Yang Xiao stood about a meter away from the dense fog, with Chen Fei and three other girls standing behind him, everyone feeling very tense.
Yang Xiao held the Black Long Sword in his hand, pointing at the fog as he spoke.
"Chen Fei, shoot a bolt of Lightning into the fog.
"Okay!"
Chen Fei stepped forward, swung her right hand, and a silver Lightning bolt shot out, piercing into the fog with a hissing sound.
The fog seemed to be hit by the electric current, shrank back with a whoosh, retreating just over a meter—exactly where Chen Fei's Lightning could strike.
"Feifei, try flipping your hair."
Feifei stood next to Yang Xiao, slightly moved her consciousness, and her pitch-black hair suddenly grew about four meters long, stabbing into the fog like steel wire.
This time, the fog receded about four meters.
After Feifei retracted her Magic Hair, Yang Xiao noticed a strange phenomenon; after the fog receded, it didn't surge forward again but left a blank space.
Holding the Black Sword, Yang Xiao said in a deep voice:
"Everyone stay close to me; if you see Mutated Creatures, Feifei, Chen Fei, and Chen Lu use long-range attacks, Dai Yun protect them."
Yang Xiao stepped into the fog, and the fog automatically receded about a meter, and as he advanced, the fog retreated further.
Even after Yang Xiao passed, that part of the fog didn't return.
Yang Xiao led the four girls, not daring to delve deep into the fog, but walked along the edge, constantly pushing back the fog. Half an hour later, they had paved a passage tens of meters deep and five to six meters wide through the fog.
As Yang Xiao continued walking, suddenly he heard a squeaking noise not far ahead in the fog.
"Everyone be alert!"
The four girls immediately held their breath.
Yang Xiao lightly waved the Black Sword in his hand, and the fog kept retreating.
Suddenly, a skeleton appeared from the fog; Yang Xiao was startled and stood still.
This was a human skeleton, presumably one of the students who camped here last night.
Yesterday, 200-300 people did not enter within fifty meters of the Genetic Store, and their camp is now in this fog.
Carefully inserting the Black Long Sword into the fog and as the fog receded, a complete skeleton appeared before them, with fresh bloodstains on the ground, seeming to have been devoured by some Mutated Creature last night.
Suddenly seeing their classmate devoured into bones, the girls were terrified; Chen Fei even convulsed in her stomach and began to vomit.
"Squeak, squeak,"
The sound kept coming.
Yang Xiao patted Chen Fei's shoulder.
"How is it, can you hold on?"
Chen Lu, standing beside, supported Chen Fei and gave her a bottle of water to drink.
Finally, Chen Fei stopped vomiting and said somewhat embarrassedly:
"Boss, I'm sorry, I'm fine now."
"Mm, everyone be careful, there are Mutated Creatures nearby, if you can't defeat them, run towards the Genetic Store, as long as you enter within a 50-meter range, you will be protected, and the Mutated Creatures will not continue to pursue you."
Before attacking, everyone thought of a retreat route.
Yang Xiao glanced at the four girls and moved forward again; with the fog retreating, three more skeletons appeared on the ground.
Suddenly, an insect the size of a fist burrowed out from one of the skeletons.
Yang Xiao flicked his longsword and stabbed at the mutated creature on the ground while shouting:
"Attack!"
In the chaos, Chen Fei's Lightning, Chen Lu's Ice Ball, and Feifei's long hair all attacked the ground together.
With a crisp snap, the skeleton on the ground immediately shattered, and upon closer inspection, under Yang Xiao's Black Long Sword, an unfamiliar creature was struck and was already dead, covered with a layer of ice.
Yang Xiao lifted it up and was stunned.
Isn't this a mutated ant?
The four girls looked at it and were also astounded.
"Who would have thought that after mutating, the ants became the size of a fist, this is too terrifying."
"Looking at it this way, these students were all attacked by the mutated ants, and then devoured completely."
"Yes, so the chirping sounds we heard earlier, must be from the mutated ant colony."
Yang Xiao lifted the ant's body with his sword.
With a thud, a black shiny irregularly shaped crystal fell.
Yang Xiao quickly picked it up, it felt cold to the touch and slightly heavy.
"What is this?"
Chen Fei asked.
"I think, this is probably the Genetic Fragment that Gu Bo mentioned."
"So Genetic Fragments look like this? What use are they? Also, Gu Bo said mutated creature corpses can be eaten, can these mutated ants be eaten too?"
Chen Lu asked from the side.
"I think so, just put it directly on the fire, roast until it's crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, dip in some salt, the taste should be pretty good."
Feifei chuckled and said.
"Feifei, if you keep eating like this, I'm really worried about you."
Dai Yun said with a smile.
Yang Xiao glanced at the four girls and said:
"Look at you all, just killed an ant and already thinking about how to eat it. There's a whole colony of ants ahead, kill them all, and I'll let you eat as much as you want."
The four girls giggled and continued following Yang Xiao forward, Feifei took out a bag she had prepared in advance and put the ant's body into it.
Everyone dared not walk too fast, pushing back the dense fog while being cautious of the ground around them, encountering several isolated mutated ants one after another, and each displayed their abilities to annihilate them one by one.
Yang Xiao found that he could kill an ant with one stab of his sword, but Chen Fei's Lightning and Chen Lu's Ice Ball could not kill one with a single hit; Lightning could numb the ants, and Ice Ball could slow their movement, it would take three consecutive attacks for either of them to kill one.
As for Feifei's Magic Hair, the stiff iron-like strands could not pierce the body of a mutated ant directly; it could only wrap around the ant and then be slammed on the ground repeatedly, killing the mutated ants after five or six slams.
Dai Yun's Wolf Claw could nearly kill a mutated ant directly, but Dai Yun had to attack up close, putting himself at risk.
After killing a dozen more ants, the five of them gained 5 Genetic Fragments, with the drop rate of Genetic Fragments being less than one in three per CD, and as for the weapons Gu Bo mentioned, not a single one dropped.
The five of them made their way forward, gradually summarizing a set of tactics; the first attacks were Chen Fei's Lightning and Chen Lu's Ice Ball, then Feifei would directly use her long hair to wrap around the stiffened ant bodies hit by the Lightning or Ice Ball, needing only about 2 hits to kill a mutated ant.
Feifei's hair could wrap around dozens of ants at a time, and it was very effective in group battles.
Yang Xiao found that his Black Sword could almost instantly kill a mutated ant, and with his high sensory acuity and quick reactions, as soon as he saw a mutated ant, he was sure to hit it.
Gradually getting into the thrill of the battle, they quickened their pace in searching for the ant colony.
When Yang Xiao's longsword pushed back a patch of dense fog, a group of mutated ants finally appeared in front of everyone.