Nine-tailed fox.
A catastrophic-level boss creature.
In the few hundred years since humanity began entering the mining areas, up to the present, there had only been a two-digit number of calamity-level bosses killed.
There had only been one instance of a catastrophic-level boss creature killed, and even then, they had taken advantage of a severely weakened Titan Beast.
The Soul Crystals from a catastrophic-level boss could sustain an entire Pyramid fortress for thirty years' worth of electricity consumption—equivalent to the power of nineteen nuclear explosions.
But even with such vast amounts of energy, the increasingly powerful human hunters, with their growing talent, still couldn't oppose a catastrophic-level creature.
When Dong Ran heard about the nine-tailed fox, she instinctively shook her head, thinking that Tang had gone a bit too far this time.
Merely on the basis of a seven-leaved flower, they were to deduce that a catastrophic-level creature had emerged in the yellow zone?
If that were the case, she would need to return to the real world immediately, inform the military, remake the world map of the mining area, and mark the forest area as red.
But clearly, Dong Ran didn't quite believe it.
"Tang... this is a bit too much... The nine-tailed fox is a catastrophic-level boss, how could it possibly appear here?"
Tang Xian had stopped believing that this foolish woman would ever see reason.
"You need to understand the logic, it's not that areas marked red have catastrophic-level creatures, but that areas with catastrophic-level creatures get marked red. Such regression in exploration isn't unprecedented in history."
"Regression in exploration? It can't be that coincidental, right?" Dong Ran, looking at Tang Xian's expression, finally realized that he wasn't just trying to scare her.
Humans once thought they could advance triumphantly into the mining areas, marking countless forests and grasslands as blue because they hadn't seen any powerful creatures there.
But later, those areas were all reclassified as red and yellow.
Every construction that humans had left in those regions had been destroyed. That was the regression of exploration.
In fact, before humans could truly defeat catastrophic-level creatures, Tang Xian didn't believe such exploration could progress beyond twenty percent.
Tang Xian's nose twitched, he urged, "Hurry up and go, if you don't leave now, you won't be able to."
It wasn't an excuse to leave her behind.
This time, even Dong Ran felt a terrifying presence approaching.
How long had it been?
In just a few minutes, it seemed a terrible force was spreading rapidly from a distance.
The only advantage humans had over creatures in the mining area was the ability to return to the real world before the fight began, via a portable teleportation fissure.
Mining area creatures wouldn't possess such technology.
"If I go, what will you do?" Dong Ran was somewhat reluctant to leave.
Tang Xian's expression also began to calm down.
He had been somewhat agitated just a moment ago.
Now that he thought about it, what had happened couldn't be changed.
He could utilize the knowledge he had to hunt perfect-level and even perfect-level boss creatures, but calamity-level and catastrophic-level were still too much for Tang Xian.
He needed his own team.
To formulate a long-term plan effective for at least a quarter.
And a lot of advanced equipment before he could confidently hunt calamity-level creatures.
As for the catastrophic-level...
They were apexes of the ecological hierarchy, and Tang Xian believed that unless one day he could become the supreme commander at the peak of the Pyramid, it would be difficult to hunt catastrophic-level creatures with just a squad's resources.
But, inspired by those sages, Tang Xian, driven by the spirit of research, was very eager to see a catastrophic-level creature at least once.
"I'll stay. I want to see the Cataclysmic creature," Tang Xian said in a very calm tone,
"What about this fox?" Perhaps it was Tang Xian's composure that put Dong Ran at ease, so much so that she suddenly thought of the silver fox stew. She even overlooked the terrifying logic that Tang Xian actually wanted to see a Cataclysmic creature up close.
"Of course it deserves a proper burial."
Dong Ran was speechless, unable to keep up with Tang Xian's train of thought. A proper burial for a three-tailed fox?
Tang Xian even started to dig the ground as he spoke.
"We… shouldn't we just take it back with us? We could still eat it."
Tang Xian glared at Dong Ran, feeling that whoever was trying to test him, sending someone like Dong Ran as a spy was really stupid.
"How can you eat a fox when they are so cute?"
His words once again left Dong Ran speechless.
Dong Ran didn't bother to figure out his bizarre logic anymore, and she prepared to help Tang Xian, but Tang Xian's tone turned cold again:
"I warn you, either kill yourself now or roll back to the Pyramid. Your mission is over. No matter what information you've gotten from me, I'm not stopping you now. You can go. Go back and tell your master to stop testing me."
These words were extremely harsh, and Dong Ran's face turned pale.
Indeed, when she first received this mission, she felt some resistance, but she had to obey the command of that person, even if it meant death.
This was the education she had received from a young age, and so Dong Ran accepted the mission.
And she also prepared herself… to devote herself to Tang Xian.
But what she didn't expect was that although Tang Xian often teased her, he never did anything very indecent to her.
He even often displayed an air as if considering all women as stupid as pig's heads, a vibe typical of a straight man with a titanium alloy backbone.
This surprisingly made Dong Ran develop a bit of a liking for him.
"Tang… how did you know my identity?"
"In the middle of the night, a beautiful woman comes to sell herself, and she's a talented one at that. If I couldn't be suspicious, I wouldn't have survived in the mining area for three months."
"Is it just because of that?"
Tang Xian said impatiently:
"Women with big chests and round buttocks are mostly overweight, and those like you with a slender waist and small frame must work out regularly and have precise nutritional control to have such a figure. Many wealthy women on the third or fourth level may not even have a figure like yours. Most bottom-level women, even if thin, don't have such proportions. Secondly, your hair—there's a significant visual difference with long-term hair care, or the lack thereof. A malnourished woman with plump breasts, a round behind, and a waist-length mane of hair can only be found in foolish novels that deceive men."
"You are definitely not a bottom-level person. As for where you're from, I don't care. Since my student days, I've been used to people approaching me with motives. For me, there's no difference."
Dong Ran suddenly felt a pang of sorrow.
It hurt to be told by Tang Xian that "you're no different from the others."
The three-tailed fox wasn't very large, and Tang Xian dug the hole quickly, which was also due to the soft soil of the forest. He placed the three-tailed fox into the hole and scattered the Biphasic Orchids over its body, trying to make the funeral of a fox as dignified as possible.
Coming back to his senses, he realized that Dong Ran was still standing there.
"Why haven't you left yet? Scram!"
Tang Xian was getting anxious. Why wouldn't this woman listen to reason?
The faint scent was becoming clearer, and so was the terrible sense of oppression. Of course, Tang Xian didn't want Dong Ran to actually die here. After all, Dong Ran had a certain degree of influence; the military would take her word into account and mark this as a red zone to prevent humans from entering, averting possible losses.
But as for him, a bottom-level worker, who could he report to?
Dong Ran nodded sadly without a word, ready to use the portable transporter to leave.
But at that moment, a massive dark shadow loomed over the two of them.
Above their heads, a huge fire-red fox fell from the sky.