#2603 - Exploration

Tigrand waited for Notal to finish translating before nodding at Fang Heng, then hurriedly left.

They've all retreated directly to the outskirts of the Bone Rot Swamp?

Notal felt uneasy. He cautiously glanced at Fang Heng beside him and asked, "Fang Heng, the situation doesn't look good. Should we retreat as well?"

"Hmm..."

Fang Heng hummed softly, pondering, as game notifications continuously refreshed on his retina.

【Hint: Player has triggered optional side quest - Mutated Calamity】.

Quest Name: Mutated Calamity

Quest Description: The frontline creatures of the Netherworld race have mutated in a short period, greatly increasing their strength. The Dead Realm United Team is quickly retreating. You can try to go to the frontline to collect more information.

Quest Requirements: Go to the frontline, find and kill mutated Calamity creatures (0/100), Elite-level creature (0/1).

Quest Rewards: Dead Realm faction favorability increases, faction contribution 500,000.

【Hint: Detected that the player possesses a research institute higher than LV: 100. Player has triggered a special quest - Unknown Calamity】.

Quest Name: Unknown Calamity.

Quest Type: Special prerequisite quest.

Quest Difficulty: S.

Quest Description: This isn't the first time you've heard the name of Calamity, but this is truly the first time you've encountered and fought against it. When facing the terrifying eternal scourge, perhaps what you need to do isn't simply run away, but try to obtain more information related to the Calamity.

Quest Requirement: Extract Calamity creature samples (0/10).

Huh?

It's actually a special prerequisite quest!

Fang Heng's heart skipped a beat.

These types of quests are extremely rare, often requiring the completion of multiple ones before triggering the subsequent main quest. Sometimes, after painstakingly completing one or two prerequisite quests, there's no reward at all, and it's unknown what other quests are missing. Not finding a way to trigger it is equivalent to working for nothing.

Even if you're lucky enough to complete them all and trigger the main quest, there's a high probability that the subsequent main quest triggered will be extremely difficult, making it impossible to complete. Therefore, these types of quests are considered by players to be very treacherous.

Fang Heng felt it wasn't a big problem.

He could complete a wave of them along the way.

Coincidentally, he originally wanted to go see the situation.

Fang Heng was very curious as to what extent the Calamity creatures had mutated, that even the bone dragons couldn't contend with them head-on.

"Notal, I want to go to the frontline to see the situation."

"What? You alone?"

Notal was first stunned, then immediately reacted, nodding and saying, "Should I go with you?"

"That's good too. You can help me translate if I encounter any problems. Don't worry, I won't risk my life."

As Fang Heng spoke, he summoned a bone dragon flying in mid-air to slowly descend, leaped onto the bone dragon's back, and extended his hand to Notal.

"Quick, keep up!"

...

The bone dragon carried Fang Heng and Notal into the air, accelerating towards the front-line war zone.

As they gradually approached the battle area, Fang Heng looked down, only to see a large expanse of red shadows gradually appearing densely within a white mist in the distance below.

What are those things?

A kind of bizarre life form.

Extremely similar to the Calamity he had seen before.

Only this time, their size had shrunk again, only less than a third of their original size. A more bizarre mask actually grew on the terrifying human faces on their backs!

No! Not a mask!

Looking closely, it was actually a newly grown carapace.

Two rows of wings protruded from under the carapace, giving the Calamity creatures the ability to fly!

At this time, a large, dense mass of Calamity creatures gathered in the low air!

"Buzz...!".

After the Calamity creatures gathered, they immediately pounced towards the large numbers of skeletal creatures summoned by the Netherworld race in front of them.

"Boom! Boom boom boom!!!!"

Fang Heng's pupils constricted!

The Calamity creatures exploded the instant they touched the bones! The corrosive effect produced by the explosion visibly devoured the bones almost instantly!

"Bang!!!!"

Then, a second-stage secondary explosion occurred, and waves of undead attribute aura burst out from the center of the explosion.

Fang Heng controlled the bone dragon to coil in the high air outside the battlefield, observing the battle situation with a frown.

The form of the Calamity creatures had undergone earth-shattering changes.

Not only did they gain the ability to fly, but they also gained a powerful self-detonation ability.

"Currently, the Calamity creatures rely on close-range self-detonation ability, and their short-term damage ability has been greatly improved. The explosion is divided into two stages, the first stage is physical damage, and the second stage is magical damage."

Fang Heng analyzed softly as he observed, "But they still haven't mastered ranged attack ability, which is still a weakness."

"Yeah," Notal was also observing, nodding and saying, "Their self-detonation damage is very powerful. Even the elite Netherworld race doesn't dare to resist it head-on, but just like you said, they lack ranged attack methods. We can keep our distance from them and then use large-area spells to eliminate them..."

"So it's very strange why the frontline team retreated so decisively."

Seemingly to verify Notal and Fang Heng's words, the mage team retreating from the rear released Netherworld Bombardment skills towards the large swarms of gathering Calamity creatures.

"Boom! Boom boom boom!!!!!"

Large swaths of Netherworld Bombardment exploded in the Calamity creature swarm.

"What!"

After a round of attacks, Notal's pupils shrank sharply.

What's the situation?

The fused Calamity creatures actually directly ignored the bombardment attacks of the Netherworld mage group, seemingly unaffected by any spells, only affected by the airflow震荡 produced by the Netherworld Bombardment, and were blown away in large numbers.

Fang Heng observed below and said in a deep voice, "There's a problem with the mask pattern armor on their backs."

Hearing this, Notal lowered his head to carefully examine it, his brows furrowing involuntarily.

So that's how it is!

At the instant the Netherworld Bombardment attack was produced, the newly grown mask carapace on the back of the fused Calamity creatures refracted a layer of strange luster.

"It's like an anti-magic shield," Notal analyzed, "And the defense level is very high, even high-intensity spells like Netherworld Bombardment can be completely defended against."

The continuous range attacks of the undead mage team only managed to disperse the Calamity creatures, delaying the Netherworld race's retreat for a while.

Hmm?

Fang Heng sensed something and turned his head to look to the right.

"Whoosh!!"

In the right area, twenty or so bone dragons flew through the air together. The mutated Calamity creatures in the high air sensed the target and immediately pounced towards the bone dragon swarm in a dense mass.

"Roar!!!!!"

Corruption Dragon Breath!

Before even approaching the Calamity creatures, the bone dragon swarm in the air opened their huge mouths, and一道道 dragon breath sprayed downwards!