced clean through by Yan Fan. He yanked the blade free, green blood spraying across the ground. Then two more liberated Iron Shell Beetles roared as they charged toward him.

Yan Fan glanced around. Using the terrain was no longer possible; all that remained was a bloody fight to the death.

His battle instincts had been forced into existence through hardship. Within the warrior’s space stone, he had been tempered by all manner of training, suffering, and trials, and that was what had given Yan Fan his frankly outrageous combat ability.

His technique, his awareness, everything about him was astonishing. The only ones who had not left the battlefield were Li Qiang and the others. They knew that killing an insect clan creature yielded far too much reward. They had not never experienced bloody battles before; the dangers they had faced were no less than Yan Fan’s.

That was why they understood that in the midst of danger, if one survived, what one often gained in return was a corresponding fortune.

Now the slaughter began. Yan Fan crouched low, dodging a Corrupted Shell Beetle’s spray of corruptive fluid. Then, closing in, he hurled the Thunder Essence Blade like a throwing knife when he was still three meters away. Inner-energy impact flared over his body, shielding him as he charged forward.

The Thunder Essence Blade sank into the Corrupted Shell Beetle’s body, and Yan Fan rushed straight at it. The beast had spat out a mouthful of corrosive fluid, but Yan Fan cleverly used the skill effect within the inner-energy impact technique. The inner energy enveloping his body greatly reduced the damage from the corrosive spray.

Thus Yan Fan charged in fearlessly, smashing it aside. With the Thunder Essence Blade still embedded in its abdomen, the Corrupted Shell Beetle was sent flying two meters before striking against two trees and tumbling to the ground with a thud.

In the blink of an eye, Yan Fan was at its side. Inner energy covered his fist as he brought it crashing down on the beetle’s back. The already fairly hard carapace shattered beneath his blow, and the soft warmth of the insect flesh beneath made Yan Fan shiver all over.

The innards of insect clan creatures were very soft, nothing but flesh and blood. All one had to do was destroy the hard shell outside. In that instant, Yan Fan shredded the internal structure of a Corrupted Shell Beetle and finished it off perfectly.

And so, under Yan Fan’s extraordinary performance, all of these insect clan creatures were slain within barely half an hour, and he smoothly broke through to level 8.

These insect clan creatures seemed to have been cut down with ease, but in truth it all depended entirely on favorable timing, terrain, and human advantage.

The cold weather had slowed the insects’ movement speed, while the prior preparations had provided the advantage of foresight. The terrain came from the surrounding environment; this stretch of forest was perfectly suited to low-intelligence insect clans, trapping them in place. And the final advantage, the human factor, was Yan Fan’s supernormal performance.

After dealing with so many insect creatures, Li Qiang immediately began sneaking around to gather blood and corpses. Yan Fan saw this and felt utterly speechless, but soon he too began to do the same, collecting blood as well as bodies.

Of course, if he came across any equipment, Yan Fan would put it away without the slightest hesitation.

As for the others, since they had not contributed much, few of them had the nerve to go up and pick up equipment—and they were also afraid of angering Yan Fan, that god of slaughter.