Bates and the worker ants entered the swamp. One of their goals was to gather information about the poisonous swamp and prepare for the expansion of the gold-eating ant tribe.
The swamp was given its name due to the poisonous gas that filled the entire area. Other than the swamp murlocs and venomous flying dragons, not many creatures lived there. To other creatures, the swamp was a dead land. However, to the gold-eating ant tribe, it was the best training ground.
The gold-eating ant tribe had the [ adaptability ] talent, meaning that the poisonous gas in the swamp would not kill them instantly, but instead, would slowly reduce their health.
The poisonous gas was like a catalyst. As long as the ants awakened their [ adaptability ] talent, they could train continuously in the swamp and finally activate the [ elementary poison resistance ] passive skill.
The little worker ant was the best example. In just five days, it had activated its [ elementary poison resistance ] and was completely immune to the swamp's poisonous gas damage.
Even when the swamp murlocs' poison attacked them, the damage dealt was greatly reduced.
Of course, Bates had [ resistant armor shell ], [ advanced fire resistance ], and [ advanced ice resistance ], so he was almost completely immune to all of the murlocs' attacks.
The pitiful attack power of the swamp murlocs failed to leave a mark on Bates' body.
Their second, and most important, the purpose of entering the poisonous swamp was to hunt down the swamp murlocs' lord; the Venom Wyvern, and obtain the lord templates from the three bosses!
When he had killed Geer, Bates' attribute panel had advanced twice, becoming a warrior-class attribute template. Bates estimated that as long as he killed all three bosses and obtained their lord-class attribute panels, his attribute panel would be upgraded to lord-class.
Normally, it would be best to slowly raid an area as large as the swamp, however, Bates could not wait any longer!
He wanted to increase his strength as soon as possible! He also wanted to increase the worker ants and the queen ant strength too, growing the power of the entire gold-eating ant tribe!
This was the only thing that Bates wanted, yet there was something on his mind that was making him anxious.
Two days ago, a string of numbers appeared on Bates' attribute panel.
719:59:59
Two and a half days later, the string of numbers had become 662:39:42!
When he looked at the changes to the numbers, it was easy to deduce what it meant.
It was a countdown!
662:39:42 meant 662 hours, 39 minutes, and 42 seconds!
That was 27 and a half days!
He was unsure as to what this meant for the game.
Was it the end of the world?
The invasion of the Abyss?
The arrival of a God?
A major festival?
Countless possibilities had flashed through his mind.
In the end, there was only one possibility that Bates could think of.
It was a countdown to the arrival of players!
The world that he lived in was a game world, and he'd understood that from the start. Bates also understood that sooner or later, players would appear in this world.
They would appear as the weakest level 1 form, and then grow at unimaginable speeds, plundering all resources they could find, and killing all the monsters that could be seen, to make themselves stronger!
It was useless to run away.
To Bates, this was his real world. To players, this was still just a game.
Even if the characters in the game died, they could be resurrected, or they could simply change their appearance and reappear in this world as a new avatar.
Given enough time, players would be able to appear everywhere, and discover every monster in this world. As long as they had the time, they could continuously grow.
When countless top-tier players appeared, a mere level 12 warrior-tier monster would mean nothing to them, and as long as the rules of the game allowed it, the players would kill mercilessly!
The only hope in surviving would be to increase their own strength as soon as possible, at a speed that surpassed the growth of the players! They needed to become an existence a player would look up to, as soon as they entered the game.
This was the only way anyone had hope in escaping the fate of the monsters.
Even if Bates could become the Great Demonic God of the Abyss before the players grew up, he could not escape the fate of being attacked by them at some point, but it would make him the monster that lived the longest.
Growing up at the fastest speed was Bates' only way out!
The essence of more than a dozen murlocs' corpses had been devoured by the insect demon spear, leaving only a pile of gray powder.
Bates put away the insect magic spear and rushed in the direction of the small worker ants.
In five days, Bates had collected most of the information about the poisonous swamp, but he had failed to find the specific location of the murlocs' lord.
All he had done was kill any murloc that appeared in front of him!
With simple social relations, the murlocs' lord would not allow Bates to slaughter its people, so as long as he killed enough, the higher-level murlocs would soon appear to take revenge.
Eventually, it would result in him meeting the murloc lord.
Although Bates' level was not high, he did not feel the slightest bit of fear. After experiencing five evolutions and possessing four great resistance skills, he would not have to work hard.
He would remain in the Dark Forest as the overlord, and wait for everyone to descend.
Soon after, Bates and the worker ants encountered a second group of swamp murlocs.
Unlike the first group, the quality of this group of swamp murlocs was clearly much higher.
Looking over, he discovered two advanced murlocs and one swamp murloc. Among them was an agility-type advanced class, a murloc ranger!