THE STRONGEST NEXULYTE

After resting for two days in the territory of the red tree demon, they continued their journey deeper into the tunnel.

They passed through the territory of the reptile monster that Ivan had slashed in half a few days ago, the territory of the monster was just next after that of the red tree demon; they could even be considered as neighbors.

Here, they found a bunch of old skeletons belonging to strange monsters that the reptile had devoured and claw marks painting the walls.

They didn't stop and continued on their journey, the land carrier climbing uneven terrains and paths that made no sense.

They traveled for another kilometer before stopping, they could hear sounds of loud buzzing coming from ahead of them like a swamp of bees.

To avoid alerting whatever was producing the buzzing sounds, the group came down from the land carrier and proceeded on foot to take a look.

After passing through a five-meter-wide stone path, they arrived at an opening on the wall of the tunnel.

It was as if they were standing at the entrance of a hole that was dug in the middle of the tunnel wall without a clear path of reaching it unless one was capable of flight.

Looking down, they saw that the ground was over a hundred meters away from the opening that they were in and a long river of blood cut the ground in two as it flowed from one crack into another crack at the other end smoothly without splashing around.

As for the buzzing sounds that they had heard…

Hanging from the ceiling was a gigantic beehive castle with hundreds of openings on it.

Countless metal mosquitoes with two-meter-long silver needles flew around it; they were the ones making the buzzing sounds.

These metal mosquitoes were creatures that were three meters huge; they had the body of mosquito and bee wings and long silver needles that were almost as long as their bodies stuck out from their heads.

"So…so many of them!" Glen gasped with wide-open eyes; the number of metal mosquitoes was easily over a hundred of them, and more were still inside the castle.

"Metal mosquitoes are not particularly hard to deal with; what makes them is their large numbers… Besides, we are not in a favorable terrain to fight them," Ralph voiced out from the side as he stared down at the ground and river that was very far away.

Everyone silently agreed to what Ralph said; the metal mosquitoes were weak creatures individually, but having a swarm of them come after you was a different matter.

"Let's go back first," Ivan gave the order after staying silent for a while, all of them returned to where the land carrier was.

"Back so soon? What's with the noise, should we continue?" Elliot rained out questions after they entered the land carrier.

"No, there's a giant beehive occupied by hundreds of metal mosquitoes ahead, and the place is a gaping hole with no place to step on," Karin explained to him.

Elliot clicked his tongue upon hearing this, he knew just as much as they did about how difficult it would be after finding out what was ahead; it could even be labeled as impossible.

" Unless we can create an attack that can wipe all of them out in one go, we might not be able to kill them all even if we could fly," Elliot shook his head while letting out a sigh.

They all agreed with him that this mission might come to a stop because of these troublesome creatures.

" What are we going to do now? Return?" Ralph turned to Ivan and asked, everyone else also turned to look at him.

Ivan seemed to be in thought for a few seconds, he lifted his gaze shortly after before responding.

" We wait till we think of something."

His tone was strong, indicating that he wasn't planning to fail his first mission as a Nexulyte.

"What can we even think of? It's best if we go back and ask for reinforcement and electric cannons," Elliot protested, but Ivan paid no attention to him.

"What are you so worked up about? It's not like you'll have to do anything even if we were to fight those things, your job is just to drive!" Glen looked at Elliot and scoffed after Ivan ignored him.

Veins on Elliot's face popped up in anger at Glen's words.

" So what if my job is to drive? Will the metal mosquitoes ignore me because of that?!" He yelled at Glen.

" How is that my business? You'll have to take care of yourself then or do you want us to protect you as well?!" Glen yelled back.

" You!!!"

" Shut it!"

" Hey, hey, hey! Both of you calm down; you'll attract the attention of the metal mosquitoes at this rate; we shouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves!"

Karin hurriedly stepped in between the two who looked like they were about to charge at each other at any moment given.

" Fighting? He's just a Mortal King, can he fight me?" Elliot sneered.

" Oh yeah? How about saying that to my snake's face?!" Glen retorted, and they began to argue again; Karin was trying her best to prevent them from starting a fight while Clint simply watched from his seat.

At this moment, Ivan and Ralph completely ignored the scene going on inside the cabin and were discussing silently.

"What are we going to do now?" Ralph asked in a low tone.

"I…don't know yet," Ivan mumbled in response while gazing at his palms.

"Then don't you think we should head back? I can't think of a way that we can pass without facing those mosquitoes, and that itself looks like a bad idea," a brief pause followed before Ralph continued. " Unless you're going to…" he trailed off because Ivan turned to stare at him at this moment.

They looked at each other for two seconds before Ivan looked away, not saying anything.

"I see, be careful" Ralph patted Ivan's shoulder before going to his seat. He wasn't bothered about Ivan still refusing to speak, the boy had always been like that; in Ralph's opinion, Ivan just needed time.

He always opened up in the end anyway.

Time slowly ticked by as the members of the group did their own thing while waiting for Ivan's next order, which didn't seem to be forthcoming.

Since they had nothing to do, Karin decided to drag Elliot out to train with her since Ivan declined her request this time and Ralph didn't seem to be interested.

Glen came out to watch but his main goal was to taunt Elliot.

While this was going on, no one except Ralph noticed that Ivan wasn't present anymore.

The boy had sneaked away without them noticing.

Currently, Ivan was standing in front of the opening, a card in his right hand and a calm look in his eyes.